Asshole

"Do you need a hand with that?" He gestured to the box of condoms. I sighed. I bit my lip and sat back.

"Hey... uh... Rory."

"Yeah?" He was stroking my chest slowly, even as I tried to keep him at arms length.

"Could you stop picking on me at school?" He blushed.

"I don't!"

"Yes you do, dude! You're a fucking bully!"

"You used to fight back." His eyes flashed.

"I shouldn't have to fight back! You are such a fucking arsehole! We used to be friends." Rory bit his lip. He sighed and went limp in my arms.

"I really don't know what to tell you Jer. I'm a closeted bully ok? I chose being cool over my best friend. I guess that's just who I am."

"Well who you are sucks."

"Agreed." He wrapped his arms around my neck. "You know, you can leave this here. You can even tell everyone. I'll deny it obviously, but you can. You can leave me alone, knowing what a little bitch I am and knowing I would do anything for your cock. It might make you feel better."

"It won't." I grunted. "And I don't think you're a bitch for wanting it."

"Well congrats that you don't suffer from internalised homophobia. That must be cool." I rolled my eyes at him and slowly started fumbling with the condom packet.

"Oh god just let me do it." He grabbed it off me impatiently and ripped the box open. "Lie down on the bed." He directed. I obliged him and he jumped up and wrapped his legs around me as I lay back.

He tore the condom wrapper open with his teeth.

"Don't do that, you'll tear the fucking condom."

"What, and you'll get me pregnant?"

"Well... you know... STDs and shit."

"Aren't we both virgins?"

"I am."

"Why are we even bothering with this then?" He tossed it to the side and reached for the lube. I mean, personally, I could think of another reason but I didn't want to offend him. "Definitely need this though." He grunted. I laughed at the look on his face as he contemplated me.

"Still game?" I teased. He nodded.

"Just... let me make it work ok? Don't fucking move until I tell you to."

"I get it. You're in charge."

"Correct." He kissed me softly on the forehead as he squirted some lube into his hand. "Alright you do you. I'll do me."

He passed me the lube. I wanted to protest. I wanted to touch him, and I definitely wanted his hands all over me, but I could see the tiniest bit of worry crossing his face. For all his bravado he really did need to take this at his speed. So I started stroking my dick, watching him bite his lip with concentration as he teased himself.

The sight was so fucking hot I needed to stop touching myself.

"You ah... you better be ready soon." I warned.

"Don't rush me!" But he grinned as he looked at me.

He ran his fingers through his hair and tucked it behind his ears.

"Ok." He said. He leant forward and grasped my shoulder with one hand as the other grabbed my dick. I moaned as I felt myself slipping between his cheeks. He closed his eyes but there was no way I wasn't watching him.

He moved slowly against me, his fingers curling in my flesh. He actually drew blood as he panted and held me down. I didn't give a shit. I was trying not to cum before we even got started. It was lucky we'd already done a round.

He groaned as I penetrated him.

"Fuck." He swore.

"You ok?"

"Shut up." He whispered. We paused, my head barely inside him. He moaned. "Damn. You're the biggest I've had." I froze.

"You said you were a..." He laughed, his eyes still firmly clenched shut.

"I've never done it with a real guy. But I'm creative." I laughed and squeezed his hips. "This feels amazing." He said. "Don't get me wrong."

"Amazing." I agreed. "Fucking incredible."

"I think I love you." He said.

"You're so full of shit."

We held on to each other for god knows how long before he let me in further.

"Oh fuck." I moaned.

"Yeah." He bit his lip harder and clenched his grip on my shoulder and slowly worked his way down. His eyes flew open as he worked me all the way in and his mouth fell open, his eyes on mine. "Oh my god."

"Oh my god." I agreed.

"I love you." He said.

"Shut up." I said.

We waited until he was ready and he started rolling his hips. His fingers unclenched and clenched up again as he rode me. His other hand drifted to my nipple and I had to push him away, because I was way too close already. He scowled and tangled his fingers in my hair.

"Tell me I'm hot." He said, as I obediently lay still below him.

"Rory you're the hottest guy I've ever seen."

"Why?"

"You're tall, you're tanned, you're built like Michelangelo's David except bigger where it counts. You have the sexiest freckles. Your eyes. I love your eyes. Your mouth. Your lips. Your tongue." He moaned and fell into me, not quite kissing me but pressing his lips to mine. He wrapped his hands around me and pressed his chest to my chest, our erect nipples pressing against each other.

