Switch Ch. 02

"We don't need to do anything about it. It won't break. And I'm loving this, just lying here with you, kissing and touching."

I should have touched him, caressed him as I said it, but I was too shy, despite what we'd just done. "No," I tried joking again, "something's got to be done about that."

"I'll go take a shower."

"What? A cold shower?" I was horrorstruck. He'd already written me off as useless.

"Something like that." Still smiling placidly.

"So, what? You'd rather go jerk off than fool around with me? Am I that bad?" In the face of his unflappable tranquillity I immediately felt like a total drama queen. Pardon the expression.

"That thought didn't actually cross your mind, did it? I can't tell if you're joking."

"Why would you say that, then?"

"Because I'm trying very, very hard not to push you too far too fast, and I don't want my hard-on to guilt you into doing anything. Whatever we do together, I want everything to be because you're into it. Absolutely, unbearably hard for it."

Just the way he said that had my cock perking up again.

"Don't imagine that I don't want to reciprocate. I absolutely do. I'm just feeling . . ."

"Not ready?" he finally asked.

"Mostly I'm feeling hopelessly outmatched."

"I should hope so, since I've been assiduously mastering the art of making men come for ten-plus years." He kissed me, sweetly, almost tentatively at first, then deeply, with a swelling urgency. Then he stopped. "You talk like you're afraid you're a disappointment. So I want you to know, I haven't enjoyed being with anyone so much in years." He watched my face for a few seconds, then said, "Look at you. You don't believe me."

"First my cock. Now you're stroking my ego."

He laughed at my terrible joke. "I'm not a good liar. But I'm truly hopeless with white lies. So if your ego feels stroked, I'm telling you the truth."

"Then forget the shower, and tell me what you want. Then teach me how to do it well."

"With pleasure," he sighed, then kissed me again, this time not hiding his hunger, pulling me tight against him, licking and biting and sucking my lips in a way he hadn't done before, and I was already getting hard again and I tried to forget my haunting doubts about how I ought to be doing things and for the first time I started to really touch him, to explore that delicious body, skin as smooth and soft as any woman I'd ever touched, but the architecture of him so, so male, those long, sinewy limbs, his narrow hips, those naturally broad shoulders I was so jealous of. He kept putting his mouth to me, kissing my neck, then biting, until the skin all over my body was tingling. Had I ever made a lover feel the way he made me feel? One or two, maybe. The two I'd been so obsessed with that I almost forgot my own pleasure in my desperation to make them need me as urgently as I'd thought I needed them.

When we were both quivering and needfully flexing and rubbing against each other I broke away from his ravenous kiss and asked, "What do you want?"

"I want whatever you're ready for."

"Don't do that. Pretend for a second you're not afraid of scaring me off."

He gave me a shy, almost embarrassed smile that was utterly endearing. "You really want me to say it, whatever it is? No holding back?"

Suddenly I was terribly nervous again. But still agonizingly hard. "Yes."

"I'm dying for you to fuck me."

Honestly, I didn't believe him. That of everything, that was the one thing he wanted to do more than anything else. I was sure that the honest answer would have been that he wanted to fuck me. And that, more or less, is what I said.

He laughed, quietly and very sweetly. "Even after what you just experienced, you can't believe I'm aching to feel you inside me?"

"It's not the same thing. Is it?"

Still smiling. God, that smile of his. "No, it's not the same thing. But bottoming is a delicious pleasure. Don't lie there imagining I'm proposing to sacrifice myself at the altar of your pleasure." A tender, lingering kiss. Then, "But I can also wait for pleasure like that. I don't want us to do it before you're ready."

I hurried to say, "I want to. God, I want to. I just . . . "

"It's okay. Say what you're thinking." Sweet little kisses along my hairline, from just by my ear, up to my temple. Then that steady gaze. "You're safe with me."

"I just wish I were more experienced. So I'd be good."

"You'll be good."

"I don't . . . I've only done anal a couple times. And the two women, neither of them liked it much."

