Don't Shout - 1. Chapter 1

Cole loved college. The difference between sixth form and secondary was such a big divide it may as well have been the damn-Grand-fucking-Canyon. School had been hell, a shit-fight every day of drama and hormones and his parents going off on him every time he put half a toe out of line. College was heaven. Cole also loved having such an early birthday. He had turned seventeen the day he’d started college, September 1^st, and while it meant that he was the oldest in his year, it also meant that he got to drive almost a year before most of his friends did. It also meant that he got to eighteen and legal that much quicker than everyone else.

Cole had spent the five years since he turned thirteen pretty much slap bang in the deepest closet he could find. Gay hadn’t even been a word in his vocabulary. Cole Sathie played sports, went hunting, rode horses; helped out on the farm hauling hay and feed, dagged out sheep and learnt to shear and ride a quad bike when he was ten. Gay didn’t really come into it.

There hadn’t been a lot of time for parties at school. What between homework, the dogs, farm duties, the horses and more school, Cole hadn’t had a great deal of free time, which was why his parents blew a gasket every time he was late home. Now he could drive. Independence at last. Cole had saved every penny of birthday and Christmas money, every pound his parents had ever given him for chores and farm work, and spent it all on his car. He had bought a beat up rust-red Toyota Hilux pick-up, the world’s most indestructible car according to Clarkson, fitted it out with a decent stereo and a heater that actually worked and bought a cover to go over the back in wet weather. He was the envy of his friends.

And things in Cole’s life were pretty good until the day he had first run into Jared Parker.

Cole had jogged into the main hall and cast about for his friends. He was tall, so looking over everyone else was de riguer, and he hadn’t noticed when he’d walked headfirst into a shorter second year student. The older boy was…pretty was so the wrong word. Sort of chiselled maybe? He had a strong square jaw and messy brown hair and stubble and hard blue eyes.

“Hey, dude, sorry,” Cole had reached out to help the boy, but he’d brushed him off, and without a word, got up and walked away.

And Cole hadn’t really though much about it until he’d seen that same boy, smiling with his own friends, nodding sagely along at something that had been said. When Jared Parker smiled, something inside Cole’s chest had lit up like a firecracker and snapped him in two.

After that, Cole saw him everywhere.

Cole would be going about his day and then, like a spirit or a ghost, Parker would just be there. After six months of having never seen the guy before, Cole couldn’t understand it. Jared would walk across his path, cross him as he walked the other way down corridors, be sitting in the café or standing in the line for the vending machines. He was everywhere. And after about a week of that, he started showing up in Cole’s head, in his dreams. And that drove Cole Sathie just a little bit mad.

It started small. Cole would wake up, knowing that he’d been thinking about Jared; then he would wake up having been thinking about Jared and have a stiffy that he couldn’t shake off. Then one Friday morning he woke up and remembered his dream. Jared Parker, naked, smiling in his bed and sucking him off.

Cole was a wreck at college, and his friends noticed. They were hanging out in the music common room, a dozen or so kids with guitars and picks, and Cole lounged off to one side with his best friend Wilton. They had English together and had met on Cole’s seventeenth birthday. They had almost nothing in common except a strange love for a band called The Hives, but got on like a house on fire.

“Dude, what is with you today?” Wilton tuned his pride-and-joy, his pearl white Fender Telecaster, and strummed a couple of chords, “It’s like you’re not even here.”

“You ever have weird fucking dreams about people you don’t even know that well?” Cole stared at the ceiling, blue eyes under floppy blond hair, picking at the hem of his ratty t-shirt. His mum and Wilton were always on at him to get some presentable clothes. He really did look like a Texas ranch hand, despite being as English as they come.

“Dude, you had better not be talking about me!” Wilton flicked the plectrum at his friend and snaffled another from his pocket -- he cut them out of old credit cards, “Please don’t tell me you dreamt about my girlfriend.”

Cole punched him, sort of lightly.

“Wil,” he shook his head and sighed, “it’s nothing, just not sleeping great. Lots to do back home, the ground is so fucking wet. Everything takes so much longer when it’s mud everywhere.”

Wilton went back to his guitar. His girlfriend often joked that she shared her man with the instrument; Cole had never seen him without it.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Too right, thought Cole to himself, but he chose not to elaborate for his friend.

