by Tom Collins
I nodded and leaned across him to stash my iPhone in the glove compartment. I could smell the lime of his shaving cream again and that special tang of Zest bath soap. My nipples tingled. I had money for tickets and drinks in my pocket, so my wallet joined my phone. Straightening, I looked at him. His cheeks looked a little flushed. I smiled. That was a good sign.
He pulled his wallet from the side pocket of his cargo shorts and opened it to pull out some cash. I put my hand over both of his, covering the wallet opening.
“I got it,” I told him.
“What? No, I—”
I cut him off. “I asked you, so I should pay.”
“Who asked who is debatable,” he persisted.
“Do you really want to fight about this?”
“No,” he laughed through his nose.
“Good. Let’s go have some fun then. Eh?” It seemed like a silly thing, but I didn’t want any confusion about the circumstance under which we were here. If we went Dutch, he might decide this wasn’t a date. I wanted to be done with the uncertainty between us.
He put his stuff in the glove compartment with mine and we climbed out of the car, locking the doors. I pulled a couple towels from a tote bag in the trunk. They were huge, six foot by four foot, terry cloth beach towels with Finding Nemo themes. Dory was on mine, and Bruce was on the one I handed to Oliver.
Oliver’s brow arched at the towels and he gave me a sidelong look.
I shrugged. “They’re old, but still good.” He chuckled and draped it around his shoulders. “You might wanna lose the shorts now, unless your suit didn’t fit?”
“No, it fits.”
He started undoing his fly and Mister Impulsive slipped the lock on his cage. I started humming that worldwide cliché stripper music. He had one leg up in the air, pulling it out of his shorts when I did this and not only did he flush, but he started laughing and losing his balance at the same time. He had to grab the car fender to keep from toppling over, his foot caught on the material. I caught him by the shoulders and helped him free his foot.
“Sorry,” I said, sheepish. “I can’t control my urges half the time.”
“No, it was funny.” The grin he wore seemed a little incredulous, like he couldn’t believe me.
Rein it in, shit-wit, or this one’ll be looking for the exit before the day is out, Mister Reason advised.
I admired his well-toned, sparsely forested legs, most of which I could see since he was wearing these old-fashioned short trunks. I couldn’t decide if I’d rather they were wrapped around my hips, or spreading my legs. The very idea of either made me blush. I wondered how old-fashioned his trunks were. I recalled a pair my father had once that were white just like these, and when they got wet, the whole world could see he was a Gentile. My mother threw them out pretty fast.
I paid for two adults. The girl in the booth smiled as she exchanged my car keys for a chit on a wristband. Oliver still looked uncomfortable, but I could understand it. I’d’ve felt the same if he were paying. We went through the turnstile, Oliver first, and I came up next to him.
“Can we go on the log ride first?” I asked.
“We can do anything you want,” he said, looking at me.
“Not anything,” I joked making eye contact then I looked down the pedestrian roadway. “Come on, it’s this way.”
I took off at a jog, wanting the cooling effect of the water. It was hot in more ways than one. We started at the log ride, my favorite, and worked our way through the whole place. We went on every slide and ride in the park at least twice and the ones we liked best got hit more times.
Oliver, to my surprise, liked the highest and fastest slides with the sharpest twists and turns. The ones that make most people hesitate and often change their minds. Not him, he dove right in, head-first if they allowed it. I had as much fun watching him whooping his way down, splashing triumphantly into the cool pools as anything else. He looked so different when he was laughing and energized. Dripping wet his red-gold hair darkened to amber. It was almost a different person than the one I’d seen sitting at the table with my uncle. His smile was captivating, to say the least.
We took a break a couple hours in and got a soda. We rested back on the waterproof benches in our wet suits, discussing which slides were best and why. Then we were back to running around the park as the day inched into mid-afternoon. I spent half an hour ignoring the complaints of my stomach, I was having such a good time, but when it growled loud enough for Oliver to hear he insisted we stop and eat. I wanted to go to the concession stand, but he wouldn’t hear of.
