Out in the Open

by A. J. Truman

  Ethan busted through the double door, and a student entering the building had to jump out of the way to avoid a broken nose. His face surged with redness. Had he really just groped a student in class? A student he hated? Ethan wondered if temporary insanity could be used as an excuse outside of the courtroom.

  The sun shone brightly and glinted off the stately campus buildings, but Ethan couldn’t take it in. He kept his head down, looking only at the pavement. Once the shock wore off, Greg would realize how disgusting Ethan had been. Greg had just been being his obnoxious self. He had only grabbed himself to get a rise out of Ethan. He didn’t expect to get touched. In the middle of class. Ethan could see what would happen next. Greg would race back to his frat and tell all of his brothers that some weird gay kid came onto him during class. They’d come after Ethan, pounding their fists into their hands, all, “How dare someone mess with our brother!”

  Ethan’s pulse banged against his temples. “Idiot!” he whispered. Passersby gave him a strange look.

  Up ahead, the path split. One led to his dorm, but Ethan’s stomach twisted even harder when he thought about returning there. He didn’t want to face his friends. Sure, they didn’t know anything yet, but Ethan was in no mood to deal with people right now. He stood at the fork and let people walk around him, trying to decide where he could get privacy.

  Ethan thought he heard someone calling his name behind him, but he refused to look. It was probably someone from class. “Oh, hey. Um…were you rubbing your classmate’s dick in class today?”

  He wouldn’t take the chance. It was time to go.

  He took the other path and ran to the library.

  Φ

  Browerton’s library was a concrete monstrosity made up of uneven slabs of gray that looked like a futuristic prison. It was the only building on campus that was designed for function over form. Ethan supposed that when you had to house over a million books, you couldn’t worry about pleasing the eye.

  He bounded up the front steps and took the elevator to the top floor. Fluorescent orange carpeting and bone-white walls greeted him. People rarely came up here, except during finals, and that apparently included designers, too. The floor hadn’t been upgraded since the 1970s. Ethan wasn’t even sure what books were housed up here.

  He walked down a hall, admiring the view of the lake, until he reached the north stacks, a silo of bookshelves with study tables lining the windows. Ethan could catch his breath. He leaned against a shelf and heaved in the musty air.

  Now, with privacy, Ethan could think about why he’d done what he’d done. Greg had been egging him on. Ethan remembered that Greg hadn’t tried to stop him. He didn’t know how long his hand had stroked Greg through his pants, but it had been more than enough time for Greg to say no. Ethan flashed back to that moment, to Greg’s manhood surfacing through the mesh, like a balloon being blown up. A rush of adrenaline flooded through him, just like it had in class. He hated that he enjoyed the feeling.

  Hearing footsteps of someone entering the stacks, Ethan squatted down into a tight ball. He wasn’t doing anything wrong here, but he still felt the need to hide. He peeked through a shelf to see who was there, but all he saw was books.

  The footsteps were getting louder, more determined. Ethan heard them clopping against the carpet, circling the perimeter.

  “Are you hiding?”

  Greg.

  Ethan un-crouched himself. He couldn’t say anything. His face immediately dropped two shades of color. Greg had a serious, pissed-off look on his face and was heaving for air. This is it. I’m a dead man.

  ‘“I was yelling after you,” Greg said. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  Ethan shook his head no.

  Greg didn’t say anything after that. His lips were just there, letting his eyes direct the conversation.

  “I’m sorry,” Ethan said. His teeth chattered against each other. Maybe Greg would have mercy.

  “For molesting me?”

  “I’m really sorry.” Ethan’s entire body trembled with fear. “I’ll drop the class. We’ll never have to see each other again. Please don’t beat me up.”

  “You think I came here to beat you up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I was not expecting that back in class, Ethan.” Greg took a step closer. Even in this unforgiving fluorescent light, his skin still glowed with the last gasp of a summer tan. “I didn’t think you would actually do that.”

  Ethan noticed the slightest hint of a smile crack his face. “You kept egging me on, but I’m sorry. It was wrong.”

