Early Saturday afternoon.

Yoshi: hey

The mechanic’s phone vibrated loudly on his bedside table. He prised his eyes open, squinted at the screen and put his thumbs into gear.

Mack: fuck, punk, you woke me up

Yoshi: are you sick?

Mack: nah, I’m fine, just having a nap

Yoshi: did u have a big night last night?

Mack: nah not really, just had a few beers with a mate at the caxton hotel, been up for breakkie already, but for some reason I felt like going back to sleep for a bit. what did you get up to last night?

Yoshi: went to the movies on my own, had a hot date with a choctop ice-cream cone… if you fear my answers, don’t ask me any questions

The mechanic laughed.

Mack: hey so you remember that night you and I went to a rugby game earlier this year with some of my mates

Yoshi: yeah

Mack: do you remember my mate ryan

Yoshi: kind of maybe… i think there were two meathead bogans but i can’t remember which was which

The mechanic ignored the obvious slight directed at his mates.

Mack: so anyway i had a few beers with ryan last night and let’s just say the conversation got serious

The emo read between the lines.

Yoshi: oh no… wait, you mean me? us?

Mack: yeah

The emo realised Mack had just come out to one of his mates.

Yoshi: fuck, big guy, are you ok?

The mechanic’s response was lengthy, and the emo waited impatiently as he watched three animated dots bouncing around on his screen.

Mack: yeah, I think so… maybe that’s why I was taking a nap, because it feels like some of the worries I’ve been carrying around have slipped away and I feel much more relaxed about everything… so yeah I guess you could say it went well… I can tell you about it later… we talked about how abby and I aren’t together anymore, and that’s tough for him because he’s known her as long as he’s known me because she and I were already together when I first met him, so it’s kind of like he’s lost a connection with an old friend, or at the very least, the connection between him and abby won’t be the same as it was before… but when i told him I’d hooked up with a dude he surprised the fuck out of me

Yoshi: what do u mean

Mack: i thought when i told him I was with a guy it’d… I dunno… change our friendship somehow, or maybe even end it, but I don’t think it did… everything felt the same

Yoshi: ok so what happened

Mack: he asked if i was happy and i said yes and he said that’s all that really matters and i reckon he’s right about that… and then I told him you were the guy I’d met (by the way, he remembered you — I think he called you the asian cunt with the pierced face) and I expected him to freak out about that, but again, he didn’t… he said something about you being young, but he also said you’re obviously legal

Yoshi: ps I’m 100% legal, big guy 🙂

Mack: and 100% sexy as fuck, too

Yoshi: *blushes* so everything’s good, right?

Mack: yeah. it is.

Yoshi: *wipes tear from eye* if you lose friends because of this, they weren’t ever your friends to begin with… like, you know that, right?

Mack: yeah. ryan said he’s sad that i’m not with abby anymore, which I totally get, because we’d been together for so long that our friends must’ve thought were inseparable, so I guess it’s a shock to them… we used to take roadtrips together and have barbeques together, but that’s all over now… our mutual friends still need time to adjust

Yoshi: they’ll find other ways to reconnect with her… they’ll work it out somehow

Mack: i know…

Yoshi: but why does he think my face is pierced? it’s just my nose and my lip, that’s not my face

Mack: got no idea

Yoshi: does he know one of my titties is pierced too?

Mack: *laughs*

Yoshi: maybe I should get the other one done too… hey im gonna say it again… you can still mend fences with abby and go back to how things were… like, i love you, big guy, and i don’t want you to think i’m having second thoughts about anything because i’m not, but at the same time, i know i’m way younger than you and i think i know what you’re giving up

Mack: you’ve said that a few times now, and I appreciate your concern, but you really don’t need to be worried… it’s way too late for me to think about trying to turn the clock backwards, and even if that was possible, i don’t think i’d want to anyway… i’m always gonna love abby because we spent so much time together and she’s my daughters’ mum, so we’ll always be connected through our kids, but everything about the life we lived together feels weirdly distant now, and not immediate… not like how i feel about you

Yoshi: *cries*

Mack: my apartment feels a little bit empty… come over?

Yoshi: it’d be nice to lie in bed next to you all afternoon

Mack: the invitation’s there…

Yoshi: ok, lemme grab my backpack and keys

As soon as the text message conversation with the emo ended, the mechanic’s phone rang. It was his eldest daughter, just checking in on her dad. They talked for about twenty minutes, and Mack ended the call grateful to know that, despite everything that had happened, his relationship with his kids remained strong. They arranged to have dinner soon.