"Can I move yet?" I whispered. He stuck his tongue in my ear.

"Yeah." He whispered. "Fuck me."

I didn't need telling twice.

I thrust into him and he moaned desperately. I let my hands drift to his ass and I squeezed him tightly as I began to thrust in earnest. He sat up, whining and I held him in place, using his tight little hole to get myself off.

I don't know what I did, but it was suddenly totally the right thing. I felt him spasm and his mouth fell open. His wriggling and moaning was replaced by a sincere soft grunting. He went limp on top of me and I used the opportunity to manoeuvre us so I was on top. His legs wrapped around me.

"This ok?" I whispered.

"Yeah." He muttered. "So good."

He touched my hand lightly and directed it to his dick. I wrapped my fingers around him and jerked him in time with my thrusting. I had already mentally prepared for him to go soft. I knew that happened. I knew some guys preferred it that way. But Rory was in charge- he was hot and hard, and leaking. I moaned as I stroked him, his hard wet dick grazing my stomach.

"Shit." He said.

"You ok?" He laughed weakly.

"Uh..." He sighed deeply. "Ahhhh fuck yessss." He tensed up as he came for the second time. His cum was less creamy this time, wetter as he coated my hand and out chests. His ass clenched hard against me and I continued to thrust against him as he moaned. His moaning did it for me, so deep and manly. I held him tight as I felt myself clench up silently and release with a grunt.

We lay together, panting.

"I love you." He said as I fell against his chest and let him hold me.

"You're such a cunt." I said. "I hate you." His arms wrapped around me.

"No you don't." I smiled against him.

"No. I don't." I kissed his chest.

-Te Hauturu-o-Toi-

I was paired with him to show him the ropes on Te Hauturu-o-Toi, of course I was. Believe it or not he complained every step of the way.

"This is fucking retarded." He moaned as I got overly excited about a really decent stool sample.

"Language." I reprimanded him.

"Oh god you think retarded is bad? This is gonna be a long month for you, Jer."

"I knew that the second I saw your name."

"I'm flattered I have that effect on people."

"You would be."

He smiled at me.

"God I've missed you. Other than my manager no one has been this awful to me in years."

"Well I'd better make up for lost time." He held open the sample bag for me and winced.

"How's Isaac?" He said.

"Stalker."

"You have no idea."

"So then you know he's in Argentina with his husband."

"Good." He sealed the bag and deposited it in my backpack. "Who dumped who?" I rolled my eyes.

The truth is I dumped him. He was the sweetest guy I'd ever been with and he loved me desperately.

But I hate sweet guys.

I zipped my bag up.

"Guess." I said.

—-

Rory McIndoe was so damn unfit. He was sweating and had completely ruined his shirt.

"How do you look like that and still struggle with a fucking hill?" He laughed.

"I never do cardio." He said. "Shoulders, chest, legs and abs. I'm trying to sell a dream."

"How do you fuck all those women?"

"I don't dumbass. I'm a fucking fairy. I take them home, get them drunk and cry about you for hours."

"Right."

"I'm not joking." I glanced at him as we marched. He was red in the face and he was sweating from every orifice.

"Smoko." I decided.

I sat down and he threw himself over the ground dramatically. I tossed him a bag of scroggin and a bottle of water. I'd ended up carrying both out packs at some point.

"Nuts and chocolate? On a diet." He threw the scroggin back at me and I barely touched it before launching it back again.

"Eat it or you're gonna collapse and honestly I'm just gonna leave you where you fall."

"You're hot when you tell me what to do." He opened the portion and started nibbling delicately on an almond. I grunted and started on my own. He watched me carefully as I shoved a handful down my throat.

"What?" I grunted. He shrugged.

"I missed you." I looked at him.

"You could have called."

"Your exact words Jer, and I'm fucking quoting, were 'don't ever fucking contact me again or I'll slit your mother's throat.'" I shrugged.

"Empty threat. I like Di." He bit his lip. "Might have slit yours though. Smart to play it safe." I munched on another handful of nuts while he found a cashew and bit a sliver of it off. His breathing was slowing and his face was as red anymore. I was itching to get moving but I calmed myself down and tried meditating, listening to the world around me as Rory devoured his scroggin painfully slowly. At least he was eating it. He really would have fainted.

"Can you hear the ants?" He said. I blinked my eyes open.

