This is a reprint of a story that I originally began posting on Nifty back in 2000. A few years later I got the wild hair to rewrite the first few chapters of the story so they would jibe much better with the latter parts. I love getting emails, so please feel free to send to BoroTN@gmail.com.
Part II
As the cab sped off, I thought two things: one, I prayed that Matt hadn't gone home; and two, when is he going to start fooling around? My apartment was near the campus and wasn't too far from the club, so we didn't have a lot of time to do anything, but this guy was being a total gentleman. It just threw me that much more. Here was this hunk who had been stripping for me less than fifteen minutes ago, and now here we sat on opposite sides of the backseat of the cab. He had his hand on my left thigh, but that's about it. He just looked out the window and smoked his cigarette. My mind reeled.
I was so lost in thought that I didn't notice James trying to get my attention. He poked me in the rib, making me flinch. He'd found a ticklish spot, and I could see that he filed that information away for future useful purpose. He grinned. "So, you never told me your name."
It took me a minute to remember. My mind was so rattled I think it was on permanent "tilt" mode. I managed to stammer out, "Dave... David Collins." My eyes moved to the cab driver, who kept giving us curious looks.
He smiled big. "All right Dave, David Collins...nice to meet you." He shook my hand, making it seem like a business meeting. I guess my face showed the shock, and as he laughed he leaned over to whisper in my ear, "Guess that was a little formal for somebody who mooned you in the middle of a club, huh?" Then he stuck his tongue in my ear, making me let out a sharp noise. The cabbie scowled at us, but said nothing.
The last two minutes of the cab ride were as uneventful as the first five. What was going on, I asked myself. I had picked up guys before and usually we had done some kissing or something on the way home to keep the mood up, but for some reason this guy wasn't into it. There was his hand on my leg, and then there was the tongue thing, but other than that he had been quite gallant. And it was driving me crazy trying to figure out what was up. My mind went into total paranoid mode for a second as I tried to figure out his angle. Scenarios from robbery to serial killing went through my head. Maybe he had picked me out as a good mark or something at the club. I looked over at his face. Nah, I thought. No way. I just can't see it. He's too caring. I didn't know how I knew that he was a sweet, caring guy, but some part of me just knew. Just as some part of me felt that I could completely trust him. I began to calm down.
Just then we pulled up to my building. I began to pull out my wallet to pay for half of the charge, but James put his hand on my arm and gave the cabbie some bills. "Don't worry about it," he told me. To the cab driver, he said, "Keep the change." The cab driver's eyes widened and then he started thanking us profusely.
I turned to James as he watched the cab speed off. "How much did you give him?"
James grinned. " `Bout thirty bucks."
My eyes were the size of dinner plates. "Are you kidding? The charge was only about ten!"
"It's just money," James said. Just money? Wow... how loaded is this guy if thirty dollars is just money to him, I wondered.
James looked around. "Nice place. Lots of college aged people here?"
I nodded. "Some, yes. Mostly older, like seniors, grad students. Some young couples."
"So no loud parties or anything?"
I shook my head. "Not usually. Come this way." I led James to my apartment, once again hoping and wishing that Matt wouldn't be there. I opened the door, and sure enough he wasn't. I showed James the living room and bathroom and checked the messages. There was one from Matt saying he would be staying the night with Laura, his girlfriend. Yes, I thought to myself. Free to do whatever I want. Then my mind shifted. Exactly what would we be doing? He had been flirtatious, friendly, and all that, but he hadn't been really trying to get me all horned up. Maybe at the club he had, but once he had my attention he had backed off. I put the thoughts out of my head. Just roll with it, I thought as I grabbed some juice bottles out of the refrigerator.
When I walked back into the living room, James was looking around. I put the bottles down and was about to ask him what he thought of the place when he grabbed my arm and pulled me into a kiss. Webster and Roget would have problems finding enough words to describe that kiss. It was every kiss I had ever had and every kiss I had only dreamed of having all rolled into one. I had always believed chemistry was a fantasy, but now I was sure it wasn't. I saw fireworks and nuclear explosions. I felt all warm and tingly at the same time. Then he released me, and I'm sure I looked like a fish as I stood there with my mouth opening and closing. James had a power over me. All my mental faculties shut down and I was left a quivering ball of sensation. The kiss, from one perspective, had been quite ordinary. No tongue or anything, just lips pressing together. But it was so much more than that.
As I stood there, trying to remember what planet I was on, James started chuckling. "Are you all right?" he asked. I just nodded. All circuits functional, I thought to myself. Although I didn't have any idea where I was or who I was right then. I just wanted another of those kisses.
James walked over to the wall where the stereo sat. "Nice collection of music you have here."
"Thanks," I said. Right. That's the appropriate response to a compliment. Right. Then all of a sudden my mind resumed working with a jolt. "It's my stuff and my roommate's. We have similar tastes."
James selected a CD and popped it into the stereo. Soft, smooth jazz flowed from the speakers. I smiled. "Good choice," I said. Then I offered my hand to him. "Would you care to dance?"
