by J. M. Snyder
“You want to ride back to my place with me?” Josh asked, surprised at the boldness he heard in his own voice. “I usually smell much better, I promise.”
“I like a sweaty man,” Chad told him. “Will my bike fit in your car?”
Josh shrugged. “Let’s see.”
* * * *
The bike did fit, barely, in the trunk with the back seats down and a short rope holding the trunk closed. As Josh drove home, Chad pointed out the side street down which he lived. “Not too far from you,” he said when Josh stopped.
With Chad’s bike in the car, Josh became aware of just how close he lived to Bryan Park himself. Less than three miles. Why had it never occurred to him to run the distance instead of drive it? He could train for rougher terrain that way, get used to running near traffic, and walk the remainder of the route home until his stamina increased to the point of running the full distance. That would put him closer to his goal of 10K. And if things worked out with Chad, he didn’t have far to go to see the guy…
He led the way upstairs to his garden apartment. Inside, he gave Chad the brief tour—living room, kitchen, balcony, bedroom, bath. “It’s a little small,” Josh admitted.
“It’s great,” Chad assured him. “I share a house with my sister and her friends—the girls you saw earlier? Let me tell you, having this much space to call my own would be amazing. All I have is a bedroom and a shelf in the bathroom cabinet under the sink.”
Josh grinned. This close, Chad looked ruggedly handsome—inside, he removed the sunglasses, showing off those sexy sky blue eyes, and took off the baseball cap, as well. His hair was dark and wavy, smoothed down flat over his head from the hat, but he kept running his fingers through it, loosening it up. The unconscious movement was endearing. Josh pictured the man in his bed, that dark hair against the white pillowcase, and imagined running his own fingers through the thickness. Would the faint scent of shampoo still cling to the depths? Would the interior still feel damp from the morning shower?
Josh suspected the answer to both questions was yes.
Which reminded him just how much he must smell, unwashed and sweaty in his running outfit. “God, I need to clean up,” he said, peeling the tank top away from his stomach. “Why don’t you get comfortable and let me grab a quick shower?”
Chad grinned, then moved toward a photo collage on the wall that caught his attention. “What’s this?”
Embarrassment rose in Josh’s cheeks, heating them. The collage was something he’d made to help keep him inspired to exercise. The photos were all of the same person—him—at his heaviest. He’d taken the ugliest, fattest, most unappealing pictures he could find and stuck them all together in a large frame. He hated to admit that there’d been a wealth of images to choose from, too. He didn’t photograph well.
“Um,” he sighed. Coming closer, he clicked on the light in the hallway so they could get a good look at the collage. Josh watched Chad’s face as his new friend studied the images. Finally, unable to bear the silence between them, Josh admitted, “They’re all me.”
“I see that.” Chad’s voice was low, intimate. “How long ago were these taken?”
Josh shrugged. “Last year. I lost a bit of weight since then.”
“I’d say.” Reaching out, Chad touched one photo near the center of the collage, the only picture in which Josh wasn’t alone. “Who’s this?”
“Robbie. My ex.” Josh forced a quick laugh. “He was… something.”
Chad looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Just…I don’t know. Things were good when we started dating, but somewhere along the way, he changed. Or maybe I changed, and he didn’t like it.” Josh glanced at the picture of Robbie and wondered what he’d ever seen in the guy. “He started getting…I wouldn’t say abusive, but mean. Petty. Calling me names, pinching me, slapping me sometimes.”
Chad raised one eyebrow. “I’d call that abusive.”
Talking about it now, Josh would, too. “Yeah, well, eventually I had enough and left. You can only hear someone call you fat ass so many times before you call it quits.”
“Seriously?” A faint smirk crossed Chad’s face. “This dude called you fat? He’s twice your size!”
“It’s a bad photo,” Josh tried to explain.
“I’d hate to see a good one.” Chad shook his head. “Nah, man. You look a little overweight here, sure, but he’s a porker. You lost what, three hundred pounds the instant you kicked him to the curb? After that, the rest must’ve been a cinch.”
“Yeah, well.” At Chad’s praise, Josh ducked his head. “Sometimes I still feel that big, you know?”
