Crosscurrents - 23. Amped

Brad didn't know how to fuck; he only knew how to make love.

He hid it well that first time--the time where I paid off on the bet--but I should have realized it anyway. It's just that I wasn't in much condition to realize anything in the aftermath.

I hadn't given myself much opportunity to reflect on it. I was busy, and anyway, thinking about it did things to me. The memories of that first time with him weren't clear and clean and decisive, because the experience wasn't.

When I thought back on it...it was good.

But not necessarily coherent.

I'd been in my head when he'd fucked me, and everything about it was jumbled, and fragmented stream-of-consciousness thoughts mixed with sensation and emotion and flashes from other times and places and I

was swirling flashing flipping fusing confusing between the past and present

His face had been my anchor

keeping me from drifting too far back keeping me there with him keeping me in the moment

His beautiful face.

He'd tried to keep it light with his words--just a couple of buds trying something new and freaky--but there were other things that came at me in the storm of sensation and thought and feeling that slammed me around as he pounded into me.

his blue eyes like Matt but no his radiation smile the stubble on his chin his moans his morphing expressions of surprise of wonder

of pleasure

of something else I'm not sure what

Something else. The way it all reminded me of something

(someone)

a night

I remembered

the naked openness the caring the

the not-caring about the things that didn't matter

the hard soft hard kisses tender lips and slow deliberate and him taking it all in with his tongue on mine my tongue on his slow deliberate tender hard kisses

wet

so wet and hot and every flick lick caress of his

wordless saying this is what I mean right now

oh Matt I

And with him deep inside of me

Brad

the real of him

the him of him

notfucking me

Not "fucking" because it was better than that.

easing in sometimes slamming in but always always doing down there what he was doing up here

so wet and hot and down there hard inside me

wordless saying this is what I mean right now

you are what I mean right now

And that last thought fragment...

I was.

I was what he meant, that is. I could tell. In that place where you don't always know you know something.

My first time with him, he hid it...

I should have realized, but I wasn't in much condition to realize.

I'd been in my head.

Confusing and fusing between the past and the present.

Or I'd have seen it:

Brad didn't know how to fuck; he only knew how to make love.

---------

He'd come up to me in the locker room after practice the Monday after we'd been at his place watching gay porn with the guys. The regular season was over, and we were preparing for the NCAA South Central Regional Tournament.

We were stripping down for showers. That was trouble. He'd been trouble, a little, since the night we were together. Especially since Sunday night, before the guys came over, when he'd told me…

"Hey, you listenin' to me?" He shook me by the shoulder.

He'd been talking; I'd been thinking. And staring. I realized he'd seen me looking. All of a sudden, the locker room, the tasks at hand, snapped back into my consciousness.

I fired off a series of orders at myself. Undress. Shower. Dry off. Put your street clothes back on.

I'd been staring at his thighs.

"Huh?"

"Andy!"

"What!"

"You're staring at my dick, man. You maybe don't wanna do that in here," he said quietly.

"I wasn't."

I wasn't staring at his dick. But I wasn't staring at his thighs anymore, either. Actually, I was staring at a fairly blank section of real estate just above his pubes.

"Okay, right; sure you weren't. Look, you know I don't care. In fact, I was just gonna say…"

He told me to stop by at 11 that evening. I heard that from miles away, because I was having trouble staying focused around him.

Somewhere in the interior I heard him tell me to bring a change of clothes, heard him tell me that the next morning he'd drive me to wherever I needed to go, whenever I needed to.

But I wasn't thinking. I wasn't even listening. Not fully.

But some things registered; my protective instincts kicked in: He was right. I needed to shake it off before somebody noticed. I needed not to think about what we were going to do. I needed not to think about what he was saying on my way to the showers. It would show.

And not on my face.

I tried not to think about the upcoming evening. I tried not to focus on the line of hair trailing down from his navel. I tried to will my dick into submission.

Tried to keep it from telling the truth.

But all that extraneous information, all that dangerous input. All that sexual chaos. I took in his words but was concentrating so hard on shutting out the rest of the data--especially the visual data--that I missed the nuance.

Missed the Big Unsaid.

---------

When I knocked, it was 11 sharp. He came to the door in a pair of faded jeans that rode his hips like they'd been custom-tailored to sex me up. No shirt.

God, the sight of him...

I handled him well enough when sex wasn't the subtext, and usually sex wasn't the subtext. But tonight…

Tonight sex wasn't even the subtext. It was the text.

"I'm nervous," he said. "Scared, I think."

Thank God, I thought. It helped me relax.

I was scared too. But I was supposed to be the top tonight.

So I grinned and said, "I don't bite. Well, actually I do, but scary ain't the word to describe it. I been told I'm about as scary as a cheese sandwich. Course, the guy who said that's too much of a tard to know better, but you got no worries tonight."

He laughed. I could see the relief. "Get in here."

---------

"The guys are gone for the evening," he said as he foraged through the fridge for a couple of beers. "I told 'em I needed 'em outta here."

He handed me a can of Coors. I was considering what he'd just said. "Hey, you didn't tell 'em…"

He laughed. "What, you think I'm stupid? I may be good with it, and for all I know they may be good with it, but I think I'll keep this between us, y'know?"

"I was just sayin'," I replied. "I'm not hiding from anyone. You know I don't give a shit if people…"

"I know," he said, before I had a chance to finish. "But I'm not sure if I give a shit if they do or not, so let's just leave it like it is, okay?"

"Sure."

He sat down on the sofa with me.

We watched some TV. A Seinfeld rerun was on. We practiced not saying anything for a while. It wasn't a good strategy, but it was the only one that was willing to stand up and grab the floor.

I didn't have the guts to get on with it; some top I was.