*

Cole Sathie wasn’t in the closet, but he wasn’t out of it either. The idea plagued him as he walked from the common room out to the land management classroom. At school, there had been no time for girls or parties, and when men had arrived in his head when he masturbated he’d not really given it much thought. Now he was eighteen, he’d been at college for the last year and a bit, and he’d not told anyone he was gay. It had never come up. Cole was sure that if anyone had asked directly, he’d have told them the truth, but no one ever had. Girls asked him on dates, but he turned them down. And until now, there hadn’t been any boys who inspired the kind of loin-swelling reaction that Jared Parker gave him.

The whole thing was most unsatisfactory.

He had theory that day, which was just as well since it hadn’t stopped raining in weeks. Christmas this year was going to be a total wash out. Cole sat in the back of the class doodling on his notepad while his least favourite lecturer went on and on about irrigation techniques. Looking down at the sheeting rain outside, Cole thought the whole thing a bit of a moot point. From that they moved on to talk about the fundraiser. The idea had been to have an open air cinema thing in one of the farm fields, but since it had begun raining and never stopped, that had been scrapped. Bill came up with a sponsored hunt, but that got shot down pretty quickly. A gig seemed the obvious thing. There were plenty of barns and things at the farm, and Cole, through Wilton, knew all the music kids.

Cole ran to his truck and leapt in, slamming the door shut behind him. The rain hadn’t eased at all and he was soaked. He threw the pick-up into reverse, twisted to look out of the practically useless back window and reversed out of the space. Snapping forwards and into first gear he was about to move off when his foot slammed the brakes and he stalled the truck. Jared Parker was standing with his back turned in front of the truck like he didn’t know Cole had almost flattened him. Cole leant on the horn. Parker didn’t move.

Swearing to himself, Cole hooted again, then wound down his window and shouted unintelligibly into the rain. Eventually Jared turned, saw him and wandered off. Cole fumed. He drove home at top speed, which was almost dangerous with the visibility so low, and got to work with the horses.

*

Cole liked working with the horses. Regardless of how angry or upset he was, being with the big, strong, largely silent animals settled him down and made him happy, even when he didn’t want to be. Black Rock Farm Equine Yard had ten loose boxes facing each other either side of the yard and a tack and feed room at the far end. Cole’s family had three horses of their own: a retired thoroughbred called Bray, who had been his father’s favourite; a chunky black and white cob call Robin, who was super reliable; and Cole’s own horse, a big broad shouldered warm blood hunter. He was almost palomino in colouring, with the soft sand-cream body and the darker mane and tail. Cole whistled to Dune as he walked into the stalls and the horse brayed back, accompanied by a host of whinnies. Black Rock also had four horses on half livery, and Cole earnt most of his money by being chief in charge of the yard. There were a pair of lovely quarter horses owned by a really nice couple from Canada, a high strung black Arab whose owner was nice, but Cole through she was too harsh with her horse, and a gentle, practical bay cob, whose mature owner often hacked out with his mother on Robin.

Cole fed, mucked out, brushed down and exercised all the livery horses as well as his own, though he didn’t have to do it all the time. Half livery meant that the owners of the four guest horses were responsible for mucking out four out of seven days and exercising at least once a week. Cole would take out the horses at least once during the week, which meant that his weekends were free to ride his own horse.

Now he stood in the stable and de-rugged Dune, standing close to the big animal as he began to run his calloused hands over the horse’s smooth coat. He brushed his horse down, running short fingernails over the horse’s rounded muscles, itching and scratching, and all the time talking in a low voice. Dune kept an ear turned back to listen to his human, and Cole rambled on, not really paying attention to what he was saying.

“So Wilton said that he would talk to everyone about the fundraiser gig. I wish we could’ve had the cinema drive-in, that would have been so cool. Ah, that’s it, hey, boy, a nice good rub huh?” he ran his hands down the back of the horse’s legs in turn and snickered to Dune to inspect his feet, “I nearly ran someone over today, the rain was pointlessly heavy. At least you get to be in here uh?” Cole used the hook pick to clean out the horse’s feet and inspected and conditioned the hooves, cradling them in the crook of his elbow, “That Jared kid. I so cannot believe he didn’t hear me. He didn’t say anything either. Not even sorry.” Cole blew his hair from his eyes as he finished with the gelding’s feet and came around to start brushing the thick flaxen tail, “He’s never said two words to me, and I can’t stop thinking about him.” Dune whinnied and turned his head to watch his human with big liquid eyes, “Yeah, I know, I’m pathetic. Let’s get you dressed.”

