“Have you ever fucked a med student?” I asked.
“A student in general, or one of my own?” F sounded far too entertained for my liking.
“One of your own.”
“Yeah, a few,” he said. “Is that what’s up your arse?”
I spluttered beer at him.
“Ah,” he said, wiping ineffectually at his suit jacket. “I prefer the girls myself, but whatever rolls your socks down.”
“So, on a scale of appallingly bad taste lechery, where does it fall?” I asked. “How many of us decide that a power imbalance is no barrier to a really good fuck?”
F surveyed the bar, chewing on his lip in thought. “I can see three registrars or consultants here that I know of.
Moronic residents don’t count; they’re just med students with the trainer wheels off. Say, a third of the quacks here.” He looked at me as I took another mouthful of beer. “Tempted, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning at F. I looked around the bar, trying to imagine which of my colleagues here had got down and dirty with a student.
Blake was leaning back against the bar, beer in his hand, smiling at me and looking utterly gorgeous.
F must have glanced across, too, because he gave a filthy chuckle. “I’m guessing it’s not the tubby guy giving serious tongue to that girl, but the babe with the curls beside him.
My, my, he is cute, isn’t he? I’d swing for him.”
Blake turned back to the bar as Nevins and Lin surfaced for air, and all I could think of was that I actually knew his cell phone number. It was in my wallet, along with his scrawled
‘Matthew Blake’.
“Buy me a beer.” F thrust his empty pint into my hand.
“Now, because you are being flirted with, you idiot.”
“Fuck off, Feargal,” I said, but I took his glass and headed for the bar.
I could have walked to any part of the bar. It was all equally crowded with hospital staff discussing who they’d sleep with if the world was about to end, but I found myself walking toward where Blake, Nevins, and Lin were.
I pushed through the clump of theatre staff, distinctively reeking of isopropyl alcohol and chlorhex sterlising solutions, and up to the bar beside Blake.
Lin smiled at me. “Hello, Dr. M.”
“Hi, kiddies,” I said, and kicked myself. Stupid thing to say.
“Hi, Dad,” Nevins said, giggling drunkenly.
Blake just grinned sideways at me.
I leaned across the bar and ordered two pints, pushing the empties across to the bartender, and nearly jumped out of my skin as a hand spread itself across my thigh, out of sight, where I was leaning against the bar.
Blake wasn’t looking at me; he was talking to Nevins, teasing him about being pissed, but there wasn’t anyone else’s hand it could be sliding across my jeans slowly.
Regardless of how young Blake might be, he was no innocent.
I paid the bartender, and the hand was firm as it eased between my thighs and pressed up against my balls.
Fuck, but I couldn’t believe how turned on I was by this, but I managed to stifle the moan I gave as Blake’s hand found my cock through the denim. I didn’t know whether to scream, beg for more, or just press Blake up against the bar and fuck him right then. What I really wanted to do was touch him back, but there wasn’t any way I could figure out to do it discreetly.
I squeezed his hand where it was touching me, making sure he could feel how turned on I was, then took the pints the bartender slid across the bar toward me and stepped back out of the touch.
It wasn’t easy getting back across the room holding two full glasses, but I managed it. I shoved F’s beer at him and drank my own down in three long gulps, making F crack up.
“What happened?” he asked once he’d stopped laughing.
“I’m in,” I said, and I took out my cell phone. I texted Blake a single word: ‘tonight.’
“Let me buy you another beer,” F said. “If you’re getting laid, we need to celebrate. Let’s see if I can pick someone up at the bar, too.”
F did pick someone up. He was a consultant, he was single, he bathed, and he wasn’t fussy; of course he picked someone up. He came back ten minutes later, holding the hand of a pretty young woman. “This is Lena,” he said. “She works in High Dependency. Lena, this is Andrew.”
“You’re cute,” she said, sliding her hand under my arm.
“Are you good friends with Feargal?”
Fucking hell. Two offers in one night? Obviously two doctors were better than one.
“Not that good a friend,” F said. He handed me both of the beers he was holding and left with Lena, squeezing her ass as they walked toward the door.
I could stay, drink the beers, and ogle Blake across the room. Or I could abandon the beers so I was still sober enough to drive, and go home and jerk off in the shower, then call Blake.
Home it was.
Chapter Seven
In the loos, Nevins pissed like a fire hydrant, then washed his hands and splashed water over his shirt.
“Blake,” he said, hanging onto the wall for a moment.
“Have you got any … you know?”
I pissed, too, and washed my hands carefully. There’s nothing like having done some micro to make you hygienic.
“Sure.” I fished around in my pockets, then handed him a couple of condoms, despite doubting his ability to fuck when he was already green around his gills from the booze. There was no way I was going to give him all of them, though; he wasn’t the only one of us that was on a promise.
“Thanks,” he said, slapping me on the back. “Sorry you’re not going to get laid, too.”
I slapped him back. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, matey,” I said. “The night’s still young. Now go and take Lin home and shag her.”
“Rosanna,” he said. “Her name’s Rosanna.”
“And you just remember that.” I took his elbow and guided him out of the loos to where Lin was waiting for him.
She sat him down on a bar stool and pulled me aside.
“Have you got any condoms?” she asked. “Because I can’t imagine Nevins got any.”
What could I do? I handed over my last couple of condoms. And I had no money to buy any more. Either the adorable Dr. M turned up bearing latex, or there’d be no fucking going on tonight.
“Have a good time,” I said. “Don’t scare him.”
She grinned wickedly. “What about you? Do I smell romance for you?”
“Breathe through your mouth, love, and you shouldn’t smell anything,” I said, and Nevins ambled over to us.
I rang Dr. M’s mobile while I was sitting at the bus stop. It switched through to his personal voicemail, and I left a brief, discreet message and hung up. I thought for a moment about phoning the hospital to ask for his pager number, but the potential embarrassment of trying to explain why I wanted it deterred me. Better to go home and be disappointed than to chance that.
He rang me back while I was jolting along on the bus.
“Hey, Matthew,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t answer before, but I was in the shower.”
“No problem.” I felt myself smiling.
He was silent for a moment, and it made me smile more.
“Are you busy tonight?” he asked.
“I do have a presentation due tomorrow,” I said. “Apart from that, no plans.”
He chuckled, this deep warm sound, and a matching warmth spread through my belly. “There’s always the chance I’ll be in far too good a mood tomorrow to want to listen to presentations.”
“Do you want to come over?” I asked. “You could relive your student days, admire our beer can tower, meet my scummy housemates.”
There was a pause and Dr. M said, “Um, might not be such a smart move. I could come and pick you up, go grab food, and we could eat at my place.”