From Out of Nowhere Ch. 01

Ryan hated social media.

In all fairness, it was entirely his fault. His high school years were nonstop infidelity, as no young naive girl ever suspected the nice boy from band to take the foreign exchange student underneath the bleachers for an international affair. No cheerleader could even dream of the quiet kid in class skipping the track meet to fool around with her sister. And while he had never accomplished that popular highschooler fantasy of sleeping with the teacher, he did manage to make out with the slightly drunk substitute when he was supposed to be meeting her daughter for the movies.

For a time, things were great. In his first year of college, he had basically picked up where he left off, though being surrounded by full-grown adult men had certainly upped the challenge. And at first, things continued as they had, sleeping with a liberal studies major here, a psychology student there, meeting in the aspiring optometrist's examination room somewhere in between.

But then the internet came along and ruined everything.

Over the next several weeks, his lovely girlfriends had gotten wise to his whoring ways. Ryan wasn't exactly a loner, he had friends of course, but the thought never occurred to him that not everyone only keeps a half dozen actual friends on their facebook profiles instead of, say, the entire goddamn school population both present and 3-5 years past. Once the news got out, it flew across social media like a puddle of freshly lit gasoline. It had taken some time to figure out why his winning smile began to receive looks of revulsion in the campus, and by the time he did, salvaging his reputation had become a pipe dream.

Academically speaking he was still doing fine, at least, but if he wanted to continue his manwhoring ways, it would have to be somewhere outside of the dorms...and the surrounding counties. Maybe even out of state. It seemed a good number of gas station attendants and movie theater clerks had apparently seen the "CHEATING ASSHOLE" written above a picture of his old high school band days.

So Ryan had been forced to locate an apartment. Between the deposit, a necessary internet installation to continue his classes and food for a week, his funds were becoming frighteningly close to exhaustion about a year faster than they should have. His wealthy godfather had supplied him the means of education and money for basic living but little else, always claiming a little grit in one's life is the polish needed for a bright future...or some crap like that. At any rate, unless he started wearing a smock or found a roommate, he would soon be snacking on ketchup packets at the gas station.

His few remaining friends had declined, opting to stay at/near the college (where more than a few of Ryan's ex-girlfriends found revenge sleeping with his buddies), and given the price tag he had to advertise on such a mediocre place, he didn't blame them. So he had grudgingly coughed up the very last of his money to place an ad in the papers, since posting it online had done little but draw links to his slutty ways and fill his phone with irate messages.

Ryan was sitting alone in his expensive, sparsely furnished, crappy apartment, looking through his phone to find the settings that'd silence the nonstop notifications, when heard a gentle knock at his doorstep. He stood, groaning, slowly shuffling to the entrance, wondering how many weird old people or yappy dog owners or shady alcoholics he could afford to decline before settling on someone. With a silent prayer to whoever may take pity, he opened the door.

As his eyes acclimated to the sun, Ryan's first thought was, "Oh great a runaway on the first try."

The kid was slightly below average height, with a very nimble frame accentuated with skinny jeans and a clinging black tee. His wavy, mahogany hair nearly came down to his neck and did a decent job covering his hazel eyes, which seemed hesitant to maintain contact with his own. His body language indicated anxiety, with his shifting feet and slightly downturn head.

As his vision adapted to the sun and he took in more detail, Ryan's second, completely unexpected thought was, "Holy fuck he's hot."

The kid was thin, scrawny even, but he naturally held his body in such a way his slender hips and long legs were accentuated. The face hiding behind the hair was smooth, with small sensuous lips and only a few tiny dots of teenage acne on his supple neck. His hands, squirming awkwardly at his thigh, were slender and large, with slightly long fingernails painted black.

For what felt like an eternity Ryan was unable to move or speak. He'd always, ALWAYS, admired women. Young or old, petite or (to a degree) curvy, it usually didn't matter. His eye had always been drawn exclusively to females. His mind always wandered, if only for a split second, what it'd be like to sleep with any given woman he happened to encounter. Never before had a man registered as anything other than a friend and/or potential obstacle in the way of his sexual targets.

