by T V Hartwell
“I literally just stepped on the treadmill a few seconds ago. I said hello to you but you were like in outer space or something.”
“Sorry, bro. I didn’t hear you. I had my music on blast. How are you?”
“I’m doing great. We shot the pilot yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d it go?”
“Very well, but I’m tired, man. We worked all day yesterday and much of the weekend too. I needed to come to the gym to decompress a little.”
“So what’s next?”
“We’re in postproduction now, editing and getting it ready to submit to the network.”
“When will you know their decision whether to turn it into a series?”
“If not by next month, early May for sure.”
“Wow. That’s exciting, man. Congratulations again. Seriously, I really mean that. I hope it gets picked up and becomes a huge hit.”
“Thanks. Appreciate it.”
Jake couldn’t help but notice that Kirby seemed confident and relaxed as he strutted on the treadmill with an even, steady rhythm. It was as if he and Jake hadn’t gotten into a physical altercation forty-eight hours before. Jake wondered if Kirby had moved on already. Although Jake had an apology on the tip of his tongue, he felt too bruised and bowed to utter it. Kirby wasn’t even looking at him anymore as he continued to walk purposefully on the treadmill, staring straight ahead as if Jake and whoever Jake might be sleeping with were trivial matters that he now could care less about. Jake felt so overcome with shame and embarrassment about his family’s secret that he even felt inferior to Kirby in that moment. The guy whose heart he’d broken now appeared unaffected by him. To Jake, Kirby looked proud and accomplished—as someone on the brink of producing his first comedy show for a major TV network should feel. A total stud. In stark contrast, Jake had just visited a private lab to learn whether or not the man he’d called Dad his whole life was truly his father. The whole sordid affair was humiliating. Jake had never felt lower.
Jake stepped off his treadmill, intending not to say anything further to Kirby. “What more is there to say? I suck,” Jake said to himself under his breath.
Just as Jake began to walk away, Kirby called out to him. “Jake.” Kirby hit the stop button on his treadmill and stepped off it. Jake turned to face him.
“Listen, man, I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for choking you. I really felt bad about it afterward…bad about the whole confrontation. It shouldn’t have gone down like that. I honestly just wanted to talk to you and clear the air, but my emotions got the best of me and I acted out in a way that wasn’t constructive or useful in any way whatsoever. I mean…you shouldn’t have punched me either, but I know that I instigated the fight. I came into your house already turned up, and I regret that. I’m sorry, man.”
“I apologize, too, bro. I was planning to call you, to tell you how bad I felt. We’ve never fought like that before.”
“I know, man. I can’t recall us ever hitting, punching, or choking one another. Ever. I felt sick to my stomach afterward.”
“I felt sick about it too. I’m so sorry, bro,” Jake said in earnest.
Kirby scratched his chin and grinned. “You know, I must say, you’ve got a pretty mean right jab. Didn’t know you could hit like that, bro. You nearly broke my jaw.”
Jake grinned half-heartedly, feeling a little embarrassed. He looked away for a moment as he contemplated what to say next. He wanted to open up and tell Kirby what was going on with him, but he didn’t know where to begin.
“Are you all right, man?” Kirby asked with a look of concern.
Jake sighed as he continued to glance away momentarily. Then he looked Kirby straight in the eye. “There’s so much I need to say to you.”
Kirby stared back at him but remained silent.
Jake started to vacillate as his heart raced with apprehension. “I don’t want to hold you up. I know you’ve got a lot going on right now. We can talk later,” Jake said as he started to pull away.
Kirby grabbed him by the arm and spoke softly. “Jake. Talk to me now. I’ve always got time for you. You know that, bro.”
Jake looked around the gym, which seemed to be growing ever more crowded by the minute. “Why don’t we go outside,” he said.
Jake and Kirby walked downstairs to the first floor and out the front door of the gym. Jake led the way and kept walking until he reached his car, which was parked nearby on the street. “You want to sit inside?”
“Okay. Sure,” Kirby replied as he walked over to the front passenger door and hopped in.
