Break Away

by Van Barrett

  Suddenly, Deke re-appeared.

  “Grrrrrrr!!! Grrrrrr!!” The little guy growled as he snatched the end of Lane's sock in his mouth and pulled.

  “Oh my God!” Lane shouted with a huge smile.

  Deke pulled his sock right off and went running. He shook the sock violently, as if it were a rat and he wanted to snap its neck.

  “Deke! No!” I jumped up and chased after him. “Put it down! Down, Deke!”

  By the time I'd finally caught Deke and pried the sock from his mouth … it was too late. Lane's sock wasn't just sopping wet with dog drool – it was shredded.

  I brought the sock back to Lane. The pitiful thing laid in my palm. Torn, limp and lifeless.

  “Bad news. Your sock's not gonna make it, dude. I'm sorry about that.”

  Lane chuckled. “That's alright.”

  “I told you Deke was a little devil.” I cast Deke a scowl. He knew he'd been bad. Then again, he didn't care. His whole 'woe is me' act was just that: an act.

  Regardless, the interruption had probably come at the right time. I don't know what had come over me, but I couldn't even focus on the game. Maybe Deke had saved me from … something. Something I didn't understand.

  The game was between periods. I figured I'd take the opportunity to clear my mind.

  “Hey dude, I'm gonna shower if you don't mind.”

  Lane shook his head. “Not at all.”

  “Cool.” I headed for the bathroom, but I stopped in my tracks when I remembered Lane's sock. “Feel free to grab a pair of socks from my wardrobe, man. Top right drawer in my bedroom.”

  He nodded. “Thanks, I might. My toes tend to get chilly.”

  “Help yourself then.”

  I disappeared into the bathroom, shut the door, and turned on the water.

  Whew.

  ***

  It wasn't long before the room filled up with steam. But I still hadn't put that bar of soap to my body yet.

  Instead, I sat on the edge of the tub. My cock was impossibly hard. Throbbing. It had been all night. It's nothing new that I get irresistibly horny after playing a game. But this was something else. It was a crazed urge, one that just wanted touch, any touch, and it was starting to take over me back there on that couch.

  Get a hold of yourself, River.

  Why was I so afraid to make things happen? Lane was right, exactly right, during dinner.

  What was it that I'm so afraid of? Why is it that I care what people think?

  I didn't know. I probably never would know.

  With my fingers wrapped around my warm, humid flesh, I tugged. Gently. Quietly. Because I didn't want Lane to hear it. The wet, incriminating rhythm – fap-fap-fap! – that could be heard just under the sound of the running water.

  Imagine if his ear was against the door! Some cruel part of my mind whispered.

  The result was like a spasm shooting through me. My cock swelled with anxiety, the thought of Lane with his ear on that door suddenly too real and too scary.

  Relax, I thought to myself. He's not gonna do that. Why the hell would he do that?

  And so I continued on in secret. I kept a loose grip, to keep the noise down, while I slid my hand up and down my shaft. Desperate to indulge in more, my hips had a mind of their own, and I bucked and thrust upward into my fist.

  “Shhh,” I reminded myself. My pelvis behaved itself.

  God damn. I'm outta control.

  But it's better that I take care of this problem now … than to let it get a mind of its own.

  Fap … fap … fap … fap.

  “Ungh, fuck yeah.”

  16

  Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

  – Lane –

  Deke tilted his head at me. He seemed to be mocking me. Reveling in his victory.

  “You're a little jerk, aren't you?” I whispered to him.

  He stuck his tongue out and he panted at me. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

  “Are you laughing at me?” I shook my head. “You're lucky you're so goddamn cute.”

  I stroked his head, scratched his chin. “But you could feel it, couldn't you, Deke.”

  Dogs always knew when a storm was coming, after all. Deke put his tongue away and looked me in the eye, suddenly serious and alert.

  “Yeah. Yeah. I knew it, I knew you could.” I frowned. “That's alright. That's what dog's are for, right? You gotta protect your master. I don't blame you. Hell, you might have saved me from making a stupid mistake. Alright, Deke, I'm not mad at you anymore.”