More than that, he had almost always had some kind of opener to engage a potential lover. No, it didn't always work. In fact a good chunk of the time he'd come off like an absolute moron. But he had to try, and before the whole internet decided to hate him, he had been suave (or persistent) enough to usually avoid a night alone.

For the first time in his life, he stood before a man that not only gave him a strangely strong stirring in his crotch, but also knocked the suave (or persistence) right out of him. To his utter embarrassment, the best he could come up with was "Um."

"Hello," the kid shyly offered. Ryan could tell he had a naturally deeper voice than his lithe body suggested, but social awkwardness had kicked it up a few octaves. "I uh, hope I got the right place. Were you looking for a roommate?"

"Right," Ryan said, snapping out of it. He stepped back and opened the door wider. "Come on in, see if you like what you see."

Ryan cringed and shook his head at his stupid remark as the kid walked inside, taking in the apartment. As he passed, Ryan couldn't help checking out the small but round ass tightly packed in the ratty jeans.

"You have an ID, right?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, I'm eighteen," the boy said, a small note of annoyance breaking through the shyness.

"Nothing personal," Ryan assured him, though inwardly he was relieved. Beforehand, he had decided any potential roomie he chose would at least be old enough to have a drink with him, but now he'd settle for legal adult. "My name's Ryan, by the way."

"Oh, I'm Jesse," he said, turning with his hand raised. Ryan briefly shook it, impressed with how soft it felt. "Jess for short."

"Jess it is then," Ryan said, smiling. He gestured to the apartment and added, "Feel free to look around, and let me know if you have any questions."

Jess strolled through the apartment, taking a bit of time examining what could be his room but otherwise accepting everything else with a glance. Ryan walked behind him, admiring his slender frame and unusually elegant movement. For the time being, he chose to put aside the conflict the attraction caused and simply enjoy the new flavor of eye candy. Afterwards they both sat in the living room, in cheap little folding chairs, discussing the price and ground rules.

"I don't know..." Jess said at last, eying the place skeptically.

"I get what you mean," Ryan said. And he did. The neighborhood wasn't a crack den or anything, but it was irritatingly distant from town and any kind of social entertainment or fast food, barring one mediocre Chinese place that delivered. "How many places have you checked out?"

"Just one other so far," Jess said, and judging from his tone, his eyes distant and kinda traumatized look, Ryan had a pretty good idea of what he'd been through.

"I searched for a few weeks myself," Ryan began, "and this is the cheapest you'll get without moving into the sticks. Everywhere else I tried was too expensive, smelled like wet dog or had roaches the size of rats."

Jess shuddered, likely at the thought of repeating this little process with one of those houses. Come to think of it, Ryan wouldn't mind dodging the reverse situation as well.

"See the thing is...I don't really have a car," Jess muttered, looking away. Quieter still, "Or...a license, yet."

Ryan could see where this was going. If this kid needed to get somewhere, his options were an overpriced-as-hell taxi ride, or him. Again, normally, the thought of dealing with other people's shit by hauling them around town was grounds for refusal. But something told him the odds of finding an older tenant without substance abuse issues, five indoor cats and/or a steady job were about as slim as his chances dating anyone at his college for the time being.

"I can work with that," he offered, "just don't spring anything on me five minutes before you need to be somewhere. And if your job is a night shift, try really hard to get a ride with a coworker."

"I...kinda...don't haveajobeither," he quickly blurted out, his face dropping lower still for a moment before adding "But I have money! Enough for five or six months at least! A-and the deposit!"

Ryan had a feeling this was probably where the kid's last interview went to hell, and would likely torpedo any future ones should he fail to get in here. People simply didn't trust teenagers with money. Fuck, Ryan was in his early twenties and still wasn't trusted with the bulk of his real family's savings, and he didn't blame his godfather for holding such doubt.

"I already handled the deposit," Ryan admitted. "You can cover our food and utilities for a few months, then we'll share once I'm back on my feet."

"Really?" Jess asked, his face brightening once again. Then he looked in the general direction of Ryan (eye contact was apparently a difficulty), gave his first lovely smile and said "All right, I'll take it."

