by Tom Collins
I felt gut-punched. He plowed on in that way of his, the one that told me that he didn’t understand what I wanted or what was wrong, but was willing to talk down every path until he found the right one. Usually, I found this habit of his sweet and endearing. This time, I just shut my eyes.
I’d assumed everything would stay private between us. If I’d learned anything from my asshole of a father, it was that the more someone knew about you, the more they could screw you over, as Dad had me, over and over again. I was a private person, and I trusted few people with my secrets. Now Liam let me know he’d given away all those private jewels I’d entrusted to him. Given them away as if they were candy to this unknown brother who had, indeed, fucked me over with them. Right on stage, in front of a crowd of people.
God. Shoot me now.
Liam had stopped talking. The quiet hung between us. “You’re upset,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “but not at you. I messed up. I rushed into this relationship with you full throttle, and I…should have taken more time to…understand your point of view.”
“I don’t…I don’t know what you mean,” his voice quavered.
“I’m saying I was irresponsible. I made wrong assumptions and I’ve no one but myself to blame if things went awry.”
“I don’t know what you think’s gone wrong, but the relationship belongs to both of us,” he countered quietly. “Any mistakes I made are mine.”
“Liam, you’re only nineteen—”
He stiffened. “What’s that supposed mean; ‘only nineteen’? What does my age have to do with anything?”
“What I mean is, you’re still living in the now,” I said carefully, “It’s up to me to look ahead and know what’s coming, for you and for me.”
He crossed his arms. “Oh really? And what would that be…for me?”
This, I was aware, was off topic, and that should have given me pause, but I was hurt and upset so, as it was tangential to all the fears I had about the relationship, I—stupidly—plowed on.
“You’ve got a trip to Ireland coming in a year or two, for one thing; art shows around the country, another semester of college, all kinds of job offers. You’ve got all that ahead of you and more…and you’re going to want to explore. I see that. You’re nineteen, and I’m the first on this side of the fence you’ve ever tried. I don’t expect you to stay in my yard.”
“Ah.” The sparkle in his eyes went from warm, like sunlight on water, to cold, like the flash of winter stars on ice. Unexpectedly lifting his hands, he began to clap in a mocking, monotone applause. “Bravo. Very heroic of you to do the right thing.”
The faint smile on his face was mischievous, but not in the way I knew. It was, in fact, twin to one his brother had worn before he humiliated me. That’s when I realized, with a skip of fear, that I’d blown it.
“A touch hypocritical and self-serving, however,” Liam pointed out. “You don’t think I can commit, yet I was the one who wanted a real date that first night we met. Remember? All you wanted was to fuck me in the bathroom.”
I felt paralyzed, frozen. Oh, my God. Blown it big time. I could see it clear as clear now: Liam was always acting on impulse, but unlike me, his impulses were warm and charming. So, naturally, I’d assumed he had no monster in him. Evidently, he did. The mirror image of mine as it turned out. When his monster came out he didn’t lose the ability to focus…he gained it.
He was focused now, entirely on me.
“Did you think I was too stupid to see that?” he demanded. “I’ve got it all over you, Ollie. I read. Oh, and just so we’re clear, I don’t ‘try” people like they were the newest flavor of Häagen-Dazs. M’kay?”
Ouch. Shit.
“As for my youth,” his tone practically purred, “well, you’ve got me there. Why take seriously a guy who plays with watercolors and dreams up fantasy creatures like a little kid?”
“Liam—” That wasn’t fair. I felt my face growing hot, my pulse beginning to race. He had to know I didn’t feel that way about his art!
“—It’s not serious work like saving lives, is it, but at least I keep my crayons and playthings out in the open. I don’t hide them away in my mother’s garage, or my apartment. I mean,” he lazily went on, “it makes so much sense now; you won’t play with me in public, and you always hustle me into hiding when other men start to give me the eye. I’m just another toy you’re ashamed to acknowledge. Aren’t I?”
