Call Out Your Name Ch. 02

Those early days of March did bring about one positive result. I didn't have any choice but to admit that I had fallen completely in love with Jesse. I mean, the daydreaming into oblivion, walking on air, birds tweeting musically in the trees type falling in love. The part where I was ready to decide that I was off the market and commit to him and try to make our relationship work. For fuck's sake, I had been celibate for the past two months, the longest I'd gone without sex since I was fourteen, and I didn't want anyone but Jesse.

He was the best thing that had ever happened to me. A light in the dark tunnel of my Calberia existence, he made school bearable. He gave me something to look forward to, and I no longer felt the exile from my mother's house as keenly or even wished to return to Rancho Martinez. As long as I could spend time with him every day at school and kiss and hold on to him for a few hours in between I was happy. It was a bad pun, but he was like my drug. Like water for fish or the thermals under a bird's wing, he was the one I depended on.

Every school morning we arrived at nearly the same time, meeting in the parking lot. After making sure not to be observed, I'd give him a quick kiss, just a brief pass and nothing with tongue. Off we'd go on our separate ways to get together during nutrition break and eating at the same table in the quad along with the drama crowd for lunch. Next to each other or across the three foot span of ugly plastic, we pretended to be platonic friends and we worked hard not to give ourselves away. I think if anyone had bothered to look directly into our faces, they would have realized. Our love for each other felt so transparent, and I couldn't keep my eyes off of him.

Fifth period meant English with Mrs. Coates and we still sat across the room from each other despite my attempts to get her to move me. We couldn't even pass notes to each other, but sometimes he'd flash the sign for 'I love you' in American Sign Language when nobody was looking. An open hand like the number five and bending the two middle fingers into his palm. What else would we do for the class to witness anyway? Then I was off to economics and he danced sixth period away before our afternoon ended and we came back together to make plans for the evening if he could get it free.

Not to his house to kiss and cuddle because of his own closet, but I was luckier since Dad hated spending any time with me that wasn't absolutely necessary. Yes, he would have been furious if he'd known I was sitting in the dark of our living room and making out with my boyfriend, but it was kind of like a game. I don't know, maybe there was a part of me that wanted to get caught just to make him notice me. I probably took chances here and there when I wasn't thinking about the consequences of being kicked out or forbidden to hang out with Jesse. But I had grown proficient at tricking him into divulging his evening plans so we were safe.

Jesse was the sweetest, most gentle person in the world. He went out of his way to be friendly, even to bullies like Mark and the general snobs around school. He had this charismatic optimism and he rarely got angry or upset. He brought out the best in everyone else, including me, with his infectious sparkle. Perhaps he wasn't the most popular guy in our class, but very few had anything negative to say about him either. The rants of Mark Butler and his band of gay-bashing cronies aside, it was hard to find anything to dislike about him.

To tell the truth, I was scared shitless to get into a relationship with Jesse. He hadn't said it, but I was fairly sure he loved me. Admitting that I was hopelessly in love with anyone was hard enough, but embracing my gay side to care like this for a man felt as if I was teetering on the edge of a cliff in rollerblades. I already knew what my parents would say, but what about others in my life? Uncle Carl, my new friends at school, even total strangers now who would cross paths with me later in life. But all I had to do was think of the next seventy years without him, and I wanted to shrivel away and become dust.

The rest wasn't even about him. There was the whole Letter of Intent process with my football scholarship that I had let slip by, partly my fault but also because Mom never informed the colleges that were scouting me that I had moved. I swear, it almost seemed like she was trying to sabotage my future. It was mid-March before any of the paperwork caught up with me, and I was in a bind because it was supposed to be taken care of in early February. My life was in flux and I didn't know what to do about it. I had never felt so directionless.

I evaded the issue because I didn't want to face how a career in college football might mean leaving Jesse.

When I applied to the various universities the previous fall there was absolutely no reason for me to think that I wouldn't graduate from Sacred Heart High. My school guidance counselor and head football coach suggested schools for me and assured me that I'd have my pick of where to attend. Notre Dame, Alabama, Louisiana State and the University of Oregon were just among the few trying to recruit me. There were also smaller institutions that might be a better fit—read, I would actually have a chance to play instead of sitting on the sidelines— and had rich football traditions where I could create my own niche. Then I transferred to Calberia, and my wonderful counselor mucked up the paperwork, and the precious windows began to close.