Cole rode Western style with Dune most of the time, and today he went simply for blanket and girth, no saddle, and a bridle. Dune liked a copper-roller bit and it didn’t take the pair long to get tacked up. Cole changed from his work boots to his old cowboy riding boots, not the grey leather pair he kept for best, and swung up into the saddle as Dune emerged into the covered sand school. The indoor school was smaller than the one outside which was currently masquerading as a lake, but on days like this, it was a godsend. Cole rode one handed, toes tucked into the belly band, and clicked to his horse. The sixteen plus hand hunter had been bought for Cole’s fourteenth birthday present and, four years later, the pair shared a symbiotic relationship built on years of trust, thousands of hours of contact, riding and grooming, and hundreds of miles of covered ground. Dune acted like he knew what was going on in Cole’s mind, and Cole shifted his weight and flexed his strong thighs, guiding the horse with small movements around the school. He sang, snippets of sixties things he parents had grown up with.

“Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain/Telling me just what a fool I've been/I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain/And let me be alone again…”

Once they’d warmed up, Cole bunched his muscles, and his knees took Dune from trot to canter and back again. Cole lifted himself from the horse’s back, leant over the neck of the beast he trusted with his life and urged the hunter faster and further. Dune moved like they were one, cantering around the school, almost skipping in his grace, taking a wide arc around the outside before Cole lined him up for the jump. They were only cross poles, Cole didn’t want to be a proper jumper, but he loved to fly through the air with his horse below him. Cole knew he had other jobs to do, and homework, so he stopped their exercise after too-little time and led Dune back to the stalls.

He re-rugged the horse, rubbed him down and put the tack away. Then it was time to re-fresh hay for all seven horses, make up and soak the dinners, feed the horses and leave the radio on low for them. He would muck out later.

After that the litany of jobs went on and on. Dinner for the dogs, hoovering the ground floor of the house, washing up, laundry. By the time Cole went to collapse on his bed to try and look at his homework, his mum was ringing the bell for dinner and Cole had to join the literal dog-fight meals at the Sathie household entailed. Cole was the eldest of four brothers and one sister. Which was why he had the most chores, why his chores were the hardest and why his parents had been so hot on him when he’d been at school. Cole had been chief baby-sitter, and when his parents had needed to ferry him around, things had been strained. Now he was independent and Clayton had turned sixteen, things were easier. Watching the little ones had gotten passed down the line and apart from livery and chores, Cole was a free agent.

Cole was a bit lost in his thoughts when his dad plonked a bottle of fruit cider down in front of him. William Sathie was a big man, like the sons he produced, and they all shared the same blond hair. William wore his short to partly hide his receding hairline, having five children weighed heavy on the heart.

“You all right, buddy? You’re a bit quiet tonight.”

Cole took the drink and swigged. Ice cold fizz buzzed in his throat, welcome after the length of his day.

“Thanks Pa, I’m fine. It’s just the rain.”

“I’ve never seen it so wet,” Carla Sathie swatted at her two youngest sons, who instantly went back to kicking each other under the table, “It hasn’t rained this long and bad since we bought the farm.”

“How are the horses?” William asked.

“Fine. Bored.” Cole thought that he could be describing himself, “We’re having a gig for the college fundraiser. Wilton thought we might use the basement at the old brewery in town.”

“Sounds good. You gonna find a date for this one? Some nice girl to take out?”

Cole sighed. His lack of dates hadn’t gone unnoticed by his mother, who was as sharply perceptive as one might imagine in a woman who had raised five kids would be. At some point he was really going to have to come clean with his parents. Today was not that day.

Homework was a bust; Jared kept on turning up in his head. He drove Cole mad. He never said anything, not a by-your-leave, what’s-the-time. Nothing, nada, zip. And he acted like Cole didn’t exist, which made Cole really furious.

Cole had loved leaving his school, knowing that most of his senior classmates were staying on to attend the sixth form there, and he was one of only two kids from his school who had chosen the college on the edge of town. In a new place, his height and burly good looks got him noticed, but not by people he wanted to be noticed by. Jared Parker acted like he didn’t exist. And it was that which led to all the shouting.

*

“Hey, Farm-Boy!”

Cole scowled. It was too damn early and he was too damn wet to deal with Jake Patterson. Jake had been resident-prick-dipshit at school and as luck would have it, was the only other person from his school to attend his college. In the last year and a bit, Jake had found he had less and less material to tease Cole with, what with Cole being taller, stronger and happy in his social circle, so he’d settled with the one thing that all the kids at primary school had cottoned onto.

