Off Campus

by Amy Jo Cousins

  “No.”

  “The campus health center then. Security will drive us, if you don’t trust me with your precious car.”

  Ha. Tom didn’t, that was true. But more because he needed that car, it was the one thing that kept him mobile and earning money. If anything happened to it, he was totally fucked.

  Which was exactly what would happen to his bank account if he went to the health center too. They might be cheaper than the ER, but it’d be a couple hundred bucks to see a doctor with no health insurance. He had it, more than enough, but every penny he spent had to be re-earned plus more if he wanted to be able to pay the second semester tuition bill in a couple of months. Unless his fucking arm was going to fall off, he wasn’t going to the health center either. He already resented the shit out of having to buy the burn cream, which didn’t feel as if it was doing a goddamn thing.

  “No.” He tried to soften his voice when he saw Reese jerk at his snapped out word. “I’ll be fine. Got burned before. You just have to get through it.”

  The kid turned toward his dresser and then back toward Tom, as if uncertain about something.

  “Well, I’ve got some numbing cream, but I don’t have any idea if that would be a good idea on burned skin. Maybe something else instead. Here, lie down for a minute.”

  His hand against Tom’s shoulder felt cool and dry as he pushed until Tom sagged back and lay on the bed, swinging his legs heavily up onto the mattress. He barely noticed when Reese slid a towel under his arm. He wouldn’t have cared that he was smearing the cream all over his sheets. Shit. How was he going to sleep? He’d be up all night with his arm on fire like this.

  “Hang on, okay? I’m gonna be right back.”

  Reese left the room, the door standing wide open behind him. Tom felt weirdly exposed, although he’d seen people walking around in their underwear often enough at college. No one gave a damn. And with all the lights off except Reese’s little desk lamp, no one walking past would be able to see much of him. But still, it was strange and made him realize how odd he and Reese were, shutting the door on the rest of the world, cutting themselves off from the rest of the house, whether by not being around much to start with and keeping their door shut when they were. Half the people in the house, even though they were older than the typical college student, studied or hung out with their doors open, an invitation to friends and neighbors to stick their heads in and say hi. He and Reese never did. Ever.

  Tom was trying to distract himself, unsuccessfully, by mentally writing the opening paragraphs of his next econ paper when Reese staggered back into their room hauling what looked like a ten-gallon bucket that obviously weighed a ton, a bulging plastic CVS bag slung over his wrist.

  He dropped the bucket to the floor by Tom’s bed with a sloshing splash.

  What the fuck?

  Reese dumped whatever was in the bag into the bucket, dozens of small splashes tumbling one over the other and then grabbed Tom’s burned hand by the fingers.

  “Scoot over to the edge.” Tom followed instructions well when too tired to think for himself. He slid over. Reese plunged his hand into a bobbing sea of ice cubes in cold water.

  “Ahh!” He couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice.

  “Shit. Does that make it worse? It’s just, I burned myself on a curling iron once, bad hair stage in high school that was, and I remember I couldn’t sleep all night because it hurt so bad and it wasn’t half as bad as this. I had a bowl of ice water, but I couldn’t keep my hand in it, kept knocking it over. I thought this might work.”

  The guy was babbling with nerves or something, worried he’d done the wrong thing.

  Tom flexed his hand underwater, his skin absorbing the icy cold shock and gradually going numb. For the first time in hours he wasn’t in pain and he could figure out how to string an entire sentence together without getting lost halfway through.

  “Slow down, kid. Reese.” He nodded an apology. Reese shrugged, over it. “It feels fucking awesome. First time my arm hasn’t felt like it’s on fire for hours. Thanks.”

  Reese’s smile was tentative, small. As if he weren’t sure what to do with praise. Or maybe thanks.

  “Did you take anything? You know, for the pain.”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ve got something that’ll probably help, if you want it.”

  Tom opened his eyes, which was the first time he noticed that he’d closed them. He looked at Reese, wondering what was on offer, not sure how to turn down illegal drugs without offending his roommate. He wasn’t getting anywhere near high, no matter how much better it might be than the pain.

