Archive of Our Own

Randy stood at the pool’s edge, his pale toes dipping into the chlorine over the deep end. Bright turquoise water bobbed, warping the tiles metres below the surface. The fluorescent overhead lights bounced off the ripples in fractal patterns. 

A locker slammed angrily from the changerooms, reverberating off the tile walls and high, arched ceiling. Windows lined one side of the pool, looking out to the community centre parking lot where tires kicked up mud.

Randy tugged his goggles over his eyes to cast a grey glaze over the entire pool like he was blind. The tri-coloured buckets in the kiddie area poured echoing rushes of water onto the ankle deep floor, refilling and dumping on a loop even though he was the only one nearby. 

The public pool opened at five thirty during the week and at nine on Saturday. 

Two weeks ago, he started swimming laps again, as many as he could until his chest burned and pool water stained the ends of his hair green. He hadn’t done that since high school, in junior year when he wasn’t good enough to make the team anymore. He didn’t touch a pool for almost four years only to fall into it again. 

Someone exited the men’s locker room, striding down the walkway between the lanes and the lazy river. Randy brushed a piece of his hair out of his face—he’d forgotten his swim cap at home—and launched himself in headfirst.

Cool water enclosed him on all sides as he coursed forward with the momentum of his shallow dive, pressing against the breath he held in his lungs. With arms pointed above his head, he cut through the water like a hull, sailing on for as long as he could without stopping. 

Only when he slowed did he start kicking, at about a third of the pool length, easing himself into a front crawl. 

As he turned his face above the surface on his next inhale, he looked for the intruder. That was a strong word for it, the pool was public, but he really preferred to swim alone. No one else in town showed up to swim before six in the morning, so for two weeks Randy was the only one. 

But he didn’t see the man anymore. Maybe he went to the hot tub and could be avoided entirely. Randy hated the hot tub, stewing in bubbles with not enough distance between bathers, the awkward moment when the bubbles stopped frothing and everything stilled.

He preferred the cool, spacious lengths of the empty lanes and the way he could stretch his arms out above him, reaching over and over again for something he couldn’t quite grasp, something dissolving through his fingers.

Randy kicked directly into the edge, jamming his fingers into the tile wall. Instead of smoothly flipping into his second lap, he clung to the pool deck and carefully stuck the skinned knuckles between his lips. Smooth chlorine blended with the saliva on his tongue until he couldn’t tell them apart. Pool air stung the nerves when he pulled the two knuckles from his mouth. Luckily, they weren’t bleeding. He hated having to wear those colourful Band-Aids in the kitchen. They made Chris jeer at him about needing a kiss from his mommy. They made his pale skin even paler, highlighting every graphic vein webbing the backs of his hands. 

He sank his hand in the water and readied himself to push off the wall. 

It only took another six laps for Randy’s chest to ache like it used to after doing thirty, for him to stop feeling entirely weightless or like he belonged to the water, more liquid than solid in body. He pushed himself another two until he gasped each time his face touched air. 

If he hadn’t gotten kicked off the team, his life would be a lot different. He wouldn’t struggle so much to swim ten laps. He would have gone to college. 

Randy finally hauled himself out of the water, not like an athlete, but like a rolling seal, to rest for a moment between the spring boards with knees hooked over the ledge. By the massive clock and timer hanging between the men’s and women’s locker rooms, he had another fifteen minutes before needing to head out. 

It was equal parts relieving and disappointing. He could take a breather and not show up at work still panting, but he shouldn’t have been in the first place. He should have been better, in a lot of ways.

He draped a butterfly print towel of Hayley’s around his neck and slid on a pair of Walmart flipflops, heading over to the steam room; maybe in sweating he wouldn’t smell so much like the pool. The foamy purple soap dispensers never quite removed the scent from his hair or skin. It was sickly familiar to him, throwing him years back to communal showers and getting picked up after the sun set, ravenous enough to eat three servings of his mom’s meatloaf with a pile of ketchup on each. And he didn’t even like meatloaf all that much.

Steam clouded the glass door where a large hazard sign warned him to step out immediately if he felt dizzy. He pulled it open, greeted instantly by a relaxing coat of warmth in such stark difference to the colder pool. His flip flops squeaked on the slick floor as he shut the door behind him, sealing himself inside with a sigh. 

Only after, did Randy spot the man in black swim trunks with a swirl of hair on his chest, and that the man was Benson. His coworker, Benson, painted in a sheen of sweat, sitting on one of the higher tiered plastic benches with his head leaning against the wall.

Randy froze. He should have taken the morning off of swimming. Maybe with an extra day of rest he would swim each lap without gasping so much. 

“Benson.”

“Go Falcons,” he responded, wryly. Randy looked down.

The speedo digging into his hips had his high school printed across the ass. They were dark green with a white racing stripe, locker key safety-pinned to the waistband. 

Randy blushed and blamed it on the steam which also curled Benson’s mullet around the nape of his neck. 

If his towel didn’t have butterflies on it, he would have covered himself up. Instead he sank instantly down to the bench nearest the door, thighs pinned together. 

“I didn’t know you, um, swam,”  he said, lamely, wincing at the pinch of the plastic beneath him and the squeakiness of his own voice.

Benson shrugged. “I don’t.”

“Oh.”

With him sitting on the second layer of seats, dangling his feet and the slides he wore onto the level below, Randy’s only options were to stare at the ground, or gaze up at Benson’s sprawled legs and the gap between his skin and his trunks.

Strands of hair collected in the drain in the steam room floor, as well as a crumpled up band-aid. Randy’s stomach turned over. Going to the pool made him feel a little sick, ever since he got back to it. Usually once he arrived in the lot, stewed in his car for five minutes, then he was fine. He could walk into the locker room and shove a quarter in to rent one and be able to breathe at the same time. 

“I know how to—I just came here to fuckin’ relax,” Benson added without glancing at him. 

“Yeah,” Randy agreed, “of course.” 

One of the valves exhaled a new burst of hot steam, fogging the room even further. For a moment, they each became silhouettes. They could have been anyone.

Eventually it faded and Randy had to be himself again. A large droplet of sweat rolled from the pocket of Benson’s collar bone to his navel. 

Randy tried to count the minutes in his head. No clock actually hung in the steam room, so normally he would crack the door open to check the one outside. To do that would require him to turn around. 

So, he slowly rose to his feet, clearing his throat into the wing of a terrycloth monarch butterfly, never turning his back.

“I’ll see you around?” 

Benson rolled out his neck with a pleased groan. Randy chose not to think about it as a moan.

“M’not working tonight,” he said. 

That meant he wouldn’t be trading off shifts with Randy like usual. Something like disappointment shifting into the back of his mind at the thought. Most of the time it was Benson there to tap him and whoever opened out, but not always.

Whenever Randy opened after Benson closed the previous night, the store was always in perfect order. If it wasn’t Benson, that meant Donnie or Hardy would probably be there. That’s all it was, his disappointment. Benson was a good coworker, even if they knew nothing about each other outside of work. Or outside a steam room, which he promptly threw open the glass door of. A pair of middle aged women with kickboards sank into the water and a lifeguard in red skimmed something out of the shallow end.

Randy shook water from his ear. 

“Oh. Later, then, I guess.”

He slipped out to shuffle along the pool deck as quickly as he could without tripping over his flip flops or being yelled at for running.

On his way home from Burgers Burgers Burgers that night, uniform tossed in the backseat next to his backpack and damp towel, Randy stopped at the mall. Between a vacant storefront and a nail salon was a swimsuit boutique which somehow managed to stay open year round, Mannequins wearing oversized sunglasses modelled Hawaiian shirts and tropical bikinis in the front window.

Checking over his shoulder, Randy ducked inside. He didn’t want anyone who knew him to ask what he was doing buying a swimsuit in November. It’s not like he was going on vacation or anything—the only suits he owned were from competing in high school and they were all speedos. 