***

By the end of the next day, Jess and Ryan tromped back to the living room yard furniture and collapsed into the seats, exhausted. Once the payments had been settled, Ryan had agreed to help haul "some stuff" from the kid's storage and bring it in.

"Some stuff" turned out to be a fantastically large television, a decent bed (without a frame), a computer tower, its fancy widescreen monitor, and half a dozen packed, heavy boxes. Ryan admired his trust...or naivete: he had his own storage unit full of valuables but had decided to see how sketchy his future roomie turned out before bringing it to the house. True to his word, Jess appeared to be in it for the long haul.

Through the course of loading and unloading, Ryan had still found Jess baffingly attractive. On the ride back from the storage unit, when they were both too gassed for conversation, he had spent some time dwelling on this development. Ultimately he chalked it up to a lack of action on his part. In years past, his sex drive always had a four-lane highway to burn rubber. The last few weeks, it was stuck on a treadmill.

That situation would resolve itself, he knew. At some point one or preferably more of the girls would grow a fonder heart in his absence, their friends would find some new twitter incident to screech about, and he'd forget all about Jess once he spent the night in some other women's beds. Until then, he was stuck with porn as his primary source of satisfaction for the first time in...ever, actually. It was no wonder his brain was searching for a kinkier kink.

When Jess had left the day before, out of curiosity, Ryan swapped the little orientation option from straight to gay content in some porn site or another. Absolutely nothing about any of the thumbnails, video previews or descriptions appealed to him, at all. Even when he found the category Jess would fall under (apparently he was a twink), sure there were a ton of skinny dudes, but nothing about it was remotely arousing.

Jess stretched his scrawny limbs as far as he could with a contented groan. Ryan watched his legs splayed apart, the loose gym shorts he wore to wash his regular clothes riding up his smooth pale thighs, and gulped.

"God I'm tired," he yawned, struggling to stand. "Thanks for the car and, you know, helping with all that stuff."

"No problem," Ryan nodded, then pointed towards their one bathroom. "Better take a shower now, or I will. Fair warning, it takes an hour for hot water to build up again."

"You did all the heavy lifting, go for it," Jess said. "I still have to set up my room, or at least get the computer running."

Ryan gave no arguments and quickly claimed the shower first. He closed the door and let out a slow, calming breath, contemplating a new situation he hadn't expected.

In setting up the internet, he had locked the router so he could know what devices had connected and where they browsed. Far from a voyeuristic ploy, he had done it in case a roommate had decided to share the wifi password with freeloading neighbors or tried listing his shit in an online auction. But now he couldn't help but feel dangerously curious about his teenage roommate's online habits.

Fresh from the shower, he peeked into Jess' room, only to find him face-down on the bare bed, oblivious to the world in a deep sleep. More exciting, however, was the computer had been set up in the corner, one small blinking light at the bottom of the monitor.

Try as he might to put it out of his mind with snacks, movies on an incredible television set or sleep, in the end he gave in to temptation, brought out his own laptop and checked the modem's activity.

It wasn't hard to find the one other device running on the modem's internet access, or pin down the places it had went. At first it was mundane stuff: news feed, encrypted bank site likely to check on his funds, directions to a few nearby fast food places. Then Ryan's eyes grew wide, his crotch hardening, as he reached the most recently browsed sites. With a shaking hand he fumbled to open the link on his own computer.

Eventually (the internet was not fantastic this far in the boonies), he loaded up a video of a lucky guy having a threesome, with one young perky blonde riding his sopping face while the older "mother" repeatedly buried his cock as far as she could force it down her throat.

While that answered his burning thoughts on whether or not Jess was gay, it also drove Ryan to put his hand down his own roomy shorts, to forget about the annoying mess he was about to make and stroke to the rhythm of the mother's moving mouth, to match the perky blonde's bouncing breaths with his own.

As the climax approached, it wasn't the action on the screen that dominated his mind, but the thought of Jess pleasuring himself to the exact same video. In his delirious lust, he briefly wondered what it'd be like to watch it together, to jerk off at the same time, and suddenly he was groaning, his hand slick with his climax as his cock pulsed over and over, in one of the more intense orgasms of his life.