Now sitting in the driver’s seat, Jake took a deep breath and sighed again before speaking. “I guess I should start with what you came to talk to me about this past weekend. Yes, it’s true, I did hook up with Reggie. I hooked up with him twice. The first time was on New Year’s Eve, or in the early morning hours after, to be more precise. The second time was a week later. I haven’t been with him since.”
Kirby looked over at him skeptically with a raised eyebrow.
“Kirby, I swear to God, I’m telling you the truth. Those were the only two times I hooked up with him.”
“But why? I don’t understand. You told me that you really didn’t want to be with a guy, and then you go and let him fuck you?”
“Kirby, you don’t understand—”
“No, you don’t understand,” Kirby said in a raised voice dripping with emotion. “That hurt me, man. And what you said back at your apartment about Reggie being better in the sack and shit—”
“Kirby,” Jake repeated to interrupt hm. “He didn’t fuck me. I never let him fuck me. Okay? I just said that to make you mad. I was bullshitting you. He never touched me like that, at least not with his dick. With his finger but not his dick.”
Kirby stared at Jake hard for a moment. “Did you want to?”
“I thought I did at first, but I couldn’t do it. I regret meeting Reggie now. I acted on impulse. I was horny and craving a hookup with a guy. That’s all it was. Pure and simple. You and I weren’t talking anymore—”
“No, you weren’t talking to me,” Kirby replied defensively.
“True. I wasn’t talking to you, and so I looked for somebody else to get off with.”
“So where do things stand with you and Reggie now?”
“I’m done. It’s over. We hooked up twice and that’s it.”
“And who else?”
“Who else?”
“Yeah, who else have you been hooking up with?”
“No one. Not any guys, if that’s what you mean.”
“Hmmm.” Kirby didn’t sound convinced as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Kirby, I swear to God, there haven’t been any other guys. I’ve mostly been dating this chick I work with.”
“Yeah, I heard about that, but I know you, Jake, and I’m having a hard time believing that you have given up on hooking up with guys completely.”
Jake turned to look at Kirby, incredulous. “What? Why? You know that you are the only guy I’ve ever been with…at least, until Reggie.”
“I don’t know, man. Knowing that you’ve been with Reggie has really fucked with my head. It’s made me question everything…everything I thought I knew about you…about us.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me so many times that you weren’t interested in any other guys, that I was the only guy that you would ever be with. Now I know that’s not true. You are into other guys. And then you came down so hard on me for fooling around with other dudes when—”
“I came down so hard on you because you never told me that you fooled around with other dudes. You never told me about Antonio. You’d been fucking this guy behind my back and then he’s going around saying that he knows me and that he’d been in a threesome with me. How’d you expect me to react? I fucking trusted you, Kirby. You thought I was your only guy, but I thought you were my only guy, too, bro.”
“You were—I mean, you are my only guy, Jake. Anto
nio never meant anything to me. He was my booty call. That’s all it ever was. I don’t mean to sound cold, but it’s the truth. I was ready to drop him like a hat but I was never completely sure if you loved me the way I loved you, and I really didn’t have anyone else who knew me—who knew about this side of me. I guess…in a way…Antonio helped me to come out to myself. Helped me to realize and accept that I liked guys more than girls. I turned to him when you weren’t around or when you weren’t available because you were with Amanda. It took me a long time to feel comfortable enough to admit to you how I truly felt about you, and then I finally told you. And then….”
Kirby started to become emotional. He turned to look away from Jake and stared out the passenger window for a moment. He sighed and regained his composure. “I was crushed when I realized that you didn’t feel the same way about me, man. That what we shared wasn’t truly the love I thought we mutually had for one another. I really thought you loved me, man. That you were in love with me. I felt so foolish and stupid. And then when you called things off with Amanda, I thought there would be a chance for us, but all this shit with Antonio came crashing down and you stopped talking to me. And then you wrote me off so easily after such a long friendship. Since middle school. Then, when you got with Reggie, a guy who happens to resemble me, physically speaking, it made me wonder if I ever meant anything to you or was I just helping you to live out a particular fantasy or fetish.”