“You’ve just spent hours burning loads of calories. The last thing you need is to fill up on fried crap on a stick dipped in sugar,” he lectured.
“It’s Ok, I can eat anything,” I demurred, not ready to give up the day yet and lose his company.
“If you can eat anything you can eat something that’s worth eating. Besides, it’s probably time we made our way back before we get trapped in rush-hour traffic. Let’s go to my place and I’ll make us a tuna salad.”
His apartment—where we would be alone. My heart spluttered in my chest, my buttocks tingled and my groin muscles contracted.
“O-o-ok,” I said, more a breathy squeak than speech. I cleared my throat.
“Ok.” He smiled and, towel wrapped round his shoulders, steered me toward the front of the park with light pressure from his hand on the small of my back.
We stopped at the booth to exchange the possessions chit for the car keys and change. The nerves I thought I’d put to bed over the last few hours woke like Smaug with heartburn. I was terrified and excited, wondering what, if anything might happen now.
“You can drive if you’d like…” I held the keys out. I felt too distracted to drive. I was starving, pissing-myself scared and sprouting wood all at once.
“You sure?” he asked, hesitating to take the keys.
“Yeah, I know I drive like old people fucking.” I flushed to have mentioned sex of any sort, even old-people sex. “You know, slow and careful.” I gave him a crooked grin.
We set our towels on the seats to avoid getting them damp, and Oliver steered us back out onto the highway. He drove well, and rapidly, a steady five over the speed limit. Neither of us said anything and the silence felt awkward. The air seethed with unsaid words and heaved with undone actions. If I didn’t do something, I was going to start blurting uncomfortable truths again.
I pulled out my CD folio and swapped David Bowie out for Annie Lennox. The synthesizer pulsed like the sexual tension filling the space between us as Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) began. Oliver looked over at me as he passed a Hershey-colored UPS truck, arching a brow. He looked surprised.
Annie’s voice issued from the speakers, sharp, hot and plaintive. I tapped my leg and bobbed my head, watching Oliver drive out of the corner of my eye and wishing I could crawl over the console and attack him right here.
Back in the city again, he took us to a renewed section of town. A part that, until about eight years ago, even the cops didn’t want to go into after dark. These days it was totally different. When I was in high school it’d acquired the unofficial name “Little ‘Frisco.” The majority of the people who’d bought property and started cleaning the place up were gay. Once the gentrification got a foothold, the bad element moved along to an even seamier part of town. It seemed drug dealers and hoods of every description had a severe allergy to freshly painted brickwork.
He pulled into the underground lot of a refurbished apartment building, parked, and killed the engine. He had an amazing economy of motion that I’d noted in my uncle and I wondered if it was something emergency persons learned.
“Here we are,” he said, almost smiling.
I smiled back, but couldn’t get any words past the lump in my throat. We got out and locked up after he collected his stuff from the glove compartment. While we waited for the elevator, an older man, maybe fifty, came up and stood with us. When the carriage came,
he let us get on and eyed us for a second with this weird look on his face. Stranger still, Oliver reached out and pulled me over by my waist to stand next to him as the man climbed aboard.
I felt exposed, as if Oliver and this old guy both knew more about what was going on than I did. The elevator rose after Oliver and the man punched in the floors they wanted. We were heading to four and he was getting off at three.
We made it safely to the third floor, the elevator informing us with a cheerful ding. The man sighed and got off. The door closed and Oliver, tensed like a cat, relaxed.
Oliver barely waited for the elevator to finish opening on the fourth floor before heading down a narrow hall. I followed, trying to figure out what’d just happened. At the very end of the hall, Oliver worked his key in a lock; the door swung open and he waved me into an air-conditioned room. I entered, feeling as if I were broaching a lion’s den. There wasn’t much to it. It was practically a studio and the walls were barren. Except for a fantastic poster-drawing of The Lone Ranger in faded, sepia-hued comic book colors, which definitely warranted further inspection.
“Spartan,” I stated. “Have you ever wondered how the name of a nation known the world round for its battle prowess became a word meaning—” I turned to look at him as I spoke. Next thing I knew I was pinned against the wall and he was kissing me.