  Reese read his mind again and huffed, smacking his hands on his hips.

  “I told you. I don’t do that shit anymore. I’m talking about a Tylenol 3. It’s acetaminophen and codeine. The health center passes them out like they’re candy at finals.” He threw his hands up in the air at Tom’s direct look. “And I’d need to take about a hundred of them to OD. Jesus. They’re for headaches. Do you want one or not?”

  “Yes, please. Sorry.”

  “Whatever. I spilled my sob story all over you. Can’t blame you for thinking it.”

  “I don’t. Really. I…worry.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  Reese brought him a water bottle from the fridge and a single pill, steadying Tom with a hand on the bottle as Tom leaned up onto one elbow to swig a mouthful of cold water and painkiller. He flopped back down after and waited for the pill to kick in.

  “Still hurt?”

  He thought about it for a moment, flexing his hand under water.

  “Not much. But I can feel it, like it’s waiting, you know? If I take my hand out of the cold water, it’s gonna burn. Hard to fall asleep tonight, I think.”

  He shut up, feeling like a whiny brat.

  He heard Reese come over to his bed and looked up to see the kid standing over him, arms crossed over his chest, black hair falling in his face as he stared down at Tom, a frown on his face.

  “Well, shit. If you were gay, I’d offer to suck you off. You know, distract you from the pain.”

  Tom froze.

  Reese laughed and then paused, clearly expecting something from Tom.

  Silence.

  “This is where you’re supposed to chime in with a screaming chorus of ‘Dude, I’m So Straight I Can Barely Fuck Flat-Chested Girls.’” His eyes narrowed. Tom turned his head and stared at the wall at his shoulder. “But you’re not saying that. Do you actually want me to blow you?”

  Tom winced. He didn’t know what to say. Reese was only speaking to him again without bitching about his overbearing ways because Tom was hurt, not because he wanted anything to do with him. And he didn’t want to say it out loud. That listening to Reese, and then watching him, had made him hornier than shit, until even the thought of Reese’s mouth on him was enough that the front of his shorts were tenting over his dick.

  Of course, Reese wasn’t going to miss that either.

  “Holy shit. You do want me to suck you off. Your dick’s getting hard just thinking about it.”

  Tom heard the exact moment when Reese got really into the idea. Maybe it was the danger factor times a million that was running riot in his brain, putting himself in a position where he was involved in a sex act with a roommate who was an athlete and not, as far as Reese knew, gay. Or bi. Which was a word Tom figured he better start saying in his head two or three hundred thousand times so that when he wanted to say it out loud he wouldn’t stutter. Or maybe he looked helpless enough, his arm hanging off the bed in the bucket of ice water, his other hand wrapped around the metal tubing that made a sort of headboard for the bed that was only a couple of inches higher than the mattress.

  Or who knows what it was. This kid was a mess and Tom knew he shouldn’t let this happen, shouldn’t let anything like this happen.

&n
bsp; No matter how desperately he wanted it to.

  He turned back to look at Reese and opened his mouth to say so, but nothing came out. Maybe Reese could see the agony of indecision, the battle between desire and caution, roiling in his eyes as they stared at each other. He took another step closer until his thighs nudged the edge of the mattress and he stroked the palm of one hand down Tom’s face, closing his eyes for him as he said, “Shhh. Close your eyes. It’s okay.”

  Tom lay there in the dark, listening as Reese moved around the room. Shut their door. Opened a drawer and closed it. Something rustled. Then silence, broken only by Reese’s barely there footsteps returning to Tom’s side. Something thumped on the mattress next to him, something small. He swore he could feel the heat of Reese’s body, radiating next to him, and wondered if he was imagining that. Strawberries. Did Reese wash his hair with strawberry shampoo? Tom tried to smile at the idea, but couldn’t.

  He was barely breathing, wondering what was going to happen. He was so hard already from the anticipation alone that it made him dizzy, every molecule in his body focused on his dick, pressing hard against the fabric of his shorts.

