Quicksand Pt. 02

Part 2

I should explain ...

I met Matt in Philadelphia at a conference on emerging technologies conducted by the Wharton School of Business. Those things typically start with a booze-fueled reception called a meet and greet. Although I'm a friendly guy, I don't light up a room and idle chit-chat confounds me. So I wound up on the periphery of the room, nursing a craft beer, hoping to find a brochure to occupy my attention.

That's where Matt found me. He had two beers and handed one to me.

"There has to be a better way to start a conference," he said with a pained grin that morphed into a gentle smile. He seemed the sort of guy who would fit in any crowd. I wondered why he would end up in the backwaters with me.

I clinked my beer to his. "I think a map of the local bars and restaurants would work better. Let people find their own way."

He nodded. "Just a wandering herd of out-of-towners with name tags stuck on their shirts that say: Hi! My name is Matt!" He laughed. "By the way, my name is Matt."

"I'm Alan." His handshake was gentle and lasted longer than most. "Here's an interesting factoid, Matt. These meet and greets are based on a concept borrowed from nuclear physics. Get highly charged particles in close proximity and a chain reaction will result."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Except in physics, those particles are described as unstable, and the product of a chain reaction is terrible toxic waste that no one knows what to do with. I wonder if conference organizers ever consider that because I sure do."

Matt chuckled and raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Is that true?"

"I doubt it. I just made it up."

Matt gave an endearing laugh. His blue eyes were captivating and I forced myself not to stare. "I already like you, Alan," he said alluringly. "Maybe the event is not a wasteland after all."

Just then we were joined by an effervescent woman who placed a guiding hand on Matt's shoulder. Her name tag announced her as a conference coordinator named Rachel.

"Matt, I'd like you to meet someone I think is interested in the same area as you." She turned her attention to me, "You don't mind, do you," she glanced at my name tag, "... Alan?"

As she led a helpless Matt away, Rachel remonstrated over her shoulder, "Mingle, Alan, mingle."

I stayed at the reception a while longer. I even mingled a bit but only to avoid Rachel's censure. I kept feeling eyes upon me and would discover they belonged to Matt. Once, he discretely gestured to the people he was circled with and mouthed the word "unstable."

Distance gave me a better view. His blond hair tended to topple across his forehead and with a finger flip he would often toss it back. His face was broad and beaming with a dimpled smile. From thirty feet, his eyes still shone blue. For a moment I thought there was something feminine about him then decided that wasn't right. But there was a quality that I associated with the female face. Something fascinating, an allure.

I looked for him as I left. A woman was engaging him intently and she was flanked by another competing for her turn. Why not, I thought? Of all the men gathered here, Matt was the flame that drew the moth. Then he looked over and our eyes met again. He responded to my wave with a smile and nod. I thought, Was that a tic in his eye or a wink?

I called Jenny before turning in. I was feeling oddly unsettled. "We're in a good place, aren't we? I mean financially? Our careers?"

"I'd say we're in a great place. Why? Are you saying it's time for us to have "the talk"?"

"Yeah. I think so. I think the time is right for us to start our family."

"I've been thinking that, too." Jenny cooed, "At this point in my life there is nothing I want more than to have a baby with you."

The next morning began early as I checked an item off my bucket list. The 5K Rocky Run, following the same route as in the iconic Rocky movie. It even ended with me racing up the steps of the Philly Museum of Art, leaping two at a time. Corny, I know, but I felt triumphant dancing at the top with arms held high.

When I got back to the hotel, I dashed across the lobby to catch an elevator. It was nearly full with conference attendees. It would have been polite to wait for the next car but I squeezed in. From the back, someone joked, "It suddenly smells very manly in here."

A snigger went through the elevator. I looked over my shoulder and there was Matt staring back with a cheeky grin. Again, there was a tic in his eye.

The next time I saw Matt was at a plenary session before lunch. All the conference attendees were assigned seats at round tables arrayed throughout a large room. Matt and I were separated by a third table but with a clear line of sight of each other, close enough for the mischievous glint of his blue eyes to be visible.

The keynote speaker was a prominent author and dynamic force in the world of business. His presentation was a pep talk about the potential of finance to steer the global economy. I don't harbor such lofty ambitions and my values don't skew toward world domination, so I found the presentation less than inspiring. Apparently, my cynicism was matched by Matt. He caught my eye, then glanced about the room while mouthing the word, "unstable." The people at my table glared at my sudden outburst of laughter.

