It was weeks before I saw the guy from the party again. I never got his name, and I could barely recall his face. I kept thinking I'd spotted him here or there on campus, a fragment of his face floating in a crowded lecture hall or walking across the quad, but never really felt sure it was him. I realized I'd never seen all of him at once, one part of him or another had always been obscured by the other bodies at the party or pressed up against my own. It was impossible to think of him as a whole person. He was an arm pulling around my waist, the pulsing groin pressed into mine, the skin of his neck on my tongue.
So when he was there, whole for the first time, it took a moment for my brain to process him all over again. He was shorter than I'd remembered, thicker too. He looked strong. And he carried himself well, the curves and angles of his musculature apparent even through his clothes.
He looked right past me and went straight for his seat, with a crowd of chatty girls waiting for the session start. The room seemed to part for him as he went. His magnetism, at least, was familiar.
His group settled into their seats a few rows up. I turned away, avoiding eye contact as he twisted himself around to drape his jacket over the back of the chair. From where I was sitting, I could just make out the side of his face. I couldn't hear his words, but I watched the cut of his jaw flex as he talked.
"Alright everybody, we're gonna get started," the girl at the front of the room said, calming everyone. I had seen a flyer for the student mentorship program on the bulletin board outside my chem lab and signed up on a whim. I wasn't sure how much value I'd get out of it, especially since I hadn't even settled on a major yet, but I had figured I should at least try to do something productive. That clearly wasn't going to happen.
The speakers' voices fell to barely a hum in the background as I stared at the back of his head. I hadn't noticed the tattoo behind his ear before. A small lightning bolt, as black as his hair. On anyone else it would've seemed tacky. On him, I wanted to bite it.
More of his body came into view through the side of his muscle tank as he turned to whisper something to his friend. He draped his arm over the chair behind her. I watched as the movement rippled through his muscles. She whispered something in response that made him laugh, vibrating the section of ribs that pressed through his skin. I thought back to my hands slipping down his sides, my fingers rippling over those same bones before tucking themselves into his waistband. I didn't even know his name.
He caught me staring. When I looked back up at his face I realized he was looking back at me with a glint in his eye, a gaze as fierce as it had been that night. I turned away, flushed, doing my best to to disappear. I felt the heat of his eyes on the side of my face as I pretended to be occupied by something on my phone.
Once the meeting came to an end, I rushed out of the room as quickly as possible, scribbling my name down on the contact sheet and trying to avoid looking at anyone else. I made a beeline for the bathroom down the hall. I needed a space where I could be alone and reset, regain my balance.
I checked to make sure I was alone and then turned on the faucet to splash some water on my face. Not so much out of an actual need for it, but more simply to have something to do other than look at myself in the mirror. Why did I look away? What kind of person can't even manage to make eye contact? Had Owen been the one caught checking out someone, he would've curled his lips into a shit-eating grin and given her that dumb nod, biting his lip in that corny straight boy way. I rolled my eyes just picturing it, but at least he wasn't a coward.
"Hey," came a voice from behind me.
I knew before I looked. It was the guy from the party. I felt instantly humiliated, as though I had been caught doing something more embarrassing than thinking about him. Steeling my nerves, I repressed my instinct to flee and put on the most casual expression I could manage.
"Hey there," I said, throwing him a smirk. Guess I was going with coy.
"You look familiar," he said, questioningly. "Have we met?" But the way he approached left little room for doubt. He knew exactly who I was.
"Hmm." I played along, pretending to think. "Not that I recall."
He snaked his arms around my waist the way he did the last time we were together. "Really? Because this feels... so familiar." I stopped breathing the second our hips touched. I couldn't keep up with the joke anymore.
"I would have sworn," he said, letting our stomachs roll into each other, followed by our chests, "that we had done this before."
He had me. Our faces were inches apart, and his eyes were staring straight into mine. The heft of his crotch rested against my leg. His fingers grazed up my sides, slipping under my shirt. I wanted to kiss him again.
"Weird," he said, suddenly peeling his body away. I had to stop myself from leaning in to follow. "Must have you mistaken for someone else."
He checked his hair in the mirror as I stood there, dazed. I couldn't think of something to say before he was already turning to leave. Nothing seemed cool or sexy enough.
"See you around." He threw me a wink as he pulled open the door. And then he was gone again.
"Wait-- you just pretended to be asleep?" Matt shot up, propping his naked torso up on his elbow and turning to look at me. He seemed delighted by my story, clearly reveling in the scandalous thought of me listening to Owen get laid in the bed next to mine. I could see the questions racing through his mind before a smirk finally told me he had settled on one to ask. "How was it?"