"Huh?" He was watching me. He smiled. "The Once and Future King." He said.

"Oh damn, did you learn to read?" Rory threw a pebble at me.

"As I recall, you only passed English because I wrote your book reports." I sipped on my water and tried to remember how far the next refill station was. Hmm. Might have to ration it a bit.

"Writing was never my strong suit." I said with a sigh. "So it's really lucky I ended up in Comms." Rory choked on the water he was gulping down.

"What the fuck? What, like Social Media? You don't even have a fucking Instagram."

"You haven't found my Instagram yet?" I grinned at his head jerked up. "Come on Ror, you gotta work harder." He grinned.

"I hope it pays well. That's completely the wrong job for you."

"You think I should still be playing soccer?"

"Obviously, then I can watch you get all hot and sweaty on TV again." He smiled. "Why didn't you renew your contract?"

"Premier league sucks and I'm not that good."

"You're really good. You should have been playing internationally." I snorted. Ok. Enough. I jumped up and pulled him to his feet. "You're the top ranked midfield by the Herald."

"Ranked by whom?"

"Well... me... but I'm not biased." I rolled my eyes. "Auckland City has been losing since you left."

"Yeah, you're right. That was all me."

"Knew it." He sighed as we started walking again. "So you're really retired, huh? Who do you work for now?"

"Department of Conservation."

"Ah. That's more your speed. I thought you went full Auckland, like you were in advertising or something awful. What pays better?"

"Football." I admitted. "But only just."

—-

I caught Mary's eye as we crested over the hill and immediately had to look away, because she was smirking. Gossipy old hags. It was doing my head in.

"Ok." I handed Rory his bag back. "I'll sign us back in and hand in all the stuff, you can get showered and go catch up with your team." He nodded and paused before he turned away.

"Hey, Dylan Cleaver is here." I shrugged. "Sports Editor for the Herald..."

"I know who he is."

"Well... you know. I could set up an interview." I laughed.

"Yeah, ok, great. I'm sure he's creaming his pants to talk to an average retired player who no one's ever heard of about posting on twitter for DoC."

"You think everyone is so one dimensional. You could talk about all your environmental shit. Why you turned down your next contract- its only been a year, you're not like, over the hill. I dunno, talk about being openly gay in sport in NZ. There's a story there."

"Believe it or not being openly gay is not a big deal." Rory's face fell but I wasn't letting him get away with looking sad about it. He made his bed.

I raised my eyebrows at him and he held his head up and cleared his throat.

"If I come out there's gonna be a fucking press tour so dont tell me it's no big deal."

"Don't make it my fault that you've dug yourself a stupid hole." I started to walk away from him. "I'll see you later. I gotta sign in." He nodded and watched me walk away.

--

Mary helped me label our samples and get them set up in the freezers to be sent off for testing. We worked comfortably in silence.

"Alright. I'll finish up." She said. "You go catch up with your cute roommate."

"Mary!" I sighed. "You need to stop egging each other on."

"You looked like you were having a nice chat."

"We weren't."

"He looked so sad when you left him at breakfast." I laughed.

"Oh shut up! He is so straight it's gross! And even if he wasn't- up themselves media personalities are not my type." She shrugged and winked at me.

"Ok. Head back anyway." I rolled my eyes.

"See you tonight."

I had a quick, cold, shower and got back into my pajamas and Swanndri vest before heading back to the main hall and foolishly sitting down at the Mahjong table again.

"I can't afford to play with you." I frowned at my friends.

"We don't have to play for money." Mary said. I narrowed my eyes.

"My whisky collection isn't on the table." The ladies exchanged grins.

"What about secrets?" I rolled my eyes at Sue but I was already at the table and I sighed as they started shuffling the tiles. Great, the old lady equivalent of never have I ever. Only I was the only one going to be divulging anything. I glanced up as Rory McIndoe and his team of journos entered the hall. He waved at me, gesturing to come over. I looked at the table and the three ladies. Easy choice.

"Maybe I'll get lucky tonight." I sighed and leant in.

——

I didn't get lucky and the ladies didn't wait to start pushing me for details about Rory.

"You do know him, don't you?" Sarah insisted. I sighed.

"We went to high school together." They grinned at each other.

"Was he always dreamy?" I rolled my eyes.

"He was always a dick."

"Anything ever happen between you two?" Sue leant in with a whisper.

"I barely knew him. We were both first 11 but that's it." I think they knew I was lying.

