Archive of Our Own

The usual disclaimers about ownership of characters. This fiction in no way reflects on the lives of the actors who portrayed the characters.

This appeared first in My Mongoose Ezine. Thanks to Elaine for the beta.

Part Two: At First Glance

Blair was in plenty of time for the flight to Scotland. Luckily, he'd kept his passport up to date after a couple of brief study trips abroad in his college days, so that wasn't a problem. There were only a dozen or so other men on the plane: the others had flown out a few days before.

He met Luke, who was to be one of the assistants. He was a thin, easy going young man. Even though he was couple of years younger than Blair, he was still a veteran platform worker. He'd been helping in the kitchen on rigs since he got out of high school and met the legal age requirements for hazardous labor. Blair liked him immediately.

Not //liked// him, liked him. Luke nice enough, but he wasn't Blair's type. Blair had always had a craving for a more forceful, mature lover. Luke was a nice boy, but that was just it. He was a //boy//. Blair was interested in //men//. When the plane landed in Scotland, it was already evening. The crewmen quickly scattered to find rooms for the night, pubs, and possibly a bit of sex before they isolated themselves on the platform. Blair wasn't interested in the pubs. He also had to buy his toiletries and boots before the stores closed.

As dusk fell, he found himself loaded down with several bulging plastic bags. The boots had been kind of expensive. It was a good thing he wasn't going to have any real expenses while he was out on the rig. The box was frighteningly large, too. Blair was used to sneakers or loafers. When he tried on the boots, he felt like... Well, it was hard to say. To tell the truth, he'd felt macho and virile as hell. Disgustingly politically incorrect.

He was on his way back to the room he'd rented at a slightly seedy bed-and-breakfast, but he paused outside one of the local adult bookstores. Bring reading material, Broderick had said. Blair had a modest stock at home, but he'd read, ogled, and in many cases placed stains, on them. It was time for a fresh supply to keep him occupied out on the platform, because it was hardly likely that any of the oil rig workers would feel like lending an (ahem) helping hand to a poor, horny assistant cook. Blair was already on intimate terms with his palm. It looked like they were going to be going steady for the next month.

Blair went into the store, and the woman behind the counter barked, //"Freeze!"//

Blair held his hands up as best as he could, loaded down as he was. "I didn't do it!"

"Not yet, ye didn't." Perhaps not unsurprisingly, she had a thick Scottish burr. "Packages stay up at t' counter, sport. No tellin' what might wan'er in there when you wan't lookin'."

"I wouldn't do that, but I know where you're coming from."

"Yeh, yeh. Just park 'em up here and I'll set 'em behin' t' counter. Ye can get 'em when ye leave."

Blair wasn't entirely happy with that arrangement, but he had to comply if he wanted his smut, and he wanted his smut. He handed over the bags, and moved out into the store.

\\Oo. Quite a variety they got here.\\ Blair walked past the vanilla men's magazines, through the Dominatrix section, and into the Man to Man section. He stood for a moment, hands on hips, contemplating the racks of magazines, tabloids, and paperbacks. \\A man could wank himself to death here\\ he thought complacently.

He started browsing, trying to decide if he should concentrate on prose, photo layouts, or a combination of both. \\Why am I doing this to myself? I know damn good and well that I'd better be hitting the used section.\\

Blair sadly fingered a magazine that showed a buff older man with short cropped hair. "Sorry, Daddy," he murmured. "Sonnyboy is short of cash right now. Maybe when I get back."

He moved over to the table of cardboard boxes that held second hand material and started to sift through them. Damn. No one ever seemed to trade in anything that featured anyone over twenty something.

Blair felt a slight prickling of the hairs at the back of his neck. He shrugged uneasily, but the sensation didn't go away. \\Somebody's watching me.\\ He thought. Well, eye contact in a place like this generally meant you were looking for one of two things: companionship, or trouble. Blair was lonely enough for one to risk the other. He looked around, and started to get hard almost immediately.

The man standing by the magazine rack was a wet dream come true. He was exactly Blair's type: a little mature but not by any means old. in his prime. He was well over six feet tall, and his body, clad in tight T-shirt and even tighter jeans, was a symphony of hard, well defined muscle. He wasn't pretty, but he was handsome, with a stubborn jaw and the most intense ice blue eyes Blair had ever seen. His dark hair was chopped short, emphasizing the slightly receding hairline. Blair wanted to climb him like a mountain.

Eye contact. Blair's smoky blue eyes locked with the stranger's lighter ones, and Blair's cock gave a decidedly interested twitch. \\Oh, geez. IhopeIhopeIhopeIhope. Please, God, I'll have two weeks and maybe more to be celibate. Gimme this one?\\

Handsome Stranger smiled slowly, and Blair swallowed saliva. He quickly turned his eyes, if not his attention, back to the box of magazines before him, flipping them unseeingly.

