by Rachel Kane
I pulled him down on top of me, wrapping my legs around him. I wanted to feel every inch of his skin against mine. My hands slid to his lower back, feeling the muscles tense as he fucked me with increasing intensity. He had been trying to keep that leisurely rhythm, but I could see on his face that he really wanted to come, and I did what I could to urge him to go faster, pressing my hands against his back, lifting my hips.
He took the hint. He began to thrust forward, his slick cock ramming into me. My cock was caught between us, its head pressed between our bellies, getting plenty of stimulation itself. The shower water had dried off of us, but Nat was sweating now, thick salty drops that fell from his brow onto me. “Harder,” I whispered to him, and he shoved himself in with even more force, shaking my whole body with each thrust.
With a loud, low groan, he forced his full length into me and came. I could feel his cock swelling inside me, could feel its pressure. My balls and cock, trapped between us, responded by sending me into my own, second orgasm. My seed shot against our bellies, even as he filled me up with his. We were gasping and panting and trying to get as close as possible to each other, to share this moment.
We stayed clasped together for a long time, cocks gradually softening, sweat drying in the cool air. Small kisses there in the dark.
At some point, I realized my eyes were closed, and I opened them, to find him staring at me. I smiled.
“Do we still get to go to dinner?” he asked.
12
Nat: Let’s Ask All The Questions Now
There are some people who can have sex and simply enjoy it, who can take it for what it is. Then there are the people who have to think about it and ask what it means. You can probably guess which kind of person I am.
As much as I wanted to lie there with Owen, basking in our post-coital glow, and maybe going again once my cock was ready, I could feel my mind scrambling to put some distance between us so I could figure out what had just happened. I thought about it all the way to the restaurant.
I didn’t come to any grand conclusions, but Owen definitely noticed that I was quiet. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” I said.
He laughed. “Nobody busts out the I’m fine that quickly if they’re actually fine.”
“Oh, I’m just so stupid, okay? We had a great time--are having a great time--and I’m fucking it up by asking myself all these questions.”
“I assume you don’t mean questions about what you’ll be ordering tonight.”
“Of course not. I’m thinking about all the implications of what we did. All the possible meanings of it.”
He paused pretty suddenly, and I stopped walking too. “Nat, promise me something, okay?”
“What?”
“We fucked. And it was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we did it. But for the purposes of this dinner, can we not look too deeply into it? If you overthink it, you’re going to drain all the fun out of it.”
“But I’m really, really good at overthinking.”
“Yeah, so I gathered.” He took my hand and gave it a little squeeze. “For the next couple of hours, let’s forget that we had sex. To the extent possible. Let’s not examine it, let’s not question it. It happened. Now let something else happen.”
“You’re advising me to adopt a course of strict superficiality.”
“Take it from an expert. Let’s just go to dinner and have fun. What happened back there doesn’t have to mean anything, but if it did, you won’t be able to figure it out by ignoring me all night while you think about it.”
I squeezed his hand back. “Deal.”
Although I wished he weren’t so hot. It was going to be hard not to think about it for a couple of hours.
Especially hard, considering the way he shut the conversation down. I understood why he did it--at least, I was pretty sure I understood. But part of me was saying It’s because he doesn’t really like you, and now you’ve ruined everything by pushing it somewhere he didn’t want it to go.
I kept trying to tell myself that couldn’t possibly be true because we’d just shared this intense experience...but maybe guys who do random hook-ups always feel them that intensely? Maybe that’s what I was missing out on, being so shy? Maybe he felt like this every time he slept with a guy.
If only Joan hadn’t made us kiss for the camera earlier! If only there weren’t all this expectation! When he held my hand when we were on-camera, was that real? Was it fake?
I had to stop thinking like this, I was torturing myself. I tried to focus on where we were going.
Cassandra’s was one of the oldest restaurants in town, and felt wonderfully private with its tall, red-leather booths and dim lighting. No wide-open spaces and Scandinavian furnishings, just polished dark wood, and menus as thick as a novel. We were seated in a silent corner, tucked away in our own tiny, cozy world.
“I don’t think I’ve been here since prom,” I said.
“Really? I thought you said you went to school up the coast.”
“Yeah, but there was no place to eat there, just a truck stop and a few seafood shacks. Oceanside was the place to be, even though it was a drive. This place seemed so fancy to us back then. I remember, I took Monica Phipps, and she wore this gold lamé thing with no shoulders but long gloves, and she didn’t think to take the gloves off before she started eating, and got steak juice on them. She was so mad.”
Owen raised an eyebrow. “It’s funny to think of you going to prom. So you weren’t always a wallflower.”
“I didn’t dance. When we got to the auditorium, I started getting really nervous. Monica was furious that I wouldn’t dance with her.”
“Ah, there’s the Nat we know. I can see you now, hiding by the bleachers in your powder-blue tux--”
“No, it was black! And very slick, if I say so myself. Not a single ruffle in sight. It was one of the few times in high school I actually thought I looked good. I wish I’d gotten pictures. What did you do?”
“I stayed away, obviously.”
“But why?”