  A hand at the waistband, fingers sliding under, made him gasp and the sudden inhale jerked his stomach away from the fingers.

  No. Not a hand. Reese’s hand. Reese’s fingers. If he was going to take advantage of how fucked up this kid was, he could at least admit it in the silence of his own head. Reese. Reese was the one touching him. The owner of the hand that had frozen at his gasp and pulled back a moment later.

  Please. Please don’t stop.

  The part of him that was still a decent human being bit the words back behind his teeth. If Reese changed his mind…

  “You’re right. That’s a bit much to start with.” Tom heard him move away again and then come back, dragging what sounded like his desk chair to the side of Tom’s bed.

  He came back. Thank God.

  “Let’s try this instead. Ease into things a little.”

  Tom heard the liquid spurt of something being pumped from a bottle. Holy shit. Where was that going and how exactly was that easing into things?

  Reese’s hands on his feet almost made him scream like a girl.

  His roommate laughed and grabbed the toes of his feet and wiggled them.

  “Relax, dummy. Haven’t you ever had a foot massage?”

  No. No, he hadn’t. No one had ever picked up his feet and held them in strong hands, pushing thumbs up against the arches, cupping his heels in their hands and forcing the tension from his soles with the sheer power of touch.

  He groaned and the noise was so loud in the quiet room that he closed his mouth halfway through and let the moan of pleasure rattle in his chest.

  “That’s it. Feels nice, right?”

  Tom nodded. His voice seemed to have fled somewhere far, far away from this dark, warm room and the kid, the man, with the strong hands who paid attention to every square inch of his feet. Reese stroked and pulled, wiggling each toe and tugging on it until it loosened and relaxed, pressing his thumbs hard into the balls of Tom’s feet, digging in until Tom groaned again in pleasure and this time forgot to stop himself from letting it out.

  Reese’s voice was lower than its usual tenor when he spoke, something about the dark and the quiet and the fact that they were touching for the first time. Though Tom wasn’t touching anything except ice water and steel. But Reese was touching him, which felt like the one thing he’d waited his entire life for.

  “Relax, okay? A massage is almost as good as a blowjob for relaxation, right?”

  Tom wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t huff a little laugh.

  Reese’s hand smacked the side of his foot in reprimand and Tom could almost see the smile scolding him.

  “I said almost as good as a blowjob. Don’t worry. We’ll get there.”

  Reassured, Tom relaxed the muscles he hadn’t even felt tense. His neck hurt and he realized that, even with his eyes closed, he was lifting his head a little as if to look down to Reese at the foot of his bed. With a conscious effort, he loosened the muscles in his neck and let his head drop back all the way. Even if he opened his eyes, he wouldn’t see anything except the ceiling. He kept his eyes closed.

  Reese took turns holding each of his feet in his hands, balanced between a hand at his heel and one at his toes, rotating and stretching his ankles. When he set Tom’s right foot on the bed, the splashing pump of what Tom now knew was massage oil sounded again. Reese’s hands returned and wrapped around one calf, squeezing the muscles tight as they slid down to his ankle and back up again. In between long sweeping strokes with his hands, Reese pressed and pushed into small places, around the bones of Tom’s ankles, all around the joint of his knee, pushing Tom’s legs a couple inches apart so he had room to work.

  Tom wondered if he wasn’t supposed to notice that. His arm was going numb in the ice water, though he could still feel the scraping heat of the burn hovering under his skin, ready to roar back at the slightest crack in the cold. Reese’s hands on his feet and lower legs were so strong, so soothing, that for a few minutes he’d actually relaxed, pulling his awareness back from where it had been claustrophobically wrapped around his dick. But that slight push on the inside of his knee, move over, nudging his legs apart had definitely caught his attention.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think he could feel Reese’s grin in his hands as they gripped his legs above the knees and gave Tom another nudge to spread his legs farther. He had to participate this time, move his legs apart and let the picture sink into his mind of what he looked like, spread out on this narrow bed, one hand in a bucket, one gripping the rail, while his roommate sat at the side of the bed and ran his hands up and down Tom’s legs.