Or worse, his tight racing suit, which he was pretty sure remained at the back of his closet with a few participant ribbons and one bronze medal. 

Black shorts would be good, maybe navy blue, a style that nearly hit his knees. Randy wandered the small store for two laps, searching for anything of the sort. Most of the racks were dedicated to women’s swimsuits made of triangles and string, designed to cover as little as possible. 

The men's section was tucked in the back left quarter, beside the cash. Photographs of rippling abs and firm calves decorated the walls. Randy ducked his head to avoid looking directly at the models as he flipped through plastic hangers of fire engine red and rubber duck yellow.

“Can I help you find anything?” 

Randy nearly jumped out of his skin, knocking pink flamingo shorts to the ground. A sales clerk with an eyebrow piercing and two layered lace tank tops bent down to restock them. 

“Do you sell just normal swim trunks?” Randy ran his hand over synthetic pineapples and palm trees. 

“We don’t really get new stock until like, April, usually. I can check in the back if you want me to?” 

She sounded like she really didn’t want him to.

“I’m alright.” 

The clerk shrugged. “Try the clearance section, maybe.”

Randy shuffled in the direction she pointed, over to a sparse rack with bold block letters hanging above it. A few metallic suits in odd sizes hung up, mismatched bikini tops and bottoms, and a pair of grey trunks. They were a small.

His mom used to wrap the waist of Walmart jeans around his neck to check if they would fit him, but Randy didn’t want to with the cashier watching him. The inseam wasn’t very long, but they had a mesh liner and anything was better than his high school speedos. 

Even in the clearance section, they were priced at nearly thirty-five dollars. Randy dropped them at the cash counter. The clerk raised one pierced and plucked brow.

“Do you want to try them on?” she asked.

Randy shook his head vehemently and forked over the cash, his tips from the last two weeks, and balled up his fists as the clerk painstakingly counted out his few cents of change. 

“I don’t need a bag,” he interrupted as soon as she pulled out one and began to fold the small shorts neatly. With a searing look, she unfolded the trunks and shoved them across the counter.

“Whatever. Have a nice day.”

Randy spun on his heel and bolted out, new trunks grasped limply in his hand.

Randy handed over the two-fifty pool fee to Shirley, who worked the community centre front desk. She tiredly passed him a neon pink wristband, the kind which tore out the pale arm hair on his inner wrist. 

“Have a good swim, Randy. A reminder that the family changeroom is closed this week for a repair.”

With a mumble of thanks, he shuffled off down the hall to the locker rooms. He remembered his swim cap that morning, as well as his new trunks, although he hadn’t tried them on yet. Even though he didn’t have an opening shift, he still chose to swim at the crack of dawn, waking up to his alarm clock before the sun properly rose.

Those red digital numbers played behind his eyelids some mornings. And some nights. He always made it to the pool anyway.

Randy paused outside the men’s locker room door. One of the showers ran, trickling and splashing in a way which made him clench his stomach. Anxiety gave Randy an unwanted ab workout most days. Swimming calmed him a little, but everything else surrounding it bothered him.

He fidgeted with the zipper on his raincoat. 

Randy wasn’t a locker room kind of guy. He never fit in like that, with the towel whipping and suit snapping and clothes stealing from the rest of the high school boys. It’s not like he was the only target, but considering he never did it back, things sure felt that way. Everyone else on the team would get rowdy, especially close to a meet when their coach drove them the hardest at practice. Some days it was before and after school, so Randy spent more of his time with them than anyone else he knew. 

Despite being on a team, he never called them friends. They called him a fag. 

So he would change facing the corner like he was in time-out and let them whip his ass with the corner of a towel as he inhaled sharply through his teeth. The rest of the team thought it was funny—plus, if you got hit, you could hit a guy back and he couldn’t really say anything about it.

Their coach never did. He saw it all happen, standing at the entrance of the locker room with his hands shoved in the pockets of his khaki shorts, varicose veins stretching under white tube socks. 

Randy tried not to glance out of the corner of his eye when he shucked his damp suit to pull on clean boxers, but it happened by accident far too often. Coach would adjust himself as the team changed, barking for them to hurry their asses up. He wasn’t getting any younger waiting for them. 

Sometimes he smacked Randy with the back of the clipboard he carried, the flat surface stinging his bare skin more than any towel snap ever did. It started when Randy wasn’t fast enough, his turns weren’t clean enough, he wasn't good enough. 

In the end, he wasn’t. It was stupid to still think about it, to be so caught up on it. He was two years out of high school and four off the team. Randy could have made it, but he chose not to. 

And again he took indecision as his only company, frozen in the entrance to the men’s locker room with his bag slung over his shoulder and stupid pink bracelet on his wrist. 

Then Benson’s voice rolled richly beyond the echoing splash, humming a song Randy heard on the radio. 

Benson always complained when top 40 hits played too loudly in the front and he could hear it in the kitchen. He said he didn’t like the crap they played these days. Randy didn’t know how old he was, but it was the kind of thing his dad used to say. 

Benson had a nice voice. Not at all like the radio singers, but nice. 

Randy took a deep breath before he walked in. The longer he waited the more people might show up, strangers even.

He set his stuff down on the farthest bench from the showers he could find and paid a quarter for a locker so he could stuff his backpack away. There was nothing valuable in it, but he felt better to have it locked and the only key safely attached to him. 

The clearance trunks were already not returnable, so he snapped the tags off before even trying them on. They slid over his bony hips just fine, and that was where they stopped.

They looked a lot bigger on the hanger. A lot. Worn, they clung to his hip bones, sunk low below his belly button and barely covering his backside. They were at least looser than his speedos, but covered little more except for the joint where his hip met his torso, a flutter of fabric over the white skin there.

Not a lot of fabric for the amount he paid, but better than nothing. At least they were not green and didn’t remind him of anything. They were a new beginning in a way.

The shower shut off, as did Benson’s humming, ceasing at the same instant. Wet feet squeaked on the floor as Randy scrambled to look busy with his goggles and cap. 

He faced his back to the room like he always did, burying himself in his locker so maybe he wouldn’t be recognized. By sound behind him, Benson crossed the locker room, opening one up without unlocking it and pulling out clothes. 

The pool only opened fifteen minutes ago, hardly time for a steam or a swim counting a shower. 

Randy chewed his lip. It wasn’t fair to Benson for him not to say anything, it was like keeping a secret from him. Benson probably didn’t like those either. If he accidentally let slip he knew they were both at the pool that morning, he’d have a lot of explaining to do. 

He glanced over his shoulder at the towel wrapped around Benson’s waist and the disappearing bare skin beneath it as he pulled a white tank top on. It was the one he often wore under his uniform, either that or a band shirt with a gruesome logo.

Randy turned as slowly as he could, stepping softly so his flip flops wouldn’t slap wetly against the ground. Benson lifted his arm above his head to roll on deodorant, bicep flexing at his ear. 

Then he tugged on the corner of his white towel and let it drop to the bench. Randy wished he could say he hadn’t imagined it before, Benson’s muscular thighs and the dark hair gathering in the cleft of his behind. 

He thought of it when Benson bent over to fill a mop bucket or crouched to lift a box of napkins from the bottom shelf when Randy asked him to. Sometimes Randy didn’t even have to ask, he just went to the store room and Benson followed him in. When that happened, he thought of Benson not grabbing a cardboard box but grabbing him, taking him by both shoulders—and after that Randy wasn’t certain if he needed to be beaten up or beat off. Probably one and then the other.

Benson leaned down to step into a pair of boxers and Randy had to lower his swim cap in front of his new trunks. 

He disgusted himself but there was no way he could get to the pool without Benson seeing him at all. He had to say something. 

“Benson” —Randy’s voice cracked— “what are you doing here?” 

A waistband snapped into place and Benson slammed his locker shut. Randy flinched. He pulled on dark jeans next, belt and fly hanging loosely open.