The nearest university to Calberia was UC-Santa Barbara just twenty minutes down the highway. In comparison to the all the other schools I had wanted to attend it was small potatoes, so guess what! I didn't even consider it, and now it was too late to apply. And then here I am in this podunk town falling in love with this wonderful gay boy who probably won't be attending any university after high school, and I'm stuck. Yeah, I could go off to UCLA or USC in Los Angeles, but that's still two long hours away from here.

The problem was, I didn't want to leave Jesse.

Because his dyslexia left him so far behind his classmates and he had to struggle just to get a C-average, Jesse wasn't university material. He wasn't ashamed to acknowledge it either, and if he went to any college it would be a local community school where he'd learn some blue-collar trade. He's been taking acting and dance classes at Calberia High since he was a freshman, but he's a level-headed guy who knew how tough it was to make it professionally in Hollywood or New York. He was under no delusions that he wouldn't be one of thousands with stars in his eyes and a hole in his wallet. No, he'd get a day job to pay the bills and be happy with roles in the Santa Barbara community theaters.

I wanted to support him. Hell, I wanted to live with him. Strangely enough, football didn't mean that much to me when I held it up to staying with Jesse. He was my long-term future, not running some pigskin up and down a grass field. I didn't see myself becoming NFL material any more than Jesse would automatically become a famous actor. My plans had always been to use the sport to get me through college and at some point decide on a major that interested me.

But now? I was afraid to leave Jesse because I knew if I did I'd be making the biggest mistake of my life.

Should I go to some school across the country and walk away from the best thing that ever happened to me? Or should I toss out a scholarship worth thousands of dollars to attend a community college with the hopes of relocating to a university later? Maybe I'd get lucky enough in my junior year to get into a sports program somewhere I could take Jesse with me, but there were no guarantees of subsidized education or an invitation to join a football squad. The time for making up my mind, at least with the Letter of Intent, was running out, and I couldn't decide. My heart had no trouble telling me what to do, but I wasn't sure whether to trust it. I didn't want to address what was best course of action was.

However, I knew I could never leave Jesse.

The night I told him I was positive I wanted to be his alone, we were at my house. I had invited him over to play a video game on my Xbox. My dad's an accountant and it was tax season so he was working late and then going to Jillian's. I ordered a large combo pizza and planned it all out carefully, knowing I would be most persuasive if we weren't in the middle of making out when I told him how I felt. Duh! Most people know that promises made in the heat of passion probably don't mean squat.

Jesse and I both like jalapeños so I asked for Pizza Hut to send them on the side. So what if Valentine's Day was almost a month ago. I used the spicy peppers to spell out Be Mine on top of the pizza, and let him open the box. Dyslexic or not he got it right away, and his look of incredulity was priceless.

"Really?" he asked, and I nodded eagerly. He practically threw himself in my arms, and I found myself backed into the dining room wall.

Lust made his eyes go huge and dusky, and we met each other's mouths in a hungry kiss, dinner forgotten. It began slowly, deepening as our desire grew. Melting into his embrace, I brushed my tongue against his closed lips and he grabbed my face in his hands and started thrusting his into my mouth. I kissed him back fervently, moaning as my cock thickened inside my jeans, and I cupped his ass and pulled him tightly into me. His hard dick bumped back, and my brain was getting foggy.

I pulled his shirt off and nearly stopped breathing over what was revealed. Anyone who says that dancers don't have toned bodies is lying. He might not have the beefcake muscle composition like those who played sports, but his long torso was gorgeous, all lean and slender with not an ounce of fat on him. His shoulders showed off a delicate bone structure overlaid with firm deltoids and led to a flat chest that was almost hairless except for a few whirls of black around his large brown nipples. The hair picked up again just below his navel before diving into his jeans in a half-inch-wide track.

I wanted to follow that trail south but there were other treats to enjoy first, and I probably sounded like I was purring when I put my hands on his chest. Swiping my fingers across his nipples, I watched them turn into hard little points and I had to taste them. They felt rough under my tongue but I was cautious when biting them so I wouldn't hurt Jesse. He just closed his eyes and moaned.

