A gay story: Spark I haven’t felt it in a long time. When you’re with someone for six years the spark kind of dies down into a little ash-covered coal. If you’re lucky it won’t blow out entirely.
So I’m attached in a rather permanent way… I know I shouldn’t be feeling this. I shouldn’t be playing. I didn’t mean for it to happen; it started out so innocent. But I can’t help it. There’s just something about him that hooks me, claws digging into my flesh, into my brain. A little shiver down my spine that shouldn’t be there; something I thought I’d never feel again. Not in this lifetime.
I can’t help myself.
He’s never done this before; when he – jokingly at the time – told me to be gentle I just went all to jelly inside. My knees started to shake. They’re shaking now when he lets me into his room. He’s come a long way for this – for us to meet face to face.
Pictures, emails – they only tell you so much. They tell you what a person looks like and maybe even how they think and feel, but they don’t give any indication of a spark, the thing that happens when two people meet, the thing that, if it doesn’t happen, can’t be forced.
He looks like his picture, but also nothing like. He matches the stats, the description, the picture: 6 feet, trim, short dark hair. Brown eyes. In them, the spark that can‘t be described, that must be seen in person. He looks me over, matching me with my pictures he’s seen over the internet, my stats. 5’10, 170, blonde/blue. When he smiles and shyly steps forward to hug me awkwardly, I can feel him shaking. Just like I am. The way he smells makes my stomach turn flip flops and I feel the dizziness and panic I get from heights – like I’m going to fall. I fight the urge to clutch something and instead let him go and step back. His voice… I’ve heard it before on my cell phone, but now it makes it hard for me to breathe. That accent.
All through dinner at a trendy little Thai place downtown, we keep looking at each other. Sparks in our eyes. Both of us hardly believing the other is really here. An accidental touch, when both grabbing to pay the check, makes us both jump back like we’ve been been touched with an electrical shock. Then we grin at each other, embarrassed. We should be over this, right? It’s not like we’re kids.
I can’t help myself.
I can’t take him home, not withhim there. I don’t want to think abouthim. Not now. Just for one night let him not exist. Then I’ll go back to my semi-content domestic partnership and stay there. I swear it.
So it’s back to his room at the hotel a few miles from the Thai place. I drive and he laughs about being on the wrong side of the street with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. He’s never been to the States before. I can see him getting a little nervous, and I smile. Giddy. Almost sick. It’s like high school again, except no one from my high school had a sexy British accent, or ever smiled at me like he’s doing. The crushing innocence nearly does me in. My heart is in my throat like a tribal drum.
He opens the door with his key card and I sit on the edge of the bed while he gets drinks out of the mini-fridge. I need one, badly. Absolut. Rocks, with a twist of lime. We both have one; we have several. We’re strangers and at the same time not strangers. Isn’t it funny what the internet can create between two people, a sort of instant intimacy. I’ve told him things over a network of wires and signals my closest friends don’t even know.
I just can’t stop myself.
We agreed. There’s no expectation of sex. We’d just meet in person and see what happened. Just because you want someone online doesn’t mean you’ll want them in person. The pictures weren’t necessarily even a true representation of what he looked like; people lie online all the time. But honestly at this point it doesn’t matter to either of us if we hadn’t matched our pictures. I feel scared, but at the same time I feel renewed. My body stops shaking and all the sudden we’re looking straight into each other’s eyes. My whole body is tingling and my cock is growing stiffer by the second, just from sitting next to him.
He swallows and looks down. He tries to hide the fact that he’s nervous by smiling, but I don’t need to be a genius to pick up on it. God. Women by the scores, he’s had; he’s told me half of their names. But he’s never been with a man before. The fact that he picked me is baffling, but I don’t question it. I just go with it.
Lifting my hand, I slide my fingers over his smooth jaw. I watch his eyes close as he leans toward me slightly. Waiting for me to kiss him. Our first kiss is just a brush … a journey of almost four thousand miles. His lips are so boyishly soft I forget everything. When I go for a second kiss this time he meets me – shy, but definitely eager. He wants this as much as I do. The taste of his tongue sliding past his lips and into my mouth is so sweet I almost can’t stand it. I ache all over. All this time, wanting only just a taste, and now a taste isn’t enough. It’ll never be enough.