"Hmmm." Mary said. She leant in. I could feel an interrogation starting and braced myself... but then they looked up and I saw a young lady, one of Rory's lot, holding out her hand.

"Didn't you used to play for Auckland City?"

"Phoenix originally but I got transferred." I shook her hand and made my apologies to my friends as I took the opportunity to escape. We wandered over to where she was sitting- maybe a little close to Rory for comfort. "Jeremy." I introduced myself.

"Olivia Hodge." She was inspecting me carefully. I didn't like that look. She was young, savvy... she was only talking to me because she knew there was a story somewhere. She nodded eventually.

"I remember." She said. "Your ex boyfriend has a thing for football players huh?" Hmm. She'd done her research. I folded my arms.

"Darts? You win and I'll give you an exclusive."

"Done." She said.

"Don't." Rory called out from across the table. Too late, she'd shaken my hand. He shrugged. "Well, you can save that exclusive for Cleaver after all." He glanced at Olivia. "Good luck." He grinned at me. He must have lost a thousand or so rounds of darts to me over time.

—-

Olivia was a good sport at least.

"So, off the record." She sat next to me and pulled a small bottle of whiskey from her bag- huh. Guess all had that in common. "Threesome gone wrong?" I laughed as she poured us each a shot.

"We broke up, they got together. It's really no big deal." I could see Rory watching us. "He was amazing though." I said loudly. "Definitely the best I have ever had." Rory smiled over his cards at me. Dammit. He knew I was full of it.

--University—

Rory still pushed me in the corridors, but his eyes played with mine as he walked away, knowing I'd make him regret that. He yelled faggot at me across the field and I laughed instead of getting upset.

My parents weren't absent so much as busy, but that was enough inattention that I snuck out at least once a week, sometimes every night. I didn't knock on the front door because Rory's parents were doting and would have known immediately. We didn't always fuck. Sometimes we just hung out and played video games, usually in our underwear, my arm draped over his shoulder.

I loved it when we did fuck though. Rory was exceptionally demanding and kind of crazy. We tried everything, from every angle. He wanted every fluid I had in every orifice just to try it. He brought me a collar and choked me with it while we fucked. He bought a cane and a paddle and we took turns to hit each other. But I liked it best when he just lay down on his back with his legs spread and smiled at me.

Things got a bit more complicated when we went to Uni. He wanted to study Medicine originally so he went down to Otago, and I wanted to study Microbiology which I could do happily at Victoria University in Wellington. He got a girlfriend. I got a fuckbuddy in protest. He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all.

--

There was a knock on the door one night and I glanced at my flatmates.

"Who ordered take away?" We all shrugged at each other and eventually Roman went to open the door. We heard thumping footsteps before Rory appeared in the lounge.

"Scum." He lunged at me. "Cheating whore. Think I wouldn't find out?" He punched me and I punched him back.

"Me? You fucking asshole." I spat in his face. "You have a fucking girlfriend, was I meant to just wait patiently till you could talk her into a three some?"

He shoved me against a wall and I kicked him in the gut. He held on to my collar as he collapsed and ended up pulling me down with him. That was when my flatmates intervened. With two of them on me and two of them on him they managed to drag us apart and we caught our breath, glaring at each other.

"What the fuck is going on?!" Alfie yelled. "You know this guy?"

"Regretfully."

"You look good." Rory said as we looked at each other. "You've been working out." I looked him over.

"I like your hair that length."

"Who is this guy?!" I glanced at Alfie.

"Old friend from high school. Haven't seen him in a while." I shook my flatmates off and pulled Rory into a hug. "What brought you to Wellington?" Rory shrugged.

"Just had a weird urge to check you weren't doing anything stupid like dating someone who majors in Economics."

"And what does your girlfriend major in?"

"When did that become your business?"

"Round about 5 minutes ago when you punched me in the face."

Rory grinned as we separated.

"Grab a pint?" He asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and gesturing to the door. I shrugged and grabbed my keys and wallet.

"Your shout."

--

We got along fine over a game of pool. We talked about our shitty jobs and how we were keeping up our classes. Poorly. Both of us. Rory had been fucking around at the Student Radio Station a lot, its where he met Natalie. She hosted a show and he fucked around in the background, making sarcastic comments from time to time. I was skipping class to go play soccer, sometimes futsal, basically anything other than actually attending my labs. I was on a hard track to flunk.