“Water got shut off at home.”

Randy swallowed. He hadn’t planned a response to that, of all things. 

“Oh.”

“Don’t look at me like that, I just forgot to pay it.”

So Benson wouldn’t need to come to the pool anymore. Randy could swim alone and go back to the steam room again. He didn’t find himself interested in the idea, or the tightness in his stomach.

When Benson turned finally, his eyes focused on Randy’s suit before they ever met his gaze. Burgers Burgers Burgers uniform shirt in hand, he laughed. 

“What happened to your team spirit?”

“You don’t like it?” Randy found himself saying before he could stop the words coming out of his lips. He couldn’t cover his mouth either, never so bare as he was before Benson.

Randy wrung his goggles between his fingers as he waited for anything else to happen. For Benson to storm out or cross the room and take hold of him, to smack some sense into him one way or another. To call him a disgusting faggot like the Falcons did. Maybe that was where all his spirit went. 

Instead, Benson smirked and ducked his head beneath the orange and brown striped uniform. 

“See you at work, Bradley.”

Randy wilted on the spot. Of course. 

“Right,” he said lamely, but Benson and the duffle bag he shouldered already disappeared from the lockers. The room was empty just like Randy said he wanted. Just like how things were supposed to be.

He wasn’t any better than in high school, twenty-one no different than fourteen or seventeen. He never bothered to correct anyone who called him by his last name because it didn’t matter, just like he never stopped the guys on the team from calling him worse things. 

Maybe the only good choice Randy ever made was quitting the team—or getting kicked off, if the difference mattered—and the worst one was starting to swim again.

If only the chlorine could clean him like it did the pool water. If only he could be run through the filters over and over again, all the depravity taken out of him every time it arose, every time his gut coiled hot. All he could do was lap and turn until his chest ached and he didn’t know the difference between water and air.

Randy cleared the dinner table while his mother did the dishes, falling into the soft pattern of quiet he was used to. A tepidness always remained between them, their house never too warm in either temperature or welcoming since years before the divorce. The feeling was at least familiar, and most days that was its own comfort to him. He liked the still, quietness, even if it came alongside glances and sealed lips. Randy liked to keep his mouth shut too.

Hayley was at a soccer game which she carpooled to with her best friend, so it was just the two of them and his mom’s favourite Nat King Cole CD. She swayed from side to side as she scrubbed the last crusts of cheese off a lasagna pan. 

He brought over their empty water glasses and his half finished can of Pepsi Max.

“You go, I can finish up,” he offered, reaching for a tea towel to dry. 

As soon as his mom turned off the tap, a few dish soap bubbles escaping into the air as she turned, he knew he wasn’t let off the hook for the night. 

There were glances, and then there were looks. His mom gave him a look. 

She pulled off rubber dish gloves to prop a hand on her hip, letting the sink drain.

“Just a minute, Randy.” 

He picked up a plate and slowly wiped it dry.. 

“I thought you might bring this up sooner, or over dinner,” she began, “but since you haven’t, I have no choice but to ask you myself. I thought you were over this in high school—”

“Mom.”

“I really did, Randy, but you just can’t seem to get over things. You’ve always been sensitive—”

“Mom.” 

She talked like she saved up every word all day just for that moment. Randy used to be able to tell when she was about to dump her criticisms masked as concerns on his head, in the car on the way to swim practice was the prime location once upon a time, but as he fell into a steady routine after graduation, such conversations lessened.

He could only disrupt that routine for so long, could only decline dropping Haley off at soccer practice every other morning until he became a suspect of motherly unrest. She would dig deep into him, call it problem solving, call it caring. 

She wouldn’t call Randy the kinds of things the swim team did, yet that made it harder. 

“Please, mom. Not right now.” 

“Randy, you’ve barely let me get a word in.”

He set down the plate and wrung the tea towel in both hands. 

“Fine. What?”

She took a deep breath and laid a palm on his arm, giving it a gentle pat. Randy braced himself. 

“I don’t think you should take up swimming anymore,” she said, with finality and relief.

The sink gurgled loudly as it drained a last whirlpool. 

Randy blinked. 

“What?”

“I think it’s distracting you, Randy. You were so hurt in junior year when you quit. You might not remember, but as your mother, I saw it.” 

“It’s just swimming, mom,” Randy said, a little slack jawed. Not a single mention of his not having a girlfriend, or any friends for that matter, nothing about him being a bad brother or a disappointing son. 

“I just don’t want you chasing after something that’s not achievable and getting hurt again. Did your manager ever follow up about that position at the other store?”

“Mom, I’m not swimming to achieve anything.” Even to Randy’s own ears it was a pitiful admission. “I like to swim. I didn’t quit because I stopped liking it.” 

“Well, that’s what you told me. You knew how much your father and I paid for that team trip to Virginia and you still refused to go.”

Randy swallowed sharply. He grabbed the lasagna pan and dabbed the towel over it, not bothering to check if it was actually dry before he grabbed a serving spatula and dried that too.

“Things got too competitive, that’s all.” 

Cutlery next, two forks and two knives. 

“I just worry about your future. I never expected you to give up on going after that scholarship when you had so much promise.”

She gave his arm a final, bony squeeze and turned down the crooning radio.

Maybe Randy liked swimming or maybe he swam because it drowned out everything he didn’t like. People, noise, time falling away, the sensation of the shirt on his back or hands on his skin. 

As soon as his mom shut her bedroom door and turned on the news, Randy left for the pool.

By the time he parked, the community centre closed in forty-five minutes. Shirley gave him a disappointing purse of her lips when he paid for his wristband so late, but said nothing to him.

Randy stumbled out of the locker room a moment later in his high school speedo once again. In his rush to get out of the house, he forgot his new trunks. 

It was a little ironic. 

Luckily, the only person on the deck was a lifeguard cleaning up a stack of kickboards from the senior’s evening swim hour. Randy approached the first lane and kicked off his flip flops by the poolside, snapping his cap and goggles into place. 

He didn’t need a coach. He could get better himself. When the seconds hand reached twelve, Randy dove in. 

Twenty six minutes, eleven seconds, and 1 kilometer later, he finally pulled himself out. 

He propped himself up against a starting block with his head between his knees and counted each breath. He couldn’t pass out in front of the lifeguard right before the pool closed. That had to be a lot of paperwork. 

The chlorinated water collected near the pool ledge was cold against Randy’s bare thighs, more so than it felt when he first dove in the water as his own breath cooled his skin. 

He planned to do a few hundred metres of practice, but then he couldn’t stop. Four hundred became seven and he decided he might as well have made it an even ten. 

Randy chuckled wetly to himself and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Once he finally caught his breath, semi sprawled on the pool deck, he headed for the locker room. He hadn't run into Benson at the pool in almost a week, not since their encounter. If he could call it an encounter; Randy didn’t know what to call running into a coworker outside of work. 

He supposed if it was Chris he would have called it a disaster and if it was Hardy he would have called it awkward. But with Benson it was just an encounter. Almost like running into a friend, not that they knew each other like friends would. 

Benson probably wouldn’t want to. Randy wasn’t that interesting anyway. 

If he wasn’t rendered speechless for the second time that night, maybe Randy would have asked. Instead, he walked into the men’s showers, the wet room between the pool and the lockers, and Benson was showering in one of the stalls.

Randy pretended he recognized his coworker based on his humming and not on his ass. That had to be inappropriate to even know in the first place. He certainly hoped no one had the opportunity to think about him like that. 

The shower stalls were divided by frosted panes on either side, with an ankle height gap underneath, and not fully enclosed. 

Randy hid around the corner, pressing his back against the wall. He shut his eyes only to immediately open them again to stop himself from picturing anything. 

Benson was probably the type of guy to beat someone up for being gay. He had tattoos and showed up to work like he’d just been hunting and he probably played Call of Duty on his days off or something. When he wasn’t at the community pool. 