He waited for the emo to arrive. He stared at the ceiling, waiting.

*

The intercom buzzed, and Mack got out of bed to let Yoshi up. A few minutes later, the mechanic heard a knock. He opened the door, completely naked.

“What the fuck’s this?” the emo protested, but the huge grin on his face gave the game away. He glanced down at his host’s huge flaccid dick. “No clothes for your special guest?”

“Well,” Mack smiled, “you got me out of bed, right? And you already know I don’t wear anything to bed. Well, sometimes a t-shirt, but never anything else.”

The emo closed the mechanic’s front door behind him. “Maybe we need to get you back to bed again, then.” He leaned in close, gently cupping and squeezing Mack’s balls in his palm. He heard the mechanic sigh. He knew he was getting him hard. “Come on, big guy.”

Yoshi threw his clothes off, standing naked, creating an untidy pile at the foot of the mechanic’s mattress. They climbed under the bed clothes and kissed for a few moments before the mechanic rolled over to lay on his back.

“OK,” Mack began, staring at the ceiling, “so let me tell you what happened last night. Ryan messaged me yesterday arvo and suggested we catch up for a beer. I said yes, because he’s a good mate, and because I haven’t seen him in a while. We were talking about various bullshit topics until he mentioned Abby, then we got onto talking about rugby, and I mentioned I’d bought two tickets for the game against New Zealand next weekend. He asked who the other seat was for, and… well, you already know the basics of how that panned out.”

“Fuck, dude,” said the emo. “That must’ve been hard.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t easy. I could sense where the conversation was heading, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it, so I escaped to the bathroom, pretending I needed to take a piss, but really, I just needed to steal a minute to settle myself. In my mind, I had two choices. One was to make an excuse and leave, and the other was to follow the thread of the conversation and to be as honest as I could, not knowing how he might respond.” He stared at the ceiling for a minute, collecting his thoughts. “I knew he wasn’t prying, and he wasn’t digging for gossip, and he seemed genuinely curious about who I’d met, though like I said, initially he assumed I’d hooked up with a chick. When I told him I’d met a dude, it felt like the words spewed out of my mouth before I could stop them, but once they were said, I had no regrets. Even so, there was a very real chance my life could’ve changed — yet again — in ways I couldn’t control, and for a few brief seconds of panic, I started to wonder how well I really knew him.”

“You mean, like, not knowing how he’d respond?”

“Well, yeah.”

“But you two have been mates for ages,” Yoshi frowned. “You didn’t know how he felt about shit like this? I don’t understand.”

Mack exhaled. “Yeah, I know what you’re driving at there, but sexual orientation isn’t a topic that’s widely discussed in rugby sheds. It just doesn’t come up. It’s very much a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ environment. We’d never discussed anything along those lines, and because I was with Abby for so long there was never any reason to, so I didn’t know what he’d think or say when I told him I’d met a dude. His next question was ‘are you gay’, and when I said no, he seemed genuinely confused.”

“What’d you say then?” asked the emo.

“I told him I’m bisexual, which more and more is beginning to feel like my truth.”

“Do you reckon he wondered whether you and Abby split up because, like, you woke up one morning and suddenly realised you liked dudes too?”

Mack turned his neck sideways and looked across at the emo. For some reason, this sensitive kid always seemed to ask exactly the right question. “Yeah, maybe. But by way of explaining how I discovered I was bi, I shared some uncomfortable, private details of Abby’s history with him which I now regret, because I didn’t need to tell him about any of that.”

Yoshi wrapped a supportive arm around the mechanic’s sexy masculine waist. He remained silent, listening, giving Mack all the time and space he needed.

The mechanic waited a moment before continuing. “Have you ever seen those videos where people stack dominoes in intricate patterns and arrangements, then they knock the first one over, and all the other dominoes collapse behind it?”

“Yeah,” whispered the emo, lightly running his fingertips across the mechanic’s abdomen. “Some of those are cool.”

“I worried that if Ryan didn’t understand, or worse, if I suddenly learned the hard way that he was homophobic, word would spread like fallen dominoes.”

“What do you mean?” asked Yoshi.

“Fuck,” exhaled the mechanic, “I don’t even know. I worried there’d be rumours and gossip, maybe people would be whispering ‘hey have you heard Mack’s divorcing Abby because he’s suddenly turned gay and he’s probably been lying to us for the last twenty years of his life’.”

The emo ran his fingers across Mack’s hairy tummy. “I reckon you’ve been making way too much out of this, big guy.”

