Gay Pride

The shared frenzied need satisfied, we then made love.

The second fuck was long and languid, Jamie on his shoulder blades, legs spread and bent, feet flat on the mattress, with his torso streaming back and down onto the bed, and his arms raised above his head, hands gripping the brass slats of the headboard, whispering "Yes, yes, like that," while I knelt between his thighs, bent over him, my arms embracing his waist, my mouth and teeth working his nipples, and my cock buried inside him. I varied the rhythm and intensity of my thrusts, giving it to him good until I felt one or both of us tense, ready to explode and then backing off, savoring the fuck, taking as much time as I could to hold off on one or both of us going to completion—until we couldn't hold off any longer and in a moment of frenzied slapping of balls against tender skin and Jamie crying out, "Now! Now! Shit. Fuck, YES!" We came together.

Afterward, after we'd cooled down in each other's arms and Jamie went to the bathroom, both of us contemplating what we'd do next and which one of us would suggest that I spend the night, is when I made my mistake. I completely forgot about how I had wanted to separate this from the previous evening, where Jamie was the paid stripper and whore for my fraternity friends and me. When he came out of the bathroom, I was counting out $500 in one-hundred-dollar bills and fanning the bills out on the nightstand.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice suddenly icy.

"I want you to know how much I've—" But I knew in that instant what I'd done wrong.

"I didn't want to be paid for that," he said. "That wasn't about my being a male prostitute."

"I'm sorry, I—"

"But, sure, if you had a good time, leave the money. There's enough to cover another blow job and fuck. How would you like to have them? I'm just a whore and you're a john."

"I guess this wasn't a good idea. It's late. My friends will wonder what happened to me," I stammered out. "I guess I should go."

"Well, if you have to go. Take $100 back. The $400 will be quite enough for the service."

I couldn't get out of there fast enough then. I didn't take a bill back, I just hurriedly dressed. Jamie did kiss me at the entrance door to the group of apartments, and I sensed there was still heat between us from the kiss. He even said, "Sorry I heated up. You were good to me and I maybe thought there was more to it than there was."

I took two steps on the porch and then turned to apologize again and say I wanted to stay, but he closed the door and turned the lock.

* * * *

When Jamie got to his car on Morrison Drive the next morning, I already was there, with a tow truck hooking his car up.

"What's this?" Jamie said when a Hispanic guy driving an old, rusted pickup let him off on Conroy Street off Morrison Drive in North Central Charleston.

"It's my apology for last night," I said. "I don't know what I was thinking. You have me really going. But it looks like you moved on already."

"Him? He's my cousin, Julio's son. Gave me a ride here. But what's with the tow truck?"

"It didn't sound like your prayer plan had a prayer, so I decided we'd get your car to someplace that can really fix it up. The garage guy's been under the hood and said it shouldn't be too serious. He told me what needs replacing but I know little or nothing about cars."

"I can't afford taking it to a garage."

"Sure you can. I gave you $500 last night that you said you didn't want to keep. We can spend it on your ride. I'll take you to work and pick you up after your shift . . . unless you don't want me to. I'll even drive you to the club tonight."

"I'm not working the club tonight," he said. "I do get a couple of nights off a week. I'm starting two off."

"Good to know. So, you going to let me drive you?"

"Like you drove me last night?"

"If you'll let me. If you'll forgive me for not realizing you saw last night as different from what you regularly do. I sure saw it as different. I didn't want to make assumptions, though. I didn't want you to think I was just trying to get it for nothing."

I must have looked so forlorn and hopeful that he just laughed and climbed into my truck.

* * * *

"So, do you really have two days off?" I asked when Jamie climbed up into my Ford 250 double cab at the diner at 3:00 that afternoon.

"Yeah, two whole days," he said.

I reached for him and pulled him to me. "Speaking of holes," I murmured, taking his mouth in a kiss and reaching down and unzipping him. My hand went into his fly, but not to his cock or balls. I glided lower, my index finger going to his hole, rimming in, but quickly penetrating it. His response was to rock his pelvis on my penetrating finger.

