Dreaming of You: M/M Gay Romance

by Marina Lander

  Phil takes a deep breath and pulls his shoulders back. He storms into the office, right up to Conrad's desk. Conrad is clutching the journal in front of him, but he's closed it so Phil can't see which entry he'd been reading, how far along he'd gotten. Phil holds out his hand, which is physically shaking.

  "I'd like that back," he says.

  Conrad has a pained expression on his face, one which Phil has grown accustomed to and weary of at this point.

  "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't... I thought it was for class."

  "Well, it's not," Phil says. There's no way- no way- he could've believed that. Why would Phil leave that for him? Unless Conrad thinks it's part of some weird stalkerish plot. Unless he thinks Phil is throwing himself at him, which would probably figure actually. He's so full of himself. "I left it by accident. How much did you read?"

  "I don't... um." Conrad drops his eyes and chews at his lower lip, looking guilty, and something twists in Phil's stomach. "All of it," he finally says.

  "All- you read all of that and you thought it was for class?"

  "I'm terribly sorry, Phil," Conrad says. He looks up at Phil and Phil tries to hold his gaze, but he can't. He can't even maintain eye contact with Conrad anymore. His face is hot and his throat is burning. The anger he’d managed to build up, to carry him through this, is dissipating fast.

  "I just- I'd just like it back. I really need to go."

  He realizes suddenly that he's forgotten to bring the other book. In his haste to get here, he left it back in his car, but it doesn't matter anymore. He doesn't care if he fails the stupid class. The only thing that matters is getting the hell out of here.

  But Conrad is still holding the book. Fondling the book, actually. Phil's staring at Conrad's hands so he doesn't have to look at his face, and Conrad is running his fingers along the edges, up and down the spine.

  "I didn't realize you felt so strongly," Conrad says in a quiet, low voice.

  “God, I don’t need your fucking pity. Just--”

  “No, that’s not what I... Look, I know what they say about me. You know, on the tweeter and--”

  “The what?”

  “The rumors, I know there are rumors,” Conrad says. “That I’m some sort of-of... campus lothario or--”

  “Lothario?”

  “Would you just-- just please, let me finish.”

  Phil sighs and flops into the chair in front of Conrad's desk, running a hand agitatedly through his hair.

  “The point is,” Conrad starts, and then pauses, puts the notebook down and folds his hands on top of it. Phil keeps staring at them and swallowing repeatedly. “The point is that they’re not true. I don’t sleep with students. I never have,” Conrad says.

  “Okay...” Phil doesn’t know if he expects some kind of congratulatory applause for this or what.

  “It’s important to me, it’s always been important to me to maintain a- a sort of separation, you see? A line.”

  Jesus Christ, he’s getting the talk again. This is even worse than Phil imagined it would be.

  “I get it,” Phil says. “You don’t have to explain it again, I---”

  “No, just- just listen, please.” Conrad says. “It’s not just because of the rules, it’s- the rules are there for a reason. There’s an inherent power differential, and--”

  “Can I just have my notebook back?” Phil tries again, desperately.

  Conrad ignores him.

  “A lot of students mistake feelings of admiration, of wanting to please an authority figure, with romantic--”

  “Oh my God,” Phil groans. “Are you seriously gonna try to psychoanalyze me now?”

  “I’m not talking about you!” Conrad says, slapping his palm on the desk. Phil jumps and looks at his face, finally. There’s something in his eyes, something Phil’s never seen before.

  Conrad pushes his chair back and walks around to Phil’s side of the desk, leaning on the edge in front of him. He finally passes the journal back to him, but doesn’t let go of it himself. For a moment they’re both holding onto it, like a tug-of-war.

  “I’m not talking about this,” Conrad says, nodding at the journal. His voice is lower and deeper than Phil’s ever heard it. It sends a shiver through his entire body. “This is real,” he says. “And I feel it too.”

  Phil feels all the air leaving his lungs. He stares at Conrad, waiting for the inevitable “but”- the punch line or the retraction. Conrad just stares back, wetting his lips with his tongue, and Phil clears his throat.

  “You, uh... you do?” he croaks out.

  “I’ve got a book like this,” Conrad says, nodding to Phil’s journal. He releases his end of the notebook, and Phil nearly drops it. His hands are trembling and slippery with perspiration. “I’ve dreamt of you too,” he says. “Oh, Phil, you were right. I have been afraid to be alone with you.”

  “You have?”

  “I can’t seem to control myself where you’re concerned.”

  “You can’t?”

  Conrad smiles faintly, almost wistfully, and reaches out to caress Phil’s face. He curls his hand, brushing his knuckles along Phil’s jaw line, and Phil nearly moans aloud from the contact.

  “You’re gorgeous,” Conrad says, in that same low, rumbling, non-professorial tone of voice. He runs his thumb over Phil’s lower lip, back and forth, with a slow reverence that makes Phil ache, and for the first time he thinks it’s actually possible- that Conrad might really want Phil as much, as desperately as Phil wants him.

  He parts his lips, touches the pad of Conrad's finger with his tongue, and Conrad makes a strangled sound in his throat. Emboldened, Phil wraps his lips around the thumb, starts sucking at it with obscene intent, staring up at Conrad without attempting to conceal the blatant hunger that must be showing in his expression.

  “Fucking hell,” Conrad growls. He grabs the front of Phil’s fashionably battered UMass sweatshirt and hauls him up out of the chair. When Conrad kisses him this time it’s different than the others. There’s no innocence here, no tentative exploration. Conrad is rough and lewd, shoving Phil against the edge of the desk and licking deep into his mouth. He tastes like sweet tea and butterscotch candies.

  Phil’s never been so turned on in his entire life. He pulls himself up to sit on the desk and wraps his legs around Conrad's waist. Conrad runs his hands over Phil’s thighs, grabbing and squeezing, and starts rutting against him immediately. He’s hard and huge and it feels so fucking good Phil thinks he might just come like this, in his jeans.

  “God, don’t stop,” he sobs into Conrad's mouth, because he’s so afraid that Conrad will stop, just like the other times, and then somebody will have to die. He starts clawing at Conrad's shirt, trying to get it open.

  “Christ, look at you,” Conrad says. “You want it so bad, don’t you?” He’s panting, wild-eyed. He doesn’t look like he could stop even if he wanted to, which is a goddamn relief.

  “Yeah,” Phil moans. “I want it... I want--”

  Conrad reaches between them, undoes Phil’s fly and wraps his big, thick fingers around Phil’s cock.

  “You’re dripping for me, aren’t you?” he says, smearing some pre-come around the head. He starts to jack Phil slowly and Phil bites hard on his own tongue, hoping the pain will distract him and stop him from coming too soon.

  “I wanna fuck you,” Conrad whispers into his ear, then bites the lobe, and Phil bucks up into his hand, whimpering. “You want that, hm?”

  “Please,” Phil moans. He’s managed to unbutton Conrad's shirt (unbutton being a generous term- at least a few of the buttons are now lying on the floor) and he scrapes his nails over Conrad's chest, clutches at his amazingly massive shoulders. He feels like there's some kind of creature, biting and clawing at him from the inside, trying to get closer to Conrad. “Please, fuck me.”

  Conrad reaches behind Phil and sweeps his arm across the desk, knocking away the pile of notebooks, a coffee mug and desk blotter. All of it clatters to the floor
and Conrad uses his weight to press Phil down, to spread him out across the desk. He pulls Phil’s sweatshirt off over his head, then makes a dismayed little sound to find another layer- thermal underwear- beneath it.

  “S’cold out,” Phil says, and tugs the second shirt off himself.

  Somehow, through teamwork, they manage to wrestle Phil out of his jeans and boxer-briefs, and then there’s nothing left. He’s lying there, completely naked (save a pair of grey woolen socks that neither of them bothered to remove) on top of Conrad's desk.

  The door is open, he thinks. The door to the office, the door to the lab, everything is open and anyone could walk in right now. Nobody will, of course. The campus is deserted. But they could

  This is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me, Phil thinks as Conrad reaches over his head, scrabbling around in a drawer.

  Phil watches him pull out and then toss to the floor a box of paper clips, a ball of twine, some surgical gloves, a bag of Werther's candy and a pair of reading glasses. He finally comes up with a tube of Astroglide and Phil raises his eyebrows.

  "You keep lube in your desk?" he asks.

  Conrad shrugs and smiles sheepishly. "Well, you never know," he says. The tube looks full, like it's never been used, which is somewhat comforting.

  Then he feels Conrad pushing one of those big fingers inside of him and he's just grateful Conrad is prepared for something like this.

  "You like that?" Conrad asks.

  Phil whimpers and pushes against his hand in response.

  This is normally the part where he'd start feeling self-conscious- truth be told, he doesn't let very many people do this to him- but it's different with Conrad. Everything's different with Conrad and it always has been. He starts circling his hips, lifting off the desk, and begging brokenly for more. He doesn't really care how desperate and slutty he must look, as long as Conrad likes it, and judging by his rapt expression- wide eyed and open mouthed- he likes it very much indeed.

  "Cock," Phil says. "Want your cock."

  “So impatient,” Conrad says, which seems, to Phil, a very ridiculous thing to say. He’s been waiting forever.

  "Ugh, come on," Phil grunts. And then, "Condom... pants." He gestures with his foot towards the pile of discarded clothing on the floor and hopes Conrad understands what the hell he's talking about. Miraculously, he does. He fishes Phil’s wallet out of the pocket of his crumpled jeans and digs the condom out of there, and Phil sits up to help him put it on, wanting to get his hands on Conrad's cock for the first time- to see it and touch it before it’s inside him.

  It’s big, definitely the thickest one he’s ever held in his hand, and he worries for a moment that it might be too much for him. But he wants it. God, does he want it.

  He’s dreamt about this so many times, when it actually starts to happen a part of him is expecting to wake up, sticky and frustrated and tangled in his own sheets. But his dreams have never been like this. He’s never been held down on a rickety, particle board desk and fucked so hard he’s afraid the furniture is going to collapse underneath him. He’s never been able to smell the sweat trickling down Conrad's neck and chest, never torn the flesh on Conrad's back with his nails or cut his own lip during a ferocious kiss and tasted blood in his mouth. It’s never been this visceral, this desperate, this real, in dreams or out of them.

  “You take it so good, don’t you,” Conrad says at one point, fingers knotted in Phil’s hair and cock buried in him up to the hilt. “My good boy.”

  And Phil has heard that one before. He’s not sure if Conrad says it because of what he’s read in Phil’s stupid journal, and he doesn’t much care. His body reacts to it, suddenly and violently, and he comes with a startled shout- probably loud enough for anyone in the building to hear him.

  The feeling of Phil’s come splattering onto his chest seems to set Conrad off in the same fashion; he ruts into Phil a few more times, then bites his shoulder hard and shudders against him, groaning low and long in his throat.

  Once he’s spent, Conrad goes boneless against him, nuzzling his neck and resting the dead weight of his torso on top of Phil. Phil runs his fingers through Conrad's sweaty hair and keeps his legs wrapped around Conrad's waist.

  “Come home with me,” Conrad says, and Phil is going to say yes and please and forever, but on the floor, under his clothes, his phone starts to ring and then he remembers. His brother. His family. Thanksgiving.

  “I can’t,” he says. “Fuck, I have to go!”

  *************

  Since his parents' divorce, holidays with Phil's family have been complicated, frequently uncomfortable affairs. His mother insists that they continue to celebrate together and invites Phil's father back to the house for every special occasion, in spite of their separation. For the kids' sake, she says, so they don't have to choose. Phil appreciates the thought, but in practice this has led to several freakishly awkward situations.

  Last Thanksgiving, for instance, Alex had been overseas and his wife Michelle, pregnant at the time, had been celebrating with her own parents in Boca Raton. Phil's Nana was on a gambling trip to Atlantic City with her cronies from the retirement village. That left Phil and his parents, which would've been bad enough, but when Phil came down from his room for dinner he'd been dismayed to find a dour faced blonde woman sitting next to his father at the table. Her name was Liz and she was a partner at his father's law firm. No one bothered to explain why she was there, but it soon became apparent that she was his father's new girlfriend. The less said about that the better, but suffice it to say that it was the single most horrifying meal of Phil's entire life.

  This year is different. Phil's father has either broken up with Liz or decided to spare the rest of the family from her presence. Phil's Nana is there with some old guy named Buzz (like the astronaut!), and though the idea of his Nana having a sex life is vaguely alarming, he has to admit they make sort of a cute couple. Phil's mother is completely herself, charming and funny and warm, the good mother whose very existence makes the alters that much more painful and difficult to deal with when they do appear. And, of course, the best thing of all- Alex and Michelle are there along with their baby, Phil's niece, Luna.

  For once, it feels like a normal holiday with a normal, happy family, and Phil should be enjoying it. He is enjoying it, but part of him is somewhere else.

  First of all, he's fucking exhausted. Traffic was horrible once he finally got on the road, and he didn't get to his mother's house until after midnight last night. He collapsed into his bed, after a quick shower to remove the sex smells that had been clinging to his entire body, but sleep never came. His mind kept rolling, like a hamster on a wheel, replaying the events of the afternoon over and over again.

  The further he gets from it, the more it starts to feel like just another dream. Did it actually happen? And what happens now?

  Conrad had seemed a little sad and confused when Phil started to make his frenzied departure, which made Phil feel good and bad at the same time. He'd grabbed Phil's shoulders before he left, asking Phil to come home with him again. "Let me make love to you properly," he said. Nobody had ever said anything like that to Phil before, and he'd been so tempted, but once he finally explained to Conrad why he was leaving, Conrad changed his tune fast and practically shoved Phil out the door.

  Now he's wondering, what would have happened if he had gone home with Conrad? What would it mean, exactly, to have someone "make love to him properly” and what if he never gets the opportunity to find out?

  It's entirely possible that, after some time apart, Conrad will change his mind about the whole thing yet again, and Phil is preoccupied with that thought through most of the dinner. Discussion revolves almost exclusively around the new baby, which is good because Phil doesn't have to contribute very much, and he finds himself playing out various scenarios in his mind, trying to decide on the best way to approach Conrad after the break.

  Should he play it cool, do nothing until class and ju
st see what happens? Or would it be better to call Conrad and ask him on a date of some sort? Would that be totally awkward and bizarre?

  Usually once sex has been accomplished, Phil is pretty much ready to move on. He doesn’t have much experience with relationship stuff, and the fact that Conrad is his professor just makes things that much more complicated and precarious. Maybe he should just show up at Conrad's house unannounced and take off all his clothes?

  Halfway through the pumpkin pie and coffee, Phil’s phone starts vibrating in his pocket, distracting him from his distraction. There aren’t too many people who’d be calling him on Thanksgiving, and most of them are in this room. He’s dying to look, but his mother has a very strict no phones at the table policy. Technically, he’s not even supposed to have it on. He balls up his napkin and tries to muffle the sound (why does his phone vibrate so loudly?) but Buzz is sitting next to him and he starts emitting a horrible squeaking sound each time the phone vibrates.

  “WHAT IS THAT?” his Nana shouts.

  Phil realizes the vibrating ring tone must be interfering with the old coot’s hearing aid and he gropes around under the table, trying to turn the stupid thing off. He hits the wrong button and somehow manages to turn the audio ringer on instead.

  Everyone at the table glares at Phil accusingly, including Buzz who is holding his ear and muttering in Yiddish.

  “Phil, shut off your goddamn phone,” his father says.

  “Sorry,” Phil says. “Sorry, I’m trying.”

  Now that he’s been discovered, he’s free to look at the phone under the guise of turning it off. The horrible ringing has stopped by the time he gets it out of his pocket, but the number is still flashing on the screen.

  “It... uh, it’s for school,” Phil says. “I’m really sorry, I have to-- uh...”

  “Go,” his mother says, waving her hand in a shooing motion. “Take your pie.”