  Pump. Splash. Newly slick hands on his thighs now. Pushing up to his groin from his knees, pressing hard against his quads.

  “Too bad I can’t have you roll over, but there’d be no way to keep your arm in the ice water. Next time.”

  Even Tom could hear that Reese was the one biting off his words that time.

  Next time.

  Tom didn’t know how they’d make it through the first daylight hours after this, if this ended up where they both thought it was going. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to look Reese in the eye, and God, what if he couldn’t take his eyes off of Reese’s mouth?

  It occurred to him for the first time that this might be the blow that would wreck it all. That maybe they wouldn’t be able to go on from here. That everything would be too awful and too awkward between them and that he would, at last, just leave.

  For one moment, he wondered if that was why Reese was doing it.

  He forced himself to remember Reese setting up the ice water bucket and doing all the things Tom didn’t know would make him feel better, turning off the lights, putting on the music. Reducing one sensation and adding the other, working to distract him from the pain. Those weren’t the actions of a guy who was calculating how to drive him away. They couldn’t be.

  So, no. He didn’t think there’d be a next time. But he didn’t think this was a game of gay chicken either. It felt strangely like Reese, well, taking care of him.

  Tom put the weirdness of that to the side, because Reese’s hands were pushing higher and higher up his thighs, fingertips sliding under the loose hems of his boxers as Reese pushed with the heels of his hands against Tom’s quads.

  “Jesus. Your thighs are huge. I can’t—”

  The edge of the mattress at Tom’s knees sank under a heavy weight.

  “Scoot over a bit. Diagonally. Yeah, like that.”

  Reese was sitting next to him now, his hip pressed against the side of Tom’s leg, the denim rough against Tom’s sensitized skin. Skin which felt as if it were glowing everywhere Reese had touched him. Had stroked and kneaded and even scraped fingernails against his skin. He mov
ed his arm in the ice water a bit to get more comfortable and felt it in his bones when Reese leaned into him, putting more of his weight on the hands that were digging into his thigh muscles.

  Tom wanted to tell him that he’d lost a lot of muscle in the past year actually. When he’d been sprinting competitively with the team, the rock solid anchor to a streak of lighting that circled the track in the bodies of four fast young men, his thighs had been huge, powerful driving pistons that could shoot him out of the blocks and up to top speed in seconds as he trailed a hand behind him and trusted the exquisite timing of his teammate to land the baton in his hand at precisely the right second for him to go, go, go, flying down the track to the finish line in a burst of speed and glory that burned with a clean white heat in his memory.

  “Hey.”

  With a struggle, Tom came back to the present moment, letting go of the hot white light for the darkness and the feel of hard hands on his legs, not moving, the heat pouring from warm palms into his thighs as Reese paused with his hands centered on Tom’s quads. He squeezed, gently, his voice a low murmur.

  “You okay?”

  Tom’s face was hot. And wet.

  What?

  The pillow beneath his head was wet too at his temples and he was breathing through his mouth, thickly, but not for the same reason as he’d been before. His nose was stuffed up. He was crying. Jesus, he was a wreck.

  “It’s okay. This is gonna feel better, promise.”

  Reese’s hands slid under his hips to curl around the waistband of his boxers and dragged them down over his ass. Tom was too fucked up, suddenly aware that this would make him all the way naked, which was somehow so much more intense than having been almost all the way naked with his gay roommate running his hands all over his legs, to tell Reese he wasn’t crying because it hurt, but because he missed it all so bad. Everything he’d had before his dad blew it all to hell.

  Even if what he’d had hadn’t been all that great in retrospect, seeing as how everyone and everything had disappeared so swiftly, slipping through his grasping hands like smoke. It hadn’t been real, any of it, his friends, his towering feeling of walking the world as if a golden light shone down on him and there was nothing he couldn’t do. None of it had been real. Not like the way Reese’s hands on him were real. But the hollow ache in him, for how easy everything had been, when now it was all so fucking hard, all the time, made the tears run hot again from the corners of his eyes.