The Junior Senator

My testes were so tight I thought they might never drop again.

"JJ," I said, "I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing for which to be sorry," he said, as he shoved papers into his briefcase. "I was here the whole time. And, I was present. Like I said, some things, we have to get them out of our system, or they get too big and weigh too much."

"What if it's not out?" I almost asked. "Are we okay?" I asked instead.

"I'm not, but we are."

"You're not?"

"No. My stomach is killing me. I'm going to have to explain why I'm inconsiderately late, why I'm hunched over, and why my lips are puffy and red."

Hi stomach killing him meant he was as aroused as I was. But, I hadn't felt a thing. I couldn't decoct why not.

*****

I was anxious the whole night. About JJ and Claire and what he told her. About JJ and me and whether his regrets would collect and, brick by brick, build a wall.

I waited for him at the faculty lot the next morning. I knew he taught at 8:10, so I got up far earlier than I normally did, got two coffees, and loitered in the lot starting at 7:30.

He pulled in at 7:45. He had his own coffee, which was good, as I had started on the one I had bought for him.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," he said as I walked toward his car.

"Is it?"

"Of course."

I was visibly relieved. His regrets, which I knew he had, were still scattered on the ground, desultory.

"How are you?"

"I'm great."

"No trouble?"

"No trouble.

"How'd you manage that?"

"You don't want to know."

"I do."

"I swept Claire off of her feet. Before she could express her pique, I said 'I missed you,' I kissed her like you had kissed me, and I took her to bed. I was inflamed, so l put the fire to use."

I quickly got hard and lustful thinking of him sexing her out.

My lust turned to jealousy.

We were at his office door. "You can't come in, Harry," he said, his voice soft so only I would hear it. "I can't miss class, and it's a bit early to make out anyway."

He disappeared into his office. I should have walked away, but I couldn't. Instead, I traced my finger around the gold lettering that announced "Jackson Masters, Professor." As I did, I thought about his "make out anyway." It meant we were going to make out again, which made me happy.

I was startled when he opened the door. I don't know how he knew I was still there.

"I have a break at two. Come back then."

*****

He opened the door before I knocked. We were kissing before the door was closed. My back was to the door as I heard the click of the lock. My arms were below his. My hands slid to his lower back and then to his globes. They were delightfully firm. Before I could squeeze them, he gently moved his head side to side, our mouths still together as he breathed "no" into my mouth. I moved my hands back up, and he breathed "thank you" into my mouth.

His break was only for seventy minutes. His 1:10 class ended at 2 and his final class of the week started at 3:10. He checked his watch as we kissed, my back and his hands braced against the door the entire time.

"We have to stop," he said, "It's 2:40. I need half an hour to calm down and get in the zone."

"I thought you were born in the zone."

"Nope. The zone is achieved, not natural."

The zone, as he called it, was the confident, informed state he presented in each of his classes. It allowed him to own the classroom with the casual grace I had seen firsthand the prior semester.

"Can I watch," I asked, "as you prepare?"

"Sure, but don't speak."

He moved behind his desk, opened his computer, and began studying. I saw things I had not seen before. He furrowed his brow and moved his lips as he read. His eyes widened when he read something he liked or thought of something he wanted to add.

He was as focused as I had ever seen anyone. For twenty minutes, he didn't look up, no matter how hard I willed him to look at me and smile.

I walked with him to his classroom. He was teaching 1L Contracts.

He didn't notice when I followed him in and took a seat in the back left corner. I had nowhere else to be, and I wasn't yet ready to leave him. I wanted to watch him.

He was purely Socratic, choosing today a beefy boy about halfway up the middle section. "Mr. Bradley," he said, not looking at a seating chart or anything else that would tell him this boy's name. "The facts, please."

His voice was sonorous, bordering on stentorian.

The boy shrank. "I'm sorry, Sir, but I'm not prepared today."

"Well, I am, so I'll give you the facts." And he did, from memory, no notes.

"So," he asked, when his recitation of the facts was complete, "contract or no contract?"

"No contract," Mr. Bradley answered, diffidently.

JJ smiled at the boy. "Guess again, Mr. Bradley. And, this time, your chances are much better."

"Contract," Mr. Bradley declared, laughing along with the class and JJ.

"Brilliant!" JJ declared, as arms shot up all around the room.