  “Yes. It was very wrong. You are a sex fiend.”

  “No, I’m not,” Ethan said. “If you didn’t like it, you should’ve stopped me.”

  “Who said I didn’t like it?”

  Ethan froze. He remained nervous, but now for a completely different reason. “You liked it?”

  “It was actually…” Greg itched the back of his head, and his shirt hiked up, revealing an inch of tight flesh. “It was kinda hot.”

  “It was?”

  “You didn’t think so? I saw you getting into it.”

  “That’s only because…” Ethan didn’t know how to finish that sentence. “I was in shock, and I only did it to shut you up.”

  “Oh, you shut me up alright,” Greg said, flushing with color.

  “It won’t happen again. Especially not in the middle of class.”

  “That was the hottest part, though.”

  “No, it wasn’t. We could’ve been caught any moment!” Ethan realized his whisper was well above acceptable library levels.

  “I know.” Greg raised his eyebrows. “I was so hard. I haven’t been that turned on in a long time.”

  Ethan peered down at Greg’s crotch, and he still seemed turn on. Ethan didn’t understand it. He and Greg seemed to be on different wavelengths about this. Maybe it was because, if they had gotten caught, Ethan would’ve been the one to receive all the scolding. Greg could’ve claimed innocent victim.

  “You enjoyed it? Doing that in public?” Ethan asked. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Probably. You’re the wannabe lawyer.” Greg took another step toward Ethan, and this time, he caught Ethan taking another glimpse of his downstairs area. “Looks like you enjoyed it, too.”

  Greg nodded at Ethan’s crotch, and he tried to conceal the bulge in his pants. His teeth wouldn’t stop chattering, and now goose bumps crawled across his arms. The way Greg looked at him, with no fear, no reservations, made Ethan’s bottom half stand more at attention.

  “Maybe we should do it again,” Greg said.

  “What?”

  “We both liked it. Nobody has to know. I’m sure as hell not going to tell anyone.”

  “Are you…” Ethan couldn’t finish the question. He’d had heard of gay guys hooking up with deeply closeted frat boys.

  “No, but if an opportunity like this presents itself, I’m not one to say no.”

  He couldn’t believe this was happening, and he couldn’t believe he wasn’t stopping it. All it would take to end this would be a simple “goodbye” or to just walk away. Ethan stood there, letting his heartbeat take over his body.

  “Perhaps we should pick up where we left off,” Greg said, readjusting his growing erection.

  Ethan’s eyes bulged open. “In the library?”

  Greg shrugged. “There’s no one around.”

  “But there could be. Someone could walk in any second.” Ethan’s heart rattled in his chest like a teakettle about to boil.

  “I know. It’s the hottest part.”

  “What if we get caught?”

  “We’re not going to.”

  “But what happens if we do? It’s too risky. Maybe we should come back on a Saturday night. There’s usually nobody here then.”

  “The moment is now.” Greg took another step. Ethan hadn’t realized how far he had been, but now Greg was inches from his face. Ethan could smell his natural, musky scent hiding under his body
spray. “And you may spout off a million other excuses about how wrong this is, but I know you’re just as turned on by this as I am. Maybe more.”

  The anticipation and trepidation filling up the moment made Ethan’s body tingle. He was standing on the edge of a cliff, seconds away from jumping. He could feel the air, the height, the nothingness just under his feet.

  He backed up against the bookshelf, hating Greg for being so right. “I’m nervous.”

  “Nervous is good.”

  Greg took Ethan’s hand and brought it against the bulge in his warm-up pants. It was just how Ethan remembered it from class. This was the time to take his hand off and run away. This was not Ethan Follett behavior. Sweat beaded at his temples. This was new, exciting, and definitely not boring. Deep down, he wanted more.

  He rubbed Greg’s pants. With each stroke, Ethan’s curiosity grew, among other things. What was the wizard behind the curtain? He watched his hand go back and forth. His head jerked up at the faint sound of someone.

  “Did you hear that?” Ethan whispered.

  “Don’t worry. I’m on lookout.”