Mack blinked, fixing his gaze upon the ceiling. “Maybe, but your generation and mine are different. Your generation is much more fluid and accepting than mine. In many ways, I’m jealous. My life could’ve been completely different if I was born twenty years later. Perspectives are different in my generation, and while things are changing, the pace is slow and uneven. Having that conversation last night felt like a gamble, and not just a gamble on one friendship, but on all of my friendships, because if that first domino happened to fall the wrong way…”

The mechanic’s voice trailed off, and they lay in silence for a few minutes.

“I know this is hard for you,” said Yoshi, “but I just wanna say I’m glad you were born when you were. You wouldn’t have a sexy dad bod yet if you were my age,” he grinned.

Mack smiled, running his fingers through the emo’s hair. “Thanks, punk.”

Yoshi frowned for a second. “But I have to ask, is this Ryan cunt really that important?”

“Fuck, I don’t know,” replied the mechanic. “But this is how I build shit up inside my head.” He paused for a moment. “Look at my life and what I do for a crust. I’ve been married for a very long time, I used to play rugby, and I work in a garage. To most people, and especially to my friends and other people I know, the combination of these three things say ‘this guy is about as straight as they come’. And last night, Ryan mentioned he couldn’t ever remember seeing me take a sneaky glance at another guy’s junk in the showers after a game.”

Yoshi bit his bottom lip, gazing at the mechanic’s navel. “Life is a highway,” he said.

Mack instantly recalled the obscure 1980s song reference he’d dropped into one of their recent chats.

“I listened to the song you mentioned,” explained the emo, refocusing his gaze on the mechanic’s deep blue irises. “I found it on spotify. I’m not sure if I’d ever heard it before. A bit too country-rock for me, but then again, it’s a scientifically verifiable fact that music in the late 80s sucked unless you’d discovered Triple J.” He paused for a second. “Anyway, I liked the title. It made me think that where we start, where we go and where we end can all be completely different places, and that’s cool. You know, just like a highway.”

The mechanic felt his eyes beginning to water.

“OK,” said Yoshi, propping himself up on one elbow, “so maybe look at it from this perspective. You weren’t sure how your mate would respond, but it sounds like he accepted everything you said, so that means he’s gonna be on your side, right?”

Mack stared at the ceiling, wiping his wet eyes as he examined the paintwork. He refocused. It looked chipped and worn in places. If he owned this apartment, he’d head out to Bunnings this afternoon to buy supplies, and he’d be up on a stepladder with a paintbrush tomorrow. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying, punk, but I don’t want it to be like that. I don’t want there to be sides. I don’t want my life to turn into a melodrama. I don’t want my life to turn into a topic of backyard barbeque conversation. And I don’t want people gossiping about Abby behind her back.”

Yoshi wasn’t sure what else he could say. He knew he didn’t have the power to solve all of Mack’s problems, especially when they involved people he didn’t even know. Instead, he wrapped his arms around the mechanic as tightly as he possibly could. “I love you, big guy. It’s all gonna work out OK.”

Mack smiled. “Yeah. I know. And I love you too, punk.” His dick was beginning to grow.

The emo’s hands slowly slipped south, tickling the mechanic’s fat shaft. He moved his body closer, and the mechanic felt Yoshi’s sweet breath catch in his beard.

Faces, mouths and tongues collided at light speed. Yoshi kissed and sucked on Mack’s broad, strong neck before moving down to his hairy chest. He ran his tongue over a nipple before sucking hard on it. The mechanic sighed. “You like this, don’t you?” asked the emo. “You like having your nipples sucked on?”

“Yeah,” whispered the mechanic, placing a hand on the back of Yoshi’s head. “I love it, punk. They’re so sensitive. It’s such a new feeling for me. Keep sucking.”

The emo looked up at Mack and grinned. He licked, sucked, teased and playbit the mechanic’s nipple, feeling it thicken and harden on his tongue. His fingers toyed with Mack’s other nipple, and the mechanic closed his eyes in bliss. He reached down to find the mechanic’s cock was stiff and thick, already engorged with blood. “Fuck, daddy, you’re huge.” He spat on his palm, licked his fingers and began stroking the Mack’s cock.

“That feels unbelievable, punk,” seethed the mechanic.

The emo rolled across Mack’s torso onto the other side of the mattress, and he began sucking the mechanic’s other nipple. “I’m gonna make you cum all over my hand and fingers, daddy,” he whispered, reaching down to stroke Mack’s cock again. “You’re gonna make my handpussy pregnant.” Mack felt the emo sucking hard, biting just a little, and he responded by flexing his pecs.

