Swimming to Freedom

by Robbie Michaels

  When they left the library, Joel drove them to the mall nearby where they walked from one end to the other and back again. They didn’t have a destination but just walked. And Brandon babbled happily. He thanked Joel; then he shed a few more tears that he quickly wiped away before anyone saw such a massively nonmasculine bit of bad behavior.

  Joel listened, nodding, smiling, and making appropriate acknowledging sounds periodically. The only time Joel had anything to add was when Brandon described his conversation with the guy who’d been seated beside him, the one who’d talked about his muscles.

  Joel laughed, which only confused Brandon.

  “Dude?” Brandon said.

  “You do know what he was doing, right?” Joel asked.

  “No. I don’t. That’s why I’m asking you. Was he interested in getting advice on putting together a workout routine?”

  Joel gave Brandon a quick shove and laughed before he said, “No. That’s not it at all. I can’t believe you didn’t get it, or that you still don’t get it.”

  “What?” Brandon practically shouted in frustration. “Don’t laugh at me. This is all new to me.”

  “Dude, he was hitting on you. He wasn’t interested in getting arms like yours. He was interested in getting your arms, wrapped around his body. He wanted to get… close to you.”

  “No!” Brandon said loudly, stopping in his tracks.

  “Yes,” Joel assured him with a smile.

  “No!” Brandon repeated in stunned disbelief.

  “Yes, yes, yes. The dude was hitting on you. He liked you. He was hot for you. He wanted you. And you could have had him—or however it works for gay guys. I know I’d take it wherever and whenever I can get it, so I’m assuming gay guys are the same.”

  Brandon’s face was beet red with shame and embarrassment. He couldn’t believe that a straight man had to tell him that another gay guy had been hitting on him… and he’d missed it. How embarrassing. How humiliating. Brandon could feel gay men worldwide cringing at his obliviousness.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” Joel said. “I keep forgetting that you’re new at all of this.”

  “We’re not all man whores like you,” Brandon said.

  “Ouch,” Joel said, laughing with him.

  “Sorry,” Brandon meekly apologized.

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s what I am. I’ll fuck anywhere, anytime, with anyone—any girl that is—that I can. Probably ‘man whore’ works pretty well.”

  For another hour they talked, debriefed in a way, about the group meeting.

  “Do you want to go back to the group the next time they meet?” Joel asked.

  “Of course, but I don’t see how I ever could. My dad—”

  “I know. I know. Let me work on that one a bit and see what I can come up with.”

  After two hours of walking, they returned to Joel’s car and made the return trip home. With each mile between them and the city, Brandon began to feel more and more isolated from where he wanted to be. When they got to Brandon’s driveway, he expected Joel to just drop him off, so he was surprised when Joel parked and came inside with him.

  Brandon was on edge, worried about the inevitable phone call.

  “When do you think he’ll call?”

  Brandon sighed. “Probably anytime now.” And he was right. When the phone rang, he immediately answered it, trying to sound normal.

  “Hello?”

  Joel could hear Brandon’s dad from nearly six feet away. “Where the fuck have you been? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”

  Brandon tried to say something but couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  Close to tears, Brandon was surprised when Joel took the phone from him.

  “Hey, how’s Florida?” he said, talking over Brandon’s dad.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s Joel, your neighbor. I wanted to apologize to you, sir. You know how I’ve been giving Brandon rides to and from practice all week while you’re gone. No big deal since I’m going the same way anyway. It’s been good to have the company, actually.

  “Anyway, after practice today, I had to run to the city on an errand for my mom, so I had to drag Brandon along. He told me he needed to get home, but I couldn’t be in two places at the same time, so he had to ride along with me. So please, don’t be mad at him. I’m the guilty party, and I’m so, so sorry for making you worried. Please don’t blame him, blame me because it was entirely my fault. I’m sorry for causing any upset.”

  Brandon heaved a sigh of relief as he listened to Joel work his father, like a master violinist with a Stradivarius in his hands.

  When Joel hung up, he smiled at Brandon. “There, all fixed.”

  That time Brandon couldn’t help it—he wrapped his arms around Joel and gave him a huge hug. “Thank you. I don’t…. Thank you so much for today. You don’t know what this means to me. All of it. I… just thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Some things I suck at, but some things I can do pretty well. Sometimes I can read people, but I’m always good at knowing how to play them once I’ve read them.”

  When Brandon released his hold on Joel, he said again for the hundredth time, “Thanks so much.”

  “Thanks, man. Really. Today was something I’ll never forget.”

  “You’re welcome. Some things I can’t do anything about, but your problem was super easy.”

  “Maybe for you, but not for me.”

  “Glad I could help. See you bright and early in the morning.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Chapter 7—He’s Back

  AT FIVE thirty the first morning his dad was back, the ceiling light in Brandon’s bedroom came on unexpectedly and his father was beside him, shaking him roughly awake and yelling loudly at him.