“Come on. Not at all—”
“But that’s how it felt, Jake. You wrote me off and then found another black dude to be your fuck buddy, and all this time I thought, based on what you’d told me, your attraction was only for me.”
“First of all, I admit that I am attracted to other guys. Have been since college actually, but I never felt attracted enough to act on it. I had you and that was enough for me. Besides, I was serious about my relationship with Amanda and was dead-set on marrying her. In my mind, you seemed determined to be with a girl too. Not Laren necessarily, but I’d assumed that you would’ve eventually found the right girl to be with and marry. I mean…over the course of the many years we’ve been friends, you’ve bedded a lot of chicks, man. So it was a surprise to me to hear you say that you were in love with me and wanted to be in a relationship with me…a gay, boyfriend-to-boyfriend kind of relationship. With that said, however, the idea that you were just some guy that I had been using to help me live out some sort of gay fantasy couldn’t be further from the truth. Things might have started out that way when we were in high school, but over time, my feelings for you evolved too. I was jealous and upset to learn about your relationship with Antonio. And after we had our big blowup over him, I vowed to never speak to you again. I tried to force myself not to care about you anymore by shutting off all communication and contact with you, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I thought about you all the time. I never lost my attraction to you or my feelings for you. I hooked up with Reggie as a way to suppress my desire to be with you. He was the closest thing I could find aesthetically to being with you. To satisfy my craving for what we had. But in the end it wasn’t a very satisfying experience because what I had with you can’t be replicated. The feelings, the emotions, they were real. We were making love, Kirby. It wasn’t a fantasy. The love I felt for you was real. It still is.”
Kirby turned to look into Jake’s eyes softly. “Wow, I’m blown away right now, man. To hear those words coming out of your mouth. Wow. Just wow. I’m speechless.”
Jake stared back into Kirby’s eyes and reached over to place his right hand atop Kirby’s knee. In that moment, Jake wanted to wrap himself in Kirby’s embrace like a warm blanket—to be comforted, to feel the sensation of his best friend’s love washing over him again.
Kirby placed his hand on top of Jake’s, and then they interlocked their fingers together, tightly.
Jake wanted to lean in to kiss those lips. Those thick, full, moist, luscious lips of Kirby’s. But he hesitated when a couple of guys, more than likely coming from the gym, walked by the front of the car. Jake could see a blurred image of them in his peripheral vision, and he could hear them talking. Being a little self-conscious, he sensed that they were staring, but he didn’t know for sure because he kept his eyes locked on Kirby the whole time.
Kirby noticed the passersby, too, but he didn’t break Jake’s gaze. Almost in a show of defiance, Jake and Kirby both remained in the moment as they kept their eyes trained on each other and their fingers interlocked.
“You want to go over to my place?” Jake finally said.
“Yes,” Kirby said simply and without hesitation.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jake pulled into the garage of his building after the short drive from the gym. He and Kirby walked over to the elevator to take it up to Jake’s floor. The gravity of longing and desire pulling them together again was so intense that they couldn’t resist the urge to physically connect with one another. Neither had the patience or inclination to wait until they made it inside Jake’s apartment. The moment the elevator door closed behind them, they embraced immediately.
Jake wrapped his arms around Kirby’s waist and held on to him tight. Then he lay his head on Kirby’s shoulder and closed his eyes as he savored the feel of his body pressed against his friend’s. The clean, fresh but distinctly masculine scent that permeated from Kirby’s hard, muscular flesh filled Jake with a lustful urge.
When the elevator reached Jake’s floor, Jake didn’t want to let go as Kirby rubbed and caressed his back in a way that was loving but also sensual.
Just as the elevator door was about to close, they quickly broke their embrace and Kirby extended his arm to prevent the door from shutting all the way.
Jake unlocked the door to his apartment and they stepped inside. After closing the door, Kirby wrapped his arms around Jake’s waist from behind and held on to him as he pressed his pelvis to Jake’s bottom.