Finally he sighed and said, "Let's get to it. I didn't ask you over to drink and watch TV. What's under your soccer shorts?"

"Me," I said.

"That's all?"

"Freeballin' it," I grinned. "Why? What's under your jeans?"

"Same thing, he said.

But we couldn't seem to stop watching TV.

I'm wanting to say it was because of the Soup Nazi. Maybe that was it, in a way. It was the episode about the Soup Nazi, and it wanted to be watched.

So we watched, and as we watched, I understood that we were both trying to get some kind of foothold on what we were about to do.

-------

"There's plenty of room here tonight. It'll be late, maybe. You don't have to walk home afterward," Brad said abruptly, as Kramer was being accosted by the two gay guys stealing the armoire.

I turned my head and looked at him, confused...

But not really.

At least, not in that wordless pre-conceptual place inside where you know what you know even before you realize you know it.

But the other place inside, the one that tries to know things--the place that wants to know what it knows--that place had to be satisfied. And that place was still wondering what-the-fuck.

And that place was controlling the speech center at the moment. So I talked, and I kept talking. And talking. And talking.

I said, "What? Where?"

And I said, "You…I mean, out here on the sofa, or you think…like one of your roomies won't mind if I use one of their beds?"

And I said, "I guess…Well, or what did you mean?"

But I was running out of steam. My conscious mind didn't know it, but I didn't want to hear the silence and I didn't want to hear the answer; the answer seemed like it might be too complicated for me to deal with, on several levels. So I kept going.

I said, "Why would I do that? It's no problem for me to just walk back to the dorm once we're…"

Brad put a halt to all that. "No," he said, interrupting. His face reddened.

Then, softly, almost timid, he came at me again. "I mean…do you do that ever?"

"Huh?"

He shook his head. "Stop it."

His lips said it, and then his eyes said it: Stop the bullshit.

Caught and called out, I looked at him and realized it was time to man up.

"In your bed, you mean. With you."

"Yeah."

"Sleep with you."

"Yeah." Quieter this time.

I stared into his face. Seconds crawled by.

"Why?"

More seconds crawled by.

He said, "I don't know."

I didn't either.

It was a conversation-stopper. There was nothing I could think of to say. I came over so he could "see what it was like." And now it was clear that this was about something else. Something additional.

And it wasn't just about where I was going to sleep tonight.

I didn't know how to navigate that. I hadn't come prepared for it.

So I stalled. Repeated myself. "But why?"

After an interminable awkward silence, he said, "Maybe so it's real. I don't know."

At least it was an answer. But "real"? What kind of real? What did that mean, anyway?

I didn't doubt for a minute Brad was straight. And I'd realized for more than a year that "gay" and "straight" were just signs designating spots in a dense forest. Still, the knowing part of me didn't get what was going on:

"Playing around" I got. "Seeing what it's like" I got.

Not this. Not sleeping together.

I felt bare. And wary. And ignorant. And more than a little lost. I knew this was something--part of me did, anyway. But I didn't know what, or what to do with it or think of it, or how to respond to it, or what to feel about it...and it was my turn to say something.

"I don't understand," I said. "This is just…I mean, you're not…I dunno, man; I don't understand what you want from me now. Or…I mean, I gotta say, what you asked me: The answer is no, I don't do it ever. Not with a guy. I...I've never spent the night sleeping next to a guy. Not...not like that."

I didn't understand. Brad was straight. Sleeping next to him, that was somehow even more intimate than sex. What the fuck?

I couldn't take my eyes off his. I could only stare.

But there was a clarity lurking just under my confusion that felt vaguely threatening.

I didn't know what he wanted...but I knew all too well what he wanted:

Something I didn't want to give.

Something I wanted to give too much.

As I turned and churned all this in my head, I was aware of his steady, quiet breathing and his intense stare.

I had to say something. I was willing myself to say something.

My brain knew better than to speak up when it was clueless, though.

After what felt like a century, he said something.

Whispered something.

"Please."

There it was, in one whispered word. Naked. Wide open. Laying it all out.

A need. And he was putting himself in my hands.

I knew what I needed to do.

I couldn't do it.

I couldn't not do it.

I let those two battle it out in my head—in my heart—while I played the helpless, innocent bystander to myself.

I could see the fear bleeding out of his eyes, the flow of it escalating, intensifying with every passing minute of silence from me. I knew damn well that asking to get fucked was insignificant compared to his second request. He wanted something from me that even guys who experiment sexually with each other don't admit to wanting.

Fucking him...We'd made some peace with that. I was ready for it, and it seemed to me that we'd both know how to play it, especially since we'd already done it, roles reversed.

I knew, though, that his second request took some graduate-level courage, and that the need it voiced—a short-term need, maybe—overrode all the cautions and inhibitions that guarded places like that in guys who understood themselves as straight. Guarded it mainly from themselves.

Graduate-level courage. But my brain had put my voice on Mute for the duration of the war going on inside me. I couldn't help him.

A minute ticked by.

Two.

I couldn't talk.

The fear in him partnered up with some shame. I saw it when the two joined forces: He couldn’t look me in the face anymore.

"Never mind," he said, breaking the silence, regret joining the fear and the shame. "Let's just do this, and I'll take you home. Or...you know what? We don't even have to do it. I'll just get my car keys." He started walking toward his bedroom.

Something about the defeat, the embarrassment in his voice, tipped the struggle inside me.

"Wait."

It came out stronger than I'd intended, but it achieved the desired effect. He stopped in his tracks and turned back toward me.

"I'll stay," I said, trying to smile.

He stared at me. Silent. Intense. "I'm not gay," he said.

"I know," I replied.

"I'm not bi," he added.

"Okay," I said.

"I don't know why. I can't explain. I just want you here with me tonight. After."