  “Yo, Brandon, get up. Time to haul ass out of that bed and get back to work. You’ve got to train and, knowing you, make up for all the missed training from when I was away. So move it. Get up! Now. Come on! I’ve got to get you back into the same shape you were in before I left. Come on.”

  “Dad! I’m not dressed.” Brandon had thrown off the covers sometime during the night, so not only was he naked, but his morning wood was standing proud and tall for all the world to see. He quickly grabbed for the sheet to try to preserve some semblance of his dignity.

  If his father noticed, he didn’t comment. Instead he turned and walked out of the room, calling back over his shoulder. “We leave in five minutes. Time to see how much ground you’ve lost while I’ve been gone.”

  They rode in silence on their way to the pool.

  While Brandon was stripping off his outdoor clothes in the locker room, Joel arrived and, slipping up beside him, whispered, “So, is he on the warpath yet?”

  All it took was a simple look to convey the answer. Brandon just nodded his head as he pulled on his Speedo.

  “Joel, am I too young or too old to run away from home?” Brandon asked a moment later.

  “You get special dispensation because of your unique circumstances.”

  They exited the locker room together and stretched, starting to get loosened up and ready for what promised to be a hellish morning of training.

  It was everything Brandon had feared and known it would be. His father was relentless from the second he slipped into the water. With every stroke Brandon took, his father moved parallel to him on the side of the pool, shouting orders, belittling him for one thing or another.

  First he mocked Brandon for not training during his absence, making his own life more difficult because he had to work harder to get Brandon back to where he’d been before they went away. He knew if he commented or argued or complained in any way, it wouldn’t do one bit of good, so he just saved his breath. His father’s mind was made up. In his view, the only way Brandon would work is if he was there standing over him.

  Brandon’s only peace was when he slipped beneath the surface of the water. There, his father’s voice was muffled,
and he could ignore the noise for at least a few minutes.

  While Brandon was always glad to have his dad go out of town, he hated it when he came back, because his dad was even more of a dick than usual. It always took nearly a full week before Brandon could get him to back off a little and be closer to his old, irrational self.

  This particular trip held to the previous patterns. After about a week, either his dad had calmed down a bit or Brandon’s level of tolerance had adjusted so that it didn’t get to him quite as much as it did the first days after his return.

  Day in and day out, Brandon got up, mindlessly swam and practiced, and did his best to tune out his dad. He kept hoping that maybe he would just grow weary of the current system or would get bored and would move on to some new project, but he never did. As much as he wished his dad would find someone else to go bother, he never did.

  So at 5:30 a.m. each day, Brandon was up and out of his warm bed, never having had quite enough sleep, so that he could go train for two hours from six to eight before school started. After a quick shower at the pool, he changed into his everyday clothes, wolfed down some food, and set off for school, his only real break from his father and nonstop training.

  Each afternoon, right after school, it was back to the pool to train, this time in techniques as opposed to the morning stamina and endurance training. His dad hounded him during the morning training, but he didn’t have enough knowledge to participate in the afternoon sessions. Of course that didn’t stop him from showing up and walking around like he wanted to rule the world.

  And after all of that, in the evenings, he had homework to do. It wasn’t exactly the life of dreams, but it was Brandon’s life, and he hadn’t been asked for his opinion about it, so he hunkered down and carried on.

  Chapter 8—Competition

  WHEN BRANDON stepped out of the men’s locker room at the next competition, he was in the zone, his mind already absorbed by the call of the nearby pool. He loved getting into the water. He could feel it, taste it, smell it, and he wanted to be in it. Because he was so fixated, he didn’t see the other person until he ran right into the guy, his hands automatically reaching out to either hold or push away.

  Brandon skidded to a sudden stop, his gaze rising from the floor to see who he had bumped into. He should have realized that as he and his teammates were exiting the Men’s Locker Room, the opposing team would be doing the same from the Women’s Locker Room immediately next door where the competition changed. The doors for the two rooms were less than a foot apart.

  He was about to apologize when he took in the face of the person he’d nearly knocked over. It was then that he lost the ability to speak. The beauty of the man he’d nearly mowed over was stunning. The smile on his face was enough to melt centuries-old icebergs. The smile radiated like the sun, warming Brandon’s heart (as well as other parts of his body). He was feeling a tingling in his stomach, which was odd because he never felt nervous around the water. It took him a moment to figure out that the way he felt had nothing to do with the water—it was all due to the man standing less than a foot from him.

  “Oh, sorry, man,” the other guy said, still smiling that killer smile.

  “No… no problem,” Brandon managed to utter. He finally released the bare torso of the stranger. The two went their different ways, but Brandon’s eyes never left the guy the entire time they were getting into position for introductions and the eventual start of the competition. It was only as the opposing team was being introduced that Brandon noticed the guy had more than just a pretty face. His chest looked like it had been chiseled from marble by an artist on par with Michelangelo. Even from the distance across the pool, Brandon could see the man’s perky nips on his hairless chest.

  Moving his gaze south, the guy turned as if he knew Brandon was checking him out, standing momentarily in profile to show off the incredible ass wrapped in his too-small red swimsuit. When he turned back to face forward as all of his teammates were doing, he looked directly at Brandon and smiled quickly. Once again his smile nearly melted Brandon into a puddle of ooze.

