I promise this won't turn too sappy to be enjoyable, folks! Thanks for keeping up and as always, thanks for the kind notes to my email, comments, and on my Tumblr page.
If you're looking to help me out in a more official capacity, I would love an editor if anyone here has some English experience. This whole Connor thing has developed into the first draft of a novel, so I'm looking to actually go back and refine some of the older parts and make some changes.
Thanks so much guys. Please send me your feedback so I can keep improving this project. me@connorwitmer.com
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—
I loved the library coffee joint. I'm saying "library coffee joint" because there's no name for the place. It was completely unassuming in every way and resembled something closer to an airport grab-and-go than anything else. A no-frills menu and three small aluminum tables. At any number of hip urban joints, I could easily have gotten flustered by choice. With a guy like Alex, I might even go so far as being distracted by making a "trendy" selection to make a good impression. In the library coffee shop with no name, sign, or owner, it was a plain coffee, add-your-own-shit affair – or a latte if you were feeling really inventive that day.
Not only that, but just across the way were the faculty stacks. In the same way that The Slice appealed to me, the library basement did as well. By 7PM, the upper floors were still hopping with activity, full study rooms, and scrambling for the best seats. Down here, some of the fluorescent lights hadn't even been turned on yet for the day – with the day almost over. Ghost town status. A lone cowboy might giddy-up through, a TA sent from a far-flung office to retrieve a manuscript.
I was just really getting into my musing about the library as an old Western, imagining the wide hallway into a dusty main street when my eyes focused in on Alex, striding down with his bag over his shoulder. If there was something so purely opposite a Western fantasy, it was effortlessly fashionable Alex.
That night at Pine Drive, he had been so unassuming. Either the distracted party atmosphere had taken away his magnitude, or the lonesomeness of the library emphasized it. Now, he looked to have been plucked from a GQ ad. In spite of that, though, he wasn't pretentiously `done-up.'
It was that effortless. A casual plain button-up tucked into fitted chinos, it wasn't that he looked Hollywood, but he certainly didn't look Tuesday-at-the-library either. It was simultaneously comforting and alienating: he was so approachable and distantly beyond me at the same time.
I brightened at the sight of him, sat up straight from my slump at one of the tables, and gave a half-wave. He brightly smiled back. As he walked and took the seat across from me wordlessly, I admired the perfect brown quiff of his hair, clean-shaven face, and shining eyes. Can you believe that? In a dark library basement floor, his eyes were shining. Yeah, that's the level of corniness my life was quickly ascending to.
He graciously fell into the other seat and without missing a single beat said, "You look good. Glad to see it. Those beer googles can fool you, you know?"
"Oh, well thanks," I replied, realizing that I was finding it – somehow – more difficult than usual to speak. Regaining composure, I quickly added, "You too."
He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and motioned for me to walk up to the counter with him. "I didn't even know there was anything down here. What's..." his eyes flicked up to the menu board, "uh, good here?"
"Well, I like the chai. If you're a chai kind of guy. Or just the regular drip stuff is pretty good," I said authoritatively. There were few things I felt confident in, but I had an excellent grasp of the extremely limited menu. The chai suggestion was smart – the fact they even had a chai was astonishing to me.
There was a sole barista, a sullen plain-looking girl, behind the counter and she lazily nodded, tapping his order into the screen. When she finished, she put her hand out to take his card.
"Oh, no, I've got him too." He stepped back from the counter, putting his hands in his pocket. I am sure I blushed but may have chosen to block it out.
I stepped up, ordered, and Alex snaked his arm around me to hand her my card. It was so smooth that there wasn't even one second of an awkward dance, or insistence of who might pay, or any of that.
Later, I would think about this interaction. In that situation, my inclination was always to overthink. Should I have been quicker and paid for us instead, as a gentleman might? I could have done it. But in that coffee `date' – I hadn't thought of that at all. Alex had this way of being so possessive of the atmosphere that whatever he did seemed to just work. In more ways than one, it was a good foil to my less-positive outlook.