He shrugged. “Oceanside wasn’t always the tolerant paradise you see before you now. By that point in high school, I had come out, but as far as I knew I was the only gay kid there. It was tough, and I hated my life. So I spent all my time making snide ironic comments about everything, which made people laugh, and they’d hang out with me to hear whatever outrageous complaint I’d voice next...but I didn’t get to go on dates. So on prom night, I and this utterly straight kid named Roger sat in his basement and played video games and speculated on the horrible time everyone else was having.”
“Wait, and you’re making fun of me for hanging out at the bleachers?”
“But making very gentle fun! Hardly any fun at all! But had Roger asked, I totally would have danced with him. So I win. I can’t help but point out, you went with a girl.”
I nodded. “It’s weird, I seemed to hang around girls exclusively back then. I guess that hasn’t changed a whole lot, though. My best friend is Rhody, and she’s a girl.”
“When did you come out?”
“I mean, I pretty much knew the score when I was a kid. My parents knew, maybe everybody knew, but I didn’t make any sort of official announcement until college. Then they started nagging me about why I wasn’t meeting more boys, why wasn’t I going out and having fun, missing the best years of my life, blah blah blah. You don’t know humiliation until your parents start trying to push you into having a gay social life.”
I realized that something seemed to be distracting Owen. I knew I wasn’t the most scintillating conversationalist ever, but he was definitely not looking at me and had stopped paying attention. A painful certainty set in: He was having second thoughts about all the sex from earlier. He was realizing what a mistake it had been and was trying to figure out how to tell me that. I could feel my whole body tense up...but then I realized that wasn’t it. He was watching someone else, intently, closely. I tried to glance around, but the booths were too t
all for that. “What’s up?” I asked.
He discreetly inclined his head. “I just saw Harris and Sergio walk in. They’re in that booth over there.”
I peeked out from our booth, but couldn’t see them. “Is that bad?” I asked.
“It might be a good thing,” he said. “They’ve been having some problems lately, and they keep coming to me about it. I wish they wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know if I’ve met them. No, wait, wasn’t Sergio the one that had a fight with Marcus that time?”
Owen’s face lit up. “Oh, god, I’d forgotten about that. Yeah. It was shortly after Harris and Sergio got together. I was feeling so dismal after Harris dumped me, and then he comes in with this golden boy, and I just wanted to jump into the bay. But you’re right, they were at that concert on the pier, and was it that Marcus came on to Harris or something?”
“I forget. But fists were thrown, and it was kind of great.”
“I can’t believe we’re sitting here advocating violence. I guess I should be grateful to Sergio...he’s the one who talked to Rhody and then convinced me to do the show with you.”
I laughed. “I’ll go shake his hand, then.”
“I hope you’re joking! There’s something going on there, and you want to be as far away from it as possible! I don’t want to say that Harris is evil or anything, but ever since we broke up, I’ve definitely seen aspects of his personality that are more manipulative than I realized. Or maybe he’s just helpless and can’t stop calling people for advice about his relationship. I don’t know, if I were coupled with a tall, tanned, muscular sculptor and had all the money in the world, I don’t think I’d be miserable, would you?”
I felt an odd flare of jealousy. It wasn’t an emotion I experienced often, but I have to say I kind of enjoyed it, the heat of it. I didn’t want Owen thinking about Sergio, I wanted him thinking about me. We were sitting across from each other in the booth. I slipped my shoe off, and lifted it between his thighs, touching his crotch gently with my toe.
“Do you have to have pretty sculptors to make you happy?” I asked. “Or could you settle for someone a little less perfect?”
He smiled at me. He knew I was feeling jealous...and I think he enjoyed it! I felt a stirring beneath my toes, as he responded to my touch.
“In any case,” he said with just a touch of strain in his voice, “forget about them. I want to hear more horror stories about your prom.”
The waiter approached, and I quickly dropped my foot, earning a disappointed but wry look from Owen. We gave our orders, and then returned to ancient history.
“Forget prom,” I said. “Tell me more about your basement video gaming with...what was his name? Dick Straightly?”
“His name was Roger. Which is full of innuendo itself.” He shook his head. “What a weird time high school is. Do you think straight kids go through the same thing, where you’re on this razor’s edge all the time, perched between some kind of acceptance, and absolute utter rejection?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know about them, but even though my family was okay about it, and I guess none of the kids at my school were brutal to me, I always had this feeling hanging over me that I was doing things wrong. Not wrong like sinning or something, but wrong like unskillfully. I wasn’t popular and catty and interested in fashion, so I was gaying wrong. I wasn’t interested in sports or action movies or telling lies about how far I had gotten with girls, so I was straighting wrong too.”
With a nod, he said, “High school is confusing like that.”
“But no, it kept going. In college, I still wasn’t interested in the things my gay acquaintances were. By that time, Rhody was the only one still standing by me; everyone else in the whole world lost interest.”
Owen looked puzzled. “So what were you interested in?”
“In college? Mostly hanging out, wearing baggy cardigans, writing depressing poetry. Talking about writers I hadn’t actually read, pretending I knew all about them.”
“Oh, an English major.”
