I. Twilight
Matthew carefully balanced himself on the edge of the ice floe spreading out from the beach into the gray, January waters of the lake. Little sound here aside from the weak pressure of the waves against that hard, white surface and the soft footfalls of his friend behind him. No light aside from the distant twinkling of apartments along the shore and the soft, moonlit glow extending across the ice as far north as his dark blue eyes could see.
Out of the corner of his vision, Matthew had been watching his friend at play. The other young man jumped across the ice, waiting until the last possible moment when the small, floating islands had almost completely broken apart before leaping to the next one. Near danger after this last, clumsy vault. The small iceberg beneath him tipped at a dangerous angle. He spread his arms out, desperately seeking a handhold that wasn't there. Springing forward, he landed on a larger, more stable area, slid onto his backside, and groaned.
Matt smiled to himself and kneeled down into the slush. His numbed fingers fumbled with the thick strings of his hiking boots, shaking loose the thin sheen of ice clinging to them stubbornly and lacing them into double knots. He felt comfortable out on this white-blue sheet, though his body trembled and shivered. Even in the piercing cold with a friend nearby, the warm feeling of isolation coursed through his chest and left him in a state of pure contentment.
He rose, scooped a handful of watery ice, and launched it towards his friend.
Sean Grady caught the snowball full in the chest and fell backwards in mock injury. "I'm going down!" he called out.
Matt laughed quietly and took a last, parting glance at his surroundings, his gaze meandering over the white field laid out before them. The gentle light rising all around was an illusion: the night had grown terribly long. "We ought to go back. It's getting late."
"You think so?" Sean asked, standing and testing the ground with all his weight on one foot.
Matt nodded. "I think so." He added, "Unless you want to sit out here and freeze your ass off. Doesn't matter to me. Up to you." Though he desperately did want to stay, Sean would never forgive him if he let them miss the party.
"What time is it?" Sean asked, stuffing his hands deep within the pockets of his jeans.
Matt looked at his wrist for a watch that wasn't there. A stiff wind blew up his sleeve forcing an involuntary shudder. "I don't know. The party's at ten, right?" He didn't really care what time the party was. It was a frat gathering, which meant a lot of bodies stuffed into a basement, deafening music, stifling heat, and telling lies.
"Ten o'clock is what Laurie told me. She's probably already drinking." Matt thought he detected jealousy in Sean's voice.
The two young men made journeyed back across the ice and sand and turned down a narrow avenue with clustered apartment buildings, student dormitories, and school offices. Groups of students filtered in from the side streets, returning from the dinner hall half way across campus.
"I really don't want to go to this thing," Matt said quietly, kicking along a piece of ice.
"You have to, O'Brien. People will ask about you, and I don't want to spend any time making yet more excuses. Just do it for me, all right? I need a partner in crime. Go in, get drunk, get laid, and go home. It's not that hard," Sean said with some exasperation.
"Not hard at all," Matt replied. Touch of bitterness. "Hang out in a place that's hot as hell, try to wade through a bunch of sweaty people, drink a lot of cheap beer, and then have some drunk chick who's wearing too much perfume hang all over me. I see the appeal. Afterwards, I can dip my balls in the lake, just to top the night off."
"You know, most people our age actually want to get laid." Sean fell silent, venting his frustration with afflicted, steamy sighs.
Matt shivered again, though this time not from the cold.
A half an hour later, Matt stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, straightening the collar of his shirt and listening to Emily Torrinelli, who was quite at home sitting on the counter of the men's room, discussing the finer points of nail polish.
"Maybe I'll go with electric blue," she said brightly, swinging her legs back and forth.
"Electric blue?" Matt asked, trying to comb through his tangled mop of black hair. "Emily, I don't know if anyone's told you this yet, but the 80's are over. I'm very sorry. But maybe we'll hitch a ride to the cemetery later and visit them, eh?"
She gave him a playful swat. "I see, and what do you call what you're wearing?" She pulled at his sleeves.
Matt looked at his clothes in the mirror. A loose fitting blue button down shirt, blue jeans, and hiking boots. "Rustic?"
Emily shrieked with laughter and grabbed the comb from Matt's hand. "Males never know how to do anything right." She sorted through the mess on his head, artfully styling it one way, before trying another. "You should use more conditioner."
"It's clean, isn't it? You know what works even better than that?" Matt reached towards his back pocket. "This." He brushed her hands away and slapped a bent and battered black baseball cap over Emily's masterpiece.
"No! You've ruined it!" Emily jumped off the counter and folded her arms over her breasts in an exaggerated pout. "I don't know why I bother with men!"