Farm-Boy. Cole hated it. He liked living on a farm; as far as he was concerned, it made his life better than everyone else’s. But it was different, and school or college, teenagers always equated different with wrong. Cole shrugged off Jake’s taunt and kept walking. He’d been up extra early to muck out in the mud and rain, and had been kept awake and restless all night by a combination of rain and visions of Jared Parker’s lips wrapped around his cock. So when the ball hit him in the back of the head he was not really in the mood to deal with it rashly.

Cole dumped his bag with a clatter, grabbed the rugby ball in one big hand, turned and hurled it. Unfortunately Jake had been standing a look closer than he’d thought, so the ball sailed overhead. Cole saw where it was going to land seconds too late.

“Look out!”

But Jared Parker kept on walking, head down, and got hammered by Cole’s throw. Not caring what Jake or anyone else thought, Cole leapt to his aide. He helped Jared up, checking him for damage, murmuring apologies.

“Jesus, dude, I’m so sorry. Are you OK? You’re not hurt are you? Shit,” Cole bent to collect Jared pile of spilled papers, “Here, crap I’m really sorry.”

Then he realised Jared hadn’t said anything. Cole frowned.

“Dude. Jared. Are you alright?” Cole laid a hand on the shorter students shoulder. To his surprise, Jared shrugged him off and turned to go.

Then Cole lost it. He grabbed Parker’s shoulder and hauled the smaller boy around.

“What the fuck dude, I said I was sorry!”

No answer.

“Oh so you’re that much better than me huh? You can’t just ignore people every time they try to apologise!”

“The fuck are you doing?” Cole found himself being pushed away by a fairly pretty brunette girl who had to be Parker’s sister -- same hair, same eyes.

“He-!”

“You stupid little shit,” she was doing something complicated with her hand while she talked, looking at Cole like he wasn’t fit to be dirt on the sole of her shoe, “He doesn’t need you to shout at him. He’s deaf!”

“Wha- but…” But it was too late. Cole was left standing there looking not only like an idiot, but like a jerk as Jared Parker and his sister walked away.

Jake swung past to grab his rugby ball.

“Nice dick-move, Farm Boy.” Cole was too shocked to respond.

*

Cole was stunned to find out that if he had actually stopped to ask anyone of his dozen friends about Jared Parker, they would have replied to a man ‘oh you mean the deaf kid?’ It was shaming. Cole spent the next hour of his free period hiding out under the south wing stair case, tucked into the spiral, allowing him time to think without being stared at. Jared Parker was deaf. Deaf. The concept was alien to Cole, like not being able to drive a quad bike, though he knew his perspective was a like out of whack. Cole Sathie lived in a world where shouting, over the phone, across the dining table, across a field, from horse to horse, through the house, over the noise of sheep, engines, shears and dogs, was a normal natural part of the world. Everyone who went to Black Rock Farm came away with a hoarse voice and covered in dog hairs. They were the rules.

And the boy who’d been occupying his thoughts was deaf. Well as if there weren’t enough problems already. For about the tenth time that day, Cole wished that his mother could be right; he could find a nice pretty girl and go on dates and kiss and make out like the rest of the world. He had so not asked to be gay. Gay in his world meant musicals and theatre and an interest in fashion. Cole couldn’t have been any less interested in fashion if you’d beaten him around the head with a Jimmy Choo heel. It was not on his radar.

So here he was infatuated, in-lust and insulting a probably straight, totally handsome deaf boy. Life was crap. And then Wilton showed up. Cole’s guitar wielding best friend tapped on the metal of the staircase as he bent down to meet Cole’s bright blue eyes.

“I thought you might be here. When you weren’t in your truck I was sure.”

“Hey Wil.” Cole shuffled a bit and made room for Wilton to sit next to him.

“So you went off on one at Jared Parker?”

“You heard.” Cole rolled his eyes and sighed. He’d never live this down.

“No dude I saw. I caught the end of your little exchange, mostly the bit where Katy yelled at you.”

“Shit.”

“Too right. So how long have you been carrying a torch for this Jared kid anyway?”

Cole’s head snapped up in shock, not quite believing what he’d heard.

“Well?”

“But…I never…How did you…”

“Fuck Cole,” Wilton clapped him on the arm, “I’d have to have been under a rock for the last year. You never go on dates. You’ve turned down every girl who has ever asked you out and I know you haven’t got a secret one at home. You check out guys; you’re not exactly subtle.”

“Ah…crap.” Cole slid his head into his hands.