I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.
I wrap my hand through his silky dark hair and pull him closer to me while his arms wind around my neck. We taste each other like hungry animals, devouring. I haven’t kissed like this since I was a lovesick schoolboy. Kissing is one of those things that falls by the wayside after a few years with the same person. We’re both breathing heavy when he pulls back and looks at me and starts to speak.
I place my finger over his lips and give my head a silent shake. Don’t speak. Words, words, words. Months of nothing but words. Emails, instant messages, webcams, cell phone calls with a 6-hour time gap. Now is the time for actions. He smiles and kisses my fingertip that rests on his lips, understanding; we understand each other so well. The spark becomes a blaze.
Yes.
I won’t let him say it with his mouth. Only with his touch. His body melting into mine until we’re a shaking mass of the edge of the hotel bed. We haven’t even undressed yet; all we’ve done is made out and already hot waves rush over me. His scent, sexy and innocent like sugar cookies, overwhelms me. My urge is to yank his clothes off, pin him to the bed and fuck his brains out, but his inexperience forbids that. We’ve already talked about this moment – the moment we didn’t think would ever happen – enough that I know exactly what I want to do. What he wants me to do.
One night only. That’s pretty much the agreement. One whole night together is all we can give each other. I’m attached. He’s not seeing anyone, but he’s got a job, responsibilites to go back to. But tonight it’s just us and nothing else in this world matters. I feel a weight shed off my back; a weight I didn’t even know I was carrying, the weight of the past twelve years since high school and everything that’s happened since that has piled up on top of me. In this moment I can be totally free of all my baggage and be like I was at the age of eighteen: innocent and open, ready for anything.
Slowly I reach up and the buttons of his dark shirt whisper open. I know what he looks like; I’ve seen digital photos of him from all angles, naked. But they don’t prepare me for the flesh. His satin-smooth skin that breaks into goosebumps under my touch; the silky dark hair trailing down his chest. He knows I like chest hair and he looks at me and grins as I stroke it, pushing his shirt open, over his shoulders.
It’s only one night. I’ve worked it out like this: I toldhim I was going home for a quick visit overnight. Home is out in the sticks where cell phones have no reception and my brother, whom I always stay with, doesn’t have a phone. It’s just family so there’s no need for him to worry or for me to call home. Home around noon tomorrow.
Noon tomorrow is a long time away.
Ths shirt falls to the bed and I put my hands lightly on his shoulders, spending my time just looking at him, seeing him in the flesh. The way his dark chest hair contrasts with his pale untanned British skin burns into my brain. His nipples are hard and his chest rises and falls quickly, matching the pace of mine. I slide my hands down his arms, skimming lightly with my palms over the light, lean muscle. He shudders.
I look up into his brown eyes and he gives me that nervous smile that makes me melt into a puddle.
“Am I what you expected?” he asks softly.
“You’re better.”
Being the experienced one here, I fully expected to lead things. I would be so gentle. But he surprises me by suddenly grabbing me, crushing me down to the bed, whipping off my shirt and kissing me with all the pent-up desire and desperation he’s been hiding all these years. Tongue dancing over my neck, down my collarbone, teeth nibbling at my hard, tight nipples while my hands, at last at last, are filled with the curve of his delicious ass cheeks. The hard bulge of his straining crotch brushes my thigh as he braces himself above me. We’re both gasping, gulping air. We’ve wanted this so long…
Stopping, he looks down into my eyes. I look up into his, so serious. Without meaning to his name leaves my lips.
“Conor…”
He smiles and caresses the single syllable of my name with his accent. “Chris.”
We have no time to waste on talking. On and on we’ve talked – swearing we were going to stop this. Go weeks without contact, then back, drawn to each other with a compulsion we couldn’t control. Fuck it. Fuck the guilt. One stolen night is all we can have. It’s more than most people ever get.
During our IM sessions, rigorously limited to once a week, he shows himself as needing to be pushed. Just a little bit submissive, maybe. Open to suggestions. He started calling me The Boss, which made me so hot my hands shook on the keyboard. I would tell him how to get off – now slide your finger up your ass – and when we’d sign off I’d go into my bedroom, wake up Stephen, and fuck his brains out with savage passion. All the while imagining his face was someone else’s.