James smiled and took my hand. "I would love to."
I pulled him into my arms. He let me lead and we started slow-dancing. We stayed apart for a few minutes, then we began moving toward each other. Soon our bodies were pressed together as we swayed to the music. I pulled my head away from his and we stared into each other's eyes. I felt like I was in a pool of chocolate. I could drown in those eyes, I thought. It was like the rest of his face disappeared and I could only see those deep brown eyes. I could see so much in them. A lot of hope, a lot of happiness, and not a small bit of lust. I could feel that, I thought to myself. His crotch was pressing right into mine. We were definitely on the same wavelength there. I leaned back in to kiss him again.
I reached my hand in and started to feel of his muscular chest when he pulled back a little. I looked at him in confusion. "What's wrong?" I asked.
James dropped his arms and looked away for a minute. Then he looked back up at me. "Dave," he began, "I had every intention of coming here tonight and doing something with you."
I nodded, encouraging him to continue. "I saw you there in the club and I wanted to get to know you. I also wanted to lick every inch of you three times over." He flashed that grin at me again. I grinned back. "But for some reason, I don't want to sleep with you tonight." He must have read the frown on my face as disappointment, because that's exactly what it was. "Don't get me wrong, I find you extremely attractive. But I want to get to know you first. Every bit of you."
We stood apart, sizing each other up, locked gazes, for a while. Then I took his arm and guided him to the couch. "Well, let's talk. That's always been my favorite way to get to know someone."
James popped open his juice. "Okay then. I'll start. My name is James Kennedy. I'm a grad student in secondary education, specializing in English and writing. Taught middle school English for two years."
I smiled. A fellow student. "David Collins, PhD candidate in history. My last job was in the school library here. Twenty-five years old."
James grinned bigger. "Twenty-five here as well."
"I have three brothers, two parents, no pets to speak of."
James looked away. I could sense a hesitation in him. "Umm, something similar here. Go on."
I thought about pressing, but decided to go on. "Played football in high school and college."
James' eyes narrowed slightly, then he broke into a huge grin. "Oh yeah! I remember you! You won all those awards in Division I-AA ball for defensive player of the year a few years ago!"
I blushed. "Yeah, that was me."
James grinned even bigger with recognition. "I remember they made a huge deal about how they expected you to go pretty high in the draft, but you flushed football for good and dropped off the face of the earth. ESPN said you were nuts to turn down a career like that."
I chuckled. "Yeah, well, nobody around me thought I was nuts, at least not anybody who knew me and cared about me. They all said I made a great choice for me. My family, my high school coach, and my college coach said what I did wasn't good for football, but it was good for me. I'm the one who mattered. I mean, I wanted to teach, to learn. Those have always been my passions, not football. I got tired of subordinating my own wishes because of some damn sport."
James looked deep into my eyes. "What do you mean, `subordinating your own wishes'?"
I sighed. "Well, I never wanted to play football. Not like I ended up doing. If you'd met me when I was a kid, you would have seen a different person."
James looked at me for a minute, then he touched my cheek. "Why were you so down tonight?"
"Down? What do you mean?"
"You can't fool me, Dave. I saw how you were pushing everyone away. Then when you did, you got this look of pain on your face. Who hurt you?"
I looked at the floor. "I caught my ex with some other guy a few weeks back."
James looked at me. "And?"
I paused. "And, they were fucking when I caught them."
James moved in closer to me. "So he was just like the others, right?"
I tried to shrink. "What others?"
"All those others who you thought you could open up to, that you cared about, and who hurt you so much. You never thought you could trust them, but then you tried and got burned in the process."
I scooted away. "What do you know about them?"
James moved closer again. "It's written all over your face, Dave."
I stiffened and tried to hide the welling pain in my voice. "What makes you think I want to talk about it?"
James touched my chin and turned my head so I that was looking him in the eyes. "You want to talk. Every atom in your body is screaming to talk. You are putting up one of the best walls I have ever seen, but you aren't hiding anything from me. I can see it as plain as day. You are one of those guys who is desperate for someone to talk to, but when somebody asks, you say nothing's wrong or that you don't want to talk. But there's a part of you that screams out to let it out, for somebody to be persistent with you, to make you let it go. You are like an open book, Dave. You don't ever let people get close to you, then you go through intense pain because you don't have anybody who is close to you."
Damn, he was so close to the mark it was scary. I could feel the tears filling my eyes as he talked. Then he touched my cheek. "Talk to me," he said, softly.
The tears began to flow. "Nobody would ever let me be me. Oh yeah, my parents were cool with me. But it wasn't them that mattered. Outside the house, everyone had these expectations. I was a big kid, not fat but built big. I was expected to be tough, to be athletic. Well, I wasn't. I was smart, quiet, kind of bookish. So they teased me. It made me go inside myself.
"I know my folks wondered what was up, but I never said a word. I just kept withdrawing more and more and the teasing got worse until one day when I decided I wasn't going to take anymore."
James put his hand on my shoulder. "What happened?"