"In your bed."

"Yeah."

"It's fine, Brad," I said. "I like it, I think."

He stared at me. I thought he was going to say something else, so I waited, but no words came out of his mouth.

"What?" I said.

"Not sure how to say it."

"Give it a shot," I said. "You and me, we're fine."

"I'll try," he said. He took a deep breath. "I...don't take this wrong, but I think you're a great guy. The way you came out and stood up against Shane...I can't even tell you the balls that took. And you're a leader, Andy. All the freshmen and even some of the upperclassmen on the team take their cues from you and me. It's almost like you're co-captain, and you're just a freshman. You keep team morale up. You keep everybody working hard. You're out there in games encouraging everybody, pumping everyone up. And you have a personality that doesn't fuckin' quit.

"I don't think I've met anyone like you. You got the athlete thing going, and you're a fuckin' scholar in all your classes, and beyond that...is there a subject you don't know something about? And we won't even talk about your looks, or your luck with the ladies...or the guys."

I wanted to crawl in a hole, I was so embarrassed.

It must have shown in my eyes, because he quickly added, "I'm not sayin' I wanna fuckin' have your babies or that I think you're a god or something. You're actually pretty fuckin' annoying sometimes. But...

"But I look in your eyes--they're pretty intense, dude--and there's something about you I want to get next to. Fuck, I don't even know what I mean. It's got nothin' to do with your body. Or...not much, anyway. It's not that your body turns me on, like I jerk off thinking about it, because I don't. But...oh, man, how do I say this. I want the sex, but it's not exactly about the sex. Does that make any sense?"

He got up and started pacing; what was it about me that made guys pace?

He looked at me and said, "Can we…can it be just you and me tonight? Can we say nothing else is real? Not the rules, not what we are, not what we're not, not gay, not straight, not what's gonna happen tomorrow, not what people would think if they knew, not what you think of me after tonight's over. Not anything. Can it just be about...I don't know, about you and me, doing this, and spending the night together?"

I was in over my head, but his words were pulling me in. Feelings I'd let loose only once before had begun swirling around in the background of my consciousness. "Brad," I said. "I…this isn't like the last time. What you're saying, that's…that's more like…"

"Don't say it," he cut in. "Please. Can we just not have anything else be real? Can we just make everything else go away and just…just…experience it like this?"

I wasn't even sure what "this" was. I'd never been anywhere remotely resembling it. Not with a guy, anyway.

Well, not recently.

And I knew he was straight. More than anything else, that was the reason I was so utterly confused.

Matt was straight too, the Voice reminded me.

It was true. And as for what Brad asked me to do...

I wanted it.

In fact, I needed it. I needed to know what it was like to give myself over to a guy. To thrust deep into him, to explode inside him…and then to stay. To touch. To let him fall asleep in my arms. To take comfort in his presence, his nearness, as we slept, and to have him do the same. But when you put the whole thing together...wasn't that "making love"?

He hadn't called it that, but I knew that's what it was. When you're just fucking, you want to kick the person out after you're done. He didn't want to kick me out. He didn't want me to leave.

He wanted me to stay. To sleep next to him. Up against him.

All night.

I wasn't ready for it, but my heart had already seized on the answer.

I repeated it to myself:

Brad wasn't asking "to see what it's like."

Brad wanted us to make love.

And I wanted it.

Wanted to experience it without regret or fear or shame this time.

As that thought passed through my head, something inside almost snagged and caught on the "this time." To say I'd get it right this time meant owning up to the awareness that there was another time.

And I kept trying to forget that. It was working a little, but not as well as I'd have liked.

But the snag was only temporary. I turned my mind back to Brad.

He wants me to stay all night. He wants us to wake up together, next to each other. Maybe even...

I made up my mind.

"Yeah," I said. "I already told you I'd stay...and...well, about the rest? I can do that. I want to do that."

He sighed with relief. "It's...I didn't even know I was gonna ask until it was outta my mouth," he said nervously. "I'm trusting you with a lot. Not about fucking me, I almost don't give a shit if the whole team knew. Everybody already knows you did Greg and Dean. And I know what I am, I'm not worried about turning queer. It's just...see, I'm trusting you about the...about the other stuff. It's not like...it's not the sex that's making me feel..."

"I know what it is," I said.

"You do? I don't."

"I don't know what to call it," I said. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "But I know what it is. And it's good...I like it. Anyway, it's nothing to be scared about, right? Well...I guess it's a little scary. But nothing we can't handle. It's just you and me. Who else needs to know?"

"You can keep me that safe?"

I smiled. "Well…can you keep me that safe?"

"Yes. I can," he said. I was impressed with the confidence that registered on his face when he answered me.

"Then so can I," I replied. "I'll be all about you tonight, Brad."

I looked at him when I said it and saw gratitude in his face. Gratitude and grace and far too much gravity. We'd had enough of the heavy talk, I decided in that moment.

"I wasn't kidding when I said you're gonna feel the earth move," I said, winking at him.

He snickered: It was going to be okay. So I continued. "Seriously," I said, "do what you wanna do with my body. I'll do what you ask me to do with yours. Touch me where you want. Tell me to touch you where you want. I'll do it. Talk how you want. Make it dirty, make it romantic, even make it mechanical. You know, like, 'Please put your dick in two and a half inches deeper.' " His big smile gave way to a full-fledged belly-laugh; I thought he was going to fall off the sofa.

"Or, don't say anything at all. My point is, nothing's off limits," I said…"I mean, unless it involves using me as a toilet."

His whole face turned sour, but I could tell it was a fun sour. "Jesus, Sharpe, that's fuckin' disgusting," he said. "No worries there."

"Good," I said, laughing. "I can handle anything else."

