Truth, Pride, Victory, Love

by David Connor

  “Nine,” he said in a whisper the next day, only two rows back and to my right, as he flashed the number by bending, then straightening his fingers at the knuckle while our classmates stared at him.

  Unfortunately, when we got down to only two days, he missed class again, only this time, not to hang out with me. He told me after training he’d overslept. “I shouldn’t nap between classes, I guess.”

  We made plans for the evening—admittedly loose.

  “Let’s definitely get together somewhere before the day is over.”

  “Okay.”

  He couldn’t come with me right after swim practice, because he had volleyball tryouts. “Come with me. You’d look hot in the uniform.”

  “My plate is way too full for volleyball. Coach doesn’t want us doing too much outside classes and swimming.”

  Mathias dismissed that statement with an eye roll and a “Phht.”

  “And besides that, it’s Devon’s birthday.” I waited for him to indicate he remembered that. An “Oh yeah,” would have been nice. “We’re going to Skype.”

  Mathias seemed distracted as we stood there in the locker room in nothing but towels. Even almost naked, with maybe a little fullness in my cock that always happened when there were only the two of us in there among the aroma of hundreds of guys that had been there throughout the day, I couldn’t hold his focus.

  “I’ll tell him you send happy wishes.”

  “Cool. Yeah. Tell him I’ll call him later,” Mathias said.

  I knew right then I wouldn’t. Why should two of us be disappointed waiting for something that might never happen?

  Mathias’s phone rang. He grabbed it from the bench and clicked on it right away. Someone was worthy of his immediate attention.

  A LITTLE after ten, my mother told my brother he should sign off. Once I had him—once I saw his chubby cheeks and radiant smile, once I heard his voice and the pure love in it he had for me—it was hard to let him go, even after over two hours.

  “I’ll see you real soon. This weekend.”

  “I hope so. Is Mathias coming?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  He hadn’t called. Devon definitely would have said if he had.

  “Is college fun?” My brother asked that same question at least half a dozen times every time we spoke.

  “Parts of it.” It was one of the few lies I had ever told him. I’d already decided I hated it.

  “Mama says we’ll mail you a slice of cake.”

  I smiled. “Make it two. I burn a lot of calories.”

  My clock read eleven twenty-three when Devon finally said good-bye for real. By the time I gave up on Mathias coming over, it was after midnight, and the day was over. He’d broken his promise. I wanted to call him a hundred times, but I played that game no one ever wins, where I willed him to call me instead. He didn’t. Not for days.

  SOON ENOUGH, September became October, and then that month flew by. While Mathias was settling in like one of the hot guys on the front of the college brochure, I struggled with everything except the swimming. Consistently reaching my optimum time, coming in ahead of everyone else on the Cloverton team, including him, I quickly earned the respect of the other Cavaliers. I won big-time at our first meet and posted great times in the relay, to help garner some medals for us as a team. All of that was nice, except for the fact I received no more sex toys. I wasn’t particularly outgoing, though, and rarely hung out with anyone out of the pool.

  Mathias was a social butterfly, an overachieving one, who always knew the answer in Calculus, and, according to him, during very brief conversations that were few and far between, hadn’t received a mark lower than an A on anything he’d handed in so far in any class. Just that morning, I’d gotten a D in English, quite the shocker since I’d spoken it since I was two. Despite Coach Keller’s wishes, the ones I’d taken as a command, Mathias joined the marching band, the foreign language team, and a group of hikers who liked to disappear into the woods for hours at a time. I wondered if the trees there spoke to him. Lucky trees if they did, because I sure as fuck wasn’t. I also wondered where the hell he was finding those hours. If I wasn’t nine-tenths naked and wet, I was doing homework, studying, or trying to sleep. My name could have been printed on the honor roll bulletin board in permanent ink during my high school days, but college classes were fucking me in the ass, something Mathias was ready to do as well just before Halloween, no matter what Coach Keller wanted.

  “OH. HI.” I was surprised when he showed up at my dorm late one evening, several hours after practice.

  “I thought maybe you’d be asleep.”

  “Naw. I don’t do much of that.”

  “How come?” He came in, bringing with him the scent of new clothes, AXE body spray, and something pumpkin and cinnamony. As he set down the coffee, I immediately wanted to rip off the source of the first scent, and then survey his flesh up close with my nose to discover where he’d sprayed the second.

  “Studying, nerves, loud roomie, too hot.” They’d turned the heat on right after Columbus Day, and the room was always about a hundred degrees.

  “Where is he? Your dorm mate?”

  “There’s a rumor he freaked out and bolted. Went home. Quit.”

  “Ah.”

  “Want to go out for a walk? The leaves are changing. Leaves are our thing.”

  Mathias put his hands on my waist and guided me toward the bed. “Maybe after.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Let’s see if I can get you relaxed.” Ever so gently, he pushed me back to a lying position, my head about halfway up the mattress. He slipped off my shoes, and I immediately started to become aroused.

  “Mathias….”

  “Shh.” His thumb rubbed deeply into the sole of my left foot. He tapped out a message.

  “Mmm. I love you too. But….”