I only got to play with him for a little while. "Take off your shirt, Blondie," he commanded hoarsely, reaching for the hem.

"'Blondie' huh?" I smirked, helping him by yanking it off and tossing it aside.

"Yeah, 'Blondie'," he rejoined. "My Blondie."

He captured my right hand in his and held it over my head, fingers entwined, as he stood me straight up against the wall. The lust was back in full play. Giving me a big smile, he tilted in to meet my lips again.

Beginning at my shoulder, his free hand groped downwards, skimming fingers over my pecs to flick my nips hard, and I gasped over how it fueled my desire for him. Sliding lower, he traced the ridges and planes of my stomach but didn't stop there. He fingered my belly button, then stilled at the waistband of my jeans. Working the button through the fabric and slowly pulling down the zipper, he loosened the denim around my hips so the sides fell open. My hard-on sprung out—I was commando— and my breath caught at the sudden drift of cool air flowing across it.

Kissing him was a good diversion as our tongues wrestled together but not good enough. I felt his long, nimble fingers searching for my already hard and leaking cock as they meandered over the length, trailing from tip to testicles before getting down to business. He wrapped his hand firmly around the shaft and began to stoke me from the bottom up, and like any knowledgeable guy who jacked himself regularly he knew what felt good. I was simply fighting to stay upright when all I wanted to do was curl around that marvelous paw.

"God yes, Jesse," I moaned. "Feels so good."

His mouth left mine and settled on the crook of my neck where it met my shoulder, and he sucked and bit at me, pulling the blood to the surface to make a hickey. I'm surprised he found enough blood anywhere but in my dick to leave a bruise, but it didn't hurt. I was entirely focused on the perfect way his palm was gliding over the wet head of my cock and gathering up precum to lubricate the trip down where his fingertips massaged my balls and rose back to the top to repeat again and again. He had a little flick of the wrist he employed that touched all my most sensitive spots, and lights started flashing behind my eyes.

"Ohh damn," I wheezed, rocking my hips harder into Jesse's grip. My balls ached in that way that told me my orgasm was imminent, and suddenly I reached the threshold where they drew up tightly into my body. This was going to be intense and I felt myself shattering into a million pieces of pleasure.

"Oh fuck," I moaned, clamping my eyes tightly shut. "Feels... feels so good... can't stop it... cumming now."

I was like a fountain going off, my jetting sperm catching us at chest level and my legs immediately turned to jelly. Clawing his back with my free hand, I buried my teeth in his shoulder but kept my wits about me so that I didn't bite hard enough to break the skin. The smell of my arousal was all around us, combined with musk and sweat. I twisted and moaned in Jesse's embrace until it was over, then collapsed against him trying to calm my ragged breathing.

"Shit, that was amazing," I praised minutes later. "So much better than getting myself off."

Jesse was giggling like a maniac and holding on to me just as hard. "Liked that, huh?"

"Oh yes." I reached for a dishtowel off the kitchen counter and wiped us down with it. Giving him a big grin, I pretended to be thinking hard. "Let's see, what do you prefer? Honey? Baby?"

I snapped my fingers. "I know, I'll call you Cubby."

He laughed and touched his nearly-bare chest. "Don't you dare. I'm hardly a bear, you know."

"No, but you're cute."

He grabbed the towel and began snapping me with it. "Cute, huh? Cute? Ditch the 'Cubby', Blondie."

In answer I wrenched it away and dove for his lips, trying to suck his tongue into my mouth as my fingers fumbled at the zip and button of his jeans and pulled them down over his ass. Snaking into his barely-there bikini briefs I fished out his rigid penis and began manipulating its velvet warmth in my curled palm. From touch alone, he seemed to be about the same length as me—six and a half inches—but where I was uniformly thick from stem to the knobbed head, Jesse was broad at the base and narrow through the shaft. The flange was very pronounced below a bell shaped head, and his trimmed pubic bush was wiry.