*Oliver*
He stepped into my apartment. It’d been an amazing day, all in all, and I really, really liked Liam. Funny, confident, bright, playful, and astonishingly open. He was all those things and more. I’d trusted him enough to let my guard down, been unable to help it, as we’d plunged down watery inclines together, splashed like kids in pools and dared each other to try the scariest slides. Intimacy on a whole different level, one I’d never experienced before.
An amazing day, overall, and an exhausting one, but I wasn’t ready to stop, not by a long shot. My desires were still on those water slides, or so it seemed; rising and falling and twisting and turning, and no matter how nervous I was, there was no going back until they splashed down. Which was why I’d asked him home.
I’d never asked any man home before.
I suppose it helped that my new apartment didn’t feel like mine yet. Still, I was nerve-wrackingly self-conscious about it, especially its minimalism. It was composed of a single room with a love seat, my dresser across from that, upon which sat a television and my medical books. The queen-sized bed was up against the wall in the corner. An open doorway led to a separate kitchen and dining area, but pretty much everything was contained in that one, very modest and immaculately bare space. The only decoration I’d put up was a single framed Lone Ranger poster, the one of a re-colored Win Smith drawing done for a 1939 radio program. It featured the Lone Ranger riding hell-bent for leather across the rocky desert.
“Spartan,” Liam said, glancing about. “Have you ever wondered,” he continued, turning to face me, “how the name of a nation known the world round for its battle prowess became a word meaning—”
I grabbed him, shoved him against the wall, and threw myself on him. I had my mouth on his, and he welcomed my tongue. I tasted his cool saliva, explored the roof of his mouth, his lips. His hands clung to my shoulders, while mine ran up and down his shirt, over his chest, down to his belly. I wanted to go lower, but resisted. Not yet, not yet. But it was so damn hard.
I broke away at last, gasping for breath. I had one hell of a throbbing hard-on and my still damp bathing suit did nothing to hide it. Liam was breathing hard too and I could make out the outline of his own boner under those wildly patterned shorts.
“Wow,” Liam managed, staring at me with those great, green eyes. They weren’t playful or sly or coy. They were wide open and trusting. I went for his neck, biting and nibbling and licking the Adam’s apple; he groaned and his locked knees finally gave way. I bit his ear, rubbed my cheek against his, kissed his closed eyes, the dimple in his chin. I ground our hard-ons together, the wet friction from the bathing suit itchy and maddening against my sensitive skin.
Kicking off my flip-flops for better traction, I took hold of his tee. Off it came. Then I did what I’d wanted to do since I’d seen his bare torso. I raked my fingers through his chest hair.
Slow down, I urged myself. Down! and managed to stop. I braced my hands on the wall to either side of him, my body trembling with need. “I’m sorry,” I panted. “I’m sorry, I’m going too fast.”
“No, no—” he protested. “It’s all right I’m just—I’m…a little dizzy. In a good way,” he added quickly.
Dizzy, yes, I thought. Then he ought to lie down. I pulled him from the wall; a step back and he fell onto the bed. His flip-flops went flying, and his knees bent over the end. I climbed over him and ran my fingers through his chest hair again, over tight, excited nipples, goose-bumped shoulders. His belly fluttered as I brushed over the navel. My stiff cock jumped and fought to get out of the bathing suit.
Too fast, I thought, even as I dragged off my tee. Too fast, you’re going to scare him to death. And then my hands were knotted in his thick, black hair and I was kissing him again, dueling with his tongue. I pinched a nipple, causing him to yelp in my mouth. His hips, however, gave a promising buck. I forced myself to pull back yet again.
“Sorry, sorry,” I gasped. “I want to take it slow, I really do. I don’t want to freak you out. Here…” I pushed off the bed and slipped off my bathing suit. My cock sprang up free, engorged and ready to go. I had to fight the urge to throw myself on top of him and start trusting into, well, any opening I could find.
Slow, damn it! It’s the kid’s first time.