“Dude, I have known for ages. It changes nothing. Now haul your arse out of that rut before I have to drag you out myself.”

Cole stared at his friend, disbelief fighting with hope for first place in his emotions.

“Really?”

“Really really,” Wilton sighed and shook his head, holding out a hand to his friend, “We’re going to be late for anthropology dude.”

Cole took the hand that was offered and felt the weight fall from his heard like a lead blanket as he stood. One person knew. One person. A secret shared was a secret halved right? Cole scooped up his bag, wondering how much grovelling he was going to need to do to try and get into Jared Parker’s personal space again.

*

It took him three days to track down the right person at college, and a further half to find Jared. The other boy was sitting with his sister and some friends in the canteen. Cole didn’t know how he’d missed it before. Jared never laughed, he just smiled, and his friends used sign language around him. There was his sister, and another girl who was obviously deaf, signing with a speed that scared Cole. Jared’s sister was translating was for the obviously-in-love couple sitting on Jared’s other side. The five friends looked deeply happy. Cole felt like shit.

Cole approached their table from the end, so that both Jared and his sister could see him coming. Jared saw him, and turned away, but the girl fixed him with a hard stare, as though battling his will to make him veer off and leave them alone. Years of holding his own at home and with the farm staff allowed Cole to walk up without flinching.

“I have to say something to him,” Cole gestured to Jared, but looked at his sister. It had been hard enough tearing his gaze away from Jared the first time. He really didn’t want to freak the guy out more than he already had.

“You do realise that he can’t hear you,” The girl signed as she spoke, her hands moving fluidly and automatically, “and I am not translating.”

“No. I know that. It’s OK.” She turned from him and signed to Jared. She mouthed the words as she did so, but Cole was a rubbish lip reader. “Fine.”

Jared turned to look at him and Cole felt his heart beat double time as blue eyes a shade darker than his own stared him down. Jared Parker hated him. Cole gulped. He smiled at Jared and put his fist to his chest with a little thud. After a pause he moved his fist around in a little clockwise circle a few times. Cole mouthed the words as the British Sign Language teacher had instructed him to.

‘I’m sorry.’

Jared stared, and the moment stretched Cole’s heart beat out until he thought he might not make it through another breath. And then Jared smiled.

It was like the sun coming out, the gorgeousness that spread across his face. Jared was cute, sort of good looking, but when he smiled Cole flipped. That smile was beautiful, it made Jared beautiful, and Cole loved that he’d made that smile happen.

Jared signed something fast, but it included a gesture directed towards Cole. Hopeful, Cole looked up at Jared’s sister.

“He’s says you got a lot of learning to do, Farm-Boy.” The girl grinned evilly, “Bye now.”

Cole had never felt more dismissed in his life, sent out of Jared’s presence with a little downwards flip in the same way you would shoo a dog. It was like a slap in the face and Cole rammed his hands in his pockets and stalked away, gritting his teeth until he got into his truck. Only once he’s slammed the Hilux’s door with a metal pop did he allow himself to cry. The tears were bitter, angry and stupid, but that didn’t mean that Cole could stop them from falling. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and bunched the muscles in his back and shoulders to keep from lashing out.

It wasn’t fair. In Cole’s mind, the situation twisted around to laugh at him. He’d met Jared by fluke, and the boy had somehow worked his way into Cole’s consciousness and wrapped the big farmer around his little finger. All without saying word. And now that nickname. How had he found that out? To be called that by the boy Cole had spent all his time thinking about, whether he wanted to or not, was chilling. Cole had genuinely hoped that at college the nicknames wouldn’t follow him everywhere. And yet a deaf boy and his sister knew it. Cole scuffed his foot on the floor of the truck. Glancing at the car clock, he seriously thought about ditching the rest of the day.

The thought of explaining to his mother what he was doing home riled him, but all he would miss would be machine-shop, which he didn’t really like anyway. The workshop at the farm was better equipped anyway, and every time Cole had a car question, between him, his dad and Mick, they managed to sort it out. Cole exhaled loudly in the confines of his car and watched the drizzle coming down. It had rained every day for a nearly a month, sometimes heavy, sometimes a thick mist, but it was every day. The rain got to Cole like no other weather did. Born on a dude ranch in hottest Texas, the only one of the Sathie kids to experience American life properly, Cole missed the heat that had touched his early years. Rain depressed him. More than that, his sudden, inescapable, unshakeable desire for a boy who he barely knew and who he’d managed to offend rather deeply ate at him like a dog gnawing a bone.