He smoked, too, by the dumpster out the back kitchen door. He got an extra five minute break whenever he wanted just because of it. Hardy didn’t care as long as they didn’t get behind on orders. Randy might have liked another break other than his unpaid thirty minutes, but he would never ask for it. 

Thinking about his boss only somewhat made it easier to listen to Benson shower. He kept an eye out for the lifeguard, but he was nowhere to be seen. So Randy kept listening. The showers ran for two minutes after pushing a button, in case people forgot to turn them off, so every two minutes Benson cursed softly and slammed the knob again. His blurry figure behind the frosted glass lathered up his head and chest, hands rubbing up and soaping bubbles over his chest hair. 

Then his hands drifted down his thighs, around his cock. Randy gulped down a breath and used every ounce of will left in his tired body to tear his eyes away and stare at the straps of his flipflops. He was such a creep. Benson had every right to beat him up for that, regardless of why.

Throughout high school, Randy insisted he wasn’t gay. After quitting the team, he even dated Lisa just to prove he could. However brief it was, he could honestly say he had dated a girl, and even kissed one, although it was just a press to the closed seam of her grape glossed lips. She wanted to try making out when she invited Randy over while her parents went out for a movie, but she had an orthodontist appointment earlier that day and her braces hurt her mouth too much. So they watched the season three finale of LOST with a full cushion of space between them on the couch.

After high school, he stopped insisting. He just tried not to think about it and that was far easier when he wasn’t around his peers. A few of their other coworkers were a little too close to that benchmark, but Randy could usually scrape by on those shifts. Usually when Benson was around, they didn’t mess with him. Maybe Benson looked like he would beat up anyone regardless of who they were. Or weren’t, in Randy’s case. He wasn’t certain and didn’t plan to figure it out.

Benson washing his inner thighs two showers down didn’t make any of those thoughts easier to ignore. 

When the shower timer ran out again, Benson didn’t restart it. His arm stuck out and reached for a towel hanging outside the panes, folding it around his waist as he walked deeper into the change room. 

Randy waited for the clock above the door to pass a minute before he followed. 

Benson chose a locker in the same place as last time, on the left hand wall, in the centre of a row aligned with the sinks. He pulled out the same duffle bag too, but no Burgers Burgers Burgers uniform stuck out of it.

Randy picked up his things and carefully stepped over to the bench beside Benson’s in the middle of the change room. He didn’t need to use them, accomplished at changing strictly in the corner locker at busy meets and practices when there was hardly an inch of extra space. 

He also didn’t cover himself up with his hands or a towel and the inaction warmed his cheeks. 

With his towel resting by his goggles and cap, he slowly unzipped his backpack to change. Benson rooted through his duffle and grabbed a cutoff tank top, one hand holding up his towel. Hair dusted his knuckles and wrists.

Benson had to have seen him by then, but he said nothing as he set aside the tank top to keep digging, content to ignore Randy like they didn’t close Burgers Burgers Burgers together the night before. Maybe that was the only thing they had in common and Randy was an idiot. 

Stupidity didn’t seem nearly as bad as being disgusting. 

Randy pretended to look for his clothes even though he knew tucked his socks and underwear in the outer pocket while his jeans and a long sleeve Henley were in the main one.

“Is your water still shut off?” he asked, voice louder to the empty room than he intended. 

Benson shrugged and found a pair of boxers. “Long shift. Wanted to take a load off in the steam room.”

“We could go together sometime,” Randy suggested, pulling out his clothes to distract himself from the fact he even asked. “I sometimes steam after I swim.”

“Really? Last time I saw you in there, you sat for like two seconds before fucking off.”

Benson didn’t turn around when he took off his towel, so Randy did. He swallowed thickly. If he knew Randy listened to him while he showered, he never would have done it. It would be dishonest to look, even if Randy couldn’t help wanting to. 

“Yeah, I was just running late for something–for work. Late for work. Where we both work.”

He rambled at the floor until Benson’s jeans were zipped up, which meant he had time to pull on his own shirt. His own underwear could wait until Benson was gone. There was nothing in the world which could convince him to take his pants off in front of him.

“Listen, Bradley,” Benson padded closer, still shirtless. Randy tugged down the hem of his Henley and didn’t look up as he spoke. 

“It's—it’s Randy.”

Benson paused for several agonizing seconds.

“Your name’s not Bradley? Why’s it say that on your nametag?” 

His voice sounded really close, just like when he came up behind Randy to take over the grill, gruff like when he and Randy opened early one morning and had to wait for Hardy to show up with the key. 

Randy picked at his fingernail, ducking his head and wishing he was shorter. It would be a lot easier to avoid Benson’s eyeline that way, and the swirl of soft hair on his chest. 

It looked soft, anyway. 

“Bradley’s my last name. There was just a mix up, it’s not a big deal.”

“Sure, Randy,” Benson agreed, stretching out the syllables like he was testing them out. If Randy wasn’t so flustered maybe he would have come up with a clever line about not wearing the name out. Or wearing something else out instead. “Next time we can hang, as long as you don’t run scared, got it?”

Randy nodded sharply. They were chest to chest. That was probably normal, for guys who were friends. To get in each other’s faces.

“Got it?” Benson repeated in a manner which made Randy’s gaze flicker up despite his bowed head.

Blue pierced his eyes, uniquely illuminated in the white toned locker room lights, without Benson’s cap stuck over his fawny hair. He looked expectant, not patient. 

Randy nodded again. “Got it.” 

Benson might have smiled, but it was difficult to tell and either way a chill ran across Randy’s skin, even his covered arms. Benson reached into his locker and pulled out a zip up hoodie, quickly throwing it over his tank top as he finished dressing. 

He clapped Randy on the arm as he left and only then did Randy exhale. 

Whether Benson meant it or not, Randy would be back at the pool like clockwork. The water wasn’t a distraction. Maybe his mom was right and he shouldn’t have started swimming again. 

Everyone always told him he had the body of a swimmer, long and lean, but it wasn’t enough in the end. He wasn’t quite fast enough, or strong, or willing enough. A few of the other guys on the team shot up the summer after sophomore year and practiced harder than Randy did. That was the main thing, he wasn’t hungry enough for it, not driven like everyone else was.

Maybe they all did Coach favours; when they were offered second chances under special circumstances, they did the smart thing and took it while Randy refused. He never told his mom the truth as to why he threw away his only chance at college and a future. 

His best explanation was that he wasn’t good enough. 

Every time he hauled himself from the water, every time his eardrums ached, he knew it.

Benson’s black swim trunks curled in a pile underneath the farther bench, fully wrung out but still damp with steam and sweat. 

Randy glanced between the doors on either end of the locker room, the one leading to the closing pool and the one Benson exited through. He picked the trunks up and stuffed them in his backpack beside his towel. 

Randy was pretty certain he was perverted. Definitely disgusting. Maybe a faggot. Maybe queer.

He was all of those things and a lot worse, not to mention a thief. He was everything anyone who wore a Falcon uniform called him and then some. His coach was right about him and that didn’t stop him either. 

Randy inhaled deeply, the crook of his nose buried in the fabric of Benson's stolen swim trunks, eyelids fluttering in pleasure. He lay on his stomach, grinding his dick into the mattress, too hard to regret any of it.

The first night, he left the worn trunks in his backpack, trying to forget about the whole thing and promising himself he’d bring them back the next time he saw Benson at the centre. When they might or might not hang out.

The second night, he pulled them out to properly dry and the musky, heady scent in his hands alone had him aching in his sweatpants. He listened to music and thought about going to the pool to swim it off, but didn’t want to deal with the possibility of running into Benson there. 

By the third night he couldn’t stand it anymore, not just the scent but the fact that Benson wore them in the sauna, sweating and steamy and dripping. That the fine hair on his stomach lay flush against the waistband.