Big screen monitors arrayed along the walls presented the speaker's slides. I tried to pay polite attention but found myself distracted by Matt. He was focused on me with a gaze that was visceral and somewhat delectable. It was like a tractor beam that conveyed a promise, an invitation, and I could feel my restraint coming undone. I had never been tempted by a man. In fact, since meeting Jenny, I had never been seriously tempted by anyone. Now the embers of forbidden lust were flaring. That gaze was magnetic and drew me within Matt's thrall.

Sometime later the lights came up and the author sat down. I clapped robotically trying to emulate the others. Then there was a pause in the events as a sumptuous buffet was laid out in the back. My table mates began to discuss the presentation in heady tones. All I knew was that Matt stood and left the room. I excused myself and followed.

He was standing by the elevators with a scattering of other conference escapees. He smiled as I approached, my eyes again linked with his. I don't know if anyone noticed my timorous breaths as I joined them. The doors opened. He and I stood side by side as the elevator rose. He looked my way. No words were spoken but his blue eyes beckoned and, surreptitiously, his fingertips played with mine.

There was a ding. The doors opened. Our fingertips separated as he stepped from the elevator. I followed. We stood in the hallway as the doors closed behind us. Again, his fingertips grazed mine and he led me to his room.

Inside and alone, Matt's hands gently held my head as his lips gravitated toward mine.

"I'm married," I said, trembling.

His kiss was soft and moist as his mouth briefly skated atop mine.

"I know," he replied.

Matt's lips parted as his tongue grazed across my mouth. With a teasing allure, it found its way inside. I welcomed it and heaved a sigh as my tongue began to dance with his. I clutched him tightly in total surrender.

He waltzed me to his bedside and opened my shirt. His hands roamed my chest and massaged my pecs as we kissed. I felt myself lowered upon the mattress. His lips abandoned mine as he kissed my ribs and stomach and loosened my pants. Then his eyes again captured mine as he ripped off my shoes and cast my trousers and briefs aside.

With his hot, steady gaze upon me, he shucked his shirt and pants and stood over me. I took him in with my eyes. He was firm and smooth. His cock was hard. It stretched toward me. My breath quivered as I considered the insistence in its form. My eyes tracked to my own cock. It was turgid and urgently throbbing.

Matt lay with me as our mouths resumed their synchronicity. My heart leapt when his fingertips first caressed my cockhead and a shudder coursed to my toes when he clasped my shaft. Then he began to stroke me in rhythm to the dance of our tongues. All I could do was clutch him and urge him on with my kiss.

His blue eyes peered into mine. "Have you ever held another man's cock?"

"No."

He wrapped my fingers around his girth.

"How does it feel?"

My fingertips explored while our gaze was unbroken.

"Hard and plush."

"What else?"

"Hot and alive."

"What else?"

"Wonderful. It feels wonderful."

Then I pulled his lips back to mine. Our moans made strange, exotic music as we kissed and fondled. Longing blazed within me, urging the merger of virile bodies into one undulating whole.

Matt broke our kiss and pushed himself below my waist. He adored every aspect of my manhood with his gaze.

"You have a beautiful cock." He laid a lush kiss beneath the crown.

"Do you realize that, Alan? How beautiful your cock is?" His lips skirted moistly upon the cockhead sending waves of ecstasy through me.

"Beautiful." He took me in his mouth.

My breath made a slow exit and then rushed back in as wave upon wave of rapture surged through me. I lost myself within the sensations as he made marvelous love to my cock with his lips, tongue, and engulfing throat. This was not mere fellatio. This was a divine ritual of man-love.

Before I was driven to the point of release, Matt crawled back up and pulled me into his soulful kiss. His legs wrapped around my waist as he rolled me atop him. I hunched my groin reflexively.

"I want you inside me," he gasped.

Then he raised his legs higher and positioned my slick cock at his nether threshold. I pressed once, twice, and then he opened for me. Past the gateway, he was tight and cloying, engulfing and hot. My cock was pulled as much as I pushed, and I sunk slowly, inexorably, blissfully into a depth like no other. I felt my essence drawn deep within the marvelous folds of this luscious man. His legs clutched me tighter.

"Shhh," Matt urged. "Be still a minute. Let me relax around your beautiful manhood."