He looked into my eyes. "I don't know what's going on," he said. "I just feel like I need this, but I don't know if I'm gonna like it," he said. "If I get grossed out and have to stop…"

"Just tell me and I'll back off," I said. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. We'll stop right then."

"The cool thing about when I fucked you," he said, "was how totally relaxed I was. And how much you liked it. Your face, man. It was like…"

He paused. "There was more in your face than sex. It was…I don't know what it was. I just knew I had to know firsthand. I want to feel it myself."

"Brad," I said, "I…I promise I'll make it all about making you feel good. In all the ways you're talkin' about."

His face flushed. "Okay, then. Thanks. I...You're an amazing guy, Andy. It's like I said: I like you a lot." He frowned. "Shit, that sounds so lame. I don't know what the fuck I'm trying to say. It's more than that."

I smiled. "I like you too, Brad, and really, I get it. You don't need to explain yourself to me."

He sighed and shrugged. "Thanks."

I could see he wasn't finishing speaking his mind. "Seems like there's more," I said. "Talk to me."

He nodded. "Here's what I was gonna say. I wanna do this. But it's not gonna work if I'm not relaxed. Especially when I'm tryin' to get your dick up me. If I start freakin' out, it'll ruin it for sure. I'm still not sure it'll be good, but I know it won't be if I'm not comfortable."

"I promise you I won't let that happen," I said.

I studied him as he reflected on all that.

"I need to say one more thing. I...I'm not like the rest of y'all. I never did sex and just fucked around. My heart's always in it. Not saying I have to be all in love and stuff. I'm saying I can't just get off. I always find myself…you know, thinking about the person I'm with. Deep thoughts and shit. Feelings. It's how it's always been with me…"

His voice trailed off. I could tell from his eyes that he was replaying some past encounter. After a few moments he shook his head and continued. "I figured with a guy, though, I could do that. I thought it would just be foolin' around, checkin' stuff out. I thought maybe you and me could just experiment, you know? Get off together. But when we…you know, last time, and you kissed me the first thing almost, and then there was kissing all through it and everything…well, I didn't wanna be a pussy about it and let you see too much…but I felt stuff, you know? And I…I need it, that other stuff. I guess I don't do casual sex. Pretty lame, huh?"

Lame? I could have cried, I was so touched.

"It's not lame," I said quietly. "I'm glad you told me. It's not my only mode in sex like you say it is with you…but I can sure go there.

"And if you really want to, that's how we'll do it. You don't have to hide it from me this time."

He nodded awkwardly.

---------

For all the mutual understanding and consent that had just flowed between us, it was still nerve-wracking. You'd think we hadn't had sex before. But we both knew that sex wasn't what the nerves were about.

We watched the rest of Seinfeld together. When it was over he said, "We have too much clothes on."

"So fix that," I said.

He turned his body toward mine, leaned in, and kissed me.

I closed my eyes and felt his hand on the back of my head, running his fingers through my hair. Stroking my head as we kissed. Slowly. Deliberately. With feeling.

I felt the muscles in my neck and shoulders relax under his touch.

Pulling back from me a little, he reached down, grabbed my t-shirt, and lifted it up and over my head. I pulled it the rest of the way off and tossed it onto the arm of the sofa.

I watched his eyes travel up and down my chest. When our eyes met, he asked, "Can I touch you?"

"I already told you. You don't have to ask about anything tonight. Just do what you want."

He nodded and put his hands lightly on my shoulders. I sighed as he began moving south, tracing his fingers up and down over my pecs, my sides, my abs.

He put a hand on the inside of my left thigh and stroked. I moaned and leaned back into the couch. His hand moved northward, up through the leg of my soccer shorts, until he reached his destination. He wrapped his fingers around me and squeezed lightly. I took in a sharp breath. Still gripping me, he moved his face to mine and began kissing me again.

As my tongue danced with his, he held my stiff cock in his hand, using his thumb to stroke me in a circular motion just below the head of my dick.

I moaned. "You like that?" he whispered.

"Mmmhmm" was all I was capable of. I'd melted into the sofa; my eyes were closed; my brain was already on overload.

He kept stroking. "I want you to feel so good, Sharpe," he said quietly into my ear. "When I let you in I want you to feel what I felt when I was fucking you."

"What's that?" I mumbled.

"Your insides were so soft, but so tight, grippin' my cock. I felt so close to you."

The raw honesty of that admission helped me meet it with some of my own. "I want you really bad," I told him. "I've wanted you for a couple of months now. And not just for your body. I'm gonna love makin' love to you, Brad," I said. "We might as well call it what it is. That's what you want from me, isn't it? You want me to make love to you."

He didn't freak out; he nodded. "I'm fuckin' scared, Sharpe," he said. "But that's what I want. I want you to make love to me, and I want you to love it."

I talked a good game, but I was as scared as he was. Since I started college, I'd had sex with three guys. As per the plan. But this…It didn't seem to be even primarily about body parts. It was about me. It was about him. It was about the other parts of us that were connecting, parts that had nothing to do with body parts. Sex was easy; this was about something too large and powerful to manage, something not entirely under my control.

And as badly as I wanted it to be just about Brad, I found to my distress that I couldn't even stay entirely in the moment. As I let his emotional intensity invade me, the gates of last year fell open again, and what came through muddled things:

Oh Matt I'm so sorry this could have been us

I fought it as it seared me, the remembrance-and-regret. But, as it had before, the moment passed, and I managed to get through it.

I felt Brad's hands leave my body; I opened my eyes to see him kneel on the floor in front of me. As he pulled the waistband of my shorts down, I raised my hips so he could slide them off me. When they were down around my ankles, he pulled them clear of my feet and lay them on top of my t-shirt.