  He flopped over onto his side, beckoning for more pets – which he happily absorbed while he wagged his stumpy little tail.

  But still. I mean, yeah, it's nothing new that I get my hopes up over guys that aren't into me. That's just Lane Matthews 101. I'm notorious for seeing what I wanna see and ignoring all the signs that point toward the contrary.

  But me and River. Sitting side by side on that couch.

  I felt it. There was something. There had to be. Just like at Joe Black's. Something that drew me near him. Something that wanted me to just crawl over him, straddle his legs, slip a hand up his shirt, grab a handful of those hard pecs, and lean in. Steal a kiss.

  I wasn't imagining that, that there was something there – right? I haven't just lost my mind. He has to like me – at least somewhat. Because I'm here, after all, in his apartment! I mean what the fuck am I even doing here in the first place? We've long since dropped all pretense of doing that 'interview.' I even rode on the back of his fucking motorcycle to get here.

  I took a look around his apartment.

  It's not what I'd expect from a student athlete. I guess I imagined the walls would be covered with posters of babes in bikinis. A ping pong table would be littered with red cups, still half-full with yeasty, stale beer – evidence of the parties he threw for his bro friends over the weekend. The room would be jarringly painted in UND colors, and the gaudy furniture would match. Empty booze bottles would line the counter-tops. Skimpy panties would be stuffed randomly around the apartment; between the couch cushions, hanging from a lamp shade. Or wherever else they might have landed after he peeled the intimates off the legs of his latest fling and carelessly tossed them over his shoulder.

  He wouldn't even be ashamed if you saw those panties, because they were the trophies of his latest conquests. In fact he'd want you to see those panties because he'd be proud of them. He'd have some 'sweet' story to go along with each pair, about what a 'dumb slut' that broad with the red g-string was, what a 'great lay' this bimbo in the lacy white thong was. So and on so forth.

  But River's apartment, on the other hand, wasn't that frat-boy hellhole.

  No. His place was practically bare. A single photo hung from the wall – that team picture from his senior year of prep school. No picture of friends, no family. The couch, stuffed between his gargantuan steel workout equipment, feels like an after-thought. I wasn't surprised to hear that he got the couch thanks to his ex's urging.

  River's place said something about his character. He was a hell of a lot more serious than that beer-guzzling, pussy-pounding fictional college athlete I'd imagined. River didn't have time for all those distractions. This apartment, this city, this college, it was all just a brief stop on his journey. And he wasn't going to be derailed by any of the distractions that life threw his way.

  There's a part of me – a nurturing, caring instinct – that wanted to decorate his apartment. Give it some life. Give him a place to relax after he's done working so hard. Give him something to look at besides all the iron and steel and protein powder.

  His place, I hate to say it, is so empty it's almost sad. He's so focused on his goal of being a pro hockey player, it's like there's no room for anything else in his life.

  But then I remembered to tell myself: River's not into distractions, Lane. That's clear as day.

  And even if there was something between us, it wouldn't go anywhere. It just couldn't. And if I ever forget that fact, all I have to do is take a look around his apar
tment and see: there's no room for anything else in his life.

  Just hockey.

  ***

  With a sigh, I stood up and left Deke. I'd take River up on that sock offer after all. Why not?

  The hallway was short. The bathroom was right across the hall from River's bedroom. I stopped just outside the door. I could feel the warm steam emanating through the bathroom door. The relaxing sound of running water was oddly hypnotic and comforting.

  But I continued on.

  I stepped into River's room and turned on the lights. His bed had a simple metal frame. No bedposts, no headboard. Just a mattress on a steel frame. The bed was made, and I wasn't sure if that surprised me or not. On one hand, I wasn't sure he'd have the time to make his bed every morning. Surely he woke up at the crack of dawn and rushed out of his apartment to start his training.

  But on the other hand, it wasn't surprising that a guy like him would have the military-like discipline to make his bed. Meanwhile, other guys our age struggle to fall out of bed before noon.

  … Including me.

  A simple wooden desk sat against the wall. A lamp and a laptop adorned its surface.

