When Love Takes Over Ch. 02

I planned on going straight to the office after leaving the job site, but after thinking about my first meeting with Reed (and, if I was willing to admit it, a bit horned up by the luscious Rico), I decided to go home first.

I knew Reed planned to work from home this morning before heading out of town on a business trip, so I hoped I could catch before he left and maybe, just maybe, convince him to give me a quickie. Sadly, I wasn't certain of the later as I had been in earlier days. Lately, we had both been so distracted and stressed by business and our various social commitments and responsibilities that our once active love life had become pretty lifeless.

As I sat in traffic waiting for a train to pass, I made a vow to change that. I mean, there was a time when we couldn't keep our hands off each other, and I wanted that back.

******

Seven years ago, when Reed walked out the door, leaving me naked and covered in our cum, I was scared. Scared because I had never felt such a sudden strong connection with someone, scared because I could already feel myself falling for him, and scared because I had been left too many times before with promises of "I'll call," I wasn't sure he really would.

But he did call me the next day, and after talking a bit about where to eat, I decided to ask him over to dinner at my house. He had been intrigued by the stories of my childhood on a farm in rural Louisiana, so I wanted to treat him to a hardcore Southern dinner of smothered pork chops, fried okra, collard greens, and homemade biscuits with my step-mother's homemade Mayhaw jelly made from Mayhaw berries gathered on the farm. Plus, I wasn't quite ready to share him with anyone else, including strangers in a restaurant; I wanted him for myself only.

I had come out in my mid-twenties when I moved to New Orleans in 2001 and had embraced the gay scene after growing up in rural Louisiana and going to a local college only 30 miles or so from home.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the awful ordeal it could have been. Sure I got called "sissy" a bit growing up and I was far from popular in high school, but I wasn't ostracized or a complete outcast. Part of it was my build. I wasn't tall-I topped out at 5'10" my senior year, but I had always been husky, and helping my father around the farm had made me pretty muscular. I was sturdy enough that everywhere I went during high school and even in my first year or two of college, people regularly asked if I was on the football team.

In fact, the football coach, who also taught history, had pleaded with me to join the team. It was a small school and every bit of brawn helped, but I needed to focus on my studies-my father had made it clear that a scholarship would be necessary for me if I wanted to go to college, and for reasons that weren't exactly clear to be at the time, the thought of being alone with the rest of the team in the locker room made me very uncomfortable. Besides, as I told the coach. "I might be big, but I have as much athletic ability and coordination as a tackling dummy." And as he had taught me P.E. for years, he was forced to acknowledge the truth of that statement.

I ended up earning a full scholarship to a nearby college, part of the state university system. It was in one of the larger town in North Louisiana, Ruskville, but with a population of around 30,000, not including the 10,000 or so students at the college, it wasn't exactly a metropolis. However, considering how tiny my hometown was, especially since I lived on an 80 acre farm 5 miles from it, I was okay with going to school there, especially since my scholarship included living in a dorm.

My first couple of years there, were much like high school since so many of the people from class ended up going there since it was so close. Gradually, especially after I switched majors to Interior Design, I began meeting some different people, including gay guys who became friends, and I was able to gradually come to turns with being gay.

And even though coming out as gay was still difficult for me, most of the reactions, even from family, consisted of some variation of the following:

"Duh."

"You've decided to tell people now? Good for you."

"Oh course you are. I've known that since you were 3 years old"

And after I switched my major from Accounting to Interior Design, it was even easier. I know that even in large cosmopolitan areas, most people assume a male designer is gay. In rural Louisiana, the moment I answered someone's question about my major by stating that it was interior design, they invariably paused, digested the info for a moment, raised their eyebrows and said, "Oh" in an appraising manner. It didn't bother me, in fact, I appreciated that it saved time and awkwardness.

At any rate, I didn't mind the area I grew up, and in fact spent a couple of years after graduation working for a local designer, I eventually got anxious to leave for greener pastures. And boy, after the deprivation of North Louisiana, the pastures of New Orleans were as green as the Emerald City of Oz.