"Basically, I'd had enough. I just lashed out at this one kid. I beat him senseless. We were only in junior high, but I beat him up badly, at least for that age. After that day, nobody teased me again. I made sure they wouldn't. I started lifting weights and working out, and I joined every bruising team I could."
"So you could take the pain out on other people?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Basically, I tried to put down the sensitive little boy as well as I could, but he reared up again and again." I motioned to the electronic keyboard. "Like with that. My mother wouldn't let me give up my piano lessons, and eventually it became a release for me. Some classes and clubs I belonged to as well. They kept that part of me alive."
"And when you found out you were gay?"
I laughed. "I knew in high school. I never said anything. Nobody would have believed it anyway. Big-shot hulk of a bruiser, a fag? No way."
James put his arm around me. "But you wanted to get close to somebody."
Damn, this kid was good. "Yeah, I did. I ached for it so bad. But I couldn't find anybody. I was so screwed up from before. I didn't think I could trust anyone who wasn't my family. They were the only ones I could be myself around, at least as much as I would let out to them."
"So you looked?"
"Yeah. I looked far and wide. But it seemed like everyone I got close to let me down." I stared into James' eyes. "I have few friends, James. Very few who I actually call a friend. But those friends are true."
James smiled. "I figured you for that type. You choose your friends very carefully. You analyze and think about decisions. That's all well and good, Dave, but sometimes you can think and ponder too much. You break something down to where it can't be anything for you anymore. Then, when you've thought so much and you've been so careful and something goes wrong, like with your last boyfriend, you blame yourself. You didn't see it coming, you should have known better. You take all the blame on yourself even if it doesn't belong there, right?"
The tears were still flowing down my face. "Maybe."
James took me in a hug. "Let it out, Dave. Let it go." I broke down his arms and cried into his chest. We sat there, him holding me and me crying like a baby for who knows how long. The CD changer acted several times, and a classical piano CD of mine was playing. I looked to the window and it was actually starting to get a little light outside.
I took in a ragged breath, trying to regain some lost control, when James spoke again for the first time in what seemed like hours. "Don't do it, Dave. I can see the walls starting to come back. Don't do it. Let me stay in, please." I looked in his eyes, and those deep brown pools were teary themselves. I looked at him closely for the first time, and I saw that he had also been crying... he had been crying for me, with me. He seemed to truly understand. I felt an overwhelming need to touch him, but I was scared. As always, he saw right through me.
"C'mere," he said, and pulled me into a fierce hug. The tears started up fresh as I received the emotional comforting I needed for the first time in what seemed like forever. I felt safe in his arms. He rubbed my back and whispered comforting words in my ears. Finally, I let him go.
James sat there looking at me. I finally looked up and met his eyes, and he smiled at me again. Not that lust-filled bad-boy grin, but the smile, the one that spoke of love, innocence, and understanding. I realized something as I saw him sitting there. I was falling fast and hard for this guy.
I reached back for some tissues, and blew my nose. I handed him some as well, and was lost in my own thoughts when I heard a loud honk. He was sitting there, looking right at me, and he blew his nose again as loud as he could. We both broke down in hysterics. All the ups and downs of the evening can to a head there as we rolled in laughter.
We sat on my couch, holding our sides, when he turned to me again. "I'm sorry if I was harsh with you earlier, but I had to find some way to get through the wall. Kind of like with the striptease earlier." I looked up and he winked. "You really are complicated, Dave Collins, but I think you're worth the effort. I'm going to learn everything about you."
My heart was gripped with fear again. "What if you don't like what you find?" I asked quietly.
He grinned. "Oh, I am sure I will."
He stood up and stretched that beautiful body. "So, where am I sleeping?" he asked.
I stood up beside of him. "Well, I didn't know..."
"If we were going to sleep together?" he finished for me. I just nodded. He grinned again. "Well, as much as I would love to, I think we both know what will happen if we sleep in the same bed."
I had to concede that he was right. Maybe there was something to be gained by waiting. This would be the first time in a while that I started a relationship with a guy who was maybe more than a friend without sex. I looked at my room, then the couch. "Couch or bed?"
He smiled. "I'll take the couch."
I immediately protested. "No, you're a guest, and you've done so much already. I'll sleep out here, no problem."
He laughed. God, I loved that sound already. "No way, I am not going to deprive you of your bed. Give in, dude, I won't budge."
Lord, could I see that. I gave in. I got him some sheets, a blanket, and one of my pillows. I started in on the if-you-need-anything-wake-me-up speech when he pulled off his shirt. I stopped in mid-syllable at the sight of that marvelous body. James turned and grinned again. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."
"Okay, then... I guess I'll go to bed. I'll leave the door open if you need something, " I said. I didn't realize how that could be taken until he cracked up. I shook my head. "Pervert," I told him, which only made him laugh more.
"Only on the good days," he said. James walked over to me and hugged me again, then gave me a tender kiss. "Good night," he whispered.
"Night," I whispered back. I walked into my room and took my clothes off and got into bed, thinking all the while, I am falling. Falling hard.
End of Part II