---------

I was in a far different place from where I'd been when I'd hooked up with Dean and Greg, or even from where I'd been the first time with Brad. As I unbuckled his belt and slid his jeans down past his knees, I kept thinking about how the things we'd be doing with our bodies were just a means to some end I didn't even know how to define.

Sex is what we'd intended this night, and now it seemed to me that sex was secondary to this other thing that was cooking between us, whatever it was.

We'd agreed it was "making love," but even that didn't help much.

I knew I wasn't "in love" with Brad, whatever that was, and I knew that he wasn't in love with me either. But there was no denying the deep emotional connection we were feeling. And, straight or no, the sexual engine was there. Burning jet fuel, in fact.

I pushed his jeans down to his ankles and held onto them while he stepped out of them, and as I brought my mouth to his cock, I admitted to myself that what had me hard wasn't the taste of him.

No, it was the thought that tonight--afterwards--I'd be lying next to him, touching him, holding him, as we slept.

As we explored each other's bodies once again, every sensation seemed to contain depths that surprised me:

The smooth firmness of his ass as I put my hands on his cheeks and pulled him tighter into my face.

The intoxicating smell of him--alive and masculine and potent--as I pressed my nose into his pubes, covering the whole region with kisses.

The compelling mix of taste and texture as I took one of his balls in my mouth, as I licked up and down his rigid shaft, as I sucked the precum off the tip of his dick.

The sounds of his heavy breathing, of his quiet moans, as I worked on his sensitive spots with my tongue.

And most of all--oddly enough--the feel of his fingers as he ran them through my hair, as he caressed the back of my neck, as he touched my face so softly, so gently.

We settled into a good, tight rhythm as he fucked my face. I would have been more than satisfied to let him finish like that. I decided that before the night was over I'd get him off in my mouth, feel him explode into me, and taste his juice as he coated my tongue with it.

But we had all night, and I knew that sucking him off wasn't the first play in the game plan.

He might as well have been reading my mind: Putting his hands on my shoulders, he pulled his dick out of my mouth and said, "C'mon; let's get out of the living room."

He took my hand and clasped it in his. Somehow this simple gesture was more intimate and private--more overwhelming--than having his hard cock in my mouth. Hand in hand, we walked naked into his bedroom.

---------

I was ready to start giving him head again--ready to pick up where we left off--but he pushed me back onto the bed and climbed on top of me.

His face was all wide blue eyes and desire. As he leaned in to kiss me, he said, "You're gonna feel the earth move, too." He grabbed my wrists and pressed my arms back against the bed, pinning me. Once he'd established control, he began teasing me with his lips, bringing them close enough to touch mine but pulling back before we made contact.

Over and over he got close enough to kiss and then pulled back before we could. It was maddening; if I lifted my head to catch him as he backed away, he pulled back even farther, grinning. Finally, as I strained forward to reach him, he stopped torturing me, and placed a feather-light kiss on my lips. I lay my head back on one of his pillows. He brought his face down to mine and said, "I just wanted to make sure you wanted it."

"Prick," I said.

"I think I'm sure enough now," he laughed. Then he placed his lips firmly against mine. As his tongue pushed into my mouth, he began rubbing my hard cock with his.

I moaned into his mouth and, with my hands on his ass, pulled him harder against me.

More than I'd been when I was with Greg and Dean--

More than I'd been when I was with Matt--

I was totally in the moment. I was aware of every inch of contact that our bodies made.

He started sucking on my neck.

"Go ahead; mark me," I told him.

He stopped to look me in the eye. "Really?"

"I want you to. I want people to wonder. I want 'em to ask. I wanna carry you around for a few days."

His eyes got wide. "Fuck, Andy..."

"We'll get to that," I said. "Now mark me."

He put his lips to my neck and kissed me a few times. Then he opened his mouth and sank his teeth into me, vampire-like.

I gasped at the sensation. My dick throbbed against his.

He began sucking on my neck. Licking occasionally while he was sucking. Moaning.

The sensation was incredible.

He was into it, and I was dizzy with lust. I stroked his head while he sucked me.

It didn't take long. He backed off to look. "Oh, shit," he said, and his eyes got wide with alarm. "Maybe you oughta get up and look."

"Fuck that," I said. "It's done. I told you to do it. You did. I'll see it when I see it."

"Fine," he said. "I'm not done with you." He got off of me and moved to the side.

My body registered with protest the absence of his, but I couldn't complain when he started sucking on my nipples.

He wrapped a hand around my cock and began licking my chest, occasionally kissing my nipples and swirling his tongue around each one. Then he took my right nipple between his teeth and bit, tugging at it. My eyes almost rolled into the back of my head, and my breathing got ragged. I was getting amped up much too fast.

He saw it. "Nah, we can't have that," he said, smiling. "We got miles to go."

---------

How many men have traveled the path with their mouths from chest to cock--or chest to clit--on a lover's body? If there were a particular narrative sequence a writer included in his books as often as lovers travel from chest to groin, we'd accuse him of grinding out cliché. But as far as I was concerned, feeling someone take that trip on my body never got old.

I knew, when he slid from my neck to my chest, where he was headed. That didn't quell my anticipation or delight, though. When he reached my pubes, I figured he'd kiss the head of my dick or maybe put his finger on the bead of precum there. Then, I thought, he'd kiss my dick or lick down the length of it and tentatively put the first couple of inches in his mouth.

But that's not what he did.

What he did was move lower. Under my balls. He traced a finger right underneath them and kept going, searching, feeling for that place that definitely wasn't my dick.

Shocked, I nevertheless spread my legs for him and repositioned a little to give him better access. I looked down at him and said, "Really?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I'm gonna make you want me so bad that by the time you put it in me you're gonna be hurtin' for it."