Now, it's not fair to say that I entered a slutty phase when I hit New Orleans at 25, still a virgin except for a bit of heavy petting with guys and girls, though, as new meat, I managed to keep my dance card full for a while. I was a late bloomer and was very inexperienced when I arrived in the City of Sin.

I still remember the shock and awe of my first roommate (who never actually left his slutty phase and is still, to the best of my knowledge, in the middle of it) when he discovered my virgin status. In fact, he used to refer to me as "The Virgin" to his friends, and I think he was secretly disappointed when I surrendered the goods in one of my first relationships after moving.

I had held out on going all the way partly for romantic reasons-I had been waiting for The One, but honestly, it was more the slim picking in North La. I didn't mind so much if it wasn't The One, but I didn't want it to be just anyone. Anyway, in the ensuing 6 years, I had dated plenty of guys, a couple for enough time to be considered boyfriends, but nothing serious. At 31, though, I had had enough fun and was ready to settle down, and I really hoped Reed was the one. I did know that I had never felt the same sort of connection I had with him, which felt so strong in spite of our very limited interaction.

To say I was useless at work after his call on Tuesday would be an understatement. Donna, my boss, who was as almost as thoughtful as she was batshit crazy, could tell I was distracted, and since we weren't particularly busy, let me leave at lunch. Since I worked on Saturdays, Wednesday was one of my days off, and I spent the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday in hardcore date preparation.

First, I had to clean my apartment; I was not exactly neat-Hell, I was down right messy. Luckily it was a tiny attic apartment in the French quarter, and after I had lost most of my possessions during Katrina, I had kept my new home minimal. I loved that apartment: spare white walls, angled ceilings, light pouring in through dormers from all four directions at once. That said, I did hate cleaning it, and was glad that that long delayed chore only took a couple of hours.

I know that the stereotypical homosexual is neat and orderly, but as stereotypically gay as I could be in some ways-after all I was an interior designer -I had missed the neatness gene. I also preferred watching football, especially my beloved Saints, more than musical theater, and had driven a pickup, the bigger and more banged up the better, since high school. In case you're not a fan of country music, there is a whole category of songs devoted to describing the impact of pickup trucks on women and how they turn the ladies on. Let's just say, pickups work on gay men too. More than once, I had noticed a distinct increase in a date's interest after he saw my truck, especially after I made sure to walk him around to the passenger side, open the door, and help him up. Momma wasn't entirely successful, but she had tried to raise a gentleman.

To be honest, it wasn't the prep for the date itself that took so long to prep-a couple of hours of cleaning, including fresh sheets on the bed which I hoped would be called into action, a quick trip to the grocery store and a stop by the liquor store-I knew from our conversation that Reed wasn't a big drinker, so I had high hopes that it would only take a bit of bourbon to lower his inhibitions, though, to be fair, based on my previous experience, his inhibition bar didn't seem to be set too high.

And as far as cooking the meal, no problem. My mother had died when I was a teenager, and until my father remarried, I was in charge of the cooking, the cleaning, and the laundry. Neither of us particularly cared about the cleaning and the laundry, but with both liked to eat, so I learned how to cook. After a few lessons with my Aunt Shirley, widely acknowledged as the best cook in the Ark-La-Tex, and a little bit of experience, I was a wiz in the kitchen, especially with the Southern basics: fried chicken, fried okra, fried fish (are you sensing a theme), homemade biscuits, homemade gray, etc. The only thing that took a lot of time was getting the lighting right.

As a designer, I know the importance of lighting to set a mood, and I spent a lot of time on Tuesday night fiddling with lamps, candles etc. trying to get everything just right. I was going for that perfect level of bar lighting, where everyone looks good. In the words of Amy Sedaris, I wanted the lighting to say, "Can I get you another drink? not "Do I need to get you a cab?" So, no, prepping the house and cooking dinner wasn't a big deal, it was prepping me that took hours and hours.

Tuesday night, instead of meeting my friends for my usual weekly hit of karaoke and drink specials, I turned in early, trusting in the power of beauty sleep.

