Author's Note: as this is the last installment, I want to take a briefest of brief moments and thank each and every one of you who've written me with gratitude, tips for improvement, and other miscellanea. Thanks to you, I think I've gained a little strength as I move forward in life. Thanks for reading.
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This is Tyler in the dark.
Running out of the weight room, running down the hallway, running out the door and into the parking lot. Fishing his car keys out of his shorts pocket. In the heat of the sprint, his hand bumps into his free-hanging undercarriage, itself already stimulated by a rising breeze.
He throws the door open to his car and gets in. A minute later he's speeding out of the parking lot and going down the road.
He thinks about what happened to him. Sarah, the sex. Jake, the rape.
The wrestling match, and John. The first time he let John touch him. Only two people had touched him that closely before: Sarah...and when he broke his leg in three places on a wayward ATV, the hot nurse at the hospital.
But they were almost righteous. John was selfish.
Tyler scowls. IN the distance he sees his house. And inside his mind, Tyler argues with himself.
He was a sweet piece of ass, that Johnny boy.
No. That's irrelevant now. He used me.
He's a top like that--uncharacteristic for a guy like him, but still. He dominates, or wants to think he does. With your little GI Joe get up you didn't leave him much choice.
But you're the wrestler, Tyler. You're the lion. You broke it off with that hot girl to let Johnny stick it up your ass. And was it worth it?
Maybe.
That's no good. You either liked it or you didn't. Of course you did, but you're lying to yourself like always.
He was a sweet piece of ass.
There. Now you say you liked it.
Loved it. Better than heroin, better than weed--and you've tried those before haven't you? Better than