Matt shrugged. "Because we're irresistible. If it weren't for us, you'd have nothing to gossip about. Now, go get ready. It only takes me ten minutes before I'm out the door. You," he said, pointing an accusing finger at her, "take anywhere from two hours to two weeks."
"You're in luck tonight," she said with an affected smile. "I brought all my stuff up here so we wouldn't have to run around." She dashed out of the bathroom, returning with a plastic bag full of the mysterious objects women required to go out for an evening. "All I need is your hair spray. I have everything else."
Matt left Emily to her female preparations and walked across the hall, exchanging the fluorescent light of the bathroom for his scantly lit room.
He began sorting through the various colored bottles on his dresser. Cologne or no? A mixed blessing for him. Though he always smelled great and received compliments for whichever scent he was wearing, all of these compliments came from girls who would spend much of the evening staying uncomfortably close to him as if attracted by an unusually powerful pheromone.
Taking the blue bottle of Polo Sport from the dresser, he undid the top buttons of his shirt and sprayed the cologne on the white t-shirt he wore underneath; something that prevented anyone from detecting the scent unless they were standing quite close to him.
Sighs and bangs and plastic clacks came from the bathroom. Matt peered across the hall into the bathroom, watching Emily at work. She pulled her jumper over her head and struggled into a red dress that seemed more like a suggestion of clothing. His eyes took in the curve of her breasts, the roundness of her hips. His desire stayed dormant. For him, there was only anatomy in those images.
Resignation settled over his chest in the dark. More people, more drinking, more half-understood conversations on a back porch with people he barely recognized and knew even less. And maybe there would be another girl whose name he couldn't remember, taking his hand and smiling and stumbling, hoping to take him back to her dorm room. Gently, he would pull himself away, go find Sean crumpled in a corner or Emily quietly sobbing outside over some guy she went on two dates with, but now saw making out with another girl.
All of this tolerated and endured for no very good reason at all. Perhaps only to be around people, to keep himself from wasting away in his room, away from others, because he couldn't much admit to himself or anyone else what it was he wanted and needed in his life. A simulacrum of a life was just as good.
Matt opened his eyes as Emily writhed through the door, slinking towards his bed in her low-cut dress. A strap slid down one shoulder. She smiled coquettishly at him with the sparkle in her deep brown eyes that made so many men lose their minds around her. He couldn't stop himself from grinning at her display. "You're either a complete whore or Helen of Troy. I guess it depends who you ask around campus."
"I thought she was a whore." She tossed herself onto his bed, throwing back her curly brown hair and laughing. "Either way, this whore is in search of a prince tonight. Yes I am, honey. And any girl who gets in the way of this woman is going to get her eyes clawed out."
"You're a very scary woman" Matt tried to hide his smile.
A shadow blotted out the light from the bathroom. "So, are you two ready to get wasted?" Sean bounded in, a ball of jumpy energy and excitement. "I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get drunk and laid, in that order, so let's get a move on."
Emily bolted up from the bed and embraced Sean in a giddy hug. "Drunk and laid! My two most favorite things in the whole wide world!"
Matt shook his head and followed the eager pair out of the room.
Matt took a long swallow of cold beer from his plastic cup as he sat against the kitchen wall, his knees drawn up to his chest. A heavy, swollen dance beat pounded through his brain. He gasped for air in the smoke-filled room, even though his own half-smoked cigarette was reduced to a long cylinder of ash in the aluminum ashtray.
Three hours into the party, he had found the least occupied part of the frat house, the twenty or so mostly empty liquor bottles on the counters useless to the swarm of people dancing or having sex in other rooms. Only a few stragglers loitered about the kitchen, tapping their cigarettes into beer cans, the sink, the trash - whatever was on hand - and having deep, philosophical conversations about the evils of capitalism. "Yeah, I totally get what you're saying," an upper classman slurred to the girl he was talking to.
Matt groaned. Where were Sean and Emily? Well and hooked up by now, no doubt. Still, it was getting late, and he felt he should form a one-man search party for them. Warmth filled his face, but his fingers had lost all feeling. If he had had this much to drink, Sean and Emily were bound to be paralytic.
After his fourth attempt, he managed to stand, though not without the help of the wall, the kitchen table, and the two socialists standing nearby. His legs protested his efforts at any kind of forward motion, instead opting for a weaving, lateral direction whenever he tried putting them to use. Mastering the use of the walls, he slowly stumbled towards the music, figuring it was his best bet.