I could hardly think straight with his finger rubbing up against my hole, but I managed to say, "You're fuckin' amazing. I can't believe you're getting into it so much."

"I may never do this again," he said. "I want to try it all." And with that, he got off the bed, grabbed my legs, and pulled me to the edge.

He pushed my legs back, rolling my hips upward to give him easy access. I shuddered as I watched him wet a finger in his mouth. He brought it to my pucker and stroked lightly. Then he pushed firmly in.

I moaned. He laughed wickedly and began to fuck my ass with his finger. "Oh, yeah," he breathed, "That's what I remember havin' wrapped around my dick. You got a nice, tight asshole, Sharpe."

"This wasn't the deal," I groaned.

"I know," he said. "I'm gonna let you take control, don't worry. I just wanted to get you in an appreciative mood."

I closed my eyes and let the feeling take me away. I felt him pull his finger out, and when I opened my eyes, his face was headed toward my ass. Before I could say anything, he thrust his tongue against my hole and started licking.

I grabbed the sheets with my hands and gripped, rolling my head from side to side. I'd never expected him to push it this far.

I groaned when I felt his tongue push past the ring of muscle and into my insides. I grabbed my dick and started stroking myself.

Gradually he worked into a routine of licking me, pushing his tongue inside me and thrusting in and out, and then pulling his tongue out and kissing me right on the pucker. I could feel myself heading toward the edge. I didn't think I could hold out under this latest assault.

He'd come to the same conclusion; he pulled his finger out of me and stood up. All of a sudden I felt cold and empty.

"I think that's enough," he said, grinning. Teasing me. "You want me now, don't you?"

"Fuck you," I said, pseudo-derisively.

"Exactly," he replied.

---------

We sat down on the bed next to each other. He put an arm over my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek. "It's good, isn't it?" he said.

"Good? Fuck, Brad, it's amazing. Are you sure you're straight?" I looked at his face: He was proud of himself: Straight, he managed to let the experience work for him anyway.

"Yeah," he said. "I am. But I'm lovin' it anyway. And I'm ready for the main event. Tell me how I should do it, tell me how you want me."

I walked into the living room and came back with the sports bag I'd brought. Pulling out my wallet, I grabbed the wrapped condom from it and tossed it to him. "First thing is you're gonna put this on me."

He grimaced when he saw it. "Magnum. Man. That sure makes it strike home."

I raised a dubious eyebrow. "This is your decision, always has been. You don't have to do it."

"No, man, I can deal." He reached into his nightstand drawer and pulled out a tube of Astroglide. Setting it on top of the nightstand, he said, "Just go easy and talk me through it, okay?"

"All right," I said.

He walked over to me and took me in his arms. We kissed gently.

He tore open the wrapper and took out the condom. Kneeling down in front of me, he took my cock gently in his hands. He kissed up and down the length of it, pulled the foreskin all the way back, and then placed the condom at the tip of my cock and rolled it down. He reached over to the nightstand. After he'd grabbed the lube and uncapped it, he squeezed some into his hand and then grabbed my dick with it. He set the tube back on the nightstand and slid his hand up and down my shaft a few times to lube the condom.

"Let's do it," he said.

He stood up, facing me, expectation written all over his face. "Tell me what to do," he said.

"Lie back, Brad," I said. "On the edge, like you had me earlier."

He eased himself down, back against the bed, his ass right at the edge. I knelt down, spread him apart and lifted his legs a little. Bringing my face to him, I began kissing his balls and licking under them, first upward, and then down to his pucker.

The scent of him...it was strong down here, but clean. I could smell the soap he'd used, mixed with the musky, masculine odor I remembered from the last time.

I covered his taint with kisses and began licking him around his tight hole. Appreciative whimpers from him let me know he was with me, hadn't freaked out.

I pushed my tongue into him. He took in a sharp breath and then moaned. I reached up and grabbed his cock, jacking it slowly while I fucked him with my tongue.

The intensity sparked between us like static electricity. I should have been humiliated to have my face in a guy's ass again, I guess, but instead it was almost a transcendent moment. I left a trail of kisses from his ass up his inner thigh. I could have stayed down there for an hour, letting his moans of pleasure soak in and fuel my own desire, but it was time.

I stood up, went over to the nightstand, and grabbed the lube. Squeezing a dollop out onto a finger, I knelt down. I rubbed the lube around his entrance, coating the outside of his asshole with it, and then I pushed my finger slowly in.

He took in a sharp breath.

"Are you okay?" I said.

"Yeah," he said. "Just keep doing that for a while."

I kissed his abs and crotch while I finger-fucked him. His dick had wilted a little as I first entered him, but as I sought out his hot spot and worked it a little, he groaned, and his erection came roaring back to life.

I paused a minute to look at him. He was so beautiful. So tough and sexy, but this other side of him--the romantic, vulnerable side he showed me as we started--that's what captured me. Those two qualities together, tough and tender, never failed to get me going. And now, as I was about to top him, he seemed to give himself over to me, in a manner completely uncharacteristic of the Brad I'd known up to this night.

I said, "I need to stretch you a little, so I'm gonna do two fingers now, okay?"

He grimaced as he nodded. "Just go easy."

"I promise," I said. "Try to relax."

I lubed up two fingers and began to push them in.

He took several quick breaths. "Fuck."

I frowned. "Should I stop?"

"No. Keep going. I just need to...unhhh."

I kept my eyes on his face, looking for facial cues to help me know if I should stop or continue. He closed his eyes tightly and I felt him work to relax the muscles of his sphincter. I worried about whether he'd be able to go through with it. But before too long, his eyes opened, and his smile told me he'd gotten past the pain.

He stroked his cock as I worked his ass. I knew he needed to be able to stretch a little wider, though, so I said, "I think we gotta go one more finger."