Cole fired up his truck with a petrol roar and boom and pulled out of his space, but he checked first, just in case.

In town, Cole dashed from truck to shop and back again to get out of the rain clutching a book in one hand. It was blaringly black and yellow, entitled ‘British Sign Language for Dummies’. It seemed like a good place to start.

*

“What is he doing?” Chase, youngest of the Sathie brothers, peered around his oldest brother’s bedroom door with his little sister, peering at their sibling.

“Dunno. Is it dance?” Cory was eight, and everything her eldest brother did fascinated her. A decade older than she was, they were not very close, but she idolised him.

“I don’t think so,” Chase was eleven, and therefore worldly and wise in the eyes of his only sister, “He’s not moving his feet.”

“What’re you doing, Cole?” Cory, too young to understand tact, walked into the room where her brother stood in front of his mirror, tapping his left hand with different fingers, his brow furrowed.

“Hey you two…” Cole dropped the book and collapsed on the floor, his bare feet stretching out to rest against the mirror on the carpet, “You spying on me again.”

“No!” The jinxed answer was too quick to be true, and Cole smiled.

“Nothing, really. I’m just trying to learn something new.”

“What is it?” Chase fetched the black and yellow book and flicked through it, “Sign language? Why do you want to learn that?”

Cory put her head on one side, staring up at her brother with eyes the same as his own. Apart from being inexplicably more tan than every other member of his family, Cole looked just like all his family. The Sathie clan shared their blue eyes and blond hair, their height and ready smiles.

“Do you have a new friend, Cole?”

Cole loved the innocence of his little sister, it never failed to amaze him.

“Sort of. He speaks in sign language. I’m trying to learn my name.” Cole made a C shape with his right hand then used his index finger to touch to left index finger, third finger and palm. He grunted under his breath, knowing he’d gotten the letters wrong again. “I’m not very good at it.” Cory hugged him just as the dinner bell went, and Cole braced himself for another long evening of chores and forgotten homework.

*

Cole lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling. His parents had bought him the double bed when he turned eighteen at the beginning of the school year, and Cole had been grateful for the extra space. Not that he had really envisioned sharing it. Cole lay across his bed on a diagonal, fitting his long frame onto a mattress that was too short in any other direction.

He signed his name into the air above his head, thankful that it was only four letters long. Why Jared? How had the boy gotten so twisted up in his mind? He wasn’t ridiculously hot or anything, at least, he didn’t look like the oiled go-go muscle boys Cole had seen on the internet. Of course, he didn’t even know if Jared was gay. Sitting at that lunch table with his sister and friends, anything could be possible, but Cole reasoned that his fantasy was unlikely to be true.

Doesn’t stop it from being a fantasy… his inner voice said and Cole closed his and sighed. Most people wouldn’t call Jared ridiculously hot, but they hadn’t seen him smile, had felt the heat and sun that flowed from him and lit an answering fire in Cole that he didn’t even know had been there. Cole snaked a hand under the sheets and blankets and stripped himself of his cotton pyjama trousers. Jared’s face had appeared in his mind, in his dreams, but now Cole took control of the vision, twisted it, and used the images as he stroked himself.

Cole was sort of proud of his body. Growing up outside and being physical every day had given him a layer of muscles and sinew over his lanky frame with not a scrap of spare flesh. He was wasn’t really muscly, just taut and lean, and Cole ran his rough hands over his chest as he sucked down air enough to keep breathing. Cole rubbed the head of his cock, already hard and dripping onto the flat muscles of his abdomen, and thought of Jared. The boy was so perfect, shorter than him, but not tiny, and that stubbled jaw, those big full lips and it was all too easy for Cole to wrap his hand around his hard cock and imagine Jared’s lips doing the same. Cole hissed and drank the air through his clenched teeth as he stroked himself closer to climax, his fist pumping the seven inches of blood filled muscle that burned and throbbed for release. Cole felt a familiar exhilarating tightness in his scrotum, gripped tighter and pounded the last few strokes as every muscle he possessed clenched. Jared’s big blue eyes filled his inner vision as he came across his own chest, hot white seed searing his skin as he arced off the bed.

He went limp, sagging and panting when it was over. Cole sighed, a noise which was half a growl, and used one finger to trace lines and patterns in the come that decorated his hairless skin. Eventually he was going to have to get up and wash, that he knew, but for now, as his mind began to relax, to let him lose from the stresses of his day, Cole Sathie was content to close his eyes and dream of another’s touch.