“Okay,” I said, climbing back onto the bed and stretching out next to him. I hoped my naked, raging hard-on wasn’t going to unnerve him. “Let’s start again. Nice and easy. And listen if—if anything I do bothers or freaks you out, you let me know. I’ll stop. I promise.”
“I’m not worried about that,” he assured me, lying there, gazing up at me as if waiting for instructions.
Of course he was, I thought. I was the master here and he was the apprentice. Only I didn’t want it that way. So. Let’s see if he could be lured into participating. I lifted his arm, his long wonderful right arm. Holding his wrist, I slipped his right forefinger into my mouth and began to suck. I teased my tongue over his fingertip, then popped it out and went on to the next finger.
Liam moaned and his hand jerked with pleasure. I glided my mouth down to his palm, licking the lines there, and he let out a whimper, his wrist twisting in my grip.
“Oh, wow,” he breathed. “Oh, wow—”
On down to the inside of his arm. Oh, yes, this is what I dreamed of; long arms that went on forever and I could indulge in them bit by bit. With my free hand I stroked the veins, with my head I rubbed his forearm, nuzzling into hair there. I kissed and licked his inner elbow, and nibbled on his wonderful bicep.
Liam had started to groan, and struggle against my hold on his arm, even as his free hand reached down and tried to pull off his swimming trunks. He’d gotten the waistband down, displaying the dip of his hipbones, and a black treasure trail that fanned out into the top of a triangle of pubic hair. His cock was tenting the shorts, making it hard for him to get them off. His ass bucked up, as he tried to squirm out.
I buried my nose into his armpit, into the hair there. He smelled of chlorinated water, masculine sweat and sunshine. I started to lick.
“Oh fuck!” he cried out, and finally turned to grab at me. His mouth went for my shoulder, my throat, and his free hand pulled at my hair.
I came up for air, and then got atop him. I could feel his still trapped boner poking me in my naked crack as I bent over to lick at the hair around his nipples. His long arms wrapped around me, and his ass jumped up again, thrusting with desire. My cock was stiff and pulsing, my nuts bouncing as his soft, hairy belly came up to bump them.
Slipping back off him again, I took hold of the front of his shorts and tugged them down to his thighs. He ki
cked and pulled at them himself, getting them off one leg and then the other. Then he shoved himself up higher onto the bed, letting me get between his legs.
He lay there, long body spread like a starfish on the beach, eyes shut, shaking and quivering and muttering, “Oh, wow—” For a moment I just admired his cock. Resting on a thick patch of pubic hair, it was uncut, the foreskin drawn back and folded about a very handsome, veined stem. The head was flared and drooling precum.
It was as excited and eager and willing a cock as I’d ever seen.
Saliva pooled under my tongue. I bowed in homage to it, taking it into my mouth. Liam jumped and gasped, his cock striking up at the back of my throat. There are men who, when performing fellatio, hate that almost-gag feeling. Not me. I loved it best when my partners lost control and started thrusting down my gullet.
I wanted that from Liam. I got one hand into that nest of pubic hair, locking fingers around the base of his stiff dick so he wouldn’t shoot too soon. With the other hand I fondled his nuts, sucking at his tip all the while. His hands were in my hair, pulling it painfully, instinctively trying to shove my head down even as his knees came up and his ass began to rock and buck. He was grunting and groaning, writhing, almost fighting.
I squeezed the base of his cock tighter, a bit of discomfort to counter-balance the pleasure and draw this out a little longer. The flared head filled my throat, the stem slick and soft as it rubbed past my lips. I licked eagerly after the sweetness off the tip every time it fell away, and sucked hard each time it rose.
“Gotta cum!” Liam yelled in warning, “Gotta—”
I relaxed my grip on his cock, and almost instantly, he stiffened. His orgasm was fierce, shooting so hard and fast I almost choked. Hot salt-cream filled my mouth and I made a hasty gulp before it drooled out. Another jerk, and another, almost as powerful and spitting more fluid. I pulled back, sucking a little to get those last drops off that beautiful dick. It swayed there, still purple from the effort, and rather stunned, it seemed.