He heard the rap of boot heels approaching. A low voice behind him said, "Hi."

The glance he tossed back was supposed to be casual, but it fell short by several megawatts. "Hi."

The Stranger moved up to the table beside him, their shoulders brushing. Well, Blair's shoulder brushed his arm. Blair would have had to stand on a box for their shoulders to be level. "Anything good?"

He was American, by his accent. Or rather, lack of accent. "Mm, dunno yet. Haven't really had a chance to look."

The Stranger reached across Blair's arm, finger touching the model on the front cover of the magazine he was holding, resting right beside Blair's hand. The model had wavy, flowing red-brown hair, not too different from Blair's own. "Looks pretty good to me."

Now his mouth was going dry. "Not really my type."

"No?" The single word was husky. The bigger man turned toward him, leaning a hip casually against the table, crossing his arms. "What is your type?"

\\You, man. You are exactly my type. Fuck, I'm blushing. I can feel it. I didn't think I had enough blood left to rush to my cheeks, I thought it was all busy inflating my cock.\\ He didn't know what to say. Give Blair a party, or a quiet dinner, and he could flirt up a storm. But he'd never been really good at the casually pick-ups most people thought made up the homosexual lifestyle.

When he didn't speak, The Stranger didn't give up, thank heavens. "Ought to introduce myself before I start asking personal questions, I suppose." He offered his hand. "James."

Blair took it, shaking hands. "Blair." He knew that the names exchanged in such encounters were not always necessarily the once inscribed on licenses and birth certificates, but he saw no reason to use an alias.

"So Blair," The use of his name was like a caress. James indicated the new magazine he'd been coveting. "You don't want that?"

"Shit, yeah, I want it. But money's kinda tight right now. I was figuring on going for quantity versus quality for the time being."

"Oh, you shouldn't do that. Pick just one you really, really like. That's what I do." He reached over and lifted one curl from where it rested on Blair's shoulder, and rubbed it sensuously through his fingers. "Look, I'm not usually so abrupt, but I don't have a lot of time. There's somewhere I have to be in a few hours. Would you be interested in spending some time with me?"

Blair looked at him carefully. "You mean like go out to a pub for a beer, or something?"

"No." He wound the curl around his finger. "I mean like go back to my room and 'or something'." His eyes met Blair's unflinchingly. "I top."

\\Shit. I bet you do.\\ Blair almost managed to keep his voice steady. "Fuck it. I can take some of my old stuff with me. Yeah, I'd like to go with you. Just let me get my stuff from the dragon up front."

As they walked up to the counter, James said, "Take it with you? Where are you going? Vacation?"

"Exact opposite, man. Finally got a job." The clerk didn't look too pleased that he wasn't making a purchase, but she grudgingly put his bags up on the counter. "I'm kinda shipping out in the morning, so I don't have a lot of time myself. Small world, isn't it?"

"Yes." Those bright eyes were studying the content of his bags, and, when they turned back to Blair, they were guarded. "Sailor?"

"No, I got a gig slinging hash on an oil rig. Gonna be out for a solid month. I've never done it before, and I figured I couldn't count on finding any... um, mutually inclined friends, so I'd better stock up on sleep aids."

James looked at his watch. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was so late. I'm going to have to take a rain check."

Blair didn't say anything immediately, but he was thinking, \\*What?! * Geez, what cooled your jets all of a sudden?\\ "Oh. That's too bad. You sure?"

James hesitated, and for a moment Blair hoped... But he shook his head. "No. Wouldn't be fair to either of us if we had to rush it, would it?"

"Shit, man, I got no objection to knee tremblers."

"No." The tone of his voice took some of the sting out of the rejection. He slid his hand down Blair's back, letting it rest for just a moment on his ass. Blair had to restrain himself from leaning back into the touch. "You deserve better than that, kid. Don't just settle, get what you want." He was backing toward the door. "Some other time."

Blair raised a hand numbly. "Yeah. See ya." The bell tinkled, and he was gone.

Blair sighed gustily. The clerk had been watching the exchange with interest. "Wassamatter? Ye and yer boyfrien' have a spat?"

Blair looked at her coolly, gathering up his bags. "Do you own this place?"

"Neh, jus' work here."

"Then you're lucky you don't have to work on commission, because your customer skill sucks." He left, deciding to try the used bookstore down the street. He'd lost his chance for something nice tonight, but he still had at least two weeks of enforced celibacy ahead of him to provide for.

End The Drilling Rig, Part 2 by Scribe: [email protected]

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