  And finally, River's wardrobe stood on the opposite wall.

  I approached it and opened the top right drawer, like he'd said, and found a drawer stuffed full of socks.

  Big socks. Athletic socks. With the fancy compression ribbing.

  I pulled out a couple pairs and unraveled them.

  “Welp,” I muttered. “I can already tell these are way too big for me, River.”

  I rifled through his sock drawer, hoping to find a smaller pair. Maybe there was a sock in here from his freshman year or something? Maybe those would fit me.

  “Well,” I mumbled to myself, “you know what they say about about a guy with big fee-- …”

  My hand had reached the bottom of the drawer and bumped something hard. Blindly, I grasped at it. Whatever it was, it was long.

  I wrapped my fingers around it. It was thick, too.

  “This feels like …” My eyes narrowed cynically. “But no. It couldn't be.”

  Some part of me screamed: No! Don't do it, Lane! Let sleeping dogs lie!

  But my fingers had a mind all of their own.

  I wrapped my fingers around that thick, hard, long object. And I pulled it up, up through the pile of socks.

  “Oh … my … God,” I panted under my breath.

  River had a dildo.

  The fuck does he have this thing for?

  Okay, Lane – don't get your hopes up. Remember, the guy told you about his girlfriend. It's entirely possible that it was hers. Maybe she left it after they split. Did he use it on his new girls? Ew, no, don't go there, Lane.

  I turned the thing around, inspecting it.

  “Damn,” I mumbled. If this was his girlfriend's, she liked 'em big. And if he whipped that thing out on some unsuspecting sorority girl, well, I'd feel for her. I could just imagine the look of terror in her eyes: 'You want me to do what with that, exactly?'

  If this was River's toy … that he used on himself?

  Gulp. That'd be, uh, pretty hot.

  But I was in for a real surprise when I turned the dildo over. On the very bottom base was a logo. I held it up to the light and inspected it.

  And I read the words that shattered my mind: Clone-A-Cock.

  This … this is River's fucking cock that I'm holding.

  I swallowed. Whoa.

  That was it. The mere suggestion that this could be River's manhood was all I needed. My dick hardened in my jeans and protruded against my zipper.

  “Why does he have this?” I squealed, under my breath, with absolute glee. “The fuck! It's gorgeous!”

  My heart pounded in my chest as I ran my hands up and down his replica. My excitement was matched equally by the morbid fear of getting caught red-handed with River's cock. I mean, his dildo.

  I stopped and listened, hoping to hear the shower. Still running. We're good.

  “Dude.” I could only shake my head in wonder. “He's big. Of course he's big.”

  I put his dildo up against my forearm to compare.

  “Wow. Unreal.”

  I stopped and listened again – the shower was still running.

  With shifty eyes, and an achy throat, I unbuttoned my pants. I lowered the zipper. I tugged the elastic band of my boxers down and under my balls, letting my cock spring out.

  “Fuck,” I moaned softly. My throbbing dick wasn't just satisfied with being freed. It ached in the cool, open air of River's bedroom, demanding that I stroke it.

  “I'm so fucking bad right now,” I panted, fighting a losing battle against my willpower.

  This was so unlike me. So cringe-inducing and just wrong. But goddamn, what a thrill!

  I put my cock side-by-side with River's. “Damn.”

  He was bigger than me, but I think that goes without saying.

  What I'd love to do to this thing.

  I put River's manhood under mine. The sensitive underside of my cock pressed against the hard, veiny and textured surface of River's dildo. I wrapped a hand around both of our dicks and jerked. Slowly.

  “Ungh,” I whimpered, my eyes rolling up in my head as I let wave after wave of delicious taboo crash over me. “This is so fucking wrong.”

  I'm not sure how long things went on like that.

  I do know that I let my primal instincts take over, and I lost myself in the moment. I rubbed River's cock all over mine. I used him to stroke me off. I trickled my pre-cum all up and down his shaft. I got myself close.

  Real close. Dangerously close.

  And that's when I heard it.

  The sound of the bathroom door opening.

  Fuck! I hadn't even heard the water shut off!