Yoshi felt the mechanic’s hips beginning to grind up into his hand. “That’s it, daddy. Fuck my tight, wet handpussy. It wants your thick, sticky load.” The emo tightened his grip and held still, letting the mechanic fuck his hand. “Just like that, daddy. Fuck my slutty fist.”

The mechanic moaned as he climaxed all over the emo’s black fingernail polish. Yoshi felt Mack’s dick twitch in his hand as pulses of warm semen drooled across his knuckles. He sucked hard on Mack’s sensitive nipple, prolonging the intensity of his orgasm.

Mack opened his eyes, and the emo held his cumsoaked hand in front of the mechanic’s face. “Fuck, daddy, look how thick your load is. Look what my handpussy coaxed out of you. You must’ve loved how that felt.”

Mack stared, almost in disbelief, as he felt his sperm being smeared all over his hairy chest.

Yoshi slowly licked Mack’s load off his sweaty pecs before cleaning his hand with his hungry tongue. He grinned. “Did you like that?” he asked, already knowing the answer. It was written all over the mechanic’s goofy post-orgasmic face.

“Fuck, punk, you’re such a kinky little motherfucker.”

Yoshi smiled on the inside, but he spied an opportunity. He pouted. “I’m very sorry, daddy. I try so hard to be a good boy, but if I’ve been bad, I’ll accept my punishment.”

The mechanic coughed. “No, punk, wait a minute, that’s not what I meant…”

“Sssssh, daddy,” interrupted the emo, putting a wet finger to his pierced lip. With a devilish smile, he draped himself across the mechanic’s waist with his arse cheeks on full display. “Maybe I need to be spanked.” The emo looked at Mack with a devious twinkle in his eye. “Do you want to spank me, daddy? I think you do. We both know I’ve been bad. I think I need to be punished. My handpussy can be a real slut sometimes.”

Mack felt nervous.

“I’m ready to accept my punishment,” the emo continued. “I’m ready for you to spank me.” He patted his arse cheeks with the palm of one hand, as if to demonstrate.

Mack had never spanked either of his own daughters. Not once, not ever. He didn’t believe in it. “No, punk, I don’t wanna have to…”

“But daddy,” whined the emo, “that’s what happens to bad boys. They get spanked. And my slutty handpussy has been so fucking wicked.” He bit his pierced bottom lip seductively. “So I think you need to start dishing out the punishment I need.”

Mack knew the emo was only playing, but even so, he wasn’t sure how comfortable he felt. “But I’m way stronger than you…”

“Ooh, daddy,” came the emo’s kinky interruption. “Let’s find out just how strong you are,” he squealed.

Mack looked down at Yoshi’s sweet butt cheeks draped across his hips and drowned in a lucid daydream. He didn’t want to spank them; instead, he wanted to knead them, rub them, kiss them and lick them. He gazed at the emo’s beautiful brown butthole. The equation was simple: he wanted to eat it, fuck it, and cum in it. His spent cock began to twitch as if preparing for round two.

“Come ooooooon, daddy!” whined the impatient emo, interrupting the mechanic’s train of thought. “Spank me!”

Mack gave Yoshi’s cheek a light tap with the palm of his hand. “There,” he concluded. He tried to remember what the punishment was for, but he couldn’t. “Whatever it was you did, don’t do it again.”

“Don’t do it again?” questioned Yoshi. “So daddy doesn’t like feeling my slutty handpussy wrapped around his cock, coaxing out a thick load of cum? And he doesn’t like feeling my mouth and tongue kissing and sucking his sexy alpha mantits?”

Suddenly, the mechanic remembered what this was all about, but he didn’t know how to respond. He raised his palm and spanked a little harder.

“Is that all you’ve got?” protested the emo. “I thought you said you were stronger than me. You’re weak as piss. I’ve been a naughty boy, daddy, so you need to spank me like you mean it! Stop being such a fucking pussy! Spank me hard!”

The mechanic hit a little harder, and this time, the emo winced a bit. This one stung just a little. Mack watched the emo’s cheeks redden slightly.

“Harder!” demanded Yoshi.

The mechanic’s hand swung down again, this time with even more force.

“Fuck!” replied the emo, feeling his cheeks beginning to sting. “That’s better! I’ve been such a naughty boy, and I deserve to be punished. Spank me even harder, daddy!”

Mack was still lying on his back, not the best position for an exercise such as this. He wound up with all the strength and power he could muster. His open palm slammed down on Yoshi’s butt so hard it left a red mark. The emo screamed in pain and pleasure.