Page 31

31

Ben Stirling

Jeremiah is laughing uproariously. I am too, though I’m not entirely sure what we’re laughing at. The booze has hit me. It must have because I’m having trouble thinking clearly and the way Jeremiah looks is making me dizzy. He’s a riot of color tonight. Dark hair, pale skin. Pink lips, blue eyes.

“Hey, d’you know what’s funny?” he asks. I literally have no idea, so I shake my head dumbly. “If this was porn, you’d have asked me for a blowjob an hour ago.”

I blink to try to arrange his words into something cohesive. I wrestle with it hard, but I’m unsuccessful.

Beside me, Jeremiah goes bright pink and sits more upright. “I mean, not that you would. I’m just saying it’s a popular porn trope, that’s all. You know, straight single dad, hapless gay neighbor…w-who happens to be incredibly hot. It’s a thing. There’s a ton of porn like that. You can look it up. You’d get hundreds of links. Seriously. Maybe even thousands. In porn, there’s literally no other way for a scene like that to end. Except maybe with ana—” He cuts himself off. His breathing is labored, faster than normal, and he’s still pink. So pink, I think he might be tipping the scale to red. He’s talking fast too. “Not just in porn. It happens in real life too. If we were in a queer space right now, there’s almost no way one of us wouldn’t have propositioned the other. If we were both queer, obviously. Well …” He draws the word out and swallows hard. When he speaks again, his words run into one. “Actually, no, we wouldn’t both need to be queer. Straight guys love getting head. They love it. In fact, fun fact about me.” He clears his throat and his face goes redder. “My first time giving head was with a straight guy.”

“Really? How…did that happen, exactly. Did he like just ask…or, or what…um, what did he say?”

Chill. It’s an interesting topic, and Jeremiah is my friend. Of course I’m interested in his formative life experiences.

“It was at college. College 1.0, that is. I was eighteen, young, dumb, and full of…you know what, that doesn’t matter. He was this guy from one of my classes, and he came over ostensibly to get help with an assignment. And let me tell you, that was some false pretense bullshit right there. He wasn’t in my room more than five minutes before he asked if I wanted to blow him.”

“Hmph,” I say, dimly aware that I should say more but unable to think what would be appropriate. I land on: “And was that okay with you?”

“God, yes. I was in heaven. I said yes, and I loved it…and naturally, I was very good at it.” His laugh is soft and melodic. Woody like wind being blown through an instrument. The sound fades as he drifts off. It takes a moment for him to come back to me. “Of course real life is nothing like porn. In real life, those scenarios never end well. In real life, afterward, the straight dude zips up, gives a phlegmy cough, and says, ‘ So, like, if you see me out with other people, don’t, like, come talk to me or anything .’”

He uses a deep Yo-Bro voice to deliver the last line and cackles as he says it. I don’t laugh. I don’t think it’s funny and not even the wine or the backward cap can convince me it is. It was his first time, and that asshole treated him like shit. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry that happ—”

“No, no,” he explains patiently. “It’s not horrible. It’s funny, see? We laugh at our trauma. That’s how we heal.”

“But, but, Jelly. I don’t want to laugh about someone treating you badly.” It’s a splash of seriousness that brings the conversation to an abrupt halt. The silence it leaves in its wake makes my ears ring.

Jeremiah brings his hands to his face and groans quietly.

Eventually, he says, “Sorry. Fuck. I’m sorry—major overshare. That was way too much. I heard myself, and I knew the direction I was headed was bad, and I tried to stop talking, I swear, but I panicked and talked more by mistake. It happens sometimes when I’m nervous. More talking instead of less. Just ignore everything I said from the first time I mentioned porn right up to now. Please. Just wipe it from your memory and pretend it never happened.”

He keeps his hands over his face for so long that I take him by the wrists and pull them down enough that I can see him. His eyes are watery and he’s biting his bottom lip so hard that part of it has gone white.

“Hey,” I say. “Don’t be silly. It was fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was funny up to the point the straight guy was a dick to you.”

“Do you want me to go? ’Cause I can go if you want me to. Sleep will reset me, and I’ll be my usual self again tomorrow. I promise.”

“No, don’t go. Stay. I mean it. Have another drink…or have some more cheese…” He looks dubious and glances down at his glass. I notice it’s still full. He hasn’t touched it. Mine’s on the coffee table next to a bowl of nuts. To my surprise, I find I haven’t touched mine since I opened the second bottle either. Maybe he needs something other than wine. Maybe we both do. “Or how ’bout some water. I’ll get you some. Don’t go. I’ll be right back.”

I head to the kitchen, walking briskly, and come back armed with two large glasses of water with ice. I hand one to him and down the other before sitting down.