Randy muffled a moan into the mesh seam which joined the liner together right behind Benson’s balls. He ground his nose into the fabric, intoxicated by the mingling of Benson’s sweat and his body wash and the faint pool water. It should have sickened him, the chlorine. It should have thrown him back into years of bad memories and locker room abuse, but instead it made him ache.

His hips stuttered against the sheets, dick twitching and leaking through his boxers. It was past midnight and he wanted Benson’s skin in his mouth, Benson’s thighs bracketing his ears and squeezing, holding him in place so he couldn’t move if he tried. 

Benson’s cock in his throat, fucking into his mouth. Benson’s hazy eyes looking down on him from underneath that stupid fast food cap.

He needed Benson to put him on his knees and use him and not give him a choice in the matter. 

Let Benson call him a faggot, he didn’t care. Maybe he was one. Maybe he could be, for Benson. Let Benson coach him into it.

Randy came with a whine, rolling his hips down over and over again until it hurt.

Three days without a swim. He just needed to work through some things in order to get back into it. That was all. 

Two cars parked along with Randy’s in the community centre parking lot a few minutes after it opened the next day: a white minivan and a beige Chrysler. Benson’s Chrysler. Beads of rain bounced off the windshields as it poured from the veiling cloud cover. On such a dreary and early Monday morning, barely anyone but him cared to wake up so early. It was hardly light out. 

Randy’s shift didn’t start until two in the afternoon. Heavy rains were forecasted to continue until long after he clocked out.

He was already wet and his stomach hurt with shame by the time he reached the men’s locker room, wearing a yellow smiley face wristband. The blue one from a few nights ago remained on his wrist too, and that made him feel worse. Randy didn’t know why he kept it on, it only marked a reminder of what he’d done. 

A reminder made worse with Benson’s boots tucked under the bench by his usual locker. Randy froze instantly and listened.

No humming came from the shower stalls and the only pattering water droplets fell from the skies into puddles outside.

It filled Randy with dread more than it did excitement. He felt dirty already, harbouring a secret he would never tell anyone and another which was somehow more sinful. Benson could never find out either one.

A few laps would distract him. It would probably be at least an hour before anyone else showed up. He could try for fifteen hundred metres. 

But when Randy tugged off his sweatpants, trunks on underneath, he forgot his swim cap and goggles in his bag. He instinctually wandered past the lazy river and past the lanes, the starting blocks and the spring boards, to step into the foggy sauna. Something carried him, flip flop footsteps echoing against the poolside tile. He didn’t read the warnings like usual, just pulled on the slippery door handle.

Warmth surrounded him when he crossed the threshold, far nicer than the wash of freezing drizzle outside, although both left mist in his mostly dry hair. Steam settled as the door sealed shut, but Randy didn’t have time to focus before being grabbed by the waist and pushed to the plastic bench.

Larger thighs, soft and hairy, pinned Randy’s thinner ones together, a broad palm gliding up the length of his leg and past his swim trunks to rest on his narrow hip like it was made to fit there. Five fingerprints burned into his skin.

Benson’s mouth crashed into his beneath the dimmed sauna lights as steam and that striking smell of his richly filled Randy’s nose. 

Randy melted into every sensation as he was taken—the softness of the inside of Benson’s mouth, the bristle of his moustache—he hadn’t even considered as much before and it became all he could feel, every tingling scrape near his own lips. 

The hand traveled around to his ass, then back to the meat of his thigh with a soft smack. Benson chuckled thickly.

“D’you shave your legs?” he asked, rolling Randy’s lip between his teeth. “Cute.”

Randy gasped into Benson’s mouth in lieu of a proper response, tilting his head upwards to capture an even deeper kiss, one that had his hips rolling into the humid air. Benson swiped his tongue over Randy’s teeth.

His dick twitched beneath the thin trunks as they continued, Benson’s hands tracing up and down his smooth legs and occasionally dipping around the back of waistband, always to pull him even closer. 

Randy clung to Benson’s shoulders. 

So when he rocked them both backwards until Randy lay out on the sauna bench, and took his teeth to his neck, Randy leaned into it. He arched his back at the perfect toothy pinch upon his skin, brought to the sharp point just before it would break. He panted heavily when Benson finally let go, staring him down with a lidded gaze, pupils wide and black. 

Nothing outside the sauna mattered. Not the lifeguards or the fact he was supposed to be swimming laps or how corrupted he was for liking it.

Benson leaned in again, sucking to add a sloppy mark right beneath Randy’s jawbone.

“Sorry kid,” he groaned between breaths. 

No remorse belonged to his voice, and Randy didn't care to ask for any. He only caught Benson’s lips again, ran his hands through his short hair, and brought their sweaty chests closer together. He hooked an ankle loosely around Benson’s calf. A flipflop dropped to the steam room floor.

Benson brushed a thumb over the mark left on his jaw, so gently, then pressed straight down on the blooming purple mark.

Randy moaned out loud, a pornographic sound he usually muffled in his pillows. The echo filled the room and stilled them both. Wisps of steam hissed out of the vents. Red blushed from Randy’s ears to his shoulders as Benson hovered above him, as if waiting for something. Like maybe he wanted to let go, or maybe he wanted to hear nothing but that sound for the rest of his life

So Randy craned his neck up and messily clashed his mouth to Benson’s, saliva wet on both of their lips.

He tasted incredible, breaking their harsh kiss only to chew down Randy’s throat and chest, until all he could feel was pleasure. Benson lapped at one of his nipples, gently taking it between his teeth—then rut his hard cock into the crease of Randy’s thigh. 

Randy bowed tight at the motion, even the slight friction between their swim trunks making him throb.

Benson did it again. He rubbed their clothed dicks into each other as Randy’s legs fell further open, his eyes screwing shut, the crescents of his nails marking the flesh of Benson’s freckled back and shoulder. 

Maybe it was payback or maybe it wasn’t, but either way, Benson grunted softly in his ear and stuck his hand down the front of Randy’s shorts. Wrapping around him, his thumb found the leaky tip of Randy’s dick, grazing over the slit as he panted, open mouthed, into his chest.

It never took much for Randy, alone in bed, so with Benson palming his cock, sweat mixing with Randy’s own, he never felt so close in his life. He wanted to be held like that forever, on the wavering edge by someone else’s hand. Benson’s hand, really. Only him.

Randy’s eyelashes fluttered as he arched into Benson, who stroked him off and pressed their hips somehow even closer, his own hard cock grinding into the crux of Randy’s thigh. With a groan, he let it slide past Randy’s thigh and between his ass cheeks, still separated by only their thin trunks. Pre come drooled from Randy’s cock.

Then Benson raked over his nipple with his teeth and Randy couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t stop himself. His mouth fell open, spit strung between his reddened lips, and he whined.

“Please, please, coach.”

Then something in him halted, some signal in the back of his head, the same one which woke him up from a dream or nightmare when he thought he was falling. He jolted in Benson’s arms and right of the bench, dropping to the sauna floor painfully on his ass.

Knees bent by his chest and arms splayed out to catch himself, Randy waited, cock leaking between his legs. A second passed like he could almost take it all back, like he could blink and wake up. But the clock above the locker room door surely ticked on, seconds and minutes in which he should have done anything else but debase them both. 

Randy couldn’t catch himself from falling when he wasn’t even asleep. He clambered to his feet, tripping over his own flipflops, and pushed past Benson. The plastic soles slapped on the pool deck as he stumbled out, pursued by hot steam.

“Randy!” Benson called.

A whistle screeched between the lips of the lifeguard as she shouted at him to stop running. As if he didn’t know that was a rule. He couldn’t stop moving if he tried.

Randy hunched over the locker room trash can, grasping the black liner bag in both quivering hands as he threw up onto the pile of paper towels and a couple used Q-tips. 

He threw up until all he could do was dry heave.

Scrambled eggs and toast soured at the back of his throat, mixed with chlorine and the earthy cigarette smoke in Benson’s saliva. Randy gagged again, spitting to clear his mouth.