I laughed. Matt and I had seen each other a few times since we first got together, exclusively at his place to hook up. Our conversation had graduated from Grindr to texting, but I hadn't seen him in the daylight since that first morning after. The sex was always good, sometimes even better than the first time, and afterwards we'd just lie around and hang out. He'd show me videos on his phone, or we'd chat about our lives. Talk flowed naturally, we had plenty of the same interests and seemed to share a similar sense of humor. He'd say things that would catch me off guard with how genuinely funny they were.
"I mean-- I don't know," I said. "How can you even tell with straight people? I was just waiting for it to be over."
"You liar," he scoffed. "You were so into it. I bet you were jerking off the whole time." My face must've given me away because he gasped and his hand came down on my arm. "Oh my god, you did not," he said, looking even more delighted by this information. "I was kidding!"
"I never said I did," I protested, futilely. He shook his head at me as he climbed on top.
"You horny perv," he said, pressing me down into the bed. "You should be ashamed." He brought his lips onto mine, indicating we were going for round two.
I never spent the night at Matt's. We'd wear ourselves out and eventually the conversation would drift off too. It wasn't as though I ever felt pressured to leave, Matt always seemed comfortable enough to sit in silence, but I could tell when he'd start losing interest in me. He'd go somewhere in his head, start thinking about other things, and I'd begin to feel like I'd overstayed my welcome. I'd get up to get dressed and while he wouldn't rush me out the door, he'd never ask me to stay, either.
"You want to fuck him, don't you," Matt asked as he nuzzled his face into my neck. His hand was wrapped around my cock, and I couldn't well focus enough to give a convincing denial.
"What?," was all I could manage. He obviously didn't buy it. His spit-slick hand twisted around my shaft, sending a shiver through my entire body. I pulsed in his grip. He dragged his tongue down my neck and bit my shoulder.
"You want your hot straight friend to come home, strip off his clothes--." Matt grabbed one of my legs and flipped me over with barely any effort. "Flip you over, and go to town." He yanked my ass up into the air, exposing my hole.
I arched my back in response, expecting his mouth. Instead I got a slap on the ass hard enough to sting. I moaned, eager for more.
"That's what you want, right, your roommate's cock?" He slapped his dick on my ass and then pulled me into him to make it press into my crack. I moaned again, pushing my ass against him even harder. He slid a hand up my back and pressed me into the mattress, gripping the back of my neck. I had already seen a few different sides of Matt in our past hookups, but this was the most assertive he'd ever been. And he could tell I was into it.
"Yeah, I think that's what you want," he said. I heard him lubing himself up behind me. The slick noises made my hole twitch.
Matt curled his body over mine. "What's his name?" he asked quietly, as he kissed his way up from my shoulder blade. I didn't answer.
"Come on, baby," he said, grabbing my chin to turn my face back toward him. He kissed me on the cheek. I felt his dick slide up and down my crack. "Say his name for me."
My voice was barely a whisper when I spoke: "Owen."
He moaned, satisfied, and finally started to push his dick in. I squirmed to push back all the way, but he held it at the entrance, keeping me only halfway open. When he eventually did move, it was only to tease the head in and out. "Tell me how bad you want it."
"So bad," I said, my breathing turning into pants. "I want you so bad."
"Fuck, yeah. That's so hot." He pressed all the way in without resistance, groaning as he bottomed out. Then he slid back out and repeated the motion. This time, he leaned his full weight on top of me, going even deeper. It felt like the air had been knocked out of my chest.
Without taking his dick out of my ass, he got up onto his feet so he could fuck me even harder. It felt incredible. I lost myself in the moment, desperate for him to go faster, deeper. All I could do was lie there and try to match his thrusts. I muffled my face in the mattress to keep myself from crying out.
"You like that, baby?" he asked. I didn't need to see his face to know what he was feeling. Matt was always in control, but this was different. In this moment he was powerful, and I was giving myself over to him entirely. He would split me in half if he could, and I would let him. "I fucking love your ass."
He grabbed onto my shoulders, massaging them a few times before gripping them for leverage and thrusting into my ass hard enough to make me grunt. I put one hand on the headboard to keep my self steady. I hadn't even touched my own cock yet, but it was throbbing, aching for my second climax of the night.
Matt laid me down on my side and curled up behind me. Looping one arm under my leg, he exposed my ass again and slid back in, this time slower and gentler. He went back to kissing my shoulder and biting at my earlobe as he fucked me, our heavy breaths starting to sync up.
I felt my face start to flush, I was getting close. When his hand curled around my dick, I knew I wouldn't last. I started grinding myself into his grip faster and faster.
"Say it again," he whispered. "Say his name."
This time I didn't hesitate, gasping my best friend's name as I came. I felt like I was going to black out. I pressed my eyes closed hard enough to see fireworks. I felt Matt blow too, his grip on me tightening as he filled my ass with his load.
We laid there for a while, panting as we came down from our orgasms. But this time Matt didn't let me go. He kept me curled up against him until we drifted off to sleep.