  But he knew he needed to get his head back to the subject at hand, and the hot guy’s penis was not in his hand. The more immediate concern was the competition. Brandon wrestled his mind back to the meet. He had rarely encountered something that could so easily rip his focus away from the water, but he had found it now. And as he listened to the members of the opposing team being identified, Brandon finally had a name to go along with the gorgeous face: Tyler.

  For the duration of the competition, Brandon did his best to focus on the event. His teammates were doing the same, but there were several events in which they were just not as good as the guys on the other team. When it was finally his turn, Brandon delivered an outstanding performance, trouncing his opponent.

  Even Brandon’s decisive win in his event couldn’t save his team from defeat, though. The coach was pissed, Brandon’s dad was pissed, and all of his teammates were in bad moods. As everyone left the pool, Brandon was not looking forward to going into the locker room where he and all the other guys were most likely going to get their asses chewed out, not once but at least twice. He’d even seen it happen three times: the coach first, his dad second, and then because his dad had gotten him so worked up, the coach again. There were times when Brandon hated his life. Days when his team lost were some of those days. It didn’t matter he had triumphed in his own event.

  Even though they had not competed directly against one another, after the competition, both Brandon and Tyler hung back by the pool while the spectators and the other competitors quickly left.

  Tyler approached Brandon.

  “Tyler, right?” Brandon said.

  “Yes, good memory. You’re Brandon, if I heard the announcer correctly. Did I get it right?” Tyler asked with a smile.

  “You did,” Brandon said. “Good memory.” They smiled at one another.

  Tyler extended his hand and Brandon raised his own to return the greeting.

  “Good job, today. You guys are good,” Tyler said.

  “Thanks, your team too.”

  “I can see your team is going to be strong competition this season,” Tyler said lightly. When they’d exhausted the few sentences of mindless banter they knew how to exchange, Tyler asked Brandon a question that made him cringe. “Hey, who was that one nutcase who ran along the edge of the pool screaming at swimmers for your team? I’ve never seen a fan get quite so worked up.”

  It figured that when he met someone, his father would be right there to do the equivalent of cockblock any chance at a new friendship.

  Brandon sighed and dropped his gaze to the floor in embarrassment. “Um, yeah, about him,” he sighed. “Sorry. He’s my dad. He gets a little carried away.”

  “Your dad,” Tyler said. “Okay, you have my sympathy, dude. No offense to you or your dad,” he quickly added. “He seemed… well, a little… tightly wrapped. It’s just a high school meet, after all.”

  “Tell me about it,” Brandon mumbled, shaking his head.

  “Sorry, man.” Tyler lightly touched one hand to Brandon’s right arm, and fireworks went off in Brandon’s head. The touch, the gentle touch, of another man’s hand on his body, anywhere on his body, was so fucking erotic he very nearly popped a boner right there on the spot. It was an act of God that he didn’t. It would have been embarrassing beyond all hope of recovery.

  “Hey,” Tyler said, bending down so he could look up into Brandon’s downcast eyes. “You okay?”

  “Oh, sorry, yes. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. I was just afraid I’d said something to offend you. Wasn’t my intention if I did.”

  “You didn’t. It’s just that sometimes… it gets a little overwhelming being me.”

  “I can see that,” Tyler quietly concurred. “You have my sympathy, and my admiration, man. To survive shit like that takes a strong inner man. My compliments.”

  Brandon smiled. Damn, but Tyler was eloquent. />
  Brandon’s mood got even brighter when Tyler asked him, “This is spur of the moment and you probably already have other plans, but how’d you like to go get something to eat? I’m always starving after these things.”

  “I know what you mean. Swimming always leaves me ravenous. But don’t you need to ride the bus back home with everyone else?”

  “Nah, I drove myself over this morning so I can stay as long as I want and head back when I’m ready.” He seemed to hesitate for a second before shyly asking, “Are you… maybe… interested?”

  Brandon smiled his biggest smile and said, “Oh, yes!” He hoped his eagerness was not too obvious. But his smile quickly vanished.

  “What’s wrong?” Tyler asked. He’d been told to stay away from poker, that he wouldn’t be able to bluff because he wore everything he was feeling on his face.

  “My… dad. I’m not sure if he’ll let me. In fact, I know he won’t. He’s really strict about such things.”

  “About what things? Eating lunch?”

  “About being out of his sight.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Tyler said.

  “No. I wish. Sorry,” Brandon said.

  “Well, it can’t hurt to ask, can it?”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s worth a shot.”

  “Tell him we’re going to discuss the meet, talk about competitions, things like that,” Tyler said. “If that helps.”

  “That might not work so well. He’s super cautious about never sharing techniques with another swimmer. He wants me to win every time.”

  “Tell him I’ve been in competitive swimming for years and offered to tell you about some of the meets I’ve competed in, some of the other swimmers you’re likely to encounter out there on the circuit.”