He cranked on the nearest shower in a row to ice cold and stuck his head under, mouth open. Freezing water chilled his body in seconds, already weak and shaken from upheaving his entire breakfast. Despite shivering, he stayed in place, his eyes squeezed shut as he tilted his face up at the showerhead. 

He spat again, right down the hair clogged drain. Droplets pelted his chest, running down his shoulders and short cropped hair to the tips of his toes. Past his hard, aching dick tenting in the shorts which did little favour in hiding anything. 

“Fuck,” Randy chattered, not looking down. He swallowed thickly, acid burning the back of his throat. 

Benson didn’t know. It wasn’t his fault. It was Randy’s. He never should have taken Benson’s shorts and he never should have spoken to him outside of the greasy kitchen of Burgers Burgers Burgers. He never should have tried again. He should have sucked his coach’s limp cock when he had the chance and made the swim team again. Been a Falcon for good. Should have applied for a scholarship and gotten out of a town of ten thousand. He should have made up for things. He should have apologized.

He was so goddamn sorry for it all. 

Randy lost track of how long he let the shower rain upon him, only that eventually he got tired of slamming the knob over and over again to reset the timer. When he left the community centre, inescapable water followed him still. 

“Benson’s a no call, no show, so you all better be on top of your shit today, got it?” Hardy pointed his Bic ballpoint at each of them in a line, Jess, Chris, Randy. 

“Whatever you say, boss,” Chris smirked, smacking Jess on the ass and heading into the kitchen to take over the grill from Donnie. 

Randy was on drive-thru and Jess at the front counter. Hardy would probably pretend to fill out timesheets in his office but instead be jerking off while a line of orders piled up. 

“Alright,” he pointed out the door, “get to work.”

Throughout the evening shift, Chris smacked Randy upside the head every time he tried to ask where a double cheeseburger combo was, and made fun of him when he stuttered over a bill total. 

Despite himself, Randy wished Benson was there. He also wished he hadn’t ruined everything before he even got a chance to befriend him. Maybe it was an odd choice, his older coworker who, after months of working together, hadn’t spoken to him about anything unnecessary. Even then, his words were few. But Randy didn’t have many options and Benson was Benson. 

He didn’t really know how to make sense of it, only that he must have seemed so desperate that Benson gave in out of pity. Randy practically begged him to hang out, so obvious that Benson hardly needed to read between the lines. So pathetic and easy that Benson could use him for a quick fuck and Randy would probably still thank him for it. He wouldn’t even resist and maybe that was a messed up thing to believe. 

Benson wouldn’t want him like that, didn’t want him like that. Randy lured him into it.

He turned and knocked a large Styrofoam cup of Seven Up off the drive thru counter, all over the floor. Sticky, sugary liquid fizzed across the linoleum towards the gummy drain in the centre, washing fry crumbs down. Randy just stared at his feet. At least three cars stacked up in the drive thru line and Jess was trying to find a Lady Gaga song on the radio instead of taking the orders from the front. 

Chris yelled that two orders were up. He couldn’t hear it, but Hardy’s office chair probably creaked as he rocked into his own hand.

It was all Randy’s fault, if he boiled it down, a chain of events which he kickstarted maybe at the mall or maybe in the sauna or maybe four years ago. A tumbling waterfall. 

A mop knocked into Randy’s hand and he managed to catch it before it clattered to the floor. Benson grabbed his shoulders and moved him towards the mop bucket, taking over the drive thru headset as he tucked his shirt in. 

His hands slid around his waistband, folding his uniform shirt into his brown pants as he spoke into the microphone.

“What can I get for you, ma’am?” 

He watched Randy out of the corner of his eye while he punched the order into the till. 

Slowly, Randy sopped soda from the dirty floor, sweeping the mop head over the brown grout, then wringing it out in the bucket. Benson cleared his throat.

“That’ll be nine fifty-eight at the next window.”

Before the car pulled up, Benson shielded the mic with his hand, the other gripping the side of Randy’s neck and angling his head level. Burning fingertips brushed past his sinful bruise like every inch of Benson was designed to fit against him. It sickened Randy how comforting it was, a hand could guide and wound and he would take all of it from Benson. Everything about him was heavy.

Randy didn’t move a muscle. He would have liked to drown in the sugary, acrid, brown mop water. If he couldn’t be cleansed pure, he might as well marinate in the same filth which built him.

“I told you not to run off again,” Benson said, warning in his tone. Despite the noise of the bustling front of house and Poker Face blasting over the radio, his voice cut right into Randy’s chest, matched by his shaded eyes, cap pulled low on his head. 

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” 

Randy tried to shake his head or shake off the thumb pressed beneath his chin which made him shiver, but he couldn’t. He shut his eyes and willed his body not to react to Benson’s touch and the other places he wanted it. Keep it in his pants for five fucking seconds.

There was the purple bruise on the underside of his milky jaw, to his microscopic luck difficult to see due to the angle it hid in. Benson could have easily pressed into it again to make Randy whine, to see him sink to his knees in some twist of hurtful peace as thunder growled overhead. 

Patties sizzled on the grill and rain splattered on the pavement outside the drive thru window, both building up a dull buzz around them. The Volvo with the nine fifty-eight order rolled up outside it, but Benson didn’t answer them. Chris dinged the bell and called out the order again. 

Benson looked expectant again, neutral waiting upon faint creases of his skin. Randy’s apology probably wasn’t good enough, so he opened his mouth to try again. He was sorry and he could fix things. He could.

Burgers Burgers Burgers plunged into pitch darkness with a snap. 

Jess shrieked, as did the customer at the counter across from her. The  toddler who was turning a stack of napkins into crumpled origami burst into tears. Benson’s hand tightened protectively on the back of Randy’s neck, warm and real. It pulled him closer and he finally let go of the mop.

Then the emergency back up lights flickered alive, just as Hardy stumbled out of his office with his tie loosened from around his neck, casting dull grey light over the entire building just like Randy’s swimming goggles.

“Everyone remain calm,” Hardy announced, hesitancy in his voice, “this is just a power outage from the storm. Please stay where you are and I’m sure all will quickly be resolved—” 

All the customers scrambled to their feet with paper bags clutched in hands, fries stuffed in their pockets. One woman shoved a fistful of spare ketchup packets down her bra. 

“—or if you must leave, please do so in an orderly fashion,” Hardy raised his voice, striding into the middle of the floor as customers scattered around him. 

The glass doors swung shut behind the last one. Benson’s hand fell away.

Randy waited in his car in the parking lot, hands braced on the wheel. They ended up closing early as the phones, tills, and lights wouldn’t be back up until the power company could come by and fix the issue in the line. There was no point in staying open, much to Hardy’s chagrin. He must not have had a home computer. 

After swiftly reprimanding Benson, he barked into his BlackBerry, on and off of hold, for almost an hour while they tried their best to clean the store in the partial dark. Or Randy and Benson tried to.

Black mascara clustered around Jess’ eyes as she whined about being too scared to keep working, begging to go home and insisting Chris needed to drive her because of the storm. That part was kind of fair, Randy wouldn’t have wanted to wait outside for a bus either, but they could have stayed to help. 

Or more reasonably, Hardy could have let them all go home. Randy’s mom would have liked that he showed up for dinner instead of missing it altogether, reheating leftovers in the microwave after his shift ended. 

Instead, he restocked cup lids and straws into the respective dispensers mostly by feel while Benson cleaned the kitchen. Randy planned to avoid him, especially with Hardy not around, for once in his career making things less awkward, but the counters in the front of house weren’t very messy. Other than restocking, which Jess hardly ever remembered to do, he only had to wipe down the booths and sweep. Plus, he already had a full mop bucket from earlier.

Chris, however, always made a disaster of the kitchen. Which was fine, when he was around to clean up after himself, as much as he complained while he did it.