“No!” I cried, “You know—you know it’s not like that—” How could he think that? I’d gotten between him and other men because I knew they’d go after him like hyenas after a piece of raw meat. And I didn’t show affection in public because I was a private—and prudish person. He knew that!
God, God, this was one of those nightmares of mine. I fall for a man, take off my armor and expose my naked soul to him, and he screws me with it. I’d stupidly thought it couldn’t happen with Liam, but fuck me if he didn’t have me strapped to the table, scalpels out.
“You’re too ashamed to keep me,” he relentlessly continued, “but you won’t admit it. Instead, you pretend that you’re doing me a favor by, ‘not holding me back.’”
“That’s not—”
“Too bad for you that I know what’s under the mask; a mama’s boy who can’t stand having his room messed up. Did I mess up your room too much, Ollie? I know I didn’t fit in nice and neat the way you like. I just wouldn’t stay in my place on the shelf where I’d be out of the way until you needed me, would I?”
If he’d just stop talking, I thought, breath coming short. I felt a hot haze coming over my vision. My heart was thumping against my ribs. Please, stop talking, Liam.
“I suppose I owe you an apology. If I’d’ve only known what an infant I was, incapable of making decisions or taking responsibility for my actions, I never would have drug you into this. Surely, I’d’ve realized that you would be far too adult to have a relationship with a child like me, except out of pity.”
My mouth moved, but nothing came out. It was all turning into a chaotic mess, one big horrible mess, and I hated that. I hated it.
“You know,” Liam sighed with exaggerated sarcasm, “I might go back to girls. Assuming I don’t just give up altogether. They play silly break-up games, too, but they’re far more imaginative and entertaining. Your manly break up game is really dull and predictable. Just like you.
“I saw this shit coming a week—”
Something snapped. Snapped inside of me, like the last link in a chain. Next thing I knew I had Liam pinned on the ground. I think I’d lifted him bodily and tossed him into a shadowed area between a tree and a storage locker. My mouth was on his, my tongue forcing its way in.
I’d lost all control over my impulses, and my mind was blank with rage.
*Liam*
He was supposed to be different. It’d felt so very different, right from the start, and I’d worked so hard to get it right. I’d given Oliver my very best, given him everything I had to give, and I still wasn’t good enough. He hadn’t even lasted a month.
I knew Saturday that this was coming, though I thought I’d avoided it. Turns out, Oliver was just waiting for something to happen that he could use as a legitimate excuse to dump me. Now, he was ready to throw me away like a used tissue, and that’s pretty much what I felt like, too, a very used Kleenex.
The worst part was I still had no clue what I’d done wrong. Oliver was giving me the time-tested, “For your own good,” line—the first historical use of which can be traced to when God used it on Noah—which meant I wouldn’t get squat in the way of bona fide reasons out of him.
My normal response to someone introducing ‘The Breakup Conversation‘ was to shut down and let them have their say to get it over with, like a band-aid, then later I’d let myself feel it. It was a trick I’d learned after the third girl in my junior year of high school left me standing in the hall next to my locker hemorrhaging emotional viscera. I’d learned then there was no point in a
rguing. If they opened the topic, they were done with me, and anything I said would only make it worse—uglier.
It wasn’t working this time though. I’d never known pain like this before and didn’t know how to deal with it. Nine girls had broken my heart in the last three years; Oliver wasn’t breaking it, though. No, he was ripping it out and taking it with him. If I couldn’t push the pain away, I was going to cry—my throat was so tight it hurt—and I couldn’t let him see how right he’d been when he said I wasn’t a man.
Pain turned to rage, Mister Impulse snapped his lead, and he didn’t pull his punches. I lit into Oliver and once I let loose of the reigns I couldn’t get hold of them again. I spewed all the burning, black bile that had built up in me over the years onto him, whether he’d earned it all or not. Words of unfiltered vitriol poured straight from my mouth, bypassing my brain altogether.
Funny thing was, he didn’t put up much of a fight. He just stood there stuttering and getting redder in the face, which pissed me off. I wanted to leave him bleeding, the way all of them had done to me, the way he was doing now, but I also wanted him to fight back. I pulled out all the stops, saying things that I wouldn’t say to someone I hated.