"So, now you want me?" he whispered.

"I always wanted you. But I wanted it to be something special."

We came out of a kiss, and he said, "You gonna fuck me right here in this truck?"

"Would you let me?"

"It's not a good idea in the parking lot of the diner. As I said before, I'm trying to keep my lives separate."

"But you'll let me take you somewhere else and fuck you?"

"Maybe."

"Does that mean you forgive me for last night?"

"Maybe." Then he laughed. I pushed the finger in farther. He moaned, and I took his mouth in a kiss again. I was bent over him below the window level and the Ford F-250 Super Duty sat really high off the ground. We could do it here and no one at ground level would see a thing. I said as much and he just grunted. Extracting my finger from his passage, I unbuckled and unbuttoned his shorts and pulled them off his legs. My other arm was around him holding him down on the seat.

"Shit. You really gonna do this here?" he asked when we came out of the kiss again.

"Seems like a good place for a fuck," I said. "I don't think I can wait. Are you going to beg me to stop?"

His answer was to reach down, unbuckle, unbutton, and unzip me and brush my trousers down off my hips. I, of course, was hard for him already. I pulled his T-shirt over his head and helped him over the seat into the back. I'd parked near the back of the parking lot. It was a heavy-duty truck; it wasn't going to rock the truck noticeably when we were doing it. Jamie went fully on his back, bent and spread his thighs, and pulled me down between them. He took my cock in two hands, guided me inside him, and I fucked him there in the backseat of the truck. I penetrated him deep and set up a fast pace. He clutched my buttocks, pulling me into him, and growled, "Get it. Fuck it. Stretch that hole." He set his pelvis in countermotion to my thrusts and we groaned and grunted for several minutes, building up to almost-simultaneous ejaculations.

After I'd come, I lay there on top of him, with him nuzzling my cheek with his and him rubbing his thighs against mine.

"That was a nice fuck," he murmured.

"So, I guess you forgive me for last night."

"Last night? Were you there last night?"

I reached down, fisted the root of my cock, and moved it inside him. "I was here last night," I said.

"Yeah, we're good," he said. "You going to drive me home now?"

"I thought we'd go for a ride."

"Isn't that what we just did—went for a ride?"

"I thought maybe out in the country. Down the coast. You ever been to Beaufort? You said you never get out of town. Let's go to Beaufort for the night."

"No, I've never been there. Go to my place first to get a change of clothes?"

"I don't think we need clothes there. I have the key to a friend's place. I'm taking care of it while he's on a business trip in Asia."

"Sure, why not?"

* * * *

All the way south, along the coast, to Beaufort, I worried about whether I had said and done the right things or if I was just digging myself deeper into losing Jamie. I don't know why I didn't want to lose him, but he had struck a chord with me and that was a fact—and wanted more time with him. This could turn out to be more than a casual fling. I was getting older. I was looking for more than just one-night stands.

The previous night—assuming that he wanted to get paid for what we did in his apartment—had thrown me off. He was a prostitute and I thought I was falling in to what he'd expect, not taking him for granted or trying to take advantage of him. But I'd wounded his pride. He apparently had been thinking we were doing more than just having sex the same as I was beginning to think. There was something "off" about how I was approaching him.

Jamie was showing me what gay pride was about—and it wasn't about dressing up and parading down a Charleston street.

I think my failure with him may have started with me failing to admit I was really Clint Newsome, the professional tennis player. I wasn't on the level with him from the get-go. I hadn't revealed to him that I was wealthy and a public person. And now I'd compounded that issue by telling him we were going to a house I was watching for an absent friend. And I'd done even more than that. If this was going to pan out as more than a casual, limited-time fling, there would be a moment—or two—of reckoning. I didn't know how he'd handle it—whether that would cause this to be no more than a casual fling.

It wasn't about him being a stripper and prostitute. I didn't give a shit about that. I wasn't an angel either.

As we pulled up to the gates of the house, close to, but not in sight of Beaufort, rather on the west end bordering on Battery Creek in an exclusive section, I looked toward the building, with the enclosed tennis court next to it with new-found trepidation. It was just a bungalow, but it was a palatial bungalow that was in tip-top condition. It dripped money. This was the first time I saw it in that light. And at the moment I begin to sweat, realizing something else I hadn't taken into account.

"This is quite a place," Jamie said. "That's really a fancy tennis court too."

"My friend tells me it's the community tennis court. They put it next to his house, inside his fencing, so outsiders wouldn't use it." I buzzed the gate open. I was digging myself in the mud.

"You have an opener for the gate in your truck?" Jamie asked.

"The truck belongs to my friend too," I said, digging myself even deeper. "When I pull up to the house, we'll go in through the back screened porch, facing the creek. You can wait there and I'll check out the house to make sure none of my friend's girlfriends are going to be surprised, and then I'll come back with cold beers."

"Sure. Sounds like a plan," Jamie said cheerily.

Good thing I'd realized I needed to get into the house before I took Jamie in. The first thing I did was to go around picking up photos of me at tennis tournaments and the trophies I'd won at regional tournaments and tucked them away. I really was shit at this subterfuge business. I needed to stop digging.

We fucked on the screened porch, on a rattan settee, with Jamie belly over the arm, torso and arms dangling toward the wood floor and me mounted on top of him and mining his channel deep. Then we fucked in front of the TV in the living room, on a sofa, while we watched an English football game, with him reclining against an arm and his knees hooked on my hips, and me crouched between his thighs, fucking him in a missionary. And we fucked that night before both of us drifted off into an exhausted doze, on my bed in my bedroom, purporting to be my friend's bed and bedroom. For this one, I lay stretched out on my bed, with Jamie riding my cock in both a face-on and reversed cowboy. Jamie was younger and more conditioned to this than I was, although I did my devil best to keep up with him.

Throughout he was pure innocence to who I really was and who really owned this place. He showed no interest in anything other than pleasing me and himself. I fretted the whole time whether I had screwed myself by handling his pride wrong.

I began to stew about what else I had done.

I drove Jamie back to Charleston the next morning. We'd had a glorious overnight away from the city. I was even more interested now than ever before to have more than a casual fling with him.

"We can stop at your uncle's diner for breakfast and then I'll drive you back to your apartment."

"That sounds good, except let me get carryout at the diner and we'll eat at the apartment. I don't really want to face any questions when the crew there sees you and me together two days in a row."

"That doesn't sound good."

"It's not meant that way," Jamie said. "I'm just not ready yet to share you with my coworkers there. I don't know about you, but I'm have serious feelings and I'm not ready to be pecked to death by their curiosity and jokes."

"OK, I understand. I'll sit outside in the truck."

"Hey, wonder what that's about," Jamie said as we pulled up to the diner.

"What?" I asked.

"The 'For Sale' sign is down. My uncle will stew about that if people aren't seeing that the place is for sale."

I stewed all the time Jamie was inside, putting our breakfast together.

"Strange thing," he said when he came back. "The place has sold."

"Good news, isn't it?" I asked as I swung the truck into traffic.

"For Uncle Julio it is. But it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks."

"Why so?"

"I guess I'll have to be looking for another day job sooner than later. I hadn't thought about that."

"Maybe they'll keep you and the rest of the crew on," I offered.

"I don't think it happens as neatly as that," Jamie answered.

Maybe it does in this case, I thought as I drove toward Jamie's apartment—and, hopefully, toward his bed as well. Maybe the reason I bought the restaurant yesterday was to make you manager and keep everyone else who wanted to stay on there. Maybe it was my way of telling you I wanted more for us. I haven't taken your gay pride in consideration very well yet, but maybe I'll do my damndest to work around that and to make us work.

One thing was for sure. When we got to his apartment, we were going to have to talk. I was going to have to come clean and let the chips fall where they may, and if he threw me out, it would all be my fault. Maybe not before we ate, but before there was any sex, I was going to have to give gay pride a chance to make this relationship honest, if at all possible.

Because I realized it now—I wanted this to be a relationship.