Shortly after making it into the hall, he had the vague feeling of falling into someone. "Whoa. Hey, you ok?" a male voice shouted over the dance mix.
Matt squinted, trying to make the three or four blurry green-eyed faces in front of him coalesce into one distinct person. "Yeah, just fine. Just a little tired is all."
"I think you're pretty messed up," face number two said. "Need help getting to a couch?"
Matt waved away face number three, inadvertently rapping his knuckles against the wall with a loud crack. "No, no. I'm just looking for my friends."
"What do they look like? I'll go find them for you." face number one offered.
Matt leaned against the wall. His recollection of his two best friends was muddy at best. "A girl, red dress, curly brown hair. Emily. And a guy. Tall, brown hair, too, but really cute. Wearing a green shirt thingy. Sean, I think. Yeah, Sean."
"Ok, wait here," the voice said. "I'll be right back."
Matt reached forward to give the guy a friendly pat on the shoulder in thanks. He tumbled forward, falling into the boy's arms. He quickly pushed himself away in embarrassment, but not before his hand slid awkwardly and felt the warm, smooth skin under this boy's shirt. In Matt's jeans, his cock, feeling heavy and numb from beer, thrummed to life. "I'm so sorry. I'm ok, really. I'll just wait here. Sorry."
"Not a problem, guy."
Matthew's vision sharpened in the panic and fear of discovery. Looking up, a beatific face smiled at him, its forehead furrowed with concern. He took in the deep green eyes framed in longish, blonde hair. He found himself staring at the pale lips and then to the lightest yellow stubble growing down to his adam's apple, accentuated in the dim lamps of the hall.
When he realized he eyes were lingering when they shouldn't be, he shook himself back into some semblance of consciousness.
The boy continued smiling. "I'll be right back."
Matt sat on his heels, watching the boy walk into the main room, trying to keep his eyes away from the muscular, well-formed thighs in tight jeans sauntering away from him. He pressed his thumbs against his closed eyelids, trying to banish the face from his mind. "Not now," he said tersely to his stiffening cock. "Not here."
Minutes later, the boy returned, still smiling. He kneeled down and whispered conspiratorially into Matt's ear. "Well, I think your friend Sean is staying for the night. A couple people saw him go into a room with Mandy. She's a slut. He's good until morning. Emily's passed out in the basement. She's pretty trashed."
The boy's hot breath washed over his earlobe and neck, pricking all the little hairs across Matt's skin one by one. His cock hardened further, pulsing and throbbing against the suddenly tight confines of his pants. "I should go get her and put her in bed. She hates waking up at the scene of the crime and all that."
"I'll help," the boy offered.
Matt wasn't about to object. "Yeah, sure, that'd be great. Thanks."
With Emily between them, Matt and the strange boy had struggled down the deserted, three in the morning streets towards the dorms. Matt adjusted his dark brown coat over Emily's shoulders. Though well below freezing, his blood felt warm, his body numb, though his hands trembled uncontrollably. The sharp, dry air did little to snap him out of his drunkenness. He watched his boots tread over the snowy walk, his legs animated by some other will. He had been barely able to stay within the lines of concrete, his feet seeming to find every puddle along the way.
A snap to get into Martin Hall. The security guard cared little about inebriated students, asking only for the boy's ID as he was from another residence across campus. Alex Pendleton. Somehow, it suited this gorgeous green-eyed blur in front of him.
Emily did little more than moan as they laid her down on the bed in her room, pulling the thick quilt over her - dress, shoes, and all. Hopefully her roommate was gone for the rest of the night and would leave her undisturbed. Matt knew she would have a hellish morning. Best to put it off as long as possible.
"Thanks for helping me bring her up here, guy." Matt stood up to offer a handshake or pat, he wasn't sure which, but he swayed against Alex instead. The air from the little heater in the room brought back the slow, muffled feeling of too much beer.
"Hey, that's all right." Rich, deep voice. All Matt could do to stop staring at that adam's apple as Alex spoke, to keep his eyes from moving towards the hard chin, those pale lips ... "I think I should help you to your room. You're barely able to hit the elevator buttons."
"Probably not," Matt said with some hesitation. To be alone with this boy begged for a slip of the kind he didn't want to make. But sheer agony to think of the possibility and letting it slip away. He remembered the warm skin under the boy's black shirt, the firmness in those jeans. The firmness in his own jeans. "Yeah, I probably need help. Thanks."
The elevator ride up eight floors was endless. Matt's face flushed as he thought of all the things he wanted to do in that small space. His eyes lingered over the soft, almost wavy blonde hair falling to the back of the boy's neck. How Alex shifted and held his weight in his hips, his left knee bent at just the right angle to make his entire stance maddeningly erotic.
Matthew reclined in the corner the entire time, his hands folded in front of himself to hide his thickening cock.
"And here we are."
A hundred miles to his door at the very least. The sound of the key in the lock deafening. And all the while Alex leaning over his shoulder, that delicious breath once again on his neck, causing his cock to harden past the point of reason.
"Here we are." Matt fumbled for the light switch. Ah, only the dim study lamp on the desk. Too perfect. And the blinds already closed to hide the secret he desperately wanted to have with this boy. His room was a slight mess, but that was all right. What college freshman's wasn't? And the bedding cleaned that very morning.
He flopped down onto the bed and rolled onto his back before jerking forwards to cover his jeans with his shirt. No, better not seem too eager, too obvious, especially if this boy wasn't that type. But he was that type, wasn't he? Heterosexuals didn't bring strange drunk boys up to their room alone, did they?
Alex's face betrayed the answer to Matthew. No straight man would look at him the way those beautiful green eyes were looking at him now. Tentative, but wanting, the barest reflection of the lamp revealing the uncertainty. To try something with someone who was drunk? That is what Matt read there, and every part of him wanted to cry out "Yes!"
"Well guy, better get those boots off you. They're soaked right through." Alex on his knees in front of him. Undoing the knots with little difficulty and pulling them from his feet, one by one. The slender fingers squeezing his foot to find if the socks were wet, which they were. That little gesture nearly sent him over the edge.
The socks already forgotten on the floor, Alex's fingers moved around the cuffs of his jeans, the ice along the bottom almost done melting and flaking away. "Well you can't sleep with wet pants." No, no I cannot. And if you don't tear them off me this very second, I will lose my mind.
Matthew unbuttoned his jeans and leaned back, from the beer or a simple desire for those hands to be near him again he didn't know. But the delicate touch now pressed against his zipper, only the thin layer of denim and cotton between Alex and his cock. The zipper drawn down, the warm hands around his waist before peeling off those jeans.
There was no hiding anything now from the boy. The white boxers-briefs damp, almost translucent, and his cock hard, thick, and straining against them. Was that a blush on Alex's face? Too late now. The damage had been done. There could be no misunderstanding between them.
Matt leaned forward again, laying an experimental hand on the curve between Alex's neck and shoulder. Hard and silky the skin, the blonde hair like the finest down. A pink tongue quickly licking those pale lips. Yes, kiss me, and lay all my secrets bare.
Alex's breath on his face, the lamplight hidden as the boy moved towards him. First the lightest scratch of stubble against his own chin, and then those lips, soft and yielding, a tongue sliding into his mouth. Then hardness as the boy crushed against him as Matt's hand moved to the back of his head. The pleasure as their mouths fell into rhythm seemed like the purest note of bliss drawn eternally on a violin until it seemed impossible that it should go on.
His heart was weeping at this, yes, to have a boy in his arms at last, and to have him hunger as he himself did all those long years in the dark. And then it seemed that there were tears in his eyes, that the joy could not be contained. Did he cry out just now? No way to tell.
Alex's pulled back. His shirt was coming off with crude, clumsy gestures. More hot flesh for Matthew's hands to touch, to roam free over the muscled back, the firm stomach, the solid chest, and the small, rigid nipples. He bent forward to take one in his mouth, sucking and licking, his teeth grazing against them. And the boy's arms enfolding him, drawing him closer, pressing Matthew's head to him.
Matthew fumbled with the boy's thick leather belt, pulling it free and tossing it aside in pure impatience. The button too complicated for his hands damp with sweat.
Alex rose, smiling and looking down into Matthew's eyes. His pants fell to his feet, and there was nothing but the luscious curve of his stiff cock under the flimsy cotton of his black boxers.
Matthew's mouth fell upon it like a ravenous animal that had finally found its prey. His hands moved up Alex's thighs, running over the lightest blonde hair on them, cupping his hands around the firm cheeks of his backside. His tongue moved up the boxers, to the tip of that cock. A slight saltiness there through the fabric that only increased his frenzy.
But Alex was drawing him up, their cocks dueling against one another, their eyes meeting in the purest understanding of the moment. Those lips were on Matthew's again, but only for a moment. The boy's hands were pulling Matthew's shirts over his head, then running over his shoulders, down his chest, onto his stomach, and sliding under his waistband.
His cock throbbed as Alex's hand went into the dark nest of hair around it, the head moving against the boy's wrist as fingers moved around the base as if measuring his thickness. His balls were being cupped as his length pressed against the boy's forearm. Only the beer could possibly be keeping him from losing it right then and there. His precum on the hair of Alex's forearm glinted in thin light.
Matthew fell to his knees and ripped the boy's boxers down, Alex's sex bouncing up against his stomach, and the hair surrounding it that beautiful blonde like all the rest of him. Nothing could stop Matthew from taking the hard, curving cock in his mouth. The tip of his tongue moved ever so gently into the slit, lapping up every drop of clear fluid that had gathered there.
Alex groaned as Matthew worked around the head, lightly running over the ridge and the vulnerable underside, so sweet and soft and juicy like all the rest. He took the boy into his mouth, in long, suckling strokes. His fingers moved around his balls, gently rolling them, prying at the smooth flesh just behind.
"I want you inside of me," Alex gasped, almost pleading.
To go so far would surpass anything Matthew could have ever wanted during his first encounter with a man. He smiled and nodded slowly, his eyes darting across Alex's face in search of any uncertainty. Yes, he could do this. He had been waiting for this. He had read about it on those long, lonely nights when such a thing was only a distant dream. Of course he was prepared, the lubricant bought for one instead of two, but ready for them nonetheless. And the condoms in the desk drawers, just waiting for this moment.
Matthew turned and pushed Alex onto the bed, sighing as the muscled skin spread out before him, wondering if he could tear himself away for the few seconds to retrieve what was needed. And those green eyes imploring him to do everything his young body ached for.
He quickly found the plastic tube and condoms and returned to the bed. Slowly he slid his boxers down, his cock thoroughly wetted with his own fluids. Alex reached up and wrapped his hand around it, gave it a squeeze, a little move that nearly sent him spurting. Suddenly he was thankful for all the beer he drank earlier. Without it, he knew he could not have hoped to last this long.
Matthew lowered himself on Alex, the length of his body pressing against the boy. Alex's legs drawn up, those muscled thighs rubbing against Matthew's hips as their cocks throbbed against once another. Their mouths moved together again, all this as if light itself was at last made flesh.
Alex plucked the tube and condom from the bed, a seriousness creeping into his eyes. Matthew had the barest idea that this is what others called intimacy. That time when people laid their souls before you and trust you love them as much as they love you.
Alex rolled the condom over Matthew's cock. Now came the jelly, so awfully cold, but warming quickly with Alex's every stroke. The boy pulled his legs up. Matthew kissed the soft, delicate skin behind his knees before they rested on his shoulders. Their eyes locked together as Alex manipulated the lubricant, making ready for Matthew.
The boy nodded slowly, and Matthew needed little more persuasion. As gently as he could, he pressed his head against the opening. Resistance there for a brief moment, but then relenting, letting him into Alex, inch by inch.
Were there tears in his eyes again as he was slowly surrounded by Alex? As he now felt an unspeakable connection, bound to another person in a way that felt completely alien yet eminently right?
He leaned forward and planted little kisses across Alex's chest and throat. No hurry this, no. Better to take in this moment and savor it completely. Feeling that hot sheath over his cock, he swallowed down every urge to begin. Only when Alex was ready would he act.
Suddenly some inner bonfire ignited within Alex. He sprang forward and kissed Matthew roughly. That was all the goading needed, as Matthew's hips began working into Alex, quickly falling into a rhythm of pure ecstasy. Surely others must have heard them as their love-making lapsed into a savage bucking, Alex holding onto the headboard, every muscle in his chest and arms straining to hold on, and Matthew pounding into him again and again.
Alex's head tilted back, his teeth biting down on his lower lip, and Matthew was upon that adam's apple with its blonde stubble, licking and ever so softly biting while the rest of his body bordered on the loss of all self-control.
Alex's curved cock suddenly jerked and spasmed, and scalding cum was pouring all over Matthew's stomach. It was too much for him as the pressure built inside, his own cock diving into Alex again and again. With a load moan, Matthew erupted over and over, his eyes tightly closed, every color crashing like waves against his eyelids. Unbearable this pleasure, to have one's entire life and purpose squeezed and concentrated in those seven and a half inches of his flesh.
It was done. And now he really was crying, the tears coming freely as he collapsed and rolled over, his arms and legs folded in Alex's. No breath left in him, no will. On the feeling of total satisfaction and total love for the boy who laid next to him, the boy who had leaned over and was now kissing the tears away from his cheeks.
End of Part I
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