"Give me a minute," he said, breathing deeply.

I watched him as a look of intense concentration came over his face. "Okay, do it," he said. "Three fingers."

I lubed up, brought my ring, middle, and index fingers together, and slowly began to stretch him even wider.

It was easier than I'd expected. He gasped a couple of times, but he seemed to be going with it just fine. It looked to me that whatever adjustment he'd needed to make had been made when the second finger went into him.

I pushed my fingers in and out of him a few times. I wasn't sure if he was ready, but I didn't think I could wait any longer. The need in me was starting to boil over.

"I'm gonna fuck you now, Brad," I said, locking my eyes onto his.

"Do it," he said.

I leaned over him and kissed him on the lips. With my right hand I guided my dick to his hole.

I put my mouth against his and pushed the head of my dick past the entrance. I wanted to ease in slowly, but the silky warmth of his insides was too inviting, too enticing. He stuck his tongue in my mouth, and that took me past the point of caution. I pulled my face away from his and looked into his eyes as I pushed my cock into him. Too quickly, my pubes were mashed up against his ass and I was all the way in.

"Aggggggh! Damn! Fuckin' hurts!" His eyes began to glaze with moisture and his breathing was shallow and rapid.

I started to pull out, but he said, "No. Just be still! Gimme a minute."

I held still, my hard cock deep inside of him, my eyes glued to his face.

I listened to his rapid breathing and watched him working to master his body.

"Kiss me," he whispered. I leaned in, trying to keep my hips still. The urge to thrust was almost impossible to resist, but I worked on keeping everything frozen but my face.

As my lips met his he began stroking my back with his hands. Our tongues met and danced together, and as he ran his hands over my back and down to my ass, I could tell that he was going to be okay.

I moved my head away from him to look into his face. His breathing had slowed and he was staring into my eyes. "I'm good now," he said quietly. "You're so fucking big. It's like you're fillin' me up."

"Too much?" I asked.

"No," he said. "It hurt like a motherfucker, but I think I'm ready."

He smiled. "Fuck me."

---------

The motions were familiar that night, the sensations weren't new; but Brad took me to a place I hadn't been before.

The soft, warm slipperiness of his insides gripped my cock tightly, and for a straight guy--one who'd never been fucked before--he learned quickly how to make it good for me, when to grip me with those muscles and when to release me. I was on a sexual high I hadn't experienced in a long, long time.

But that wasn't what made the night for me. What made it for me was the sense of wonder and the emotion that he brought to lovemaking, wonder and emotion that he'd carefully hidden from me during our first encounter.

It would slip out sometimes as we went at it. At one point, I was stroking his dick as I thrust in and out of him, pushing him close to the brink, and he closed his eyes and said, "Oh, yeah; slam it to me, Andy; I'm all yours, dude." As soon as he'd said it, a look of alarm came over his face. He started to say something, but I put a finger to his lips. "Shhh. There's nothing else tonight, just you and me, buddy. Just like you said at the start. You can say anything."

In response, he pulled me into him and began covering my face with kisses. Then he moved his lips to my ear and whispered, "I love you."

My eyes got wide.

He grinned a little and added in a quiet voice, "I won't tomorrow, so don't sweat it. But tonight...yeah. I love you."

"Fuck, Brad," I said, overcome. "You're makin' me feel..."

"Me too," he said before I could finish. "It hurt real bad when you opened me up with that bad boy." I eased up on my thrusts against him and focused on what he was saying. "But it passed. And then...well, damn, the way you keep tweakin' my prostate...I'm not gonna last much longer. Plus, you're not just fuckin' me."

"No, man, I'm not," I admitted. "I'm makin' love to you." I kissed him lightly on the lips, smiled at him, and added, "You're not the only one feelin' the love."

I pulled slowly out of him and held myself away from him for a few seconds. "No," he groaned. "Come back." He put a hand on my ass and pulled me toward him. With his other hand, he guided my cock back to his waiting hole. Then he put both hands on my butt and literally pulled my cock into him. When I hit bottom, he smiled and sighed. I began pumping my dick in and out of him again, kissing his chest and then making my way up his neck until our lips met.

"That's right, baby," he whispered to me. "Just keep doing that: kissin' me, fuckin' me with your big cock, poundin' my ass."

"I'm glad you like it, Brad," I said quietly into his ear. "I'm so into you; you're so fuckin' beautiful..." I felt my face get hot as I realized what I'd said; he just laughed. "It's contagious, I guess," he said, grinning.

But it wasn't the naked talk I'd caught from him. It was the feeling.

Our bodies were in complete sync, Every move we made, separately and together, felt right. He wrapped his legs around me, and I pulled him into me, bringing my upper torso down close against his, hugging him tightly to me while I fucked him.

In those moments, for that night, he meant everything to me, and I wanted him to feel that. More than that, I wanted him to share the feeling, to feel the same way about me.

And I could tell that he did.

I'd have made love to him all night, but my body had held back as long as it was going to. My breaths got heavy and fast, and I could feel that I was headed toward the finish. "I'm real close, baby," I breathed into his ear.

He began stroking himself. "I wanna cum with you. Shoot off inside me, Andy; slam it in and make me cum with you."

I picked up the pace and the intensity of my thrusts. He began jacking himself furiously. "That's right," he gasped. "Cum for me, Andy, I'm gonna finish with you, baby. You got me so hot, dude, fuck the cum outta both of us."

It didn't take long; I felt my orgasm start to grab hold, and I pulled him tight against me. I thrust deep into him and caught my breath as I felt a bolt of total ecstasy flash through my body and make its way out my dick. I growled into his ear and pumped my stuff into the condom.