“Can I ask you something?” The resigned way he says it makes me think his verbal diarrhea isn’t under his full control yet and that he’s aware of it but powerless to stop it.

It’s adorable.

So adorable, my chest swells with warmth. I don’t know why I find it so endearing that I know this about him, but I do. I really do.

“Of course. Anytime.”

“Okay, but I want to preface this by saying the only reason I’m asking is because I’ve already mortified myself to such an extent that I honestly don’t think I can make it much worse.”

“Wow. I'm intrigued.”

I am intrigued. And, for some reason, a little turned on.

Fine, I’m a lot turned on, but I think that’s because his lips have been stained red from being bitten, not from the impending verbal diarrhea per se.

“Also, please don’t feel you have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable. Just ignore me and throw me out.”

There’s no way that’s happening, but I say, “Okay,” and sit forward in my seat, readying myself for whatever he fires my way. “Shoot.”

“So, when you were at my place the other day, did you happen to see anything”—he hums softly, tapping the tips of three fingers against his bottom lip in a potentially subconscious attempt to silence himself—“uh, unusual in my bathroom. It’s no big deal if you did or if you didn’t. Especially not if you didn’t, actually. Basically, it’s not a big deal either way. It’s just one of those silly little things I can’t stop worrying about, and it’s driving me crazy.”

I shake my head thoughtfully from side to side. “No, I didn’t see anything unusual…” He goes lax, slumping back against the backrest of the sofa and looking up at the ceiling in such relief I feel bad about my decision to joke about it. It’s too late to change my mind, though, because I can’t lie to him, so I whisper, “I mean, I did see a wall-mounted dildo, but…that’s not all that unusual.”

“Oh God,” he says, closing his eyes and breathing prayerfully. “Canada. Brace yourself, babygirl. I’m coming at you. You have a new citizen headed your way.”

“Stop it.” I laugh, prodding him in the ribs with an elbow. “You’re not moving to Canada. It’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? Are you kidding me? I was already embarrassed as fuck, and now I’m whatever comes after embarrassed as fuck. And believe me, it’s terrible here. Of course I’m leaving the country. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Nothing at all?”

“No,” he says decisively and then pivots a hundred and eighty degrees, cocking a single brow at me. “Unless…you ask me an embarrassing question of your own.” He’s pleased with himself, nodding and smiling determinedly. “Yeah, that’s it. You ask me something super embarrassing or super inappropriate, and may be I’ll rethink my relocation.”

“Okay.” I giggle. “Let me see. Embarrassing or inappropriate…embarrassing or inappropriate…”

My mind has gone completely vacant. There’s not a thought flitting through it. It’s a blank slate. A foggy white screen without so much as a tumbleweed rolling across it. Plain white.

A wall of white.

A white-tiled wall with a bright purple dick jutting off it.

Jesus. Why can’t I stop thinking about the fucking toy? And what Jeremiah looks like when he uses it. And how he sounds when he uses it. And how he feels when he uses it.

“How does it feel?” I hear myself say several seconds before I’ve landed on a suitable question.

His expression is sweet and innocent, lips forming a circle that make it look like he’s singing. He doesn’t have a clue what I’m asking, and why would he? He doesn’t know I think things like this. He doesn’t know I picture it all the time—him with a silicone dick inside him.

Him, naked.

Him with a pulsing, living dick inside him.

“When you take a dick,” I clarify. “How does it feel. Doesn’t it hurt?”

It’s an odd question that makes me uncomfortable, but I want to know so badly that I can’t resist asking. I’ve had partners who liked it and partners who didn’t. Some liked it, some found it painful. Some liked it specifically because it was hard to take.

I want, no, I need to know what it’s like for him. I have to know so the things I see when I imagine him getting fucked are accurate.

His jaw drops microscopically. I wish to fuck the room was darker than it is so there’d be somewhere for me to hide. There isn’t though. There’s only Jeremiah. Only his face and choppy blue waves breaking as they crash to the shore.

The silence is loud, a big, clanky thing that wedges uncomfortably between us. His body is turned toward mine and he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before. I’d cave, take the question back and apologize if it weren’t for the expression in his eyes.

They’re shocked, sure, but they’re also on fire. There’s a flare of unmistakable heat in them, and he hasn’t blinked since I spoke.

We’re on a knife’s edge. Jeremiah knows it, and I know it. There’s a point of no return for platonic friendships between men, and this is it. There’s a choice to be made. He can laugh off my question and crack a joke about it. We’ll both move on and act like it never happened.

Tomorrow will be the same as all the other days he’s come over. Everything will be fine. Nothing will have changed.

It takes a while, but he makes his choice.

