"Heya, Mr. B!" Reese rolled his mail cart into my office. He was looking as cute as ever. It would have been nice to have another go at him, but we had had our moment and that was that. We'd decided to be friends and coworkers and nothing more -- and I was content with that. That didn't mean I couldn't stare and dream, though.
"Good morning, Reese," I said, returning my attention to the pile of readers' mail hoarding my desk.
"This package came in for you."
"Okay, just lay it on the conference table."
"Well... aren't you going to open it?"
"Yeah, maybe later."
"It looks important though," he insisted.
I looked at the package; it looked like an ordinary brown box to me. "Who's it from?"
"I don't know... there's no return address."
"Okay, let me get this straight... a large, brown box with no name or return address. What's wrong with this picture, Reese?"
"Don't worry, Mr. B; we scanned it... there's no bomb in it or nothing."
I shot him a skeptical glance. "You open it then."
I thought he'd be more reluctant, but he had the foolish exuberance of youth working against him and eagerly ripped into the package. He ripped off the neatly placed tape and showered my conference table with a flurry of Styrofoam peanuts. When all was said and done, and the synthetic packing material had settled, Reese extracted an ornate black mask and an envelope. He looked as perplexed as I was.
"Can I read the note?" he asked.
"No you may not!" I snapped, reaching out for the contents of the box.
He sullenly relinquished the items, but stayed close for the unveiling. I briefly inspected the mask before laying it on the desk then opened the tiny gray envelope that bore only my name in a handwriting that seemed familiar. There was single card on the inside that read: "Dear John Paul, I have been secretly admiring you for some time now, but I didn't dare approach you. The thought of someone as gorgeous as you wanting someone as plain as I, is laughable. But, I know if you had the chance to meet me and get to know me, you might be willing to overlook the fact that I'm not beautiful on the outside... like you. So I ask that you meet me, under the guise provided, so that we can know each other beyond the physical. If you should accept my invitation, there will be a limo outside of your building tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. to take you to the Presidential Halloween and Masquerade Ball. The driver will leave promptly at 8:15 and if you are not inside, I'll have my answer. I sincerely hope the answer is yes. With all my heart, X."
Reese had been patient for as long as could be expected but, eventually, his patience wore thin. "Who's it from? What's it say?" he asked, trying to get a glimpse of the note.
I folded the letter up and put it in my shirt pocket. "It's an invitation to The Presidential Masquerade Ball."
"Wow! That's a high society event. Who do you know with those kinds of connections?"
"A few people... but this high society fellow wishes to remain anonymous. He didn't sign his name."
"Ooo, a secret admirer! That's so cool!" I shrugged my shoulders dismissively. "You ARE going, aren't you?" Reese asked.
"I don't know. For all I know, this Mr. X could be a serial rapist or murderer."
"Oh please! Stop being such a drama queen," he joked. "Do you really think a serial rapist would go through this much cost and effort? The guy obviously has the hots for you. If some dude sent me a love letter and an invitation to one of the swankiest events of the year, I'd go."
I shot him an inquisitive look that made him blush. "All I'm saying is that they must think a lot of you to do this," he amended. Such sage advice for an aging gay man from such a young, naïve straight boy who couldn't even dress decently a few months ago.
"I'll think about," I said.
"Well, Mr. B, I gotta run. Good luck."
"Yeah, Reese... thanks."
He was right; someone had gone through a lot of trouble for me. Tickets to the ball weren't easy or cheap to come by. Neither was the mask. I picked it up and inspected it. It was a beautifully rendered Columbina jolly mask -- I'd seen a few like it before, but none quite so exquisitely detailed. The white half-mask was made of something a little heavier than the normal papier-mâché and was trimmed and ornamented in what appeared to be genuine gold. Three points of stiff blue and gold material adorned the mask like the points on a jester's hat and tiny, gold bells dangled from the tips. Whoever had it made spared no expense and wanted me to know it. A clue, perhaps?
I knew a few men who had that kind of money to spend on a beautiful, yet frivolous item. The question was: who would? There was only one way to find out for sure.
8:00 Saturday came quickly. The invitation came on short notice but, luckily, I already had a tuxedo, shirt and bowtie -- a fact which my admirer was obviously aware of. At 8:05, I stepped outside and saw the limousine and driver patiently waiting.
As expected, the gala was simply spectacular... and incredibly opulent. I came from money and had seen my share of high society parties, but I'd never seen such extravagance, felt such power and clout, and smelled such old money in all my life. For the first time ever, I felt oddly low-class.
I carefully looked at all the fancy masks and costumes -- not out of any great interest in the disguises themselves, but to see if I could find a familiar face behind the glamorous veneers. What a maddening task! I don't know why people would subject themselves to such chaos. In thirty minutes, I'd been mistaken for a senator, an actor, a cheating soon-to-be ex-husband, and some old rich woman's cabana boy. After another half-hour of the same, I grew tired of the game and decided to go. In a fit of frustration, I snatched off my mask and walked back through the Main Hall to the doors. Before I could walk out, a hand gently latched onto my elbow.