He asked me to be gentle and I planned to take it slow. I don’t want to freak him out. I thought he might need a little push, but it was going to be a slow, gentle, seductive push. Instead he takes over. He needs this. His eyes close halfway as he explores my body with his shaking hands, it’s the first time he’s ever touched a man and that knowledge alone makes me want to explode. But I don‘t stop him. I remember what this need is like and I only stroke his hair while his fingers fumble with the button and then the zipper of my jeans.
Through my underwear my cock is hard, pushing toward his face. I see his eyes pinned to it, can almost feel his hot breath on my belly. He looks for a long time, hands on my hips. Not moving. I live a lifetime of bated breath in just a few seconds until he moves closer, closes his eyes as his mouth brushes my belly. I raise my hips. His hands struggle with tugging my jeans down over my thighs while he licks the space under my belly button with a quick tongue. It’s all I can do no to grab his head and thrust my cock down his throat.
A wet spot grows on the front of my gray knit boxer-briefs in response to his hot, agile tongue and the head of my cock is clearly visible pressed against the thin fabric. We both smell the scent of my sex. I watch him inhale deep breaths of it. This is one thing he wants to do. He wants to feel my cock in his mouth.
My blow job instructions, emailed. Lick it first. Do what feels good to you. The head is the most sensitive. Use your hands for fondling and exploring. Fingers are nice. Teeth are not. I suggested he buy a dildo and practice on it, and with some urging, he showed me on his webcam. Very, very open to suggestions. Watching him practice was hot, but nothing like what I see now. We aren’t even naked and already, I can hardly breathe.
I reach down and touch his cheek with a gentle hand. Looking up, he smiles at me. I swear I almost feel faint. Slowly I draw away and rise to my knees before him. My cock, still imprisoned in my underwear, is a beacon he follows to its zenith; he stops as it brushes his nose. I feel the heat of his lips, his breath; I close my eyes and suck in a deep, deep breath. In a moment I feel the cool air whisper across my naked ass, my thighs and my hard, leaking cock springs free as the underwear drops to my knees.
Is it a jump off a cliff to him? Something he can never turn back from? For me it was like breathing, the first time. Natural and easy.
No more waiting. I feel his tongue on the tip of my cock, tasting the clear, slick bead; my world stops as he slowly wraps his lips around the ridge of the head. His first taste of cock. He rolls it on his tongue. So sweet… so hot… I stifle a whimper at the unbearable wonder I feel. His hands catch my ass, gently squeezing. His tongue flicks right under the glans.
Oh. God. I grab his shoulders and he looks up at me with his soul-crushing brown eyes. He smiles. Asks me if I like it. Like it? I just had a fucking near-death experience. Smiles again, mischievous. The practice payed off then.
I’ve wondered for weeks, ever since we started planning this, over and over in my mind, if he was going to let me fuck him. He said he was a little nervous about it. If I didn’t, cool. I decided that.
All thoughts of that leave my mind as he brings his mouth forward, letting my shaft slip into it deeper and deeper. He remembered what I’ve told him: suction, hands, tongue action. His mouth is so sweet. He looks so beautiful sucking my cock, eyes closed in concentration. A look of what I desperately hope is bliss on his face.
Reluctantly I pull back from his mouth. He looks a little hurt; insecure. I smile at him and tell him not yet. I sense him hesitating on the edge of something. Afraid, maybe, I don’t know. Gently I press him to the bed, taking it out of his hands. Time for that little push. But once again he surprises me. He pushes back. He bucks, manages to rip off the rest of our clothes without any help from me. He pushes me to my back with his wiry strength; he pins me, straddles me, attacks me with all his desperation. Paralyzed, I open completely. My ego fades without pain. He doesn’t want it slow and easy and gentle. He wants me. Completely. Now.
I don’t muffle my sounds even though people move on both sides of the walls. I want him to hear my pleasure. I want him to know I love it when he slides his tongue over my balls, burying his nose in my thatch of blond pubic hair. I grip the expensive bedspread when I feel his tongue hesistantly brush between my cheeks.
I help him do something I never would have dreamed doing; something I haven’t done or wanted to do in more years than I can count. I take his hands and put them on the back of my thighs just above my knees. As he pushes my legs up I spread myself wide, willingly. I smell sweat and innocence.