If Randy was a worse employee, he might have just sat around and entertained himself while Benson finished up. He might have walked out to his car and drove straight home.

“Can I help?” he asked instead, entering the doorway to the kitchen. 

Benson was on his knees, ass stuck in the air, reaching under the metal counters with a broom handle to sweep dropped burger buns out from underneath them. Chris probably kicked them under so he wouldn’t have to deal with them. Randy’s younger sister did the same thing with ice cubes under the fridge. 

Then he grunted, which Randy took to mean he should wait until Benson was done for a reply. 

That meant he should have stayed out of the kitchen. Something about the greyish lights, still accompanied by the beating rain, shifted everything out of perspective slightly. It was like a dream version of their workplace, not the real thing. 

“I thought Hardy was gonna blow a gasket,” he said softly. “Like he thinks that’ll get the lights back on.”

And he went on, quietly relaying until Benson pulled his arm out from under the counter and rocked back onto his heels, hands resting on his dusty knees for a moment as he rolled his neck out. 

Randy hated that he knew exactly what Benson’s thighs looked like underneath his workwear trousers—brown with double patched knees—that a few moles hid near the backs of his knees or that the hair thickened below his navel. 

Then, none of the words he spoke mattered, because Benson’s moustache twitched up into a faint smile. 

The kind that had Randy holding tight to his steering wheel with white knuckles. Maybe they could almost be friends. Maybe he could hold a conversation, if he didn’t overthink things, and didn't think of certain things. 

He just had to be better than before. It could be done, if Randy tried hard enough. 

Benson smiled at him, even if he didn’t say much about it. Maybe in time, Benson would forget all the mistakes Randy made, the way he gasped and arched into his touch, and the way he begged.

Randy started his car. He could handle things.

He could handle things, until he couldn’t. The first of December came around which marked exactly two weeks since the sauna incident and the following power outage. Not that Randy thought they were related. He wasn’t that religious. 

They were two weeks of as much peace as Randy could muster. He still swam every other morning, shaving away milliseconds and the fine stubble on his shins, but he didn’t go into the steam room. Benson’s boots never appeared under the locker room benches. He covered two of Carla’s closing shifts and she brought him a plate of snickerdoodles in thanks. 

Ever since the power outage, Hardy started pairing him and Benson together more often, clearly impressed with either their collective work or perhaps their lack of complaint at actually doing it. On busy nights they were either in the kitchen or at the front; Benson worked the drive thru and Randy the counter; Benson grilled and Randy prepped. 

And Randy handled it, if he kept himself distracted. Observing Benson for too long—the backs of his hands, the tucked in waist of his shirt, the slope of his shoulders—lead to bad things. Bad behaviour, on Randy’s part. Things he couldn’t forgive himself for and didn’t expect Benson to either. 

Benson’s shorts were firmly shoved to the back of his closet and most nights Randy forgot they were even in there.

Then, Randy messed up. He lost his grip on things.

He and Benson were the only ones scheduled to close on the gloomy first of December, the quietest evening shift of the week especially as winter set in. That was different than just being paired up in the kitchen—in that case at least Carla or Jess or whoever would be visible at the counter with Hardy in his closed office a few more feet away. 

Half an hour passed without a single customer entering the store or a single car pulling into the parking lot out front.

Randy could only prep so many onion slices before the fridge was full and his eyes couldn’t take it anymore. He moved onto buns, then tomatoes, when Benson entered the kitchen. 

“I think we should talk,” he said, as Randy sliced the green top off a tomato that was more pink than red. He cut everything exactly as trained, fingertips tucked under his knuckles.

At his lack of response, Benson shuffled closer to rest his hands on the lip of the opposing side of the counter island, braced on either side of him, outstretched and showing off the cut of his triceps. That’s what Randy imagined he’d see at least, if he looked up. He kept shaving off uniform tomato circles.

“Randy.”

“So talk,” he replied quietly, snappier than he usually allowed himself.

Maybe the veins on Benson’s hands popped under the kitchen lights as he gripped the countertop harder, but Randy wouldn’t know. He was cutting tomatoes.

“Jesus Christ. What is your problem?” 

Benson sounded tired, mostly. Certainly rhetorical, so Randy stayed quiet as he went on.

“You act like we’re friends, then like you’re scared of me, act like you don’t want to be in the same fucking room as me for more than five seconds, then you—God, you made me feel like a jackass, you know that?”

Randy sliced through one tomato and picked up the next, methodically separating the stem from the fruit with the flat of his knife. 

“I—that’s not fair.” 

Benson scoffed.

“You can’t talk to me about fair,” he said. 

Randy wanted to look at him more than anything, to meet his eyes and see the twitch of his lips. He wanted to stare at Benson long enough to truly understand what he was thinking. See every change in expression, even to certain disgust. 

“Benson, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, you’re not sorry.”

Randy slipped and nicked the side of his index finger, blade disappearing into his flesh before he could stop it. With a sharp gasp, he dropped the knife to the counter with a clatter. 

In less than a second, the tiny bead of blood above his second knuckle fell to the cutting board and a steady trickle down his wrist followed. Randy darted over to the kitchen sink and yanked a paper towel from the dispenser.

It tore in two and he ended up with a paper scrap smaller than a dollar bill. On the dispenser in masking tape, in Randy’s own writing, were the words ‘use both hands’. Blood ran down into the crease of his elbow as he fumbled under the counter for a rag. At least he cut his left hand. 

Benson tugged out an even sheet of paper towel and shoved it into his chest. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the counter. 

“Bradley, sit down.” 

Randy stilled. 

Hardy liked to tell them if they had time to lean, they had time to clean, so there wasn’t anywhere for any employee to sit aside from the squeaky, stained chair in his office. Benson meant to sit on the counter, right beside the cutting board overflowing with tomatoes. They would probably all have to be thrown out, it was impossible to tell what was tomato juice and what was Randy’s blood. It couldn’t be washed out.

He awkwardly boosted himself onto the counter, the toes of his sneakers not reaching the ground from his seat. His finger throbbed as he clamped his fist around it.

Benson rustled around in the storeroom and returned with the red first aid box which he set beside Randy. Beside the ruined tomatoes. He nudged Randy’s knees apart to get a closer look, pulling his injured hand forward.

Randy waited for him to say anything but couldn’t wait long. 

“I am sorry,” he repeated. “You have to believe me.”

“Do I?” Benson said dryly as he inspected beneath the blood stained paper towel, his face hidden under the brim of his cap. “Don’t let go of that.” 

He fished through the first aid kit for an alcohol wipe and a butterfly bandage. Randy held tight and focused on the throbbing as Benson worked so he wouldn’t think about the mere inches between them or the way Benson stood between his parted legs. 

Or how he tore open the wipe with his teeth, Randy’s hand cradled in one of his. 

The mark beneath Randy’s jaw had long faded, as did his mother’s curiosity as to why he wore his hood up so much that week, the slight prints of Benson’s incisors gone from his skin.

He didn’t give any warning before taking the wipe over his skin, so Randy hissed sharply as alcohol stung not only his fresh cut, but the tiny tears around his worried nailbeds. Benson wiped him clean, thoroughly, but not gently. 

It was still caring. Like when Randy scraped his knee or fell off his bike and his dad patched him up. Benson peeled open the bandage and laid the two ends over the open cut as Randy watched. 

The cut wasn’t very deep, but Benson still tended to it. He could have left Randy with a paper towel or one of those blue Band-aids. Could have yelled at him for messing up all the tomatoes. 

Instead he stood practically against him, left hand pulled in close. Randy could have reached out and touched him.

His pinky twitched.

Benson cleared his throat gruffly, his face hidden by the brim of his cap as he took care of Randy’s wound. 

“What are you sorry for?” 

Randy dropped his gaze to the counter. A few tomato seeds dribbled off the edge of the plastic cutting board.

