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Tony was intrigued.
And he very much did have the right to be intrigued, because... what?. No, seriously, he did!
After all, Maxxie, push-over, never-fuck-up, will-kiss-your-butt-to-please Maxxie had just offered to let Tony plow his arse in exchange for a month of teaching-privilege.
If it hadn't been so damn hot, Tony would have thought it was ridiculous. Hilarious, even, though that, it still was, no matter from which angle you looked at it. Gay sex was not something Tony'd done before. Sure, he'd blown a few guys after Maxxie'd complained in Russia, for practice's sake, because no way he was going to get his ego bruised by a half-hot blonde from the wrong side of the tracks.
It was a welcome change of pace, that was for sure. It was something to look forward to, on the boring days that held a lot of Sid's glares and Michelle's silent treatment. People didn't talk to him anymore these days, at least not the people his own age.
Not that it mattered. The younger students liked nothing better than hanging around him, off his arms, pretty little things all but ready to climb into his lap to sweeten his day. Some of them had brains in their heads. Some of them he could quote at, and one or two even knew which poet he was talking about.
Those he sometimes took home. Those were interesting to watch, to observe, the way they'd slither towards him, attracted, and later flee, thinking they'd lost something important.
Sex. Everything was about sex, or money, and the cheap ones he sometimes paid, cruelly, dropping the five bucks into their panties of "that's how much you're worth, whore".
Their tears amused him. It was all games.
Games. It was all about the games, all about how complicated, how breath-taking, how... attractive, how speculation of the odds and twists during the play-out could take him by surprise.
Maxxie was doing good. Maxxie was doing better than Tony had expected, had expected him to crack under the pressure and give in at the first opportunity, run to Michelle to tell her the truth, or in front of the class, again, telling them Tony'd sucked his dick, and hadn't that been a scratch through all his carefully laid plans?
But Maxxie wasn't clever enough for that to have been anything but chance.
Something about Maxxie had changed after Russia, though, or maybe after everything had come out; he couldn't tell what had set Maxxie off, this determined way he strode through the hallways now, no longer caring - even Anwar was feeling the chill of it. Tony had his ears on that little argument. The pain in Maxxie's eyes was a delight to watch at the best of times, the glowing little candle that burst into flames whenever Anwar dug another heel in.
Maxxie's pain was the most exquisite thing Tony'd ever seen, because unlike many other people, Maxxie didn't break under it. He bent with it, went with it like a tree stem down the river, always with the stream, always bearing it, moaning but taking it in. Endless self-torture, maybe, or the only way to survive without breaking into all those sharp little pieces walking around the world these days.
Effy didn't talk, ever, and nobody noticed, it seemed, except Tony didn't need to, because they could communicate other ways, by the blinks of her eyes and the tilt of her head and the hunch in her shoulders, her chin pointing up in an amused little snort.
You're awfully distracted lately she was saying, and also, your little games amuse me.
Tony laid back on his bed, watched her circle on his chair and smiled. "I have an interesting life. What can I say?"
She rolled her eyes at him. 'You're such a wanker' she was saying, because he was.
"I'm fucking Maxxie," he said then, because he told her this stuff, sometimes, and she gave him a long, hard look. 'And that's smart?' Clearly, she didn't think so.
"You remember him?" Tony asked, surprised. He hadn't thought Maxxie left any kind of special first impression, on anyone. Maxxie wasn't really noticeable, not in any way that was striking, not in any way Effy would notice any of Tony's stupid gang of hang-ups.
Her eyebrows went up and she smirked. Of course, she remembered him. He was pretty hot, after all. But then, she made a gesture and he got it.
"He drew you?"
She grinned.
"That little twat." Tony still hadn't gotten that out of Maxxie, the one thing Maxxie gave everyone else but him; he left it for the ending part of their little arrangement, when he had Maxxie's heart on a silver platter, laid out before him. Nobody had not fallen for him yet.
Effy circled again and drummed her fingers against the table. He knew what she needed, but there was no way she was going to light a fire in his room.
"What about you?" he asked. "Anything interesting going on that I should know about?"
She shook her head.
Tony put his arms behind his head and thought of Maxxie, of fucking him, of how it never meant much, or anything, and how it was not so different with boys and girls, except boys were better at giving head, and girls were better at spreading their legs. Or quicker, in any case. He really wanted to fuck Maxxie.
"You ever try a girl?" he asked.
She only smiled, mysteriously, and didn't answer that.
~*~