It had mixed results: I was so excited about my coming date and so horny, that I tossed and turned for hours. Only after jerking off to a fantasy involving twins that looked remarkably like Reed, was I able to settle down and get some sleep. Okay, maybe I had to jerk off twice. I finally dozed off around 3 am, still horny. After I woke on Wednesday, cranky and with bags under my eyes, instead of my usual late breakfast of eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys, I decided to go for a run along the Mississippi.

I wasn't really that much of a runner, and there were definitely long stretches of walking, but the magical river soothed me as always. Even though it was the end of fall, the fickle New Orleans weather had decided to stop raining, and by 10 am, the sun was high in the sky, and the weather balmy. I decided to take advantage of the sun, and spent a bit of time by the pool in the courtyard of the building that housed my apartment- a bit of color had always brought out my eyes and highlighted my sandy hair-I was careful not to stay too long. After last night's beauty sleep debacle, I was afraid of ending up looking like a boiled lobster.

Afterwards, I called my friend Robin who owned a salon and begged him to work me in for a haircut. I usually buzzed my own hair, but had a tendency to be careless about it, leaving random tufts, especially in the back. I usually had a "if I can't see it, it doesn't matter" attitude toward it, but I wanted to look as good as possible for the god I had a date with.

By the time it was reasonable to expect Reed to arrive, I was basically a nervous wreck. I never gotten so worked up over a guy before, and I had just enough sense of humor left to laugh at myself primping in the bathroom mirror like a high schooler on prom night, and I realized that the average First Lady probably spent less effort in picking out her gown for the Inaugural Ball than I did deciding what to wear.

Nothing is harder than trying to look fantastic while looking like you put no effort into looking fantastic. As often happened to my best laid plans, I was still in my bedroom debating the merits of my low rise calvin klein briefs, a jockstrap or going commando when I heard a knock on the door.

Shit! it was Reed. I momentarily debated opening the door naked and seeing how that worked out, but decided that I didn't want to look desperate. To save time, I went the commando route, grabbing the last outfit I had tried on, some paint splattered olive work pants that I had cut into shorts that ended a few inches above my knee and a ancient denim western style shirt with pearl snaps that I had had since college; I had washed it so often, it was as smooth as melted butter and the faded blue matched my eyes.

I threw the pile of discarded outfits back into the closet, slamming the door. I was already so excited by the nearness of Reed, even through a door, that I had to be careful zipping up the shorts. To be fair, they were kind of tight, and especially flattering to my ass, which was why they had made it to the final selection rounds, since my ass was one of my better features. It wasn't quite a bubble butt, but it was firm and round and as one of my friends once described it, one of those "thick, Louisiana butts that you can only build with beans and rice."

"I'm coming," I called racing to the door, trying to snap up my shirt straight. My heart was pounding, and not just from my last minute exertion. I opened the door, and there he was, looking even better than I remembered.

"Hi"

"Hi," he said in reply. And just like that, everything was okay. All the feverish preparations, all my anxiety-it didn't matter. he was here, and it felt right.

I opened the door, stepping aside to let him in. He paused looking around. "This is a great apartment. Here, I brought you something." He handed me a large gift bag.

"Thank you. You didn't need to bring anything."

"I know, but I wanted to, especially since you were going to the trouble of cooking."

I sat the bag on the dining table, and looked inside. Sweet! A bottle of Taittinger champagne, my favorite. "I remembered you mentioned how much you like it," he said, answering my smile. "I got you something else, too."

I looked back inside. In the bottom of the bag was a small cardboard candy box, printed in a mix of vibrant colors. It was Turkish delight. I looked back at him with what I'm sure was a stupid grin. It wasn't the candy itself-it was because he had really been listening to me on Monday night. Among the various things we had talked about were books, and we had spent a lot of time talking about childhood favorites, especially our shared love of the Chronicles of Narnia. I remembered I had mentioned that I had never actually had Turkish delight, the enchanted treat that bewitches Edmund in the story, and that I had always wanted some. And he had remembered.