Jake could feel Kirby’s hard-on, which immediately triggered his own. When Kirby began to kiss and gently nibble on the back of his right ear, it felt so tantalizingly good that Jake felt as though he was about to pass out from the rush of blood to his head.
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed you,” Kirby said as he moved his hands up Jake’s torso to feel and caress his chest.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Jake said as he placed his hands to Kirby’s. Then he turned around to face him. When he did, his lips magnetically met Kirby’s. Initially their kiss was eager yet tender and loving, but then Kirby pressed his tongue into Jake’s mouth, which sent Jake over the edge. Jake moaned as he sucked on Kirby’s tongue in a manner that clearly indicated how much he had hungered for his taste again. It was the ultimate pacifier—the next best thing to having Kirby’s ten inches of manhood marinating in the wetness of his mouth.
“I need you, Kirby,” Jake said breathlessly. “I need you so much right now.”
“I’m yours,” Kirby said before he offered his tongue to Jake again. Then he slid his hands down Jake’s back to grab and squeeze his ass. Jake reacted by likewise slipping his hands around Kirby to grab and squeeze his taut, round, muscular ass.
They continued to kiss passionately, hungrily—feasting on each other with wet, openmouthed, tongue-swirling kisses. Their noses pressed together as they inhaled and exhaled onto each other audibly as if the oxygen in the room was wholly inadequate for the burst of heat and energy emanating from their bodies. Jake eventually moved his hands from Kirby’s ass to lift up his shirt and rub and squeeze his pecs.
Kirby helped him out by pulling his shirt off completely, revealing nipples that were tight, erect, and eager to be tortured.
“Oooh, yeah,” Jake slurred sensually, excited and aroused at the sight as he began to squeeze and twist them.
“Ahhh…fuck, yeah,” Kirby said as he closed his eyes and tilted his head back at the sensation. It felt good and slightly painful at the same time, but he wanted more. “Bite me, man. Bite me,” Kirby comman
ded.
Jake obliged happily as he knelt down slightly to circle each of Kirby’s nipples with his tongue before tugging on each one with his teeth, causing Kirby’s body to shiver. Jake continued to suck and lick with vigor before he started to work his way down Kirby’s torso, kissing and licking the crevices of his well-defined, sculptured abdominals. As he did so, Kirby’s hard-on was pronounced and protruding against the soft polyester and elastane fabric of his gym tights.
Jake fell to his knees to press his face to the Black Mamba, to reacquaint himself with it again. When he did so, Kirby placed his left hand to the back of Jake’s head to press his face to his stiffness harder. He then began to gyrate his hips to rub his hard-on up and down and all around Jake’s face. Jake savored the taunting as he gripped Kirby’s muscular thighs with each hand in eager anticipation of what would come next.
Jake couldn’t take the taunting and teasing anymore. He yanked Kirby’s workout tights down to reveal an untamed Black Mamba, primed and ready to assault an eager mouth. “Fuck…you’re so beautiful,” Jake said as he eyed Kirby’s member with a salivating glance before extending his tongue to lick it from the base of the ten-inch shaft to the top of its very swollen head. He licked it again and again and then again, taking his time and savoring each lick more than the one before it. As Jake remained on his knees, he reached to pull down his own shorts and began to stroke himself as he went to town on Kirby with ferocious intensity and aim. Although Kirby was the one being serviced, Jake seemed to be having all the fun.
After Jake spent several minutes lubricating Kirby’s tool with his wet and very hungry mouth, Kirby pulled Jake up to face him again. They kissed wildly and sloppily, feasting on one another with unrestrained abandon, soaking themselves in the wetness of the other’s mouth. Kirby licked Jake’s nose, cheeks, and jawline before he sucked on his chin. Jake responded in kind with equal fervor and zeal in his adoration. Jake could barely contain his excitement from the rush of adrenaline coursing through his body. Every nerve ending was on fire, experiencing sensory overload. He began to press his pelvis to Kirby’s, humping him aggressively. Kirby humped back and grabbed Jake’s ass tightly. Then he parted Jake’s ass-cheeks to make his way toward the part of Jake’s anatomy he thirsted for the most.