I don't want to overthink that kind of stuff. Since coming to college, I've been doing everything to swallow those feelings – that other people were capable in a way that I wasn't at all. Everyone must just be more sociable or more in-tune with their peers, and I was on the outside. Like watching a movie, or observing people in their natural habitat. I'd felt that way most of my life, like an outsider, or sometimes like I might just be a little dumber than everyone else.
Do you know that feeling you often get as an adult, that everyone else knew how to act and be, except for you? I felt like that, but almost all the time.
With Alex, the last threads of that awful knot came undone. He knew what to do, but not only did he know – he made no great effort of it. There was never a sideways glance that said: Really, Connor? You don't know that you're supposed to offer to pay? I hated that glance. Worse, I knew that I was very often just imagining the glance.
So, with a dramatic internal monologue wrapped up in about 20 seconds of waiting for my coffee, Alex and I were off to the races. He grabbed both of our cups and took them to the table.
"So, the party last weekend. Did you have a good time?" Alex got right down to business, apparently.
"Well, yeah. It was a nice night. That's why I thought I'd try to find you." I said, rubbing my thumb in gentle circles against the heat of the paper cup. Fidgeting.
"Me too! I asked around, but nobody knew your name. You must not party much." I glanced up at him, trying to keep a straight face.
"I like that. I like that you don't party much," he added. It felt genuine.
"So, history, right? We never really got into that. Got carried away, right?" He grinned at me, and then pressed on with a dozen questions. I was flattered that he had remembered an off-handed comment about liking history, but Alex continued to impress.
I didn't really feel like I had anything all that interesting to share, but over a single cup of coffee, Alex wanted to get it all out there. We talked about our classes, mused on family and going back home, and even two categories I could really engage on: film and television. Alex espoused a long list of classics, many of which I thought must have inspired his haircut. Somewhere in that conversation, I realized that Alex was not like anyone I had ever met before.
"Do you read much?" He asked, placing his chin against his palm, propped up on the table. Alex always looked interested. I could tell him about putting my socks on that morning, and he would still have that inspired curiosity.
"I try, between classes and things." I responded in half-truth, as I hadn't really found time to read anything sine coming back to class. Still, I considered myself a reader. "Do you?"
"Yeah, I'm really into like – this weird historical Russian literature." He answered back. I feigned some surprise – but in reality, that seemed so Alex. "Do you want to borrow a few favorites?"
I swear, I'm trying to limit my overthinking. I really am. But I had to overthink that a little, because it seemed like a promise. It was an engagement in the future, he would both have to bring me a book and see me for the return. This library-visit-not-date wasn't a total train wreck. Score.
"Yeah. Well, yeah. I would really like that." I chirped, smiling. I was doting, and secretly hoped it was at least kind of adorable for him. To my credit, he looked amused enough.
He stood up, suddenly pushing his chair back. Every move for Alex was planned. "Let's go, I have a few in mind that you should read."
"Like right now?" I said, grabbing my cup of coffee to stand.
"Yeah. Right now." He grinned down at me and turned on his heel to lead the way down the hall. I shoved my arms into my jacket and trotted after him like a puppy.
—
Alex escorted me off campus in the dying light of a late September day, chatting often but occasionally being content in silence too. I kept my hands in my pocket and tried to play off him as well as I could. On the walk, I wondered what I could even say if I suddenly ran into Henry like I had on the way to David's. Henry had a way of turning up in awkward moments like this, but I was saved this time and the classic sideways tackle never came.
He lived a short way off campus in a house which, he explained to me, he shared with a few other guys. It was an older, flat house – many just like it lined the streets of campus, all rentals for college students at an ever-increasing rate.
He led us up a small porch and, as his retro-ethics would indicate, graciously held the door for me. Their front room was littered with signs of college life: mostly beer cans and a forgotten upsided Psych textbook on a very old tartan couch.
"Sorry. Messy roommates. None of this is mine." He ushered me through the front room, kitchen, and to the back of the house and into his room. Typically, I might have written him off as saving face over the messy areas – but his room seemed to fit his story. It was tiny and well decorated, with obscure art on the walls, a record player, and a dim lamp still on. There were no beer cans or disrespected texts, not even a dirty plate.