“I made you—” he clenched his jaw, restarting the thought entirely. He was sorry for all of it, and didn't know where to begin. “I made a mistake, I should have left you alone.”

Left him alone at the pool, left him alone at work. Let Benson go about his day without trying to insert himself in his life. He didn’t need to be burdened by Randy.

Benson hummed as if in thought as he sealed down the edges of the bandage. He didn’t let go, as if waiting for something more. Randy wasn’t sure what more to give him. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he ended up saying, settling on something between justification and excuse.

Benson’s head snapped up, sliding his hand up around Randy’s wrist, sharp and tight. Darkness filled his expression as the weak kitchen light swung above them both; blood eased into the creases of his thumbprint. 

“Don’t be ungrateful, Randy.”

He dug into the tendons beneath Randy’s pale skin, strong thumb right into his pulse point. The other hand hooked under his knee and yanked him closer to the edge.

Heat washed over Randy, from the grasp on his bare wrist to the hand pressed through his grey jeans. Benson’s hands were large, certainly larger than his but also possessing a weight and measure to them that Randy’s didn’t. They touched him the same way they did in the steam room that day, hot and reckless and all encompassing. 

That’s what he was with Benson, reckless. Reckless like a car crash, maybe. 

“Thank—thank you,” he stammered, face burning.

Only at his thanks did the sharp digging at his inner wrist turn to smooth, assuring circles. Benson nodded with the satisfaction of a gorged wolf. He kept Randy in place between his legs, pinned by the wrist and knee.

“Good,” he encouraged, “finish what you were saying.”

Randy held back a scowl. He stared at the centre of Benson’s chest, at his nametag, to avoid meeting either the downturn of his lips or anything lower.

“I’m sorry that I made you feel like a jackass,” he said slowly. “And I’m not scared of you.”

He wasn’t. There were a lot of things Randy was scared of, too. Loud noises. Needles. Large dogs. Driving in the rain at night. Randy avoided those things; avoiding Benson was a strict impossibility, and he still tried. 

“Maybe you were a little scared. But, I thought you wanted it, Randy.”

Randy’s cheeks reddened with a stark mix of shame and recollection of what happened in the sauna. He parted his lips only to close them again. Benson’s chest rose and fell beneath his Burgers Burgers Burgers button up which matched Randy’s and a sliver of white tank top peeked out of the collar. 

When he didn’t answer, Benson raised his hand from Randy’s knee, up to a lock of hair which he smoothed behind Randy’s ear.

“Tell me honestly that you didn't.”

“Benson, I—”

His grip tightened, grasp sinking into the roots of Randy’s dirty blonde hair. Benson pulled him closer and forced Randy to tilt his head up, right up at his face.

“Don’t lie to me, kid.”

Heat spread from Randy’s face, down his neck, and into his chest. Arousal and fear fought tightly inside his ribcage as a needy flush overwhelmed him. Each feeling tore him apart. He had to be honest, but that would get him in trouble. He had to hide it, but he couldn’t lie to Benson. Lying made him twitchy anyways, Benson would know instantly, and that would get him in trouble too. 

And beyond that was the fact that Randy didn't know what he was or what he wanted. Yes, he liked it, he liked being pinned down and touched, but only by Benson. He wished he didn't like it so much. He wished he didn’t want Benson to keep pulling his hair, to force his head lower and lower until Randy’s lips were around his thick cock.

He didn’t want to prove his teammates or coach right, but getting hard whenever Benson touched him or even spoke to him, did well enough.

Wrapped in his own mind, Randy didn’t feel Benson drop his carefully bandaged finger and slide his hand over Randy’s leg, palm drifting from knee to hip and back again. Or that thumb of his rubbing a circle at the crease of his thigh.

“Tell me no and I’ll stop, Randy. That’s the way it goes.”

Maybe Benson didn’t know that Randy couldn’t say no to him. Randy hoped he did because it was awfully generous of him in that moment as Randy couldn’t speak another word. Four years of idling and quieting and shutting his mouth and doing what was correct brought him to the very moment Benson tugged his head forward and roughly brought their lips together again.

Randy shut his eyes and let Benson explore his mouth—not that he ever let Benson do anything, he just gave in—one large hand buried in his hair and the other groping his ass through his chinos. 

“Touch me back,” Benson growled in his ear, punctuated with a few nips to the lobe that made Randy whine. “You know you want to.” 

When his mouth returned to Randy’s, somehow even deeper and more vigorously, fucking his tongue in and out, Randy had no choice but to cling to his shirt, polyester catching on every bitten imperfection around his nails.

Benson nodded encouragingly, right into his mouth, and Randy took that to mean he should slide his hand between the buttons and reach for the ribbed material of his tank top to feel the way it clung to his solid stomach.

Randy had little practice groping, but heard no complaints, only his own soft whimpers as Benson bit as his lower lip and then ducked his head to kiss again beneath his ear. Each kiss turned them both more feral, more base. Randy waited for them to break apart, for Benson to push him off and tell him how disgusting he was, how much of a faggot he was, how dirty and low and perverted he was.

Somehow he got harder, dick practically brushing against where Benson’s hand stroked his thigh. Maybe he would touch him again, but Randy would never ask. As teeth sank into his lip again, Randy keened. Benson stepped between his open legs and used his hold to pull Randy’s ass closer. 

His cock pressed against Benson’s belt and no part within him resisted the urge to rock his hips.

“That’s it,” Benson murmured, drawing out each quiet syllable as Randy writhed with desperate longing against him. “That’s it.”

Randy grabbed at Benson’s chest, his shoulder, his waist, his back, finally settling with hands braced, one cupping the back of his neck and the other reaching under both the Burgers Burgers Burgers uniform and tank top to rest on Benson’s solid ribs. He breathed in every moment of it, unable to keep his mouth shut as he moaned, skin alight. Benson caught his mouth with every turn, or his neck or jaw or ear when he missed. 

Enough time spent with his nose buried in Benson’s swim trunks made Randy drawn to the scent of him, and he received a fresh, overwhelming, addicting hit. Cigarette smoke, cheap deodorant, maybe a bit of fryer oil too, but Randy couldn't be any better in that regard himself, and somewhere, deep below it all, chlorine. 

Precum smeared the inside of Randy’s Hanes boxers as he rut into Benson’s stomach, mewling and whimpering like he was wounded.

And he was. A butterfly bandage wrapped around a finger he sank into the dry crop of Benson’s mullet. The sour acid of under ripe tomatoes hit his nose and as if broken from a trance, speech returned to Randy and his saliva strung lips. 

“Isn’t-isn’t there security cameras?” he breathed, still clutching Benson’s shirt like it was the only thing keeping him afloat as a wave crashed down.

“Whatever. Hardy’ll get off to this if he even bothers to check the tapes.”

Randy used his hold to press Benson away. His body hated it, the warmth drifting farther away as he pushed, the life preserver getting farther, but the idea of anyone seeing any of it, watching him, reporting him—it was really sick, making out with an older coworker in the kitchen of their workplace. It would make the news if things got dirty enough, it would make anyone’s stomach turn.

But it made Randy so hard it hurt.

He was fucking queer. Maybe they both were or maybe Randy was a fag and Benson was okay with that. Maybe, just maybe, Benson would make it right.

Randy squeezed his eyes shut and leaned forward, his head falling to rest on Benson’s sternum. 

“You gonna bolt?” 

The words rumbled through Randy’s scalp and down to his toes. He shook his head, waiting for anything, anything to pull him away. He could not make himself do it.

And no intervention came.

With two fingers, Benson lifted Randy’s chin, softer than ever. He did not tug Randy’s eyes to meet his, did not wrench his neck until it hurt.

“What are we gonna do with you, kid?”

He smirked, something a little wonky to the angle but earnest in gesture. Randy sniffed and clutched his throbbing finger. He’d have to take a couple weeks off swimming while it healed.

The service bell by the till rang sharply out, calling them back to work.