A little grin. "I'll like it. Don't worry. Just start off slow and easy, and don't take offense that I have a habit of communicating exactly what I want."

I smiled at him through my nervous uncertainty. "Alright."

He gave me a smile. Gave me a kiss. A hungry, slow, wanting kiss that went deeper and deeper as we started touching each other. Caresses. Palms and fingertips exploring sleek planes, contours of muscle and sinew, smooth skin, tufts of hair. The way he was using his mouth on me, the way he was touching me, he had me panting, writhing, flexing into his hand each time he started to tease my cock, rock hard again, aching. I was holding out, resisting my urgent need to release the want he was provoking, half out of the desire to tease him, to make him ache the way I was aching, and half because I was afraid to start it. But then he drew back, and after gazing at me for a few moments, maybe to give me a look of reassurance, or maybe trying to read in my face if I was half as ready mentally as I was physically, he fished a condom out of the nightstand drawer, opened the wrapper, and after a provokingly mischievous little grin, put it on me. Then I watched, breathless, as he lubed up my cock, but at the same time it was taunting, thrilling, him rubbing and squeezing my desperately swollen erection.

"I'm fucking dying for it, Martin. Please don't make me wait any more," he said, his usually serene voice like the growl of some big, predatory animal. Then he was on his knees, turning away from me. I planted my knees between his, ran my hands over his ass. Fuck, his perfect, muscular ass. Holding my cock in my hand, I found his dark little pucker, and nudged the crown up against it. "Just start slow, okay, baby?"

"Yes. I'll start slow," I said, and it came out so quietly I hoped he heard me.

I was so crazy with want it was hard to go slow and gentle. As I pushed the head of my cock past his clinging clench and I felt the squeeze of his body I whimpered with the strain of holding back.

"Okay?" I whispered.

Trembling under me he said, "Yes. Fuck, yes. Just, I'm dying for more of you. Push into me slowly, baby. But please, give me all of it." I did what he said, and slowly as I could bear, pushed the entire length of my cock into him, the little grunt he let out driving a maddening thrill through me. "Fuck," he panted. "Fuck, you feel so good. Let me feel you move." His voice trembling, like his body. "Start gently, but don't be afraid. You won't hurt me."

I stroked his hair, caressed the graceful nape of his neck, ran my fingertips lightly down his spine, then curved both hands against his hips, and still struggling to hold myself in check, pulled a little way out, panting through the intense sensation of his body's desperate grip on mine, as if it were trying to hold me still, and then I worked my cock back into him until my groin was pressed right up against his ass. Little by little, listening to his huffing breaths, his little grunts and sighs, I started to fuck him. Before long I had to stop and hold still for a minute because it was already too much and I was afraid of coming too soon. Still inside of him, I bent down to kiss his neck, running my hands over his lean abdomen, his chest, teasing his nipples for a moment, loving how that made him groan and push back like he was begging for more of my cock.

God, I wanted to make him come. Hear him, feel his body shudder through a climax. I grabbed the lube and got a glob of it in my hand, reached under him, and wrapped my hand lightly around the base of his cock. God, what a weird, awesome feeling, the sensation of having a hard cock in my hand, but not my hard cock.

He whimpered a warbly little, "Ah, fuck," as I took hold of him, and let out the most rousing, delicious moan as I slid my hand up the length of his hard-on and gave the crown of his cock a little squeeze just as I started fucking him again, pumping my dick into him and drawing it out with all the restraint I could muster. "You feel so fucking good, baby. You have no idea," he said, his quiet voice strained.

I'd really thought he'd wrung me dry sucking my cock while he'd fingered my ass, but I was killing myself trying not to get carried away too soon, desperate not to come before he did, so I started jerking him in earnest.

"Baby," he huffed, "I'm not going to last two more minutes if you keep that up."

I went still. "I just . . . I don't think I can last, no matter what," I confessed.

He made a sound, and I thought maybe he'd laughed. Turning to look back at me, I think I was right, because there was his mischievous smile. "It was just a courtesy, my little warning. Don't stop. You're perfect."

