Roast

My apartment has a couch, a TV, and a bed I never make. That is the entire inventory. I've lived in this building for eleven years and the only decoration is a calendar from the roastery that's two months behind.

I'm Clarence. I'm sixty-three years old, and I roast coffee for a living. Been at the same shop in Granville for five of those years, ever since Kaylee hired me off a listing she put up on the corkboard at the co-op. Before that I did the same job in three other towns. Never married. Never came close. I dated a barista named Fran about five years back, and when I say dated I mean she let me take her out twice before she figured out I had nothing under the hood but wanting.

That's been the pattern my whole life, honestly. I meet somebody, we go to one of our places, we do the thing, I leave before the coffee gets cold. Quick hookups, clean exits, no strings because strings require hands and I never offered mine. Some guys my age talk about loneliness like it's a disease. I always figured it was just the price of doing business.

Then Nico came along, and business got complicated.

Nico works the counter at the shop. He's thirty-one, trans, moved to town three years ago and Kaylee hired him inside a week because he can pull shots and talk to customers at the same time, which is a rarer skill than you'd think. He's got a laugh that carries through the whole place and a way of looking at you like he's already made up his mind about something.

The night it started was a Friday in October. We closed at six. I stayed late to finish a roast because Kaylee wanted the Ethiopian dialed in before the weekend rush, and Nico stayed to help bag it, which he didn't have to do.

"So," he said, folding the last bag shut. "You ever had good sex?"

I nearly dropped the drum tray. "What?"

"Good sex. Not fast sex. Good sex. The kind where you're still thinking about it three days later."

"I'm sixty-three years old, kid."

"I know how old you are. I can do math. That's not an answer."

I wiped my hands on my apron and looked at him. He was leaning on the counter with his sleeves pushed up, totally relaxed, like he was asking about the weather.

"I've had plenty," I said. "Plenty of sex."

"Plenty of fast sex," he said. "I've watched you leave here with people. You never come back the next day looking happy. You come back looking like you lost a bet."

"That's just my face."

"It's not." He shrugged. "Anyway. Here's my offer. I like teaching. You clearly never learned. I'm willing to show you what you've been missing. No romance, no dating, none of that. Just lessons."

I stared at him. "Lessons."

"Like a class. Except naked."

"Why?" I asked. "Why me?"

"Because you're the only person in this town who looks hungry and doesn't know what for. And because you'd never ask. Someone has to ask for you." He smiled a little. "So I'm asking. Interested or not?"

I should have said no. I would like to claim I thought about it hard, but I did not. My whole body answered before my brain got a vote.

"Yeah," I said. "Alright. No romance though!"

"No romance," he agreed. "My place. Tomorrow, seven. Above the bike shop on Corliss. Bring nothing."

His apartment was exactly what I expected, namely tiny. A bed, a desk, a record player, a window overlooking the alley behind the shop. The air smelled like coffee and wet pavement coming up through the floorboards.

"Rules first," Nico said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "One, you can stop anything at any time and we just stop, no explanation needed. Two, same for me. Three, you do what I say during a lesson, because you're the student, and that only counts inside this apartment. Four, none of this touches the shop. Your job and mine are separate, and either of us can end this any week without it ever being weird at the counter. That is the entire deal. Deal?"

"Deal," I said. "You've done this teaching thing before?"

"A time or two." He stood up. "First lesson is the easiest and the hardest. Take your clothes off."

I kicked off my boots and got my shirt over my head. My hands went to my belt and I paused, suddenly aware of sixty-three years of dinners and bad posture.

"Keep going," Nico said. "You're not hideous. Stop fishing!"

"I wasn't fishing."

"You were. Keep going."

I got the rest off and stood there feeling like a roast gone wrong. He looked me over without hurry, like I was a machine he was checking over.

"Good. Now get on the bed and touch yourself."

"Come again?"

"Touch yourself. I'm going to watch. I want to see how you do it when nobody's directing you."

"That's... you're serious."

"Completely serious. Go on."

So I sat on the edge of the bed and took myself in hand. It felt strange with an audience, but not bad strange. I did what I always do, which is get to it.

"Stop," Nico said, before I'd gone thirty seconds.

I stopped. "What?"

"You went straight for the finish line. That is the entire problem with you, I bet. In and out. How long was your last hookup, start to finish?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe. Including the drive."

He laughed. "God. Okay. New plan. Start over, but slow. Touch your chest first. Your stomach. Anywhere but your cock. Take a full minute before you even go near it."

"This is ridiculous," I said, but my hand was already moving.

"It's not ridiculous, it's foreplay with yourself. Most men skip it. That's why most men are bad at this. Slow down."

I ran my palm across my chest. My nipples have never been a destination for me, but under his eyes they woke up fast. I dragged my hand down my stomach and felt every inch of it like it belonged to somebody else.

"Better," Nico said. He'd moved to the chair by the desk, just watching, arms crossed. "Now you can touch. But I want you at half speed. If you feel yourself getting close, you stop and take your hand away. Completely."

"That's torture."

"That's the lesson. Half speed, stop when you're close. Go."

Half speed turned out to be the hardest thing I'd done in years. Every instinct in me wanted to hurry, same as always, same as thirty years of hookups in bars and bathroom stalls and cars. Nico caught me twice ramping up and told me to take my hand off, and I did, breathing hard, my cock aching and ignored.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I'm sixty-three."

"You're frustrated. There's a difference. Start again. Half speed."

The third time I got it right. Slow strokes, my other hand on my thigh, my breath going long. The room got quiet except for me. I'd never paid attention to my own body like that. It was like tasting a coffee for the first time after years of drinking it scalding and fast.

"Good," Nico said, softer. "That's the feeling. Don't lose it. Keep going."

I kept going. He got up off the chair and came to the edge of the bed and I felt the mattress dip.