That’s when a change finally came over him. His face drained of color, and his whiskey eyes caught fire, blazing hotter than I’d ever seen. Lions go very still right before they strike. That was the only warning I got. He scooped me up like prey, lifting me bodily into the air as if I weighed no more than a rag doll. Even as I gasped a surprised breath, his mouth covered mine. Before I could react, he’d carried me into the shadows under the tree against the dry goods storeroom with unaccountable ease. We kissed with bruising force as he laid me flat on the grass.
He tangled one hand in my hair, gripping and tugging it, while his other hand ventured under my kilt. Deft, impatient fingers pushed under my jock. He cupped my balls, his touch like an erotic gut-punch. The soft pads of his fingers wiggled underneath my testicles and down my crack, homing in on the bundle of nerves that was my sphincter as his tongue tangoed with mine. His heavy, heaving chest pinned me to the ground.
My legs parted without hesitation, and I groaned into his hot, hungry mouth. He gripped my hair, hurting a bit, while eagerly jerking my jock to the side. He seemed to disappear, his lips leaving mine lonely, but reappeared between my legs, his head rooting under my kilt as he ripped my jock out of the way.
He latched onto my sensitive cock and I cried out. His grip on my thighs was bruising, as if he thought I would kick him off. His lips were around my cock and I was harder than granite. I was ready to give anything he wanted to take. He hadn’t touched me since Saturday and I was eager for release. I held his head in my hands, my grip like a vice, and fucked his mouth with both abandon and relish. He forced me to release him and crawled up to straddle me, while undoing his jeans and shoving them over his hips.
I latched onto his bare ass and guided his position over me. He was holding my shaft upright, hovering over it. I was so eager to bury myself in his body that I pushed him down. My helmet, coated in precum and spit, touched his pucker and my hips leapt in the air. Half of the head of my cock was in and I was on the verge of coming just from beginning to sense his heat.
A beam from the streetlight coming through the windswept boughs overhead lit his face in an orange, sodium-vapor glow as he shifted. The expression of salacious hunger I loved melted into the now-familiar look of horrified disgust as he got a good look at me eagerly lying under him.
He shoved himself away, falling to the side, then jumped up, yammering words my brain had lost the ability to process. Righting his jeans, he ran off. I rolled to my hands and knees in the small patch of grass Oliver had put me on, feeling as if I might puke.
How could he have done this? Mister Reason asked. How could he dick-tease me just to rub it in that I revolted him?
Extreme upset made my stomach convulse and I spewed the remains of supper on the grass.
*Oliver*
I pulled at his hair and ran my tongue over his teeth and lips. I caressed the roof of his mouth until he moaned, and realized that my hand was up his kilt and worming its way under the jock strap. There, between his hairy thighs, I pressed my fingers to his perineum, the hot, sweaty, intimate spot, and glided low enough to feel his greedy hole flutter. Mine, I thought, the blood racing right to my cock. Mine, I insisted and teasingly circled it, as if marking it for later.
I was half laying on him, and felt his cock stiffen and strain. That made me grin. Yes!
Getting a grip on his jock strap, I jerked it down, releasing Liam just long enough to get it off him.
Up under his kilt I went, inhaling his musky fragrance. Inside I was laughing wildly. My one time with Andrea, she’d been in tight pants. This was my first time up anyone’s skirt. His long cock was there and waiting, sprung up like a Jack-in-the-Box to greet me. The slick crown was red hot as if blushing with shyness. I latched onto it, sucking greedily, but only the tip. He groaned and writhed as I luxuriated in his sweet-tangy flavor.
He started buck, wanting to fuck my mouth. I let him, loving that almost-gag feeling. As he dropped down, my tongue played over the ridge and dome and slit of his beautiful, flaring cock-head. In my jeans, my trapped dick throbbed and I found myself rocking.