  Ethan kept his eyes focused on Greg’s bulge. If anyone caught them, he could claim…something. Brainwashed? Sold into prostitution? Ethan’s hand was interrupted by Greg’s as he pulled his dick out.

  Ethan’s eyes went wide, like he was seeing a national monument up close. It was long and thick and in charge. It didn’t stand at attention; it gave the orders.

  He wrapped his hand around Greg’s erection, and Greg let out a low moan that drove Ethan wild. Between his smell, his dick, and his moaning, Ethan was in sensory overload. They all activated some savage part of his brain, which quickly took over.

  Ethan stroked Greg. His hand gripped tighter, and his sweaty palms proved a powerful lubricant.

  “Yeah,” Greg breathed out. Ethan felt like he was about to burst out of his own pants, and apparently Greg could tell. He reached over and began massaging Ethan’s crotch, but it was more of a cursory brushing since khakis didn’t provide the same outlining opportunity as mesh pants.

  Ethan sent his free hand into action, coordinating both in a synchronized push-and-pull move. He loved feeling Greg’s dick slide against his fingers. Greg grabbed onto the bookcase to steady himself and heaved out a slow exhale.

  He unzipped Ethan’s fly and maneuvered his hand inside, grabbing a hold of Ethan’s manhood over his boxer briefs. The warmth and firmness of his hand made Ethan’s crotch tingle with delight. More new sensations that drove him crazy. He could feel his pupils dilating until they must’ve been merely pools of blackness.

  “Wait,” Ethan said. He loosened his grip. “Did you hear something?”

  “No.” Greg exhaled. “Actually…”

  They got super-quiet and heard footsteps creaking on the floor. Voices followed. It sounded like a pair of girls, probably looking for a place to study. Greg tucked himself back inside his shorts. Ethan zipped himself up. They looked at each other, letting their ears do all the work, listening as the girls found a long table in the center of the silo. Their backpacks clunked onto the table, and their conversation continued. No whispers for them. They thought they were alone.

  “We should go,” Ethan whispered.

  “Why?”

  Ethan nudged his head behind him, toward the two girls.

  “They’re not going to bother us.”

  “They will if we get too loud.”

  Greg’s lips curled into a smile, all trace of worrying vanished. “Then we’ll have to stay quiet.”

  He whipped out his dick, and it returned to pole position right away. Ethan could feel the savage part of his brain trying to stage another coup.

  “No!” Ethan mouthed.

  Greg leaned in. His hot breath danced on Ethan’s neck. “You don’t want to stop.” He unzipped Ethan’s pants slowly. Ethan couldn’t tell if he was being quiet or a tease. “You don’t want me to stop.”

  Greg played with Ethan’s dick until it got hard again (about three seconds). Then he pulled down Ethan’s underwear, and his bare hand met Ethan’s raging erection. Ethan let out a gasp of pleasure and quickly clamped his hand over his mouth.

  “Quiet,” Greg whispered right into his ear. His scruff scratched against Ethan’s cheek, sending another pulse of desire through him.

  “They’re so close,” Ethan said.

  “You’re so close.” Greg eased right next to Ethan, so no daylight could come between them, then took his hardness and entered Ethan’s fly. He held both dicks in his domineering hand and jerked them off. He let himself rove around Ethan’s crotch, brushing against his balls and inner thighs.

  Waves of pleasure rolled through Ethan like high tide. He couldn’t believe he was doing this—in a library! Every nerve ending stood on end, making him extra sensitive to Greg’s firm grip.

  The buildup rumbled from deep in his belly, shaking his body to the core. The savageness took over. He lunged for the cocks; their hands met, which sent a different kind of spark shooting through Ethan.

  “What did you get for that problem set?” one of the girls said to the other. They sounded so close, yet so far away to Ethan.

  Ethan stroked them harder and faster. He looked up, and Greg’s eyes bore straight into his, shining a light inside every private place within Ethan. That sent him over the edge.

  “I’m…I’m…” Ethan knew if he tried to speak any more, it would come out as a yell. A real yell.

  “Oh fuck,” Greg whispered out through labored breaths. All traces of Mr. Know-It-All were gone.