His tongue… so clever … teases my hole. I never dreamed he would do this. I let out a harsh sound when a sudden finger slips up my ass. If it was anyone but him I would stop, I would say no, but I don’t care, I love it, I never want it to stop, please don’t stop. He has needed items in his bag and he jumps up and gets them while I watch. His cock is so pretty, bouncing when he walks. Long, slender, circumsized. I haven’t let anyone fuck me in years but all I can do is squirm with impatience as he slips on the condom with his shaking hands.
Naked on his knees, between my thighs, his cock sticking out, he looks up at me and I see nervousness in his face, a hint of doubt.
“Guide me,” he whispers.
Yes. Smiling, I pull him down to me, on top of me so our skins burn into each other. We’ve both fought this for a long time but the last walls between us are down, ground into dust. I feel all of him in every nerve. I whisper what he needs to do, I need some preparation because it’s been a very long time. This is something I never expected but I’m still gentle and patient, the teacher. I writhe, squirm, buck. I beg for it. His fingers stroke and lube me, fumbling. His inexperience makes me moan with need and when I reach down and guide his beautiful cock to my entrance I push forward.
The momentary charge of pain only pushes my pleasure higher. I forget myself; my scream both alarms him and gratifies him. I use my hips to guide his penetration as he holds my knees up, pushing them to my chest. I am totally open to him. For one night it doesn’t matter. I watch him lose himself in the fuck; I watch the sweat break on his forehead, I watch his head go backwards, his eyes glaze over as he devours the sight of me. I want everything, I want it all. He fills me up until the pain is gone and the hot, electric waves of orgasm wash over our pounding bodies moving together. Our eyes meet and hold.
With his entire weight behind it he slams all the way into me. At the same time I tighten around his cock. It’s so deep in me and I never want it gone. A look of surprised joy washes over his face; I feel his entire body go rigid. He bites his lips. He closes his eyes and stops moving, hips convulsing as he spurts. The condom separates me from the flood of his cum. I hold back until he finishes, and then the slight burning soreness his cock creates buried in my ass gives me the push I need to reach down between us and let myself go. God. I whimper as the orgasm flashes through me in a white-hot jolt I wish could go on forever. My cum is scorching hot as it splatters and pools on my belly.
My eyes open and I look up at his face, red and sweating. He’s grinning and I can see his pride as well as his post-orgasmic joy. He falls down to the bed next to me and we kiss, soaking each other in our sweat, our juices sliding between us.
I say his name. “I’m going to fuck you,” I tell him simply. The moment of decision has already come; he just smiles without looking at me.
“I know.”
Instead of acting on the promise, I relax against the pillow with him cuddled against me, his fingertips idly stroking my chest. We have the whole night. A pleasant drowsiness settles over us until he squirms and scratches. The dried-up cum is making him itch.
Pulling me off the bed, he leads me to the bathroom, where we play in the big white-tiled hotel shower. We stubbornly ignore all the unspoken wishes and desires writhing in the air between us.We have dentists in England you know. When he said that on IM, I pretended not to see it. IRL, I’m a dentist. It’s not as simple as just getting on a plane and moving to England. I’ve just gone back to school to specialize in orthodontics; Steve and I are tied together with a million threads, things stronger than sexual attraction; even stronger than the intense emotional connection I feel with Conor. The kind of emotional connection that fades quickly as soon as the daily grind of household chores, money fights, annoying little habits that seem cute at first, all catch up and start to sink in. Clang, go the bars of domestic life.
Easier just to play. It started out as just teasing. His bi-curious flirting turned me on. I didn’t pursue him, but I didn’t put a stop to it because I was flattered and bored with Steve. Nobody had seriously flirted with me in a long time. Then it just spiralled higher and higher, out of control, until we couldn’t stop ourselves from this night anymore. I thought just flirting would be enough, just a little spring in my step, a charge in my cock as it did its duty with Steve. I didn’t know we would end up wanting each other so much – mentally as well as sexually. I thought it was the wanting that mattered. I thought I could want without ever having to have.
Whoever said wanting is better than having never had shit.