Chad gave him a seductive grin. “You sure as hell don’t look it. You look great.”
“Thanks,” Josh murmured.
“So hurry up with the shower already,” Chad told him, “and we’ll get our first date out of the way.”
Josh laughed. “It isn’t really a date…”
“You saying you don’t want to go out with me?” Chad teased. “The sooner we get the first one out of the way, the sooner we can move onto the second.”
Which meant this wouldn’t be a one-time thing. Josh resisted the urge to pump his fist in the air and cry out, “Yes!”
At least until he was alone inside the bathroom, the door shut behind him. Then he beamed at his reflection and mouthed the word.
Score!
* * * *
Josh took a quick shower—part of him was afraid that, after seeing those fat pictures of his, Chad might decide to hightail it out of the apartment while Josh was in the bathroom. So he soaped up his hands, lathered his hair, then rubbed the sweat off his body while the shower pounded down on top of his head, rinsing out the shampoo. Most of the time, after a good run, he lingered in the shower and masturbated beneath the hot spray, letting the build-up of endorphins in his system coalesce into a climax that washed his jism down the drain with the soap.
But now he had someone waiting for him—and, as tempting as it was to close his eyes and jerk off to the thought of Chad’s handsome face and rugged body, Josh hurried things along so they could get to lunch and their first “date.” He’d allow himself the luxury of getting off later, when he was alone and able to replay the day back at his leisure.
When he turned off the shower, he stepped out and toweled off his hair and chest, then ran the towel quickly down his arms and legs. He wrapped the towel around his waist, pleased it fit. There’d been a time when he couldn’t quite close the towel completely around himself, and the gap that exposed his thigh always depressed him. Now, though, the damp guy reflected back at him from the bathroom mirror fit inside the towel with room to spare, and water beaded on his chest or ran down his stomach muscles, which were beginning to define themselves into a nice six-pack.
Not quite there yet, he told himself, eyeing the fatty handles he could see bulging up out of the towel like muffin tops. Another few months of running and he’d lose that, he was sure of it. By the time he completed ten consecutive kilometers, he’d be lean and fit, and he could finally take down the collage of fat pictures hanging in the hallway. Then no one would have to know he’d been a pudgy doughboy most of his life.
Combing back his hair, he smeared deodorant on under his arms and turned on the bathroom fan. He opened the door and stepped into the hallway, cool after the heat from the shower. “Be ready in a minute,” he called out.
Chad wasn’t staring at the fat pics, so he was most likely in the living room looking through Josh’s CD or DVD collections, or thumbing through the magazines Josh left strewn on the coffee table. Dimly, Josh hoped he hadn’t left any pornos out in plain sight, but would that be such a bad thing? Chad had already made it pretty clear where he hoped things led between them. An old, well-worn issue of Freshmen might just push them in the right direction.
Josh turned down the short hall that led to his bedroom. The bed was disheveled, still unmade, and he was halfway across the room, heading for th
e closet, before he realized a sexy pair of bare legs lay stretched above his crumpled sheets. He turned and found Chad lying on the bed, hands folded behind his head, propped up on the very same pillows Josh slept on the night before. I bet they still smell like me, he thought as Chad gave him a slow, sexy grin. And tonight they’ll smell like him. Thank you, Jesus.
“Hey,” Chad said, sitting up. In his shorts and torn T-shirt, he looked casually seductive. His pale blue gaze traveled from Josh’s face to the knot in the towel around Josh’s waist, and a low whistle escaped Chad’s lips. “Damn, boy. You look fine.”
Josh grabbed the ends of the towel where they were twisted together and tugged at them self-consciously. “I’m getting there.”
Pushing himself up off the bed, Chad closed the distance between them. “You’re already there,” he said, one hand dropping to cover Josh’s. He eased his fingers into Josh’s palm, then took hold of the towel. His thumb hooked between the towel and Josh’s belly and moved a little from side to side, loosening the knot Josh had tightened.