"Leaving so soon?"
"Oh great!" I thought, assuming someone else had incorrectly believed me to be a friend of theirs. I turned to see a guy wearing a full-face mask of equal quality and splendor to my own. The disguise did a good job of masking the man's face -- even his eyes, which lay hidden beneath the shadows of the deeply recessed holes on the mask. A shroud of sorts covered his head, including his hair and ears, and a pair of white gloves concealed his hands -- one of which he was holding out to me. I took it and gave it a firm shake.
"Mr. X?"
"Yes." Even his voice, which was muffled by his mask, was unrecognizable. "I'm glad you came."
"I almost didn't. You do realize how unusual your invitation was, don't you?"
"Yes, but I was hoping your curiosity wouldn't allow you to stay away. I see I was right. I know how much you like mystery and intrigue."
"You seem to know a lot about me... which makes it even worse that you think I'm so shallow and conceited."
Mr. X was silent for a moment. "I didn't mean to offend you. I know you're a better person than that, but all of the guys I've seen you with are so... beautiful. Why would you want a guy like me when you can have your pick of the sexiest men around?"
"Well... I'm 34 and single, so maybe it's time I changed my dating criteria."
"Perhaps, but I'd still like to hide behind the safety of the mask for a while. Besides," he added, taking the mask from my hand and slipping back on, "we're not supposed to unmask until midnight."
How clever! Bound my own insatiable curiosity, Mr. X had garnered my attention for at least the next three hours and, in that time, I was sure he would try his damnedest to win more than just my attention.
And win it, he did. Mr. X was one of the most charming and captivating men I'd met in a long time. We had so much in common -- from little things like music and movies, to life-long dreams and desires. If ever I'd met a soul mate, he was it. He was the one I'd been waiting for -- I was sure of it. We danced and talked the night away and, as midnight approached, I found myself completely oblivious to his mask and unconcerned with how he looked underneath.
The din of the crowd grew louder as we counted down to the witching hour.
"Before you take off your mask," I yelled over the crowd, "I wanted to let you know that I had a great time tonight. I honestly think that I've found something special in you and it doesn't matter what you look like."
"Really?" he shouted.
"Yeah, really! After tonight, I want to see you again... without the masks."
"5... 4... 3..." the mob screamed. Mr. X hooked his thumbs under his mask. "2... 1..."
Surrounded by a couple hundred exuberant partiers, Mr. X lifted his mask and revealed himself to me.
"You?! What the fuck is this all about?" Luckily everyone else was too busy with their own festivities to have paid attention to my sudden outburst.
"Now, wait a minute! Before you get mad, just hear me out."
I don't know why I stayed... yes I do. Despite all the hurt and pain he caused me -- we caused each other -- I still loved him. I still would have done anything for him and would have followed him to hell and back. But I didn't like the fact that he had lied to me to get me there and I wasn't in the mood for any games. "This better be good," I hissed.
"I know I deceived you... okay, I lied to you, just to get you here, but what other choice did I have? We haven't exactly been on the best of terms. We don't talk like we used to. And, given the way we ended things, would you have accepted the invitation if you knew it was me."
I bowed my head slightly. "Probably not."
"Exactly. I couldn't take that chance. I needed to see you again."
"Why?"
"Because I miss you, John Paul. I love - ."
"Don't say it! I can't listen to you say those words to me."
"Why? Because you feel it too?"
"No, because it's a lie. If you loved me we'd still be together. We could have worked something out, but you didn't even try. I was willing to make some sacrifices in my life to be with you, but you weren't willing to change your life at all." I was trying not to make a scene, but I was starting to feel the anger and resentment building inside.
"I know, I know! Don't you think I've lived with that mistake every day since?"
"You seemed to have moved on pretty quickly for someone so tormented," I snapped.
He flinched from the harshness of truth, but quickly licked his wounds and rebounded. "He's not you. He never was and never will be."
"And it's taken you this long to figure it out?"
"Good Lord! Isn't `I'm sorry' ever good enough for you? I made a mistake! I was wrong; I admit it; I apologize. But let's not forget that you haven't exactly been chaste all these years either. So what, you thought if you fucked enough guys you'd forget about me? Has it worked yet?"
It was my turn to flinch. I didn't have to put up with his shit! I turned to walk away, but he grabbed me by the arm for the second time that night and kept me with him.
"No, wait! I'm sorry, that was out of line," he said. His face was riddled with anguish. "Let's not do this. Let's not dwell on the past and the things that we BOTH did wrong. Let's just concentrate on us... right here, right now."