Panting and grunting, we got our rhythm back, me still pumping my hips shallow and slow, trying desperately to hold on as I stroked him, knowing as soon as he shifted a little under me and I realized that he was holding himself up on just one arm that he was close, that he was going to ejaculate in his cupped hand, the idea of it giving me such a sudden thrill I almost lost it right then, but I kept massaging his hard cock, pumping my dick into him, pausing, then going at it again, my heart pounding.

"Fuck, baby. Oh, fuck!" He let out a long, guttural groan, writhing under me, pushing back into me and saying, "Don't stop though, keep fucking me. Harder. Stop holding back," and I did what he said, all my anxiety suddenly gone, and surrendered to how fucking good it felt, fucking him, stroking him until he caught and stilled my hand, crying out, and holy fucking God I started to come, a long, excruciating spasm like all the life force was being suddenly, violently sucked out of me, crying out, fuck, almost crying.

When I'd pulled out and he'd used a couple tissues to mop up the mess in his hand he gave me a smile so happy it felt like my heart was breaking. We sprawled, panting, holding hands. When I thought about it, that felt stranger than anything had felt all during those hours of terrifying, beautiful firsts. Lying there sated and naked, holding each others' hands. Wonderful, but strange. Then he turned onto his side and lay there gazing at me, and I turned onto my side to gaze back.

"You're alright?" he asked, looking utterly tranquil as if the only possible answer was "yes."

"I feel absolutely perfect. Body and soul." Beautiful. When he smiled like that, like he was the embodiment of happiness, the only possible adjective for him was beautiful. "How are you feeling?"

"Dangerously happy," he said.

"Dangerously?"

"Being too happy is always dangerous."

For a while we lay there kissing, without that fierce hunger that had been devouring us all night, except there was that familiar, aching yearning to stay close, to try to be even closer which isn't possible without starting to fuck again. When he took a break from kissing, catching our breath, but still touching each other, always touching, I said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. Ask anything."

"What did you mean, when you said you'd always told yourself not to fuck things up with me?"

"You know. I didn't want me perusing you sexually to drive you away from the loft or to ruin the chance of us being friends. And, more than anything, I never wanted to do anything that would hurt you. Screw you up emotionally."

"That's not what I meant. I meant, what did you mean by 'always.'" He grinned, but he looked utterly abashed. In other words, nothing like himself. "And why haven't we been friends? All these years knowing each other. I'm friends with most of the other guys who're always around. And you always seemed to be friends with absolutely everyone. Everyone but me."

"Because I've always wanted you."

I was stunned.

"Usually if I know someone's straight, it's no problem talking myself out of a crush. But in your case, reason was useless, I couldn't stop wanting you. With a gay guy, I'd just give it a try, and either getting shot down, or having a tryst that doesn't turn into more has had pretty much a hundred percent cure rate. But with you, there was no cure. That's why I've always been so awkward around you."

The idea of Dario pining for me for three years, that him having a thing for me had made him too shy to be friendly with me that way he was with everyone else was just too far-fetched to believe.

"You know," he said, "Christopher and I only had two real fights. One over Jared, the man I was with before him. And one over you."

"Over me? Why?"

"Because, he could see how drawn to you I was. I guess he saw it before I did."

"Why?"

"Why? Why what?"

"Why were you drawn to me?"

He smiled the darkest, saddest smile I've ever seen. "Which answer do you want?"

"The one that's true."

"They're all true." That terrible, sad smile got a little softer. Tender. "Because your voice, the first time I heard you sing, made me ache. Because you're so fucking beautiful, and you don't see it. You don't see it at all. I understand why you'd take a corporate job. But the band. God, you're too good for those guys. Your voice, your writing. Even your playing is three tiers over what they'll ever be. But you act like they're doing you a favor, letting you into the group. The same with Avalyn. She's nowhere near in your league, and she treated you like an employee. "

They were compliments, but for some reason the things he was saying hurt my feelings. Got me defensive. To strike back, I guess, I said something about Christopher.

That sad, from-the-grave grin. "Don't be unkind to Christopher. He was always good to me, even though he knew his place in my life."