That set him off. He groaned, and I felt jets of his cum hit me on the chest and neck. The third and fourth squirts were so powerful they hit me on the lips. I was still in the grip of my own orgasm, so I licked my lips to capture what I could of his stuff, but most of it dribbled down my chin and onto my neck. To my surprise, he lifted his head and licked his semen off me until my chin and neck were cum-free and shiny with a light layer of wetness from his tongue.

I collapsed onto him and we kissed for a while, giggling like little girls, whispering to each other, smiling, laughing, and totally loving each other in the afterglow. Later, we lay on our sides facing each other, touching and stroking chests and shoulders, talking softly. I thought it should have felt weird for him, but he didn't pull away or give any indication that he felt awkward or uncomfortable. Eventually, we lay on our backs, heads touching as we shared his pillow.

"Wow," he said at one point, staring at the ceiling.

"It was good, right?"

"It was beyond good. It was waaay beyond good."

"Brad," I said. "You're...I don't know, man, I never had a sexual experience that...well, that emotional."

He blushed. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea about me, Sharpe. You're not gonna, like, fall in love with me or anything, are you?"

After everything, I honestly wasn't sure. But I said, "Nah. It's all good. I just didn't realize you..."

"I know," he said. "I've never been a player. I'm too fuckin' romantic at heart. It has to mean something to me."

"Even when you're gettin' your ass drilled for the first time?"

"Especially when I'm gettin' my ass drilled for the first time," he said, laughing.

We lay quiet for a while, then I said, "You gonna have regrets for doin' gay shit?"

"Nah," he said. "It was just between you and me. You won't go tellin' anybody, will you?"

"Of course not," I said. "We covered this already."

"I know," he said. "And because we did, I got nothin' to regret. It was good, man. Really good. I could feel you were into it, and you were into me, and that was intense. That was the best part."

"Yeah, maybe it was," I said. "But I bet you were okay with cumming, too."

He chuckled.

After a short pause, he said, "Let's go take a shower."

"Together?"

"Fuck yeah," he said. "What? You're afraid to show me your dick?"

I got up and said, "Lead the way."

---------

We soaped each other up, got each other completely clean, explored each other some more. There was no sex but lots of touching. Both of us got hard again, but we decided we didn't want to get back into it.

After we toweled off, he said, "You ready to call it a night?"

"Yeah," I said, smiling. "You still want me to sleep with you?"

"Absolutely," he said.

We left the towels hanging over the shower curtain rod. When we got to his bedroom he turned off the light, and we climbed into bed naked. It was one in the morning, and I was ready for some sleep.

His back was to me. Over his shoulder I heard him say, "How do you like to sleep?"

"My right side, usually. Just like I'm facing right now."

"Me too, he said." Then I felt him back into me until my chest was against his back and my dick was nestled up against his crack.

I threw and arm over him and pulled him in close. "Is this okay?" he said.

"It's awesome," I said. "Ten times better than sleeping alone."

"Good," he said. "I'm gonna sleep great."

"Me too," I told him. I kissed his shoulders and back, and the back of his neck.

He sighed. "Feels nice," he said. "You can do that all night long."

"I'll fall asleep, I think. But if I wake up in the middle of the night, I might steal a few more."

"As many as you want," he said. "Night, Andy."

"Goodnight, Brad."

---------

I woke up on my back. Brad had his hand on my dick and I was hard. I looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It was three in the morning.

"Brad," I whispered.

There was a short silence, and then he said. "I...I'm awake. I know I shouldn't be playin' with your cock while you sleep. I hoped you'd feel it and wake up."

"What do...you wanna go again?" I asked, sleepily.

"I...if it's okay, I wanna do one more thing. I might never ever do this again, and I liked it okay the first time, so I wanna do it one more time."

All of a sudden I was wide awake.

"Go ahead," I said. "But let's at least turn on the lamp on the nightstand."

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Absolutely," I said. "I want to see you swallow my stuff."

He flicked the knob on the lamp and an unobtrusive, soft light came on.

He gave head like he'd been doing it for years. He got me close several times and then backed off, keeping me on edge for about fifteen minutes before he finally let me finish. When I started pumping my stuff into his mouth, he pushed down and took me to the root; my semen blasted down his throat. He licked me clean as I pulled out of his mouth. I fell back, spent and happy.

He sat up next to me as I recovered. After a few minutes, he grinned and said, "Now I'm done."

"No, you're not," I said. I sat up and pushed him back against his pillow, swallowing his cock whole.

I was determined to give him the best blowjob he'd ever had. I don't know if I succeeded, but if his moans and groans were any indication, he didn't have any complaints. When he came, I kept the head of his dick in my mouth. I didn't want to take him deep like he'd taken me. I wanted to taste every drop of him.

I gave him a few minutes to recover, and then I said to him, "Now you're done."

He hit me over the head with his pillow.

I kissed him and said, "Go to sleep."

He said, "Hold me again and I will," and we fell asleep spooned together again.

---------

We got up early the next morning and grabbed breakfast at McDonald's. The conversation was light and fun. We even laughed and joked about our night. There was no shame or fear, just an enduring vibe of close friendship.

We finished our breakfasts. "We gotta get to class," he said.

"Yep," I replied, "but I wanna ask you something."

"Okay."

"It's morning. Are you in love with me?"

"Fuck, no," he grinned. "But that was never a danger. I'm the one who should be asking that question. Are you in love with me?"

"Nope," I said. In spite of the intense emotions I'd felt, I was telling him the truth.

"Good," he said. "Mission accomplished, then, with no casualties."

I looked into his face and smiled at him. "You're all right, Brad."

"Quit being such a faggot," he said, straight-faced...then he burst out laughing.

I laughed with him...and gave him a hard punch to the shoulder.

Rubbing it, he said, "Let's get outta here," and we climbed into his Jeep and drove to campus.