He sat on the edge of his small bed, kicking his shoes off and tucking them with his feet under the bed. He had cute plaid socks, even.
"A few of the books are on that shelf," he said, gesturing to a few neatly organized shelves that hung above his desk.
Turning to look at the titles, I saw some old classics from my own collection mixed with obscure, very foreign literature. On one end was a framed picture, and I mused briefly about how nobody ever got photos printed anymore. In it, Alex posed in front of a lake and jet-skis with a good-looking jock-ish guy, their grins practically bursting from the frame. It was a delightfully adorable snapshot from college-boyhood.
Alex still sat on the bed, watching me. I had just selected a title of particular interest when I felt a hand at my waist, pulling me dramatically backwards and against his lap.
"Sorry. Couldn't help myself," he breathed. I could feel his hard dick pressing against my ass. In one of those ecstatic moments, he groaned as he pushes his dick between us. My own cock immediately jumped to attention.
Then I did something I hadn't really done before, or at least, not in the same way. I flipped my body over, placing my palms to each side of Alex's head and looked down at him. He gave me a surprised grin as I dove to his mouth, kissing him. It was tender. I realized I hadn't ever really just kissed anyone before.
That connection of lips was a static shock, but not the jolt to my pants I'd felt many times already before. No, this was a tiny, tingling electric signal that seemed to dissipate somewhere in my chest where it grew warm and melted away. The place where it settled in my chest... I'm not sure if there's a word for what's in there.
Radiating heat passed over my face as we pushed against each other. Our chests, crotches, even legs were rubbing together. There was simultaneously all this cotton-ey friction mixed with liquid desire.
For only a few seconds, I narrowly opened my eyes to look at Alex. His boyish lashes lined his eyes and his pale cheeks were flushed. If I could have ignored the powerfully large rod pressing against my leg, I might even have described him as cherubic. All at once, his eyes flew open and he was flipping me around to pin me under him.
"Could I fuck you?" He asked quietly. Blood rushed to my ears immediately. Could he? I wanted him to. But I wasn't sure what to do. Then, that sexual confidence rose up from my gut and I was in motion, roughly pulling my pants down and off. Alex's hand flew to my bulge, massaging my dick through my black briefs.
Grabbing his head and bringing his ear to my lips, I breathed to him: "Fuck me, Alex." Those words came plucked directly from somewhere else, maybe a porno I had watched once – but definitely couldn't have come from me.
With my nod of approval, Alex went from mere man to an expert craftsman. In a fluid motion, he drew a bottle of lube out from under his bed and whipped my underwear down my legs and over my ankles. Still without taking his cock out, the tension of seeing it again straining me all the while, he brought the cold lube to my ass and gently massaged. That patient grace should have been so calming, but he took my cock in his lubed up hand, fucking my rod in and out of his tight grip.
He loosened his pants and let them fall to the floor. He wore no underwear, which I – in that exact moment – discovered was a fetish of mine. We had sat and had coffee, had he planned for us to be here all along? His cock sprung immediately out, grazing my ass cheek. By now, he had taken my ankles and propped them against his shoulders. My ass was his, and to complete the harmony, I wanted his cock to be mine.
Alex, who had no sense of urgency in the least, must have felt the heat of my lust. He pressed the head of his steely, thick cock against my asshole. I savored that feeling. In porn, I would skip right to this scene. In my head, I called it "the moment of first contact" – that connection of cock and flesh made my face hot instantly.
"You want it, right, Connor?" He said, taking his hand away from my dick to rest it gently on my chest. He brought his face closer to mine, stressing my leg muscles to push them closer to my chest.
"Yes. Yes, I want it. Please." I begged, biting my lip and grabbing his hand to place it back on top of my pulsing shaft. Then, he was there. Every inch of that slow moving cock was deliberate. Alex's eyes never left my face, studying my reaction as he continued to push in. I had imagined this would be so hard, the first time at least. In his careful hands, that worry was gone.
He pushed, and in what felt like forever and yet no time at all, his dick was completely in my ass. That filling feeling was so fucking incredible I wanted to cum immediately. I wanted him to take my cock and jerk me until I came the biggest load of my life – but first, I wanted to watch that toned body fuck my ass.