Finally it was over, and as Ryan awkwardly shut his laptop to sleep with his clean clumsy hand, as he waddled back to the bathroom to wash himself once again, he couldn't help but wonder what this singular, unusual attraction meant for him.

***

In the following week, Ryan continued his online courses with acceptable grades, spent the afternoons lounging in front of the television, prepared a meal for two (Jess coughed up the money for groceries but couldn't cook to save his life), shot the shit with his roommate for a bit then went to sleep. Well...he had also pleasured himself two more times to videos first accessed by Jess' computer, and while both had been vanilla heterosexual content in themselves, he knew it wasn't totally the videos driving him to ruin some wash rags.

While initially concerned, he had come to realize his new schedule had saved both time and money. Dating multiple women wasn't a cheap or low-maintenance fetish, after all. And now that he had a teenager in the place discouraging his usual alcohol splurges, he had evenings free for leisurely study instead of cramming shit into his head the day before, or of, a major exam.

Over several nights, he had also come to learn a decent amount about Jess' life. It was far from traumatic, but he still sympathized with the kid. His single father had been apathetic, not abusive, and Jess' runaway was viewed as more of a lost weekend where he was bound to come back pleading for a home even with an ample amount of savings, because he was believed to be incapable of taking care of himself. At some point, it was assumed he would return to be picked up for his father's company, in a financially comfortable but emasculating monotonous employment.

"So what do you want to do?" Ryan asked. He was genuinely curious, but he also just liked listening to his soothing, deep yet gentle voice.

"Well I was painting a lot," Jess answered in a gradually disappearing tone. "Even sold some stuff in consignment stores, but that's not even lunch money. I think I still need some practice."

"No shit?" Ryan asked. There had been no painting supplies in their storage unit haul, and at a glance it didn't look like his computer was set up with a digital track pad or anything. "Can I see some of your stuff?"

"It's not that good," he demurred at first, his voice fading away again.

"Come on," Ryan insisted. "Is it portraits or landscapes with happy little trees or...?"

"Well it's a bit of everything," he said, rising. He stood behind Ryan's chair, bent to lean his head in close and raised his phone. Ryan was distinctly aware of the kid's proximity, how he smelled like the other bar of soap in their shared bathroom, then forced that away to focus on the images sliding across his phone.

"This is pretty good," he said, honestly. There were a variety of styles, a handful of thick-line comic sketches with simple colors and impressively detailed pencil sketches over painted canvas. "You gotta bring some over so we finally have some shit to put on the walls."

"Oh come on," Jess laughed, doubting him.

"Nah seriously, you need to keep at it." Inwardly he was pessimistic such a career was possible, but like all those beautiful women he thought were leagues above him, no achievement came without an attempt. "If you still got it stored away we can get it set up tomorrow."

"Well if you really don't mind..." Jess said, standing. Ryan looked up to see his appreciative, alluring smile. "Thanks dude."

"Not a problem," he nodded, then checked the time on the dinky little digital clock he'd splurged on at a yard sale. "I'll be in my room studying, if you want the TV tonight."

Minutes later, still curious about his infatuation with a guy, he found an interesting niche in his porn exploration. He was still on the straight subcategory, but there were dozens upon dozens of strange "hypno" collages all about encouraging men to...well it depended. Some of the videos only encouraged the viewer to eat their cum, others dared you to suck or even "worship" other cocks, and the most extreme were about becoming as womanly as possible with the boob job and makeup and such.

Intrigued, he watched a few of each. The rapid cuts of women being doused in cum was hot, but the flashing text demanding him to love cock and such was just annoying. Mostly he found it strange the strategy to turn someone gay involved lots and lots of obvious women in obviously heterosexual sex. He seriously doubted all it took was some flashing lights and techno to make someone gay, let alone swap genders, but like his newfound attraction, it was probably just a kink people forgot about after a while.

He began to remove the search history when a new, twisted idea occurred to him. Rather than remove all traces of his browsing, he clicked on a few more of the hypno compilations, playing each for a few seconds but not really watching, and returned to the site's home page. Just as he hoped, its dozen or so recommended videos were mostly related to the porn Jess watched, but added a few of the conversion videos as well. It was a stupid plan, with likely nothing to come of it, but just maybe...