"Can I touch you?" he asked. "Just your chest. Nothing else yet."

"Yeah," I said. "Yes!"

His hand landed flat on my sternum, warm, and stayed there. He didn't grope or push. He just rested it there while I worked myself slow, and somehow that flat warm hand made everything ten times louder.

"See?" he said. "Slower is bigger. That's the whole first lesson."

"How many lessons are there?" I managed.

"However many it takes." He grinned down at me. "You can finish now. I want to watch you do it slow."

It took me another few minutes and it was the best orgasm I'd had in a decade, and it came from my own hand at half speed with a thirty-one year old man's palm on my chest. When I came down I was sweating and stupid.

"Well," I said.

"Yeah," Nico said. "Same time next Saturday?"

I should have played it cool. I didn't.

"Yeah," I said. "Same time next week."

A week later, on Saturday, I was back on Corliss Street at seven sharp. I'd thought about that flat hand on my chest every day at the roaster, which was a problem, because a roaster needs your full attention unless you like the smell of burnt money.

Nico opened the door in a t-shirt and boxers like last time. "You're early."

"You said seven."

"I did. Come in. Sit anywhere, it's all the same square footage."

I sat on the bed. He pulled the desk chair over backward and sat on it the wrong way, arms folded on the backrest.

"Tonight's lesson is different," he said. "Tonight you're not the subject. I am."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning I'm going to show you my body, and you're going to follow directions. Exactly. You don't improvise. You don't rush. You do what I say."

"Sounds like a recipe."

"Coffee man. Of course that's your frame." He grinned. "Yes. Like a recipe. First sip's mine, though. Stand up."

I stood. He stood too, then pulled his shirt off over his head. His chest was flat and soft in a way I didn't have words for, small scars under each nipple, a happy trail going down into the boxers.

"Flat," I said, before my brain caught up with my mouth.

"That's one word for it." He didn't sound mad. "Top surgery, four years back. I'm trans, you know that, and I kept the rest of what I was born with because I like it. Go ahead. Put your hand here." He took my wrist and set my palm on his chest, over his heart. "Feel that. Steady. Just rest it there a second."

I rested it there. His heart was slower than mine, I could tell.

"Okay. Now lower. My stomach. Slow, like you learned last week."

I dragged my hand down his stomach. He breathed out through his nose.

"Good. Hips next. Over the boxers, don't go inside yet."

"What am I feeling for?"

"Nothing yet. You're learning the shape. You people always skip the shape and go for the parts."

"Us people."

"Men. Present company included." He shifted his hips up into my palm a little. "Okay, boxers off. You do it."

I hooked my thumbs and pulled them down. He stepped out of them. I'd been with a lot of bodies over the years and none of them looked like this and that was fine, that was the point, actually. He had a cunt, hair trimmed short, and he stood there while I looked without flinching.

"Questions are allowed," he said.

"You said no improvising."

"Questions aren't improvising. Ask."

"What do you like having done to you? Broad strokes."

"Slow at the start. Firm once it's going. And I like being talked to, a little. Not dirty talk necessarily. Just... being told what's happening. Does that scare you off?"

"No. Surprises me, is all."

"Nobody ever talked to you?"

"Nobody I wanted to keep talking to."

Something crossed his face and was gone. "Okay. Sit on the edge of the bed. Watch."

He got himself off right there in front of me, two fingers, slow circles, and he watched me the whole time like he was grading. I felt my cock fill against my zipper and did nothing about it, because nobody had told me to.

"Your turn," he said, after. "Stand up. Take your clothes off. You know the drill by now."

I got naked fast. He lay back on the bed and pointed.

"Come here. Hand on my chest first, then work down. Half speed. Stop when I say stop."

I did the whole route, chest, stomach, thighs, inside of the thighs, and every time I got near the middle he'd say stop and I'd stop and he'd breathe.

"You're a good student," he said on the fourth pass. "Most guys would've just gone for it by now."

"I want to do it right."

"Why?"

"Because you're teaching me. Seems rude to waste it."

He laughed. "Okay. Now touch me. Two fingers, start outside. Talk to me."

"Talk to you about what?"

"Anything. The weather. Coffee. Just keep talking so I know you're present."

So I told him about the Ethiopian roast while I rubbed him slow, about how the natural process lot had come in too wet and Kaylee nearly cried. He got wet himself under my fingers, and his breathing changed, and somewhere in there I stopped narrating and started just saying what I felt.

"You're slick," I said. "You're... this is good. You feel good."

"Yeah," he said. "Keep that. Keep that exactly."

He was wetter than any woman I'd been with, or maybe I was just paying attention for once. I slid a finger inside him, slow, and his hips came off the bed an inch.

"There," he said. "Curl it. Like you're beckoning somebody. There. Don't lose it."

I didn't lose it. I kept my finger doing that lazy curl and rubbed the heel of my palm against him at the same time, and he started making this low noise like a roaster at full heat.

"Second finger."

I gave him a second finger. "Good?"

"God, yes. Keep going. You're allowed to talk, remember."

"You look..." I trailed off. "You look like you're enjoying yourself."

"I am." He laughed, breathless. "Romantic of you. Keep going. Faster now, you can."

I went faster. He grabbed my wrist and rode my hand, and I watched his face do things I'd never made a face do before, or at least never on purpose. When he came he clamped down on my fingers and swore, quietly, twice, and then lay there panting.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Wow. You're a quick study."

"I had a good teacher."

"Flattery gets you..." He sat up. "No, actually, flattery gets you nothing. That's a house rule." He reached under the bed and came up with a box. Inside was a strap-on, black, unremarkable, and a bottle of lube. "Now. Do you want to get fucked?"

I'll give myself credit, I didn't pretend I hadn't understood the question.