  I bolted off River's mattress, yanked my pants up, stuffed River's cock back into his sock drawer, slammed it shut, and zipped myself up. Pretty much all in one motion.

  And River's bedroom door opened. He stood in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his waist. I'm sure he looked amazing shirtless. But I didn't dare look. The bulge in my crotch was bad enough. I kept my eyes on my feet.

  “Oh, uh, did you find it?”

  “Find what?” I croaked.

  “My sock drawer.”

  “Oh! Ha! Yeah, of course.”

  “So …? I guess you didn't find any you like?” He made a move for his wardrobe. “I should have some smaller ones in there somewhere.”

  I gasped. I jumped in front of him before he could open the drawer.

  “Oh! Yeah, no, they're all pretty big, but, you know what, I think I found a pair that'll do.”

  With my back blocking River's view, I opened the sock drawer just enough to wedge my hand in. I grabbed the dildo that I'd carelessly laid on top of all the socks and frantically buried it at the bottom of the drawer.

  All without River knowing. Then I pulled out the first pair of socks I could get my hand on.

  “Yeah, these'll do. Thanks River!”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  I slunk around his wide body, again without stealing a glance, and hurried out the bedroom door.

  Deke was waiting for me on the couch when I returned. He smiled at me, his tongue hanging out in mockery.

  Ha-ha-ha-ha.

  ***

  When River emerged in his pajamas, I was talking on my cell phone. He looked at me inquisitively.

  “Uh huh … yeah, it's uh – hold on.” I covered the mouthpiece. “What's the address here, River?”

  “It's 715 N. 40th St.”

  I repeated the address. The operator told me they were sending a car. I thanked them and hung up.

  River looked at me with a heavy, knowing brow. “You're going?”

  “Yeah, it's getting late. The cab will be here in five minutes.”

  “You know I would've given you a ride, right?”

  Ha. After what I'd done? I couldn't sit on that bike with my body all up against River. For one, I felt l
ike human scum. Two, if I even thought about what I'd seen in that sock drawer, I'd get hard. And my cock would shamefully stiffen, right against River's tight, round ass.

  Yeah. Thanks, but no fucking thanks.

  “I appreciate it, River, but you're already all clean and ready for bed, so I'll just get out of your hair.”

  He shrugged. “I don't mind. I'd be glad to do it if you wanted to save the money.”

  “Don't worry about it. I'm fine.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “I guess the game's over, huh.”

  “What?” I stammered. “Oh. The hockey game. Yeah, uh, looks like it.”

  “Sorry, I guess I took a long shower, huh.”

  “I … didn't notice, really. Uh, I mean, time flew.”

  “Yeah. On game days I can get kinda sore. I kinda lose track of time, just sitting in the shower and soaking up all the steam and hot water.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” I gulped, trying to ignore the tingling in my crotch. Thinking about River, naked and sore, under all that hot running water wasn't helping.

  “Hey Lane.” River suddenly sounded serious. “Can I ask you something?”

  Uh oh.

  “Uhh, yeah?” I squeaked, hoping he knew what I actually meant to say was no!

  “Okay. Because, like you said earlier, if this is gonna work between us, it's gotta be a two-way street of open, honest communication. Right?”

  UH OH.

  “… Yeah, ha ha,” I muttered, my eyes nervously darting out the window. Where the fuck is that cab?!

  “Okay. Wow, I don't know how to ask this, really … man, it's gonna sound crazy. And I won't be mad or anything if it is true, so don't worry about that. Whew! My heart's kinda pounding! I'm a little nervous. But okay, here we go – I'm gonna ask you.”

  OH MY GOD! OH NO!

  “Are you gay?” His hands, clasped together, opened delicately on that word – gay – as if he were releasing a dove.

  I gulped. I knew exactly where this was going. I couldn't. I couldn't admit to what I'd done! Maybe I was a dirty, filthy snooper. In fact, there was no maybe about it. I was a spying, hypocritical liar, just like my old friend, Sir Snoopsalot, from this week's Bitch and Moan column. I was worse than him, even. I was some kind of perverted deviant on top of it all.