As we lazily soap each other up under the hot spray, my mind begins to spin fantasies. Dreaming that he’s really mine; that I really can go back to England with him.We really can live happily ever after. I start to imagine that all my debts and responsibilities and promises to people are washing down the drain right along with the suds. With his wet skin pressed against my back, his tongue licking the water from my neck, his chin resting sleepily on my shoulder from behind, for a moment I almost believe it can be real.
He whispers a playful suggestion in my ear. Three little words, teasing, but serious. We’ve talked about this before in an almost joking way, but something told me at the time that his interest was a bit more than casual. Pee on me.
My body goes stiff – but it isn’t from shock or disgust. It’s from excitement. The idea of doing this taboo, intimate thing with him makes me weak. He’s grinning when I glance over my shoulder at him but I can tell my reaction has made him nervous. He starts to backtrack, laugh it off, say I don’t have to. But I quickly shake my head and tell him I want to. The quiver in my voice and the stiffening in my cock betray my excitement.
Watching him slide down the tile wall, my knees start to shake so badly I’m momentarily afraid of falling. He sinks all the way to the floor, to his knees, back against the tiles, waiting. I’ve peed on people once or twice before but it never excited me like this. I always thought it was sort of stupid, but I did it because they seemed to like it. His entirely unexpected request sends chills down my spine, as does looking down at him on the shower floor with his eyes closed, heedless of the water from the shower head splattering his face.
My cock is hard enough that getting started isn’t easy; it takes a second, but the flow finally begins. He doesn’t open his eyes but I see his muscles tense as the warm flood of piss washes over his chest, mixing with the water and swirling down the drain. He’s smiling. The piss doesn’t really turn me on, but his submission does. Fuck. I never want to let him leave.
Our eyes say what our mouths can’t.
I pull him up. I take his arms and turn him around, pressing him face-first to the tiles. His skin is slippery wet, luscious. Ahh. Shower sex. The water pours over us in an endless hot torrent as I slip to my own knees, tongue trailing down his spine, over his boyish ass. All his muscles so defined, tense, twitching as I probe his crack with my tongue, slicking back the fine dark hairs to find his hole.
Oh God.
Shaking, he whimpers as my hands gently spread his cheeks wide. I catch my breath as his tight pink hole is exposed. It flexes eagerly. Slowly I circle it with my tongue. It is so sweet and welcoming- the water trickles down his crack, making it easy for my tongue to part it and slide in. He lets out a desperate sound that echoes in the big tiled shower. He presses back against my face and my hands holding his ass spread as I feel the tight ring open for my tongue. I know nobody has ever rimmed him before. I’m the first to ever be near his ass, let alone be in it. That turns me on so much that even though I already came less than thirty minutes ago, I am already rock hard, ready. I want to fuck him so hard he sees stars, so hard he feels me inside him all the way back to England.
A wail of protest leaves his throat when I pull back. I growl at him to come on. Right now. There is no shred of resistance left in him as he obeys and follows me back to the bed. We’ve talked online about this moment so many times: the moment where I take his virginity. He’s shaking now as I push him down into the pillows. I grab the lube and he lifts his legs to his chest and tenses, expecting me to shove it in. But with only one night, I want to do it all. I want to love every part of him.
In great detail I’ve described what I’ll do to him. Fuck his mouth with my tongue. Nibble on earlobes, nipples, belly button, inner thighs. Toes even. I nuzzle his pubic hair and taste his sweet cock, lick his lightly furred balls until he gasps with pleasure. Down his front, then roll him over again and all the way up the back, massaging away the last bits of his tension. He melts in my hands until he’s so limp and unresisting, so relaxed and wanting, that I own him completely.
Mine, mine, mine.
My hands firmly push his thighs apart. The sweetness of his hole makes me tremble all over. I feel the heat of his skin as I gently lube him up, slipping one finger into his twitching passage. God. So smooth and tight. My second finger slides in easily. I grin to myself because he’s been practicing with his dildo like a good boy. Wordless moans escape him as I add a third finger. I feel the tight ring of his sphincter stretch to accommodate me. Feeling his asshole flex around my fingers almost does me in. I’m such a sucker for that feeling, that moment of total acceptance. I groan. Fuck, I can’t wait…
After getting the condom lubed up I drape my body over his back. Face to face, from behind, doggie style, upside down and backwards – I want to do it all, but this will be easiest for him, the first time. I promised no pain. My slippery cock slides up and down through his crack, brushing his hole, making him twitch with delight; but it’s only when he begs for it that I position. I push.