"So what; you want me to leap into your arms and forget everything that happened between us and tell you that I love you?"
"Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you don't?"
Oh, how I wanted to -- just to prove a point, just to be right! But I couldn't. After all the time apart and denying my feelings for so long, I still loved him. Our time together was brief in the grand scheme of things, but it was magical. No other man -- on or off my list of alphabet lovers -- made me feel the way he did, and I doubted any man ever would.
He could see the hesitation in my eyes; he could sense the turmoil in my heart. I was confused but, when he leaned to kiss me, it suddenly became very lucid. I didn't pull away and I didn't resist. His lips touched mine and it was alright. It was more than alright, it was wonderful. I felt his hands on my back, pulling me close to him as we continued to kiss in the middle of the ballroom floor. I loved that man so much; it hurt -- mainly in the groin area, but also in my heart.
He pulled his lips away from mine and stared into my eyes. "I want to be with you... tonight and forever. I promise, this time, I'll never let you go."
Like a poet writing the song to my heart, he always knew the right words to make me melt. I couldn't resist his spell no matter how hard I tried.
The ride back in the limousine was torturous; the air was filled with tension even as we made out like high school lovers on prom night. I wondered, as his tongue squirmed its way down my throat, if I was making the second biggest mistake of my life -- the first being letting him go to begin with. Mom always told me to never move backwards in life. Maybe we were never meant to be together. But, at that moment, with his hand around my waist and his lips pressed against and sucking on the pressure point in my neck, it felt like we'd never been apart. I couldn't wait to get him back to my condo so I could explore his body for the first time again.
We stood at the foot of my bed, undressing each other slowly. There was no urgency -- we'd had a lifetime together already and were embarking on a second eternity. We had all the time in the world. I ran my fingers all over his now naked body, just to make sure he was real. He kissed me lovingly as my hands dawdled over his chest and stomach, as they'd done countless times before on a leisurely path to his rigid cock. It was as long and beautiful as I'd remembered it being. The same network of thick veins ran along its length, thickening and hardening it with every heartbeat until the huge purplish-red knob looked like it would explode. And, if he let me have my way, it WOULD indeed explode -- many times -- before the sun rose again. In my mouth, in my ass, and anywhere else he wanted it to.
I dropped to my knees and took his piece into my throat. It slid in well past my tonsils and halfway to my stomach before I felt his curly bush scratching the tip of my nose. I moaned with the satisfaction of having his prick stuffed down my gullet again and the salty-sweet taste of his scum lingering on tongue. He rested his hand on my head and delighted in the sensation of his dick being enveloped in the hot wetness of my mouth. As he gently rocked his hips from side to side, his hefty balls brushed across my chin and his cockhead inched further down my throat. I pulled free from his grasp and let his dick slide out of my mouth with a resounding pop. My tongue lashed out to catch a wayward stream of precum before it dripped from my bottom lip.
"Holy shit!" he huffed. "I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be so deep in someone's throat. You always were a brilliant cocksucker."
"You flatter me," I said, licking the length of his pole before swallowing it down again.
He let out a throaty purr and started to pump his cock in and out of my accepting throat. His strokes were slow and fluid at first but, as he went on, his thrusts became faster and more erratic. After a few minutes of fucking my mouth, I felt his legs tremble. "Man, this is just too much! I gotta sit down!"
He fell backwards on the bed, dislodging his dick from my craw. The solid slab of flesh slapped against his stomach and lay there for me to come fetch it but I had my sights on something else. I dove down between his thighs and lifted his legs so that his tight pink asshole opened up right before my eyes. I licked my chops in anticipation of feasting on that splendid ass one more time then plunged tongue-first into his hairy hole.
"Uhhhnnn!!" he wailed as my tongue poked his pucker. It must have been a while since he'd last felt that too. Poor, deprived man. As I ate out his creamy hole, I wondered what other simple pleasures he'd been deprived of.
"I bet you haven't been fucked in a while, have you?" I asked as I lapped at his hairy shitter.
"Uh uh," he moaned.
"I bet you'd like something up there, wouldn't you?"
"Mm hmm," he whined.
I pressed my thumb against his tight entrance and felt it open up instinctively. My finger sank into his spit-soaked hole accompanied by the sounds of his delighted moans and sighs. My cock twitched at the prospect of sliding into his silky rectum. He always did have the hottest ass -- so tight, so warm, and so inviting. And if I fucked him real good -- which I always did -- I knew he'd flip me over and do the same to me.
I'd had enough foreplay; I was ready to feel his anus squeezing my cock the way it was squeezing my thumb. I pulled my finger out of his quivering hole and aimed my drooling cock at the opening. Pushing forward with my hips, I slowly entered his hot, tight, velvety ass. We both gasped in pleasure. I hadn't fucked him in years, but how could I forget the mind-blowing sensation of slipping into his hot cumhole? It was like fucking warm butter.