His eager shaft was pulsing as well as pumping, and I pulled away, even though his hips lifted to follow and his hands tried to jerk my head back down. I was determined. He was going to come fucking me. My bizarre logic—if logic it was—was if he was going to screw me over, he might as well do it with his dick.
Flipping up his kilt, I straddled him. A quick unzip and I had my jeans and shorts pushed down to mid thigh. The wind brushed over my eager erection, past my swinging balls and naked butt, which now hovered over Liam’s curving, rigid cock. I was burning hot with lust and a little crazed. None of my thoughts made sense. He wants to fuck me, I kept thinking, he can fuck me! He wants to embarrass me, let him! Let him have what he wants, all he wants, out here in the open where everyone can see, and spread the story—
I had my dick in one hand. Reaching back, I took Liam’s cock in the other, that soft silky pulsing cock. Lifting it from where it lay against his belly, I positioned it. The slick top dripped precum over my fingers. Liam’s long hands were on my ass, spreading my cheeks, wanting in. I could already anticipate him inside of me, was stroking myself to get the buzz going. He bucked as I came down, pushing past my sphincter. I gasped with relief. Then I heard him cry out as if in pain.
The night wind pushed aside a tree branch, and an overhead lamp illuminated him. He lay there on the dirty ground, right where I’d thrown him. I was looking straight into his eyes, but I didn’t see what he was feeling or thinking there.
I saw the reflection of my own face.
My greedy and selfish face. My hard, mean eyes. My lips quirked in a triumphant grin.
You son of a bitch! I thought. What the fuck are you doing!?
Holy sweet Jesus—
I went to the side, my libido screaming in outrage as I left him behind. My mind was back in control, and my erection shriveled in horror. I gazed at him, appalled as I frantically pulled up my shorts and jeans, stuffing my offensive, naked bits back in.
“I-I—” My mouth and throat were dry as dust. “Jesus God,” I zipped up. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—”
I sensed rather than saw Liam gazing up at me, outraged.
I ought to have stayed, stayed and faced the music. Instead, like a proper coward, I ran.
When I work out at the gym, I work out hard. I might have to run with a wounded person slung over my shoulder from a crumbling building, or race up several flights of stairs with my medical bag. I knew how to move, and unencumbered, I moved fast.
Not to mention that I was very familiar, now, with the city.
So I ran for a long time and for a long way without a stop for breath. But I still could not outrun my shame or horror. I’d never been so mortified, so dis
gusted with myself in my life.
When my breath finally began to come in gasps, and an iron tang filled my mouth, I slowed to a jog, then a walk. Sweat trickled down my temples into my eyes and soaked through the back of my shirt. There were people out on the street and I noticed that they were glancing my way. I suppose that I’d garnered a lot of looks as I dashed down one street and the next.
I’d been running blindly, but flashing back I remembered bumping into a skateboarder, cutting through a park. Car horns blaring as I darted out across streets, against the light. Stupid. I was getting as bad as Liam.
Liam. I flushed, and turned down a street where there weren’t so many pedestrians or lights. The worst thing was, the lizard part of my brain kept offering me the juicy image of him lying half naked on the ground, looking so damn hot. His face had been flushed, his lips wet with my saliva. His cock, his cock had been shining with precum, alert and ready.
My hungry dick stirred and my ass hummed with desire.
God, Oliver! I slapped my forehead with a fist. What the fuck is wrong with you? You mess up the best relationship you ever had with your stupid issues, and as if that isn’t enough you just about—no. No “just about.” You rape—God help us! Rape one of the most gallant, most creative, most loving and excellent young men you’ve ever met.
You fucking monster!
My heart was slowing down, and as the adrenaline left me, I started to sink into a mud puddle of self-loathing.
I turned down another back street, and heard muffled sounds. Moans and groans, the smell of urine, familiar shapes moving in heated ways.
I stopped. Fuck me. My subconscious was not subtle. I’d taken myself right to the heart of the gay cruising scene. I’d been here only once before, it being too unpredictable an area even for a thrill-seeker like me. These were the darkest waters in town, a place that made my favorite dance club seem about as treacherous as a wading pool.