Even through the condom I feel his anal ring give way as he takes me in. Instead of tensing with pain he lets out a low sound of pleasure. Relief at finally being filled up. My cock isn’t that long but it is thick and fulfilling. He sighs, a sound that affects me on a level that goes beyond sexual.
I can’t have him, this is all we get…
Oh shit, oh God, I’m lost. I can’t let him go, I can’t, not when it feels like this. I never dreamed it could be like this, never… This connection, this link we have, my secret dream I never imagined could be fulfilled…
It can’t. It can’t happen, I’ve got to let him leave. My life… But oh God…
Tears come to my eyes as I fuck him hard. I take him completely and totally without a shred of resistance. He bucks his hips back against me until I feel his balls slap mine. Jesus fucking Christ.
Lifting up I grab his hips and guide him to his knees. Sweat drips down my neck, mingling with his sweat that coats my skin. I fight to stop trembling, counting backward in my mind from one million to hold off my orgasm. I look down through glazed eyes at my cock sliding in and out of his ass – a gentle thrust with a hard, savage withdrawal. A little extra shunt at the very bottom. I love his back. A black tribal tattoo cuts across the very base of his spine. I love the way his dark hair curls on the back of his neck, soaked, as he arcs against me.
He is starting to shake all over and he’s about to sink to the bed, unable to stay on his knees, so I lock my arm around his chest and pull him against me. I close my eyes, smelling his sweat mixed with the hotel soap, burying my face in his shoulder. He glances over his shoulder at me; his eyes are glazed with sex, he looks so beautiful my heart dies a tiny death. Through the haze, the corners of his mouth curl and he smiles at me.
The feel of his damp skin pressed against me and his smile and his impossibly tight virgin passage taking me in all suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightning and the orgasm builds so quickly, shooting sparks through me, igniting. I bite down on his shoulder to muffle the cry that rises to my lips. I reach down and wrap my shaking hand around his cock, stroking it; and he throws himself back against me, gasping. The spark becomes a blaze and orgasm blinds me with its strike. My cock jerks back and forth in a shallow rhythm as in my hand, his cock tightens, then shoots over the bedspread below us, splattering the sheets while he calls out his joy.
We drop to the bed. Ditch the condom, wipe up a bit. Hooking my finger, I scoop up the drops of his cum sinking into the fabric of the bedspread. I look into his eyes as I taste it. Salty and a little bitter. He smiles, looking exhausted, sated, totally fucked. He’s six hours ahead of our time. He barely makes it to the pillow as I wrap my arms around him and he sleeps.
I reach over and flip off the light but then stare up at the ceiling, one arm wrapped around his sleeping shoulders, his head a trusting weight on my chest just over my heart. I’m a roll-over-and-sleep kind of guy, or at least a get-up-have-a-sandwich-watch-Letterman kind of guy. Not a cuddler. I’ve never wanted to cuddle before. I’m not a slut, but I’ve fucked a lot of guys; and I’ve felt intense sexual need before. But I’ve never felt this connection.
Before he came here we agreed.
This is it. No more. No more emails, no more phone calls. No more mutual jack-off sessions on instant messenger, no more intimate digital photos so hot the monitor smokes. We have to stop, I decreed some weeks ago. This one night is all we get, ever. He goes back to England without his virginity, meets some man, forgets me. I continue my solid, respectable domestic life with Steve.
Why?
That’s what Conor asks. Always reasonable and logical; that’s his nature. He’s calm and easy going to my relentless perfectionism. That’s my nature.
Why? The fucking reasons are many. I’m sick and tired of going over them.
Lying there, I stare up at the ceiling in the dim light that peeks through the drapes. Stare up at the light fixture. The reasons that seem so important in the light of day, the reasonable world when I’m in school or drilling on teeth or doing dishes, suddenly disintegrate in my mind.
Why?
My mind begins to work without my consent. I want to hold on to my illusions but some part of me persists in breaking everything down to its pure essence. Opening up.
I can leave. Nothing is keeping me here. Steve will survive. My career will recover.