Josh felt his stomach clench with nervous anticipation. He hadn’t felt this aroused in a long time—sex with Robbie had become perfunctory, relegated to the darkness of their bedroom after hours so they could avoid looking at one another’s bodies. No foreplay, no passion, nothing but a need in the night they both sought to satisfy. Nothing had made Josh’s flesh tingle the way Chad’s touch did. Nothing about Robbie ever quickened his pulse the way Chad could with a single look.
As Josh stared into those icy eyes, he felt another hand on his shoulder, rubbing down his back, pulling him nearer. The hand at his waist flattened against his abdomen, where his skin fluttered beneath Chad’s caress. Chad stepped closer, leaned down, and Josh watched his eyes shut as he pressed his lips to Josh’s in a tender first kiss.
It took a second or two for Josh to give into the moment, to let his eyes slip shut and allow his body to savor Chad’s. The mouth on his was gentle at first, but when Chad found no resistance, he grew insistent, his tongue parting Josh’s lips to dip inside Josh’s mouth. Josh gasped, offering more of himself to Chad, and felt the hand on his waist slip under the towel to rub his belly. Lower, over his pubic mound now, lower, until Chad’s hand tangled in coarse, kinked hair and the towel fell off Josh’s hips to pool on the floor at his feet.
Josh let Chad’s hands guide him to the bed. He let Chad lay him down, back against the jumble of blankets and bed sheets he should’ve made this morning but didn’t. Chad kissed Josh again, mouth lingering on Josh’s, then worked his way down Josh’s chin, along his throat, into the hollow at his clavicle that had only appeared once the excess weight burned off. With both hands, Josh gripped his blankets as his stiffening cock rubbed against Chad’s clothing—he wanted this, yes, whatever it might become, but he wanted more than this, he wanted everything Chad might give him, and he didn’t know how to ask for it without sounding needy or greedy. He’d been so unattractive to himself for so long, it amazed him that anyone else might be interested in exploring the body he’d worked so hard to attain.
But Chad kissed and licked and fondled Josh with an intensity that took his breath away. Warm lips closed over one nipple, hard teeth nipped the bud erect, then a wet tongue lapped and suckled until Josh moaned with delight. Chad moved to his other nipple, repeated the ministrations, and by the time he moved down to Josh’s navel, Josh’s dick lay like a steel rod between them, aching, begging to be next.
Chad bit the rim of Josh’s navel and tugged, playful. “Yes,” Josh sighed, writhing in the sheets. He ran a hand through Chad’s hair—it was just as thick as he’d hoped, and his fingers disappeared into the depths when he fisted both hands into the long, dark waves. Chad dipped lower, squatting on the floor now between Josh’s legs. Gently, he guided Josh’s knees apart, then kissed his way up Josh’s inner right thigh.
His breath tickled along hidden skin; his tongue licked and tasted every inch between Josh’s legs. The barely-there sensation was maddening; Josh arched up off the bed and moaned Chad’s name when that devilish tongue flickered over his puckered anus, then up the stretch of skin to dance below his balls. “Yes,” he cried, one hand straying to pump his now fully erect cock. “Yes, yes!”
Chad eased his hand aside and licked up the underside of Josh’s veined dick. At the tip, he rimmed beneath the flared cockhead, then lapped the pre-cum dribbling down the slit before taking the plum-like knob into his mouth. Josh watched his length disappear into Chad’s gorgeous mouth, those incredibly blue eyes pinned to his. “Yes,” Josh sighed, fucking up into Chad, who eased his hands under Josh’s buttocks and helped push him up. “Please, God, yes.”
It was all he could say. He watched Chad swallow him down, taut cheeks working along his stiff member, the tip of his dick bumping the back of Chad’s throat with each thrust. When Chad fingered Josh’s hole, he couldn’t hold in his orgasm any longer, and Josh came in a wet rush deep in Chad’s mouth. Then he lay back on the bed, spent and trembling.
Chad crawled up to lie down beside him. Curling an arm around Josh, Chad hugged him tight. One hand strayed to pluck a still pert nipple. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not really all that hungry any more.”
The front of Chad’s shorts tented over an erection Josh wanted to take care of in the same way Chad had helped with his. With a sigh, he nuzzled closer to his new lover. “I’m not letting you get out of this bed for the rest of the day.”