“It’s different for everyone,” he says. My dick twitches hard in my pants. “But yeah, it hurts sometimes.” He hasn’t looked away yet, and he still hasn’t blinked. Neither have I. His mouth opens and his jaw clicks. “I-it hurts in the beginning, when it goes in, not hurts exactly, but it’s really intense…” His lids flutter shut and blunt fingernails make a pass over his mouth. “I don’t mind it. I-I like it. I like the moment before it happens. When I’m in position, waiting for it. When we both know it’s going to happen, and I don’t move. When I keep still and let it happen. Let him do it to me, even though it’s hard to take.”

And there it is.

There it is.

The blank focal point in a picture that’s otherwise crystal clear. The tiny, blurred space that didn’t make sense. The piece of the puzzle that’s been missing.

Understanding slithers slowly up my arms, across my pecs, and slots neatly into the hole in my chest. Lust and arousal roll through me, and more than that, a dusty, old recognition wakes something in me.

When I speak, my voice is my own. My own, own. My old own. My voice from before. Before I broke. It’s my voice like I know it. Like it was when I was whole and living the life I was supposed to be living. “Are you a submissive boy, Jeremiah?”

He hears my words and understands them. What’s more, he hears my voice and understands it too. He knows what it means. I know that because he looks down instantly, bowing his head without even meaning to.

It’s a sweet, reverent pose that turns me to solid steel.

He knits his fingers together and looks at them, shoulders tense, as he whispers a soft, spluttery, “Y-yes.”

I turn my body toward his, resting my arm on the back of the sofa. My hand is close to him. Close to his neck. So close I could wrap my hand around the back of his neck and make him let go of his tension if I wanted to. I don’t do that, of course. It would be too much. Too fast. Instead, I trace the back of my fingers over the ball of his shoulder, tapping him to let him know I want him to look at me.

He does. He works his gaze up from my navel to my face in slow, distinct stages. By the time his eyes meet mine, he looks like a man who’s come up for air after being held underwater for ages. For eons.

“Do you like being told what to do?” I ask.

There’s a shadow. A flicker of hesitation in his eyes because like isn’t the right word. The right word doesn’t exist. Like implies weakness and indecision, and being submissive doesn’t make you weak. It makes you strong. The right word, if it existed, would lie somewhere else. Somewhere equidistant between the complex trinity of like , want , and need .

His Adam’s apple rides up the column of his neck. A sluggish, jerky journey that only ends when he swallows.

He gives a single nod.

There’s a rush of heat that makes my ribcage expand. It’s a familiar feeling.

A swell of pride.

I’m proud of Jeremiah, even though, technically, I know he’s not mine to be proud of. My dick doesn’t know that. Judging by the way it’s slamming against bone, neither does my heart.

It’s frightening to tell others these kinds of things about yourself. Terrifying and vulnerable. Nothing will ever make you feel more naked and exposed than a conversation like this, and he’s telling me who he is despite all that.

I’m honored.

And horny. Jesus, I’m horny. My dick is so hard I can’t remember a time it wasn’t hard.

“Do you want me to tell you what to do?” I ask.

This time, he nods hard and fast, many times, like someone or something is shaking him.

My hand traces the line of his shoulder, forefinger and thumb parting when I get to his neck. I slide my hand under the visor of his cap. I take hold of his tension and strangle it gently. “Do you want me to tell you what to do even if it involves making you kneel for me?”

“Yes,” he says quickly. His voice is soft and breathless, but there’s a certainty in it that’s cast in stone. It’s a certainty I need. A certainty that shakes something beautiful loose. “I want that.”

I use the grip I have on him to lift him to his feet. He stands before me, wide-eyed, hands shaking at his sides. I grab a throw pillow from behind me, dropping it onto the floor between my feet.

“Kneel,” I say.

He drops like his strings have been cut. Like whatever was holding him upright is no longer there.

I breathe it in.

The power.

The privilege.

The sight of this gorgeous boy on his knees for me.

Ordinarily, I’d play with him. I’d tease him and test him. I’d touch him and turn him on till he moaned.

I don’t do that now because he’s already moaning. Not moaning exactly. He’s making a soft mewling sound that he’s trying to bite back by clamping his lips together.

Whimpering.

He’s already whimpering.

For me.

My blood runs thick from the sound. The sight. The rightness. It congeals in my veins, slowing everything in the room and speeding it up. Arousal roars through me. Rips through me. Tearing me open and dragging me to my feet.

I’m hard. Everything is hard. Molten metal solidifies and holds me up as I fumble with my belt. My movements are fast, uncoordinated and jerky, desperate, as the strap springs free of the buckle. There’s a soft whistle of leather whipping through belt loops.

Before me, Jeremiah swallows hard. His eyes are dark, pupils blown out so wide I see flames in the shadows. He looks up at me, watching my every move. Waiting. Waiting for me to tell him his fate.

“Open your mouth,” I say when it’s decided.