I look down at the dark outline of Conor, breathing deep and even, his hand tucked between his cheek and my skin. My heart thumps. My life is imploding, silently, as I lie here.
Instead of fear that everything I’ve worked for could slip away, my dread of anything messy or overly emotion, I feel…
Elated.
It can happen. I’m not trapped. I can get out of the prison of my life. Maybe not tonight, not next week, but I can do it.
Conor writes poetry. It makes me shake all over sometimes, brings a lump in my throat I can’t swallow around. He writes other things too, short stories that are witty and frivolous, that make me impatient because I know he can do better. He worries over his poetry, he hesitates to even let me see it. Sometimes I can’t look at it because it shreds my heart into pieces like ribbons. His soul is a precious thing I want to protect.
I love him. It’s obvious. I haven’t let myself think the word until now; I could not feel real love for someone I’d never met in the flesh. But I was wrong; I’ve been in love with him for months. Meeting him in the flesh was only the culmination. And I never would have believed that love would break down the walls that trap me.
Morning. I awaken to the lights coming through the curtains, wrapped in pleasure. The sheets are back and his face is buried in my crotch, licking my balls. I groan playfully, pretending to protest; he woke me just a few hours ago to suck my cock and to be honest I can’t believe I can even get another erection this soon. My muscles ache, my face is scraped raw from his stubble, lips swollen and red with kisses like an assault. My dick is tired, but it is a good soldier, if weary. It manages the enthusiasm to throb happily as I ease myself carefully into his tight hole.
He winces slightly and I pause. He smiles and admits his bum is sore. I fucking love the way he calls his ass his “bum”. The last thing I want to do is hurt him, but he gasps out he can take it. He urges me deeper into him, harder, wrapping his legs around my waist. We cling together, memorizing ever detail. The joyous, explosive discovery of touching each other in the flesh at last, has become an almost desperate longing. Fate has decreed that we have to discover and lose each other in the same eighteen hour period. When we both finally finish, the orgasm is more an emotional climax than a physical one. We’re both so exhausted and sore and aching all over, we can’t manage much more; and all we can do is remain linked together, looking into each others’ eyes, until it becomes more than we can stand.
While we’re slowly soaping each other in the shower, relaxing our aching muscles under water that is almost too hot to bear, my cell phone rings. We both hear it but I don’t react. It’s only after we get out and wrap up in towels that I pick it up and glance at the missed calls.
Conor’s sharp eyes pierce me like arrows, recognizing the enormous guilt that must be obvious on my face. “It’s him, isn’t it.”
I glance away, unable to look at him. We’ve promised not to mention his name. I feel like a piece of shit. You deserve better than this, you deserve everything. My guilt comes not from cheating on my loyal partner of six years. I feel unfaithful to Conor. Any time he’s ever talked about someone he’s dating or is interested in, I can barely stand the jealousy that freezes my blood. I know exactly what kind of asshole that makes me and even as I feel the icy shards in my veins, the shame overwhelms me.
We’ve agreed. We aren’t saying goodbye. We aren’t going e-mail each other anymore. We barely look at each other as we get dressed. It’s almost time for me to go; I have to get home, he has to check out, he has to go to the airport. We aren’t saying goodbye, we can’t say much of anything.
I was such a fool to think one night could ever be enough.
I pick up my keys, slide them into my jacket pocket. He’s over dropping things into his suitcase on the other side of the room. I walk over to him and stand behind him until he looks up; he turns to me and he tries to smile, say something to ease the moment, but he can’t. Neither can I.
All I can do is wrap him in my arms, burying my face in his neck. This was supposed to be it; we were supposed to be out of each others’ systems now. But Conor is in me completely now. He has invaded my soul and no amount of nights together will get him out.
With a minimum of words, I leave. It’s hard, but I can do it. This really isn’t goodbye. There was no hope before; I was locked into my life and I had no real reason to even try to get out. Now things are different. Despite my sadness, there is a purpose to my step, something new. I have a lot of things to plan if I’m going to England.
Before Conor is even on the plane, I’m at home in my office, writing him an e-mail. As he flies through the air toward England, I hit send. My message will be waiting for him.
**
This story is a complete work of fiction. All of the characters and events are made up and bear no resemblance to reality.
Thanks T and the others who inspired and encouraged this work.