"Ah, yes," he said. "All of you who prepared for today want to point out that the Delaware Chancery Court concluded no contract. I'm well aware. Like you, I prepared for today. But, the Delaware Chancery Court got it wrong. Who can tell me why?"

I stopped listening. I was too mesmerized by JJ as he moved around the room, engaging students one on one, no notes and no missteps as he probed and pushed, his eyes as focused on the student speaking as they were on me when I sat with him.

"He's so lovely," I thought to myself.

"And I'm so in love with him," I admitted to myself. "So in love.... Deeply. Madly. Truly."

*****

We never discussed it, but we were not in contact outside of our in person meetings. We didn't call each other. We didn't email each other. And we didn't text each other.

So, I was aching for him when he walked into our restaurant at 5:15 on Tuesday, perfectly punctual. I had hoped I could steal extra time, so I had arrived early in case he did too. As he approached our table, he surprised me with a small smile and a wink.

He didn't flirt with his drink this time. As soon as it was delivered, he put it to his mouth and took a big swig.

"Someone's thirsty," I said.

"Nope," he said, taking another swig so big that he finished his drink. "Just in a hurry. Drink up. It's finally nice out. I want to go for a walk. With you."

I chugged my drink, overpaid with a twenty, and followed him out the door.

"I like being outside," he said, his natural pace a little faster than mine.

"Me, too," I answered, matching my stride to his so we stayed next to each other.

We walked away from campus, toward the Capitol State Trail. For a long time, we walked in silence. I wondered what he was thinking. I know what I was thinking: I wish I could hold your hand. Or take your arm.

He was more comfortable with silence than I was.

"How had you really never French kissed before?"

"I figured that was coming. I'm pretty staid, Harold, current evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. I mean, I lost my virginity on my honeymoon."

"But, you had to have girlfriends. You had to make out."

"Not really. I mean, I was aware of the concept. But, the notion of tongues touching and 'swapping spit' always nauseated me a bit."

"It didn't seem to nauseate you with me."

"The idea did a bit. The actuality didn't at all. I've never been kissed or kissed like that. It was a watershed."

"What did Claire think, when you did it to her for the first time?"

"I don't know. We don't talk about such things. We're pretty conventional."

"How conventional?"

"Conventional.... You know.... Natural."

"So missionary?"

"Yes."

"Nothing else?"

"No."

"Oral?"

"No."

"Have you ever? Received oral, I mean."

"No."

"Oh.... Wow.... You should.... It's amazing."

"I don't think Claire would consider it. And, even if she did, I don't think I'd let her. I'm not sure I could kiss her after she had my thing in her mouth."

I stopped and stopped him with my hand on his arm.

"JJ, I don't mean to pop your balloon, but you know I've had things -- penises -- in my mouth before, right? Like a lot of them."

"That's different."

"It's not."

"It is to me."

"You can tell yourself whatever you want. But, it's not."

"How many?"

"How many what?"

"Penises.... In your mouth?"

I blanched. I was afraid my answer would be the end of whatever we were doing.

He tried to mollify me. "I won't judge. I promise."

"I don't know. I honestly don't. I haven't kept track."

"Ten?"

I burst out laughing. "Ten? At least ten times ten."

"Wow."

"Don't."

"I mean, that's a lot of penises."

"I'm twenty-seven years old. I've been sexually active since I started college, so... eight years? When you divide the number by the time, it's really not so many."

I could see him doing the math. "One per month?"

I smiled. "I said at least ten times ten, not just 'ten times ten'. I suspect it's more like one per week. So, eight years times 52 weeks is...."

I stopped myself. I was embarrassed by the product of the factors.

"416."

"I know the answer.... I just couldn't say it. Oh my God."

"I promised you 'no judgment'," he said, as we started to walk again. "But, for the record, that's a lot of blow jobs."

"Oh, there were way more blow jobs than that. There were tons of repeats."

"How many, do you think?"

"Three or four per so.... "

"The numbers you are looking for are 1,248 and 1,664. And, that's a lot of blow jobs."

I playfully punched him in the arm. I thought about offering that, if I had met him when W's re-election turned me gay, then I'd be at only one penis, but probably at more blow jobs. But, I didn't want to touch that rail. So, I decided to give him a primer on how I viewed sex.

"I like sex. A lot. I think it's fantastic. And, I don't think it has to be imbued. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. I am pretty modern in my views."