His cock fit nicely into my hand and I lost no time in setting up a rhythm to bring him swiftly into the ultimate ecstasy. I was a connoisseur of handjobs and eager to share my expertise. His nuts were the perfect size and even though his sac suspended them loosely and I was gentle in their handling, it wouldn't take long to fill them with semen and get them churning. I loved the way Jesse responded to my touches, groaning "Mmm" into my ear nonstop and his whole body jerking like he was connected to a live wire.

"You like that, Baby?" I whispered.

"Mmm-hmm." He was moving so much it was like we were slow-dancing together.

Jesse was on a hair-trigger after getting me off, and soon he was puffing like a steam engine and damp with sweat. I slicked up the index finger of my other hand with some of his precum and reached behind him to gently grope between his cheeks. Circling his hole I carefully inserted my digit up to the first knuckle, and he bucked and screamed.

"I'm going to... oh Shane, I'm gonna..."

His body tensed, corded sinew popping out from his neck and head thrown back, and I knew he was done. His body contorted and he spurting globs of white all over the both of us. I held him as he trembled and sighed into his release, all glassy-eyed and spent. It was the sexiest thing I'd seen in a long time.

"I love you."

The words seemed to be pulled out of me almost involuntarily. I hoped he could tell that I meant them sincerely and that they weren't just a thank you for my fifteen minutes of bliss.

His eyes had this way of turning several shades darker when he got emotional, and they looked nearly black in the dim light of the dining room. "I love you too, Shane."

I dampened the towel to clean us up with and we settled down to eat our cold pizza. We tried to concentrate on the video game but it was nearly impossible and we spent most of the evening kissing and cuddling. The addition of sex into our relationship signaled a new frontier that we had breached, and there was no going back.

More and more I was beginning to feel guilty over the way I hadn't been entirely truthful with Jesse about why I was in Calberia. I'd said that my mother had finally blown a gasket over the way I refused to get along with my half-sisters but very little else about my former life in Rancho Martinez. It was time to tell him.

The totally random day it all came out in the wash was March 14, our first month anniversary. I don't know if that played into the significance but maybe in the long run honesty was more important. My biggest worry was how Jesse would take the news that I wasn't completely gay.

Being a school night, both of us had homework to finish before we met up. It was late when I drove to Jesse's, and we were going out to dinner to eat Thai food in Santa Barbara and celebrate being together for a whole month. I was pretty broke and wanted to stop by my uncle's house beforehand because he had the paychecks for the first half of the month's earnings ready. I was going to get paid around three hundred fifty dollars after taxes which isn't bad for a weekend job.

Jesse agreed to accompany me to my uncle's and then to the bank. Carl can be quite a talker at times, and I didn't want to leave my boy sitting out in my Chevy waiting for me as we shot the breeze, so I invited him in and told Carl that he was my best friend.

For all that Carl is high a lot of his waking life, he's a shrewd, observant man. He shook Jesse's hand with a gleam in his eye, and I realized in that instant that one of my parents must have spoken to him about my sexual... uh, indiscretions, probably in light of why I no longer lived with his sister. And Carl knew, whether from a clue in our body language or the pride in which I'd introduced Jesse, exactly how important this slender teen was to me.

I watched him put on his familial 'I'll kick your ass if you hurt my nephew' look. Nothing too personal but he asked pertinent questions about school and our upcoming graduation. Apparently my uncle isn't as bigoted as Mom because he was civil and treated Jesse with respect. I felt no condemnation on his part and I relaxed.

An hour later we were at the Thai Royale restaurant in northern Santa Barbara where I was chowing down on honey duck and coconut rice. Jesse was demonstrating more restraint with his beef phat si lo which is a rice noodle, vegetable and sauce dish. He was quiet throughout the meal, making some small talk but mostly toying with his spoon. By the time we were headed home I knew something was wrong.

We parked in front of his house, a tiny redwood-varnished Cape Cod that was at least sixty years old with a newer, attached porch running the full width of the front. To tell the truth, I couldn't actually see the house from here because it was really dark and the porch light was broken, but I'd picked Jesse up a time or two. His home was set back from the road flanked by large oak trees, and an ancient Dodge pickup truck belonging to his grandfather was up on blocks at the far end of the single lane dirt driveway. The front yard consisted of a few straggling flowers that had survived the rainy winter and clumps of yellowing grass.