"Please. Fuck me. Alex, please fuck me." I whispered to him, looking him straight in those blue-green eyes. He needed to hold that certainty of my seriousness in his hands, because I knew if he couldn't feel it, he'd go no further.
He slowly extricated myself, this time looking down at his cock and only occasionally back up to me. Alex's focus slowly shifted from me to his own pleasure, but always stroking me gently too. As he fucked back into me, my toes curled. It was so much more than any toy. Watching his own ecstasy come alive as he really started to fuck me – like really started – was so fucking intoxicating. I almost came when he let out this low, animalistic groan, to the point of grabbing his wrist firmly to stop him from touching me.
Then, as a dancer might do as they move into the next movement, he changed everything. He had flipped me to my side and gotten into the bed behind me, taking my head firmly in his strong, thin hands and kissing me. His cock still planted inside of my ass, fucking me gently as we kissed and his other hand returned to the tight "O" I had been slamming into.
"This is–" He panted, pulling his tongue out of my mouth, "–So fucking hot." That last syllable was punctuated by another deep moan before he started pistoning my ass. I bit down on the edge of his pillowcase, no part of me even tempted to call it off.
My ass was his. His cock was mine. It was like that for these long, tired minutes of powerful pounding before he took his cock out and began violently jerking it. His other hand, in conjunction with my own, was tightly wrapped around my own dick.
The impossible became reality as he shot a huge load across my ass, stomach, and bedspread. A few more seconds, and my own dick tightened, strained, and exploded. Our cum pooled together across my taut stomach as he collapsed back against the pillow. Like a suddenly abandoned marionette, I went limp too, my limbs now completely powerless.
The room froze in time. Dust particles in the single few rays of sunlight left of the day were suspended. The slight draft under Alex's door stopped leaking air. There was nothing now, for a few minutes, and there was a little bit of everything too: all that dark red passion, corked and left to age.
With David, I had been on high-alert, not even to mention being ushered out every time we'd met up. Clearly, we were having sex, not hanging out. With Alex, I was more than content to lazily drift in and out of a nap afterwards. He played big spoon in a small bed, and even with deliberate effort, I couldn't wipe a stupid grin off my face. A stupid, little boy grin like I'd just lit a firecracker.
I heard Alex's soft voice, his breath passing right over my ear. "I'm not kicking you out, but..." ]
"But you're kicking me out." I responded, jokingly. All good things did have to come to an end, after all. Plus, no doubt Alex controlled a busy social calendar.
"Let's do this again sometime, though?" He said, his tone rising in hopefulness.
"Any time." I huffed, pulling myself to sit on the edge of his bed and grabbing my pants from the floor. He graciously picked up my clothes and handed them to me, even digging a stick of gum out of a drawer. As quickly as it had all begun, I was back on his porch again, feeling unsure what to do next as he held the screen propped open.
"Well. I'll see you around, I guess." I said, shrugging my shoulders and making to head down the short stairs.
Alex grabbed my arm and unexpectedly gave me a light peck on the cheek. "Don't be a stranger, Connor." With all the attendant dizziness that he had just smacked me with, I stumbled on down the steps.
When I reached the end of the walk, even though everything in me said not to be "that guy," I couldn't help but steal a glance back. There was Alex, leaning against the door frame, watching me leave. Spread across his face was the smallest, most subtle smile I'd ever seen – the same one he had given me at Pine Drive. The same smile that had led me back to him like this.
—
That night, as I lay in bed, soft white moonlight poured in from the window above my dorm bed. As I stared up at that gray orb, I remembered a quote from a book I had read in highschool once, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. The details of it had slipped out of my head, but one line rang clearly in my head that night. With a slight name substitution, it seemed to fit perfectly.
"Alex—one can imagine him lasting forever."
There was something about him that was so seamlessly natural that he seemed almost otherworldly. He was transcendent in his own way. Rand had been musing about how we all chase permanence and to be remembered. Alex seemed either blissfully unaware of this human pursuit, or had already so squarely achieved it as to seem that way.
That brilliant white harvest moon was Alex. Whatever might happen, I would look skyward and think of him.