"Perhaps. Or, perhaps you are a bit self-indulgent in your views. Either way, I'm afraid I'm atavistic in mine."

"I don't know. The Greeks and Romans are pretty ancient, but their views were not yours. If I'm self-indulgent, then you're self-deprivising. I'd rather indulge than deprive."

"Obviously."

I figured he'd tell me deprivising was not a word, that the word for which I was looking was depriving. He didn't. We just walked on, my made up word soaring around us, looking for a place to land.

"So, no French kissing, no blow jobs.... Have you ever gone down on your wife?"

"No. I've never tried, and I don't think she'd allow it if I did."

"You are staid.... There's so much you don't know."

"Perhaps it's better if I don't know what I don't know."

It was dark and substantially colder when we turned to head back to our cars. We had a longish walk. I pulled my coat into my chin. JJ did the same.

"Are you bored with it?" I asked, a few steps on. "Your sex life, I mean."

"How could I be? I don't know anything else."

"Do you think she would do more? If you asked her to?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Harold, I'm going to share something with you, but you must vault it and never open the vault."

"Alright."

"Claire and I have a biblical marriage. If one of us wants to have relations, the other must accede. But, she does not enjoy it when we have relations. She says it makes her feel base and vulnerable. So, I'm very respectful of her and her boundaries. I will never let her believe that I'm dissatisfied or want more than she wants."

At our cars, I was plaintive. "I really want to kiss you goodnight."

"No."

"Too public?"

"No," he answered, smiling widely under his eyes, mischief visible in them and in his dimples. "Too many penises."

I fake-punched his chest, he grabbed my fist, looked furtively left and right, moved like he was going to kiss me, and then stopped.

"Follow me," he said, pushing me back a step and heading back into our restaurant.

I followed him through the dining room and into the men's room. As soon as I was inside the door, he pinned me against it and kissed the shit out of me, his tongue lashing against mine, his body pressing against mine. For the first time, I felt his erection against my thigh, straight down. Just as I was pressing back against him, he pulled back, kissed my nose, and whispered, "I don't think I could taste any of them. I'm not sure, because I've never tasted one, but I don't think I could."

He was gone before I caught my breath. I laughed when I did.

*****

We went on like that, making out like teenagers in his office, but never again a marathon session like that first one. It was too risky, there being no reason for me to be in his office for hours and there being no explanation for him heading home so late, no call or text to alert his waiting wife.

"It's intoxicating," he said, one day when we finished our twenty minutes or so. "Being wanted."

"I want you."

"I know you do. I don't think I've ever been wanted before."

"If not, then that's only because you've never been known before. To know you is to want you."

"You're sweet."

"Sometimes."

"I want you, too, you know."

"You can have me."

"I can't."

"I know."

"I'm sorry. I can't. I feel terrible about the kissing and the wanting. I'd break if I acted on the wanting."

I wanted to enlighten him on the stupidity of monogamy, on my view of it being an unnatural state concocted to avoid unwanted pregnancies in eras before abortion and birth control were accessible. But, l knew my words wouldn't matter, that he wouldn't accept them and change course, so I instead pressed my forehead to his and took his hands in mine, holding them to my chest.

"I love you, JJ."

"I love you, too, H."

"Would things be different, if I had met you before you met Claire?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think I'd have invested the time to let you know, to find what I've found. I'd have found a Claire and gotten married. It's how I've always imagined my life, with a wife and children."

We didn't often discuss Claire or the girls. When we did, we both felt badly about the fact that, even though it was sexless, we were having a love affair behind their backs. In some ways, I thought the love affair was worse than a tryst. A tryst could be explained away as a momentary weakness. A love affair could not.

I had been invited twice more to their home. I declined them both. I was in too deep, and I couldn't witness what I wanted and couldn't have.

Before Spring Break, JJ told me he was going to start training again. "I want to do the Boulder Peak Triathlon this summer. It's going to take me a good three months to get in shape. I think you should train with me."

"I don't know," I said, looking down at my soft body. "It seems awfully rigorous."

"Think," he said, kissing my forehead, "about all the time," he added, kissing my nose, "we'd be spending together," he said, kissing my lips, "in the water," another kiss, "on the bike," another kiss,"and on the trails," another kiss.