  The orgasm enveloped Ethan’s entire body, sending his pulse into quadruple digits. He exploded right onto Greg, who did the same thing to him seconds later.

  Ethan’s hand went slack; his body almost collapsed, and Greg had to steady him. The afterglow brightened Greg’s cheeks, darkened his lips.

  Neither of them said anything. What did a person say after something like this? He gulped hard. A trickle of sweat lined Greg’s cheek, and he liked that he was the cause. They got themselves presentable.

  “Um…” Greg started. That was more than Ethan had.

  Ethan blinked a few times to regain focus, get himself back into the present. And that was when the shame flooded his mind. He was in his college library, home to over one million books, wet with his classmate’s come. Ethan needed to think, to gather his thoughts.

  But not here.

  “I…I’ll…” He had to leave. He passed the girls studying. He made eye contact with one of them before she awkwardly looked down at her books. Ethan wondered if she could smell the sex wafting off him.

  He wasn’t going to wait to find out.

  CHAPTER eleven

  Ethan had no recollection of getting back to his dorm. His mind was in a far-off place. For the second time today, he asked himself, Did that really happen? Some people enjoyed a life of risk and uncertainty, but Ethan didn’t need surprises to throw him off-balance. There was nothing wrong with predictability and playing it safe. You may never be number one, but you’d never come in last, and Ethan found comfort in that.

  When he got to his room, he made sure to lock the door. He needed privacy. He needed to think. He tried to analyze what had happened, but he kept remembering Greg’s raging erection flopping out of his pants. And that look.

  That look.

  The focused, intense, I’m-thinking-things-you’ll-never-know expression on Greg. Those eyes burned into Ethan, and he went flush just from the memory. Nobody had ever looked at him that way; even if it was only because Greg was on the verge of coming, he’d still take it.

  Ethan returned to Greg’s profile, looking for any latent clues of homosexuality. Yet Ethan found himself getting heterosexual whiplash once again. There were the same pictures of his bros and his chicks. Even his taste in music (Jay-Z, Drake) and movies (Transformers, Fight Club) screamed straight.

  Greg seemed like one of those guys who’d been cool all his life without trying. When he talked,
you listened. Hell, when he whipped out his junk in a public place, you grabbed it. It looked like he had a great life, one far removed from anything Ethan could imagine. College was the time for experimenting. Maybe that’s what they were both doing.

  A little while later, Ethan searched for his friends in Jessica’s suite. It was around dinner time, and he figured he should eat, even though his appetite was still gone from this afternoon. The suite was empty. Usually they didn’t go to dinner until six, and it was only five-thirty. He texted Jessica to see where they were and ambled by her room.

  “Are you looking for Jessica?” a voice called out to Ethan. He spun around and found Lorna coming out of the bathroom.

  “Sorry,” he said, though not sure why. “I mean, yes.”

  “I think I heard her say she was going to a Chinese buffet.” Lorna strolled past Ethan, back to her room. She left the door open, and Ethan took that as a cue to follow.

  He’d never spent alone time with Lorna, and he didn’t know the proper procedure. What do you say to your friend’s roommate whom your friend doesn’t like? Politeness won out. That wasn’t his battle.

  “A Chinese buffet?” Ethan asked. That didn’t seem like Jessica’s forte. She read the labels on her food. She taught him the difference between free range and fair trade. A Chinese buffet in Western Pennsylvania did not seem to fit those qualifications.

  “That’s what I heard.” Lorna shrugged. She pulled out a heavy textbook from her backpack and plunked it on her bed. “Did you just come from the gym?”

  Ethan shook his head, not knowing where that inquiry came from. He wiped his brow, but found no sweat.

  “Oh, you just seem…” Lorna searched for the word. Ethan stood in the doorway waiting. “Fresher.”

  “Fresher?”

  “You know when you go to the gym and after you have this boost of energy. Even if your body is wiped out, you have this mix of adrenaline and confidence, knowing that you kicked ass for at least one hour out of your day. Am I the only one who feels that?”