I battled my urges and found myself lost in Matt's blue eyes. He pulled me into a kiss. I felt his chamber flex against my hardness. I felt Matt embrace me to his core. Our union was complete.

"Now."

I began to move. Matt pushed against me in cadence with my thrusts. I tried to be deliberate, long and slow and deep. Every inch of his sheath was heavenly and urgently pulled me deeper and more insistently. I tried to be artful and suave, but nature took over and I kept pressing deeper and faster.

Matt urged me on. We breathed and gasped as one. Our bodies winnowed together. My lips were insatiable upon his neck, his cheek, his mouth. My passion soared upon a carnal current that carried us both higher. I soared and soared until I burst and erupted and emptied deep within this beautiful man.

Then my consciousness plunged into a blissful reverie, a tiny death of contentment. When I emerged. I was lying in Matt's arms and was greeted with the warmth of his smile. We chuckled as one, wordlessly, dreamily together. We dozed in each other's arms.

Later in the shower, my sudsy hands bathed every inch of Matt's body. I had been taught the masculine form was vulgar and coarse, but Matt's flesh felt perfect beneath my hands and my flesh felt perfect beneath his touch. I caressed his cock, squeezing gently, rolling it within my hand.

"I love the feel of your cock," I said. "I never want to let it go."

He pulled slightly on mine, gently kneading the stiffening flesh. "I feel the same way about yours."

I sank to my knees. My lips suckled every inch of his manhood before I sucked him deep. I was in uncharted seas and hoped I was pleasing him. I had only his gasps and moans to guide me. Beneath the warm cascade of water, I worked his cock until he gasped and called out my name and filled my mouth with his thick, juicy essence. For the first time, I tasted the product of his loins and I hungered for it all.

We toweled each other off and he laid me on my back upon the bed. I was hard and craving. He straddled me and again he placed me against his nether spot. He sank. His warm, dense sheath engulfed me until I was impaled within his core. Still, I craned my cock deeper. He began to dance his hips. He undulated upon my captured manhood, his gyrations engaging every secret nerve, sending rapturous waves throughout my body. He curled himself and placed his mouth upon mine, kissing me deeply, urging my heart to tremble limits. I professed my love as my climax washed over me and into him.

I revived slowly with his head upon my chest. I thought back, wondering if I had really said I loved him. I felt betrayed by my own flesh and his temptation. I rose and began dressing.

"Don't go," he pleaded.

"It's for the best."

"Let's get dinner later and come back here."

"I want to catch the last session. Then I'm going to take a walk. A long walk. Then I need to call my wife."

"To tell her about this?"

"What? No! Never."

"Alan ..."

"Matt, I don't know what the fuck just happened, but I am married to the one I love. The woman I love. This was a huge mistake."

I walked until dark and found myself in an Irish Pub eating corned beef on rye. After a few wrong turns, I navigated back to my hotel. Straight away, I gave Jenny a call.

"Have you thought about whether you want a girl or a boy?" I asked, wishing I could douse my guilt.

"Have you been thinking about this all day?"

"Not all day, but kind of."

"I'm not sure. Which would you prefer?"

"Is it selfish of me to say?"

"No, Honey. Just tell me how you feel."

"I think I'd like a boy. A son. And then maybe later, if you want to, we could shoot for a little girl."

"Actually, I was thinking the same thing."

"Really? That's okay?"

"Just get back here, Silly, and put a baby in me."

"I love you, Jen. You're gonna be the best mom ever."

"I love you, too, Babe. Now get back here and breed me like a blue-ribbon heifer."

A long, hot shower eased my knotted conscience, and I crawled between the sheets. I waited for blessed sleep but was cursed to toss and turn. 10:30 read the bedside clock. Then 11:00. Then midnight. I reached for the phone. "Come back," was all Matt said.

Quicksand.

I fucked him that night, then again in the morning. When I said goodbye, I told him it was over.

_____________

Jenny met me curbside at the arrivals terminal. I tossed my bag in the backseat and climbed in beside her. Without pausing to say hello, I pulled her into a deep kiss. A horn honked impatiently.

"Well someone's happy to see me," she said.

"I am. Let's get home."

I took her straight to bed and we made hot, welcome-home love. The next morning was Saturday which meant our most rigorous run of the week. Afterwards, our usual shower was unusually amorous and the intimacy continued with a thorough rubdown of her luscious flesh. Jenny climaxed before we even began to make love.