“That sounds promising.” Chad grinned. “What do you want to order in?”
* * * *
Their first date was definitely not their last. When Chad learned Josh ran every morning before work, he biked to the athletic building where they first met and was waiting when Josh finished his run, breakfast at hand. Hot coffee and a healthy sandwich—egg whites on toast, from the cafe they never did manage to get to on Saturday. “When we get closer to the 10K, I’m bringing donuts,” he promised. Before Josh could protest, Chad pointed out, “You’ll need to bulk up on your carbs for the race.”
Josh still couldn’t quite believe he planned to enter. To a lifelong runner, ten kilometers probably didn’t seem like much, but to a dyed in the wool couch potato like himself, it seemed impossible. He still hit the wall around four miles; no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn’t seem to break through the invisible barrier holding him back. Twice around the bike path at Bryan Park did him in. There was no way he’d get another two miles and change out of his aching legs. He knew he’d never do it.
Weeks passed. Josh knew every inch of the paved trail around Bryan Park. He knew where the trail crumbled a bit and he had to step lightly to avoid a sprain, where puddles formed after it rained, where he’d first be able to catch a glimpse of Chad at the athletic building, and where his legs would begin to ache on his final run. Soon the course felt routine; it no longer presented much of a challenge to him, though he didn’t push himself harder or faster. He didn’t want to hurt himself, he said, but he knew it was his own innate laziness resisting change.
Luckily, Chad had other ideas. As their relationship deepened from acquaintances to something more, Chad seemed to notice Josh was in a bit of a rut. Trying a different venue was Chad’s idea. Josh protested—Bryan Park was close to his house, he argued, and besides, he wasn’t good enough yet to try out another trail. So Chad suggested, “Run from your house to mine. It’s just over two miles, I looked it up on Google. Then I’ll bike back with you to your place. That way if it gets to be too much, I’m right there beside you if you need me.”
“I’m not really used to running on the road,” Josh said.
Chad reminded him, “The Monument 10K is all road, through downtown Richmond. What do you think they’re going to let you do, run on people’s lawns just because that’s what you’re used to?”
He had a point. So Josh ran to Chad’s house, pleased when he got there in under twenty minutes. He was shaving seconds off his mile every time he ran. His goal for the 10K was to try to co
me in under an hour, if he could. If he couldn’t…well, managing to cross the finish line at all would be a big deal nonetheless.
True to his word, Chad biked back with Josh, at first alongside him as he ran, then racing ahead and riding just ahead. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at Josh. “Come on, man. You can do better than that!”
“Is that…supposed…to be…encouraging?” Josh panted. He knew they were nearing the four mile mark—he felt winded and his calves quivered. “Because…it’s…not.”
“How’s this, then?” Chad stood up on his bike and pedaled slowly, his buttocks flexing in the tight shorts he wore. Josh watched the muscles clench, left side, right, left again, and felt his body respond to the sexy motion.
Even though he knew he needed to save his breath, he called out, “When I catch you…”
“Promises, promises,” Chad chided. “What’re you going to do?”
Josh pushed ahead, his blood not only pounding in his temples now but beginning to beat a hungry rhythm in his groin, too. The road seemed to disappear beneath his feet as he hurried after Chad. He wanted to sink his teeth into that round ass, bury his nose and lips between those tight cheeks, and lick Chad’s puckered hole as it flexed around his tongue. That’s what he would do when he caught up with Chad. If he didn’t pass out first, or fall down dead before he made it home.
Chad called back over his shoulder, “You’re slowing down.”
“Fuck you,” Josh growled, but he forced himself to speed it up a little.
“Only if you catch me first,” Chad sang. Damn, if he didn’t pedal faster, pulling ahead.
Josh felt sweat trickle down his back and he concentrated on nothing but the man in front of him. Those strong shoulders, that broad back, the silly baseball cap perched backwards on top of his head. And that ass…Josh couldn’t tear his gaze from it for long. He felt as if he were in a cartoon, and Chad’s butt was a carrot dangled in front of him to keep him motivated.