I'd do anything for more time with JJ. "Alright," I said, dreading the rigor to which I had committed.

For Spring Break, the Masters went to Green Bay. I headed the other direction, to Dallas. I needed to sex JJ out of my head, and a college acquaintance -- Barrett -- was willing to give me a go.

At Oberlin, Barrett had been openly bisexual. At a party Junior year, he and I had hooked up in a stranger's bedroom, the pot he had smoked and the Molly I had taken clouding our judgment just enough.

"Can I top you?" he had asked as we waited in the keg line.

"What?"

"Can I top you? I'm horny, and I just noticed your ass. I want to tap it. To do that, I have to top it."

"Rude."

"So yes?"

"How do you take 'rude' as 'yes'?"

"It's not 'no'," he said as he grabbed my arm and pulled me from the line. "And anything but no is yes."

We tried two doors before we found the empty bedroom. Barrett locked the door and started undressing. When I moved to kiss him, he stopped me. "This isn't that," he declared as he stepped out of his jeans and stood before me in black Calvin Klein boxer briefs.

He was about 5'10" and thick, solid, not fat. He had wavy black hair, light green eyes and a bearded face that made him look a little like a bandit.

He had a hairy chest and stomach and, I noted as he lowered his boxer briefs, a full bush and thick, six inch erection.

"On your stomach," he commanded as I stepped out of my underwear. Reflexively, I turned and lowered my chest to the bed, my ass at the edge and my legs dangling.

"My God," he said as his breath and then his tongue hit my opening. I don't know how long he rimmed me, but it was by far the best rim job I had ever received. He went after me like he loved rimming, like my opening was the forbidden fruit and he was desperate for sin.

I wanted to cry when he stopped. Instead, I just waited for what the tearing foil and hands on my hips told me was coming: penetration.

"God, you're tight," he hissed as he tried to force his way in. He hadn't properly prepared me. Of course I was tight.

I was too high to protest, the Molly cushioning the pain that accompanied the breach.

I let myself drift away, the pleasure of his rhythm and my high fostering a feeling of escape. I was in front of him, but I wasn't really there. I was floating

It barely registered when he flipped me over and took my erection in his mouth. "Wow, he's really good at this," I thought as the quality of his oral work registered through the ether.

As a general rule, I come hard, almost convulsively. When I'm prone, my back arches as my meatus opens, then my stomach contracts and doubles me over as the pleasure spills out of me.

So, I usually don't have to issue a warning; I telegraph what's happening.

With Barrett, I was too far gone to convulse. I didn't even realize I was coming.

"Fuck, dude, you're supposed to warn me," he said, as he spit my cum on the carpet, not caring that it was someone else's.

"I'm sorry," I answered, still a bit lost. "I didn't know it was happening. It didn't register."

"Next time, warn me. I don't mind a mouthful, but I like to know it's coming."

We booty called each other the rest of our time at Oberlin. After, we texted here and there, enough to keep in touch but not enough to be in touch.

For Spring Break, I asked if maybe he wanted to host a sex party. He answered "always dtf u" and so I found myself in the passenger seat of his car, his beard gone, his right hand kneading my left thigh, my left hand on the back of his right hand.

"I'm glad you suggested this," he said. "I love your ass. I've missed it."

"We're going to kiss."

"Totally fine."

"It never was before."

"That was then. This is now."

Barrett was no longer bi. "I'm totally converted," he said. "Dicks only. Speaking of which, take yours out. I want to hold it while I drive."

I worked it out, his kneading of my thigh having given me an erection already.

"Nice," he said. "I'd forgotten how nice it is."

"Fuck it," he said, taking an exit ramp, taking a right, and taking another right into a neighborhood, before parking on a side street.

"What are we doing?" I asked, dusk settling around his Charger.

"I need to suck it. I can't wait."

And, just like that, he leaned over, took me in his mouth, and sucked me bone dry. It was a fast and furious blow job, but a good one that portended a great week.

"Fuck, dude," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand after swallowing the evidence of my orgasm. "You're supposed to warn me. You know that."

"I forgot," I said. I hadn't.

We spent the waking hours that he was not at work inside of each other, his body glistening with sweat as he took me on my back, my side, my stomach, sitting, standing, my body glistening with sweat as he took me all the way to the base, his already excellent oral skills having improved dramatically as he embraced the "dicks only" phase of his life.