"Which was?"

"Saline."

"Saline?"

"Water to replace the blood I lost when I lost Jared."

"And why did you and Jared break up?"

He looked like I'd slapped him. Actually, no. He looked much more wounded than that. Like I'd driven the point of a knife into him. "Do you really not know?"

"No. What happened?"

"He died." He looked like it still hurt him to say it.

"I'm sorry." Half apology. Half condolence. I didn't realize I'd withdrawn my hand, which had been feathering up and down his upper arm, gliding over the lovely hills and valley of his bicep and triceps, slightly flexed because he was propped up on that arm, until he captured my retreating hand, brought it to his lips, kissed my palm.

"It was almost five years ago."

"How long had you been together?"

"Not so long, actually. Less than two years. Sometimes I ask myself if it could possibly have lasted, if he hadn't died. I doubt it, to be honest. But I was so, so in love. And so was he."

I'd never lost anyone close to me. Even all my grandparents were still alive. All my aunts and uncles. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't imagine living through losing someone that young, that important to me.

"Do I get to ask you a question, now?" I think Dario wanted to change the subject, which was a relief to me.

"Anything."

"Before me, you've never done anything sexual with a man?"

I felt shocked by the question, which under the circumstances was ridiculous. "No."

"But you'd thought about it, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've had fantasies about men. You've had an idea that you're bi."

"Actually, no."

"You've never felt at all attracted to a guy?"

"Before you? No."

Dario laughed a little, like maybe he didn't believe me. "Alright, then. When did you first know you were attracted to me?"

"You mean sexually?"

That adorable laugh. "Yes. Sexually."

"The other night. The night."

"Mmmmm. The night," he purred, waxing nostalgic. Or the memory was arousing him. Then his voice changed, even though his wicked grin didn't fade. "You never had sexual thoughts about me before that night?"

"No. But I always . . ."

What?"

"Wanted to know you better. I always felt drawn to you." I laughed. "I always felt jealous that everyone else seemed closer to you than I was."

"Really?"

"It's a cheesy metaphor, but I've always thought of you as the sun, with all these planets orbiting around you, pulled into this solar system together by your irresistible gravity. And I was never even one of the planets. I was just one of Saturn's moons, or something."

"Look at all the trouble the sun has to go to, trying to get Saturn's loveliest moon a little closer." He tried to make it a joke, but his voice was serious. Almost melancholy. "The real reason I fill up my hours and my place with all these events, all these people I don't really know and who don't know me half as well as they think they do, is that most of the time being alone with my thoughts is excruciating."

"Why?"

"Because life is excruciating. And I haven't managed to develop the talent some people have for enjoying themselves despite that. Except by writing. That's my escape. And filling the loft, filling my time with people, it's a way of numbing myself. A white noise to drown out the thoughts."

I suddenly felt sad. Hurt. The person I'd looked up to as a model of how to be in the world, this person I was suddenly having strange, intense, tender feelings for was as wounded as any of us.

"I don't mean this. I'm not talking about you," he said, caressing my face and peering into my soul."

"I know."

"Will you stay?"

"You mean sleep here?"

"Yes. Here. In my bed. With me." God, he could be seductive.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes. I want you to."

I told him to turn over, and I nestled in behind him. I don't know if he thought it was because I wouldn't want him spooning me, with his cock nuzzling up against my ass, the way my cock was nuzzling up against his. All I wanted in that moment was to hold him in my arms, hold him close against me, and let him feel happy and safe. Without thinking about it much as first, I was caressing his belly a little, planting little kisses on his neck, in his hair. When I did think about it, it surprised me how tender and affectionate I was feeling for him. It was more surprising than the sexual attraction, I guess because even if the last thing I'd guessed about myself was that I'd be hot for another man, on some level sex is sex, and a healthy cock is going to rise happily to the occasion when there's stimulation and the promise of an orgasm. But this, wanting to stay close to him, to hold him, to feel his warm body go lax and hear his breathing change as he fell asleep, was more mysterious.