Dinner was under control, so I suggested with break open the champagne and have a toast while I wanted for the biscuits to cook. Somehow, though after a few sips, the champagne and the biscuits were forgotten, and I had Reed naked and bent over the sofa, with my tongue worshipping his ass. It was intoxicating, the sweet taste of his smooth olive butt, the deep low moans issuing from his throat, the way his body shivered under my assault.

"Oh God, fuck me... fuck me...fuck me," he moaned over and over. And my mama did always tell me to give guests what they wanted, so I fucked him. After slipping on a condom, I eased a lubed finger into him. He was so wet from desire and my rimming that he opened up like a flower. Still, I tried to slide in slowly, but he was infused with lust, and frustrated by my slow pace, he flung his body back into mine, pushing my dick deep within his hole. I almost screamed when I bottomed out, his silky heat intense even through the lates. I grabbed his slim hips with my hands and thrust wildly into him. I was so lost in his sweet heat that I had no thought for finesse. Obviously, though, I was doing something right, because Reed was moaning and muttering things like "oh god, oh god, oh god, that feels good...oh god..."

Finally, he shuddered, his hole clamping down on my dick as he shot an enormous load onto the sofa. The sensations his tensed hole sent shivering down my cock took me over my own edge. My legs turned to jelly, and I collapsed on him, pinning him down to the sofa. He managed to pull off me, and pulled me in for a kiss. "Sorry about the sofa," he said, sheepishly.

I laughed as I staggered up, and went to the bathroom to dispose of the condom and get a warm rag to clean up. "Don't worry. It's slipcovered, so I can wash the cover tomorrow. But considering our track record with sofas, if this relationship works out, it looks like I'll need to invest heavily in Scotchguard."

We went on several more dates, and of course I ended up helping him design and restore his house; in fact, after a childhood spent on a farm and a couple of summers working on a construction crew during college, I had enough D-I-Y skills to do a lot of the work myself, surprising Reed. Gay guys are just as bad stereotyping each other as some straight people, so I wasn't shocked he thought an artistic, decorator type with a manicure and blond highlights didn't know a jigsaw from a caulking gun.

But after the first weekend I came over to his house in my pickup with a collection of power tools, he was impressed. In fact, he was so impressed and turned on after an afternoon of watching me demo walls and frame new ones that he stripped me of everything but my boots, gloves, and tool belt, bent me over the work table and ate my sweaty ass until I was screaming for mercy. Then he threw me down on a pile of drop cloths and fucked me for the first time. Normally, I need to ease into bottoming, but after that rim job and a day of watching him swing a sledgehammer in a skin tight tank top, I was as turned on as he was. He must have been planning this, because he pulled a condom and a lube packet from his pocket, but honestly, I think at that moment, I would have taken him raw with nothing but a bit of spit.

I groaned as I felt the huge head at my ass, and he paused, not wanting to hurt me, but I needed him. I wrapped my muscular legs around his waist, and used the force of my booted feet on his ass to drive him in deeper. I thought I would die as he ripped into me, but I couldn't stop. I needed him in me like I had never needed anyone before. I bucked and shivered beneath him, but started screaming for him to fuck me. The smell of his musk, the feel of his smooth, silken, sweat soaked skin. Too, too soon, between his monster cock rearranging my insides and the feel of my wet cock trapped between my hairy belly and his, I was coming without touching myself, As I shivered in orgasm, my poor battered hole tightened around him, and he groaned, tensing in pleasure.

That was only the first of many times we christened the house, because as it was nearing completion, he asked me to move in. It was my first time to live with a boyfriend, and I loved the feelings I had when we shopped together to stock it, I felt like a young newlywed building a life with my Prince Charming. And after our hard work, the house turned out great.

In fact, it was so striking that we won a restoration award from a local group and the house was featured in a local design magazine. Not long afterwards, Reed received an offer to buy that was almost twice what he had paid. I had some minor regrets when he accepted the offer since we had had such great times there, but I love design and restoring houses, so I was eager to move on to another challenge.

With his proceeds, Reed bought two houses, one to live in one to rent out, and my work began again. I had been able to work on one house and maintain my day job at the showroom, but there is no way I could work on and supervise subs at two sites and still work, so after some long conversations with Reed, I decided to quit and focus on the two new houses.