I leaned forward and started pounding his ass. I couldn't help it -- it just felt so good. He was really getting into it too. He pulled his legs up higher and really let my dip deep into his fuckhole. After a few minutes of my dick sloshing in and out of him, it got so good to him that he started squirming and wiggling about.
"Damn!! You're one horny fucker, aren't you?" I asked, wiping the sweat off my brow.
"I... unngh... forgot you were such a... mmm yeah... gifted cocksman."
We'd both missed out on years of incredible fucking, but it was my intent to make up for half of that in one night -- just as soon as I bust my first nut. Neither one of us had been very vocal in bed before but, as I tapped his ass with the force of a raging bull, we were grunting, moaning, and wailing at the top of our voices.
"Yeah, fuck me with that fat dick, John Paul! Show me what I gave up all those years ago!"
I slowed my pace and started fucking him real deep. I wanted him to feel my dick pushing against his stomach every time I bottomed out. There was only so much of his sweet ass I could take -- I'm only human. I grabbed onto his knees and drove my prick as deep into his bowels, then filled him with my thick, hot seed. I cried out like the fat lady at the opera as my cum gushed out into his tightly packed colon -- in what was the most toe-curling, hair-raising orgasm I'd ever had.
"Damn, dude! Were you trying to fucking drown me?" he asked as I pulled out of him and watched a river of spooge trickle out of his cumhole.
"If you fucked an ass as sweet as yours, you'd cum like that too."
"Well... if I remember correctly, your ass IS pretty sweet. Mind if I put your theory to the test?"
My anus twitched with the excitement of being ripped open by his hefty cock. "Be my guest," I said, assuming his favorite position. He liked to fuck me doggy-style first before flipping me over for his signature, finishing move. I bent over the side of the bed and waited for his cock to make its grand reopening of my ass.
He wasted no time -- taking a few minutes just to spit on my hole a few times and work the saliva inside with his serpentine tongue -- before he shoved his cock, balls-deep, into my expectant hole. His wasn't the biggest dick I'd ever taken, but there was never any doubt when it was inside of me. I clawed at the bed coverings and endured twenty minutes of the most powerful fucking I'd ever been victim to. Good Lord, he was horny! He was hell-bent on making me feel every glorious inch of his cock sliding past my burning anal ring. Several had entered, but none felt like him. He was one of a kind -- and so was his cock -- and they were both exactly where they belonged.
I could tell by his labored breathing and staccato jabs that he was close to cumming. I flipped over and pulled my knees up to my chest. He spat at my exposed manhole then shoved his ramrod back into me for the final stretch. His loins slapped against the back of my thighs as he pounded my ass into submission. His face was contorted in a savage snarl and I felt the first blast of cum coating my squishy innards.
"That's it baby!" I encouraged. "Flood my ass!"
He pulled out and sprayed the rest of his load all over my upturned ass. With a sated sigh and a devilish grin, he collapsed on the bed beside me in a breathless heap. He stared into my eyes lovingly as his hand caressed my bare chest. He tickled my nipples just the way he knew I liked. His silence spoke volumes -- I knew exactly what he was thinking.
"So what's it going to be, John Paul?"
"Do we have to talk about this right now?" I huffed.
"Yes, I want to know what's on your mind. I didn't ask you out just to fuck you... I want you back. I'm asking you to love me again... like you did before."
"I never stopped loving you."
"But?"
"I don't want to be hurt again. I WON'T be hurt again."
"I won't hurt you again... I promise."
"I remember you made a lot of promises you didn't keep." I slid out of bed and searched for my underwear in the pile of clothes on the floor.
"Ouch. Brutal."
"The truth sometimes is." I slipped on my underwear and threw him his. "I'm going to need some time to think about this."
"I'm tired of hearing you say that... you always need time to think. Why don't you just follow your heart for once?"
"I did... look where it got me." I threw him his shirt and pants.
"Ouch again."
"If you're serious about this then you'll give me time to think about it. Okay?"
"Okay," he said, somewhat skeptically. I leaned over the bed and gave him a wet kiss to ease his troubled mind. He smiled contentedly. "Now get dressed and get out of here. I have an early day tomorrow."
"Can't I at least stay with you tonight? For old time's sake."
I shot him a glance -- he got the idea. He put on his clothes and I walked him to the door. He gave me a kiss goodnight and walked away. I went back to my bedroom, picked up the rest of my clothes, and tossed them in the hamper. That's when I noticed he'd left his mask on the dresser next to mine. Seeing them sitting there, side-by-side, made me smile. I crawled into bed and fell asleep in the warm afterglow of the incredible reconciliation fuck and dreamed about the future -- a future with Mr. X.
Definitely to be continued...