  “Shh. Nice, huh?” He slowly rolled down that sock, took it off, and then removed the other one. Despite Coach Keller’s strongly stated objections, I was hoping my jeans would be next. They were. Mathias tried, but I slid farther down the bed as he tugged on the hem at the bottom of both pant legs. It made him laugh. God, how I missed his laugh. “Unbutton them.”

  “Should I?”

  “Unless you want to fall on the floor, yeah.”

  “That’s not my main concern.”

  “Keller’s dumb.”

  “Hey.” I still hated that word—and I hated the arrogance it took for Mathias to use it on Coach.

  “You know what I mean.” He moved up to the side of the bed and unfastened my pants himself as he turned my words on me yet again. “His superstition is. We can have sex without it affecting our swimming in any way.”

  “You think?” I lifted my ass off the bed and held on to my underwear so they wouldn’t go along with the jeans.

  “We’re alone. You could get naked.”

  “So could you,” I said.

  I had barely finished the last syllable before he’d stripped down to nothing but socks. “I hate cold feet.”

  “They won’t be cold in here. And I didn’t say we could fuck.” Apparently I was still in a fighting mood about the lack of communication and several more no-shows, even as I licked him with my eyes.

  “Who says I want to fuck? I was planning on giving you a massage.”

  “Oh.”

  “And then fucking you. I’m horny as hell. I got to get it somewhere.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was talking to a guy. He taught me a couple rubs. I’ve been thinking of sports medicine after our Olympic run.”

  I didn’t know which part of that sentence to react to first. “You’ve thought that far ahead?” Of course he had. I didn’t say that part out loud, though, because I really didn’t want to argue and waste our time alone, and also because all words dissipated quickly. His hands felt that amazing on my inner thighs and hips. “Fuck!”

  “In a minute.”

  “Ha-ha. That feels nice.”r />
  “Your cock seems to think so.”

  “And yours agrees, I guess.” I reveled in the bliss, both therapeutic and erotic in silence for a few minutes, but in another turn of attitude, I couldn’t let the other stuff go. “So, is this some sort of ultimatum?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He gently slapped me on the hip, which I took as a cue to roll over. When I did, Mathias pulled off my undershorts. He held them, actually, and I crawled out as I moved to the top of the bed. “Either I let you at my ass, or you go get at someone else’s?”

  He was at it with his hands, and his hard-on poked just below the start of it, technically my leg. He hadn’t really started caressing there yet, and as the seconds passed quietly, I wondered what he was thinking. It was like that moment with Coach Keller, the one when he’d asked me if I was serious about Rio and I’d taken too long to answer.

  “Go,” I said into the pillow.

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me.” It was muffled but clear enough. “I don’t want us to have sex just so you can check it off as another big collegiate accomplishment, like item number fourteen on the list.”

  “You can be so… immature.”

  “Really?” I turned over and stood. “I see it the other way around. You’re a spoiled brat, used to getting everything you want the moment you want it.”

  “So this is a life lesson, like the ones your father taught you? The longer I wait to suck your dick, the more I’ll appreciate it?”

  “Don’t talk about my dad.” I was right in his face, moving his feathery hair with my breath.

  “I like your parents. Get the chip off your shoulder. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

  “Good. Because if you did, I’d have to kick your ass.” I stepped away and picked up my pants. I put them on without underwear, and since I was at Mathias’s back, I took a moment to admire the concavity of the small of it, his muscular thighs, and the tuck and hairy split of his beautiful, bare backside.

  “You really want me to go?”

  No. I want that guy I slept with all night on a bench a few weeks back to crawl into my bed and hold me. I want to kiss him ten times before we finally, reluctantly pull apart like we did when morning came. I want it to hurt like hell, like it obviously did, when we had to. I don’t want our separation to be nothing to you, like it seems to be now. I want you to want me to need you. After thinking all that, I told him yes.

  “Too bad.” He said it sadly, without a hint of animosity or sarcasm. “And just so you know, if I do it with someone else, it doesn’t mean our first time won’t still be special.”

  “How can you even…?” I couldn’t look at him.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Still he asked. “When you were in middle school and junior high, and you joined all that stuff… so much stuff…?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why did you?”

  “Because I’m good at everything.”

  Mathias chuckled. “Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of ego.”

  “At least I was. Now I know what I’m really good at… what I’m meant to do… swimming.”

  “See, I’m not sure about the swimming thing.”

  I turned back.

  He was dressed, and he shrugged. “I tell Coach Keller I am, because that’s the right answer, but it’s not… in my blood or whatever, like it is for you. At least I’m not always convinced it is.”

  “If doubts were a reason to walk away, I’d never stay in one place.”

  Mathias’s eyebrows poked fun.

  “My dad said that once. It makes sense to me.”

  “It means nothing is a hundred percent guaranteed… nothing’s certain.” He said it like he suddenly got it.

  “Yeah. So, if swimming isn’t your thing, why are you doing it?”

  Mathias shrugged again. “Partially to be with you, but we haven’t been. Can’t be. Aren’t. I don’t want to fuck up your dream, Reed.” He reached out with his hand. When I held mine close, he took it. “You know why I signed up for every extracurricular activity known to man—here… and back when I was a kid?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m lonely.”

  “Lonely?”

  “I swear I spent the first part of my life—the first part I’m cognizant of—feeling this incredible sense of abandonment and solitude. I learned the Morse code thing in Boy Scouts—from the book—on my own, not in the group. I’d tap out things on my bedroom window all summer, hoping—wishing—someone would hear it and talk back. No one ever did, until you.”

  I tightened my grip on his hand.

  “You’ve seen how I live. I’m pretty sure I was left to my own devices the moment I could walk. It’s a wonder I was ever potty-trained.” He tried to get me to smile. “I loved staying at your house. I loved never having a moment to myself.”

  “It didn’t always seem like it.”

  “It may have been overwhelming sometimes, Reed, but I never got tired of it. See, when I first got around other kids, I struggled. I was like a goldfish who went from a solitary bowl to an aquarium with twenty others. I surely hadn’t mastered socialization by the time I first met you. Eventually, I did, or at least some facsimile, and maybe I went too far the other way. I can’t go back to that, I guess. I joined the gay and lesbian alliance, the gay men’s chorus, and though I didn’t make the collegiate team, I will be playing gay volleyball.”

  “What’s gay volleyball?”

  “The ball’s pink? I don’t know. We haven’t met yet. It’s a winter sport, after football’s over, and it’s no cut. What I’m saying is, chances are, if I take part in all of these things, with a bunch of other gay guys, one or more is going to try and get with me.”

  “Now who’s conceited?”

  “I never called you conceited. I said you had a healthy ego. I do too now, I guess, but I don’t mean it that way. Reed, I’m still lonely sometimes, no matter how many people are in the room. I feel like I need something… someone…. There are more people here than I have ever been around anywhere else in my whole life. All different kinds, some just like me.” He said it with such awe.

  “I’m not enough like you?”

  “If I can’t be with you, I don’t think I’m going to be able to resist some other guy… maybe any guy… for very much longer.”

  I released his hand. “So you’re using your lonely childhood as an excuse to become a slut?”

  He laughed, and as I climbed back up my single bed, I imagined his, exactly like it, crowded with two, three, or maybe him and an entire sports team with pink balls. “Maybe something like that.” He smiled still, even though the remark wasn’t meant to be funny. “Though some might say that ship has sailed.” Mathias bowed his head.

  “Oh. You’re not a virgin?”

  “No.” Now he wouldn’t look at me. “Are you?”

  “Mostly.”

  “You and Cal.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No one here?”

  “I’d have fucking told you.”

  “Okay. Don’t be mad. My first was the guy who does the leaves. Do you want details?”

  At first, I’d thought he meant his first since we’d been at Cloverton. “No,” I said quickly, even when I realized he’d meant his first ever.

  “Okay. But truth is our thing, right?”

  “And pride. The first time we almost did it, though, back at your estate, beside your lake, you said you’d waited seventeen years. So that wasn’t true?”

  “That wasn’t about sex. That was about something else.”

  “What?”

  “More than sex. Look. The leaf guy was….”

  “I’m the leaf guy now. Leaves are us. We’re leaves. Call him something else.”

  Mathias huffed again. He still didn’t seem angry at all, but rather overwhelmed with frustration, maybe not all sexual. “Our gardener’s assistant… he wasn’t all that much older than I w
as. I went out to talk to him. I told you I was lonely. It was bound to happen. Couldn’t be helped. Sex is attention… and I was starving for that.”

  “So just half a semester in Psych 101 you have yourself all figured out?”

  “Maybe so. This is college, Reed. This is the time in our lives where we’re supposed to discover who we are and what we want.” He suddenly had that air of arrogance again, the one that disgusted me, the one that he must have inherited from his parents, the kind of people who accepted invitations to things—made promises—and then never showed up. The nut hadn’t fallen far from the family tree.

  “Fuck. Another deciduous metaphor.”

  “What?” Mathias asked.

  “Nothing.” I’d stopped asking—begging—hoping for time with him. The last time he’d flaked out on me, he’d claimed he had gotten lost in the woods, presumably with the hikers or spikers he was ready to fuck—or already had.

  “I know who I am.” I scooched farther back on my bed, up against the wall behind it. I missed my bedposts. “I know what I want,” I said.

  “You think you do.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a little kid.”

  “It’s just not realistic,” Mathias claimed.

  “What isn’t? Making it to Rio?”

  “The Olympics is very real. This is one of the top schools going when it comes to putting swimmers on the US team, and we’re at it, and besting almost every number ever posted.”

  “I’m besting them.”

  He nodded sideways. “Yes. You are.”

  “So have you fucked someone here already?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I took that as an answer.

  “So, I guess you want to break up?”

  “Break up from what?” Mathias chuckled and raised both palms. I wanted to throw my Calculus book, with my leaf pressed inside, at his big, fat arrogant head. “Like I said, what do we do together except swim?”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “Of course not.”

  When he sat down on the side of my messy bed, I covered myself with the corner of the sheet, even though I had my pants on.