Alari burped, loudly.

"After making me promise never to fuck him?" he raged, shaking the empty bottle of beer in the bartender's face as the man just nodded, continuing to wipe down the bar. "He's such a hypocrite." He took a gulp of his beer. "And gay. He's so gay. You know I'm sure he bottomed." Alari hiccoughed.

"And the problem with bottoming would be...?" the bartender asked, raising a thinly shaved eyebrow at Alari.

"Nothing!" Alari replied, quickly backtracking. "I love bottoms. If bottoms didn't exist, who'd I have sex with?"

The bartender rolled his eyes and continued to work as Alari drank from the bottle in his hand and huffed, remembering that it was empty.

"And Fame!" Alari slammed the bottle on the bar. "That sleazy piece of shit."

"Mm hmm," the bartender agreed, taking the bottle away.

"He just waltzes into our apartment with his... his perfect hair and his jawline and his... his dick! I'm sure he bottomed too."

"Then who fucked whom?"

Alari had to think about that, but his mind was too fogged up to put faces to actions, so he gave up.

"I'm sure they're both bottoms. Pretty packages of happy bottoms that would just..." Alari groaned in frustration. "I'd make it good. God," he dropped his head on the bar, desperately thinking about it. "I'd be so good, if they'd stop making me make stupid promises. I mean, how hard is it to fuck a roommate? There's always a complication. The ones who mean nothing want it to mean everything. The ones who mean everything want to fuck other people who are not you?" Alari looked at the bored bartender. "I hate men." He turned around to look around the bar. "I'm going to fuck a woman tonight."

The night was so late, the day was early. The crowd had thinned out and there were only about a couple of people still swaying on the dance floor. The bar, itself, was completely empty, even though music swayed in the air. As long as it wasn't dawn yet and there were still patrons, a host stood off to the corner, watching them. The disco lights had gone off hours earlier, long before Alari started to feel a buzz.

He looked between the two couples remaining on the dance floor and was annoyed that there was no woman among them.

"You're not fucking anyone," the bartender said.

"Says who?"

"Says me," a tiny, fair-skinned man said, sliding into the seat beside him as Alari turned back around and buried his head in his hand. "Where's my painting, Alari?"

"Matthew," Alari whined on the bar. This was not the day. He should have known Matthew would show up.

"You're two weeks behind."

"I'm done with the painting. I swear," he said, remembering how he'd stormed out of the house that morning without even picking up his things.

"You said that last week," Matthew said, pulling the bartender over the bar to land a comfortable kiss on the bartender's lips. "Did you cut him off?"

"Yes, but he refused to leave."

"You're not drinking anymore."

"Seriously!"

"We're leaving."

"No."

"Yet you're going."

Matthew grabbed Alari's shoulder to pull him up, but Alari evaded him and grabbed Matthew by the neck and pulled him so close that their faces were inches from each other.

"Kiss me."

"My boyfriend is literally two feet away from you."

"I don't care. He can kiss me too."

Matthew's lips fell apart as he frowned up at Alari. When Alari moved in to kiss him, Matthew pulled back.

"I'm taking you home and putting you in your bed."

"Or!" Alari shouted, slinging his hands over Matthew's shoulders and nearly losing his balance as he got off the bar stool. Matthew had to scramble to hold both their weight and keep them from skidding to the ground. "You and Tunde can take me home and fuck me."

"You don't want Tunde," Matthew said, trying to pull Alari's hands from around his neck.

"Why not?" Alari asked, looking over Matthew's shoulder at the bartender, who was watching them, quietly.

"He's a top."

"I don't care."

"Really?" Tunde asked, pushing away from the wall. "You don't mind?"

"You're drunk," Matthew said.

"Ask me anything."

"Two-fifty times five?" Matthew asked.

"One-two-fifty!"

"Pfft," Tunde huffed. "Three-hundred-and-nine times seven."

"He's a painter. He doesn't know math," Matthew said.

Alari thought about it and then-

"Two, one, six, three!"

Matthew looked back at Tunde as Tunde took out his phone to verify it.

"If I'm right, we're going home together."

"You wouldn't even be right if you were sober," Matthew said.

"He's correct," Tunde said, stunned.

"You promised," Alari said, dipping down as he captured Matthew's lips in a gripping kiss, moaning into his mouth as Matthew held on to him.

"Come on, you two." Tunde was pulling them out of the bar, car keys in hand as Matthew managed to dislodge Alari from his face long enough to grab Tunde's jacket from the wall.

"Where are you going, Boss?" another bartender asked as they exited.

"None of your damn business," Tunde replied, letting the door swing shut behind them.

~|~

The trip from Tunde's bar back to Alari's apartment was a bit of a blur, but he could remember spending most of it with his dick down Tunde's throat. By the time he was dragged into his room, Alari couldn't find it in himself to think about anything that was going on.

Tolu had hurt him so badly. After all these years. He'd thought he knew him, but he'd been so wrong. Tolu wasn't as straight as Alari had thought. And more than that, he was sleeping with a roommate. Tolu and Fame were... a thing.

But that didn't matter. Because Alari was over them. He was here and Tunde and Matthew were going to fuck him senseless. He'd never felt so powerless during sex before. He'd always been the aggressor, the one in charge. And yet, that night, he'd just stood or sat or lay as they positioned him, bringing him pleasure, orgasm after orgasm.

Bottoms had all the fun. All they got to do was lie there and be waited upon like pretty, delicate things. Alari was too loopy to examine what was actually going on around him. At the end of the night, when Tunde and Matthew were both as sated as Alari felt, he felt them moving around his room and entering his bathroom and rummaging all over the place. He honestly couldn't bring himself to care because if he was being truthful, Alari would admit that he was still a little bit drunk.

When they got back into bed with him and Alari felt the warm dampness of a towel as they cleaned him up, Alari drifted off to the first mindless, peaceful sleep he'd had in days.

~|~

Alari woke up naked, spread across his bed and alone. When he tried to lift his head from his pillow, it felt almost as if someone was hitting him with a hammer. He dropped his head back down and turned to the side where he found a glass of water and a couple of tablets. Reaching for them, he didn't even question what they were. He threw the pills into his mouth, downed the water and then laid back down on his bed.

Last night was cathartic. Last night was awesome. Alari, however, could not believe that last night, he'd bottomed.