Later in bed, she sighed, "I'm going to send you out of town more often."

"It's not going to be just the two of us for much longer. I want to make the most of it."

"It might not happen right away, you know. My sister tried for six months before she got pregnant."

"Oh, no! You mean we might have to have leisurely, sex-filled Saturdays for months?" I nuzzled her breasts. "The horror!"

"That sounds wonderful," she giggled lustily, "but right now my body needs protein."

I kissed her eyelids shut. "Doze for a while. I'll bring you breakfast in bed." I took her hand and placed it on my cock. "Then you can have all the protein you want."

A guilty conscience is a powerful aphrodisiac.

Jenny and I had always been joyously amorous. She is playful by nature, which is a polite way of saying she could be a voracious sexual animal. The entire house was our love nest. We almost wore out the pause button on the TV remote, stopping whatever program as we let loose our passions. Our sofa cushions were splotched with curious stains.

Our lovemaking was always loose and sensuous, a tango-like dance. Jenny has long runner's legs with bands of steely muscle, a luscious pliant tush, and firm high breasts that rock with the motion of our coitus. She's an auburn-haired beauty who can kiss like an angel. We were like binary stars captured within a gravity of fate, destined to circle one another. Everyone agreed we were meant to be and offered us as proof that soulmates exist. Beginning in college we ran together at dawn and studied together late into the night. Jenny got her law degree from OU while I got my MBA two buildings away. Some couples could finish each other's sentences, we could start each other's thoughts. We were open and honest with each other, and I had never lied to her until now.

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story entitled The Tell-Tale Heart. A poor man murdered his oppressive landlord, then interred the body beneath the floorboards of his room. At first, he felt safe, but the heart of that moldering corpse began to beat within his conscience and the pounding became progressively louder and louder until the murderer was certain that others could hear it, too. Finally, the man's failing sanity forced him to confess.

The memory of Matt's pleas to "Fuck me, Alan" echoed in my conscience. The intensity, the utter compulsion of our sex had been so bawdy and so untethered that it had been beyond my will to resist. I had been swept into a froth of lust. It rendered me stupefied and a prisoner of my cock and his.

But that was all that it was. It was not love. There was no soulful connection. It was bestial magnetism and stupefying allure, nothing else.

The path to my redemption was obvious as soon as I left the hotel. Never have contact with Matt again, never allow him to tantalize me again. My connection with Jenny was profound and satisfied every need and desire. Never allow temptation to corrupt my character again.

Later that night, Jenny sighed as she collapsed atop me, her breasts pressed to my chest. Her breathing, so near my ear, sounded like the wake of a distant boat lapping against our quiet shore. Then her hips rose and I felt my sodden phallus fall from her. She lay next to me and we drifted upon that receding wake.

"Do you ever think about names?" Her voice was soft. Her whispers cushioned by the pillow.

"Yeah. Sometimes. You?"

"Uh-huh. Maybe Alan, Jr. Ever think about that?"

I rolled so we were side by side. "I'm embarrassed to admit it, but yes. Maybe Alena if it's a girl? We could call her Lani?"

Jenny mused. I took the time to nuzzle her cheek. "Lani is nice. I like that. But it'll be a boy. Gender is up to the ova and my egg is going to choose a guy sperm. A virile one with your dimples and your cute tush of a tail." Her eyes twittered with humor.

"Sometimes I think it's vain, though. Having a namesake."

"He'll be your son. I want to see you when I look at him. Right down to his name on the birth certificate, and on his report cards, and his diploma."

"When you say it like that, it's totally vain."

"Big Al and Little Al," she chuckled. "Nothing vain about that."

I replied to every text from Matt in the same way: IT'S OVER. I sent his calls directly to voicemail, then never returned his calls. I was resolute. Never would I cheat on Jenny again.

It was five Saturdays later when I got a phone call from Matt Followed immediately by a text that said: 911. When my phone rang a minute later, I answered. "I am staring at the ugliest statue I have ever seen," he said. "I guess it's called The Golden Driller and it is butt ugly."

"Wait. Where are you?"

"In the Oil Capital of the World but I think that harkens back to former glory."

"What the fuck are you doing here in Tulsa?"

"I came to see you. I can't stop thinking about you. We have something special. I won't let it go."