I laughed. “Exactly. Everybody around me was working so hard to fit into a role, and I guess I was too, I just didn’t know what the role was supposed to be. I was already shy as hell, but picking books as my subject of interest wasn’t exactly endearing me to a lot of people.”
He leaned forward over the table. “Okay. I have to ask because I’ve been dying to know this ever since I saw your condo for the first time: What happened there? I picture you somehow shying yourself into a bad real estate deal. Was it a bad breakup? Are you on the run from the law?”
“If I were on the run from the law, why would I sign up for a mortgage?”
“I don’t know! That’s the mystery!”
I closed my eyes and waved my hands in a small, vague gesture. It was hard to talk about because it was so embarrassing. “It’s not like there was any scandal,” I said. “Just me, being kind of stupid. Do you ever feel like you don’t deserve something? Like maybe something is too good for you?”
He glanced away, then looked back at me. “I’ve felt that way a few times, sure.”
“My grandma on my dad’s side passed away, and she left me this bequest. It was more money than I’d ever had at one time. I mean, it wasn’t millions of dollars or anything like that, but it was enough that I knew I had to do something important with it. My parents were saying that I should buy a place, that if I scrimped and saved I could have it paid off before I hit my 40s, and it’d be a good investment...all that responsible money talk.”
“I’d probably blow it all on chew toys for Mr. Thurgood.”
“I think I panicked. Sitting there thinking, what if I make the wrong choice? What if I’m stuck with something I hate? What if I accidentally lost it? You know, all the crazy things your mind tells you. And then I saw this place, and...”
“...it seemed perfect to you?”
“No, just the opposite. Ugh, how do I say it? It seemed like what I deserved.”
He peered at me. “What horrible crimes have you committed, that you deserve that kitchen?”
“That’s just it, it wasn’t conscious, I don’t think. But this is how my life sometimes goes. I feel bad about myself, and then I make a bad choice because of it.”
I thought maybe I’d said something wrong. Owen’s face fell, and he looked down at his hands. He rearranged the silverware on his side of the table, then used his thumb to smooth the crease of the napkin.
“Everything okay?” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Just trying to think of a clever way to say me too.”
“That wasn’t very clever.”
“I know. As a quip, it needs polish. But as a bald, depressing statement of truth, me too works fine. God, I hate being all sincere about this stuff. But you basically described all of my relationships. I spend some time feeling bad about myself, like I don’t deserve anything good, then I fall into problematic relationships, and the whole time I’m thinking, this guy is perfect, way too perfect for me, something’s going to go wrong, I’m going to ruin it. Then I get so freaked out I do something stupid...and ruin it.”
I gestured back at the other booth. “Is that what happened with Harris?”
“Definitely. How do I deserve a wealthy, intelligent, cultured surgeon? Little ol’ me?”
“But that’s ridiculous,” I said. “You don’t have to earn a boyfriend. And if he broke up with you, then he wasn’t all that intelligent.”
The look he gave me was not entirely displeased. “You’re kind. But come on. I sell ad space in a paper that nobody reads, I can’t be serious for more than thirty seconds, and I’m so mired in my own habits that I get a little scared when people suggest doing something new.”
“Yes, yes, you’re a flaming wreck, fine. But you’re still a good person.”
“Good person is like a certificate of participation. Congratulations, you’re not a serial killer, good job Owen!”
I laughed and said, “Fine, I know I’m not going to convince
you that you deserve someone who loves you. But I don’t think you’re a bad person.”
“Aside from accusing you of having lupus on national television.”
“Aside from that, yes.”
“Fine. And I don’t think you deserve to have a wretched condo that you hate.”
I raised my water glass to him. “To us! May we always get slightly better than what we think we deserve!”
Our glasses clinked together, but then his face fell again.
“What now?” I asked.
“Don’t look...but Harris is coming.”
13
Owen: Just Deserts
“I thought I saw you over here,” said Harris. Even in his casual going-to-dinner clothes, he looked sharp and impressive. I immediately felt that tension I’d gotten around him in the later stages of our relationship, this sense that I was going to say something wrong around him, something that would embarrass me and everyone around me. It was a sense that I hadn’t felt in a long time; after all, Harris, Sergio and I hung out together quite a bit, and I thought that I’d gotten over that weird insecurity. But I couldn’t shake the fear, nor could I shake the temptation to say something ridiculous, just to relieve the stress.
I’m not sure, but I think I was nervous about how he’d feel about Nat. I hadn’t had any real boyfriends after the breakup, nobody to introduce Harris to. Not that Nat was a real boyfriend, right? A single roll in the hay, a meaningful conversation...that didn’t mean we were together.
The thought was terrifying. I did so badly in relationships. I wasn’t quite ready to screw up somebody’s life just yet.
Except, there in that moment before I responded to Harris with the words that were going to cause me so much trouble, I had to admit to myself that I was curious about being with Nat. What would it be like, to be close to him? Not even to the point of putting a ring on him or anything, but what would it be like to be close enough that we spent time snuggling on the sofa (in this daydream, it would be a newer, better sofa than the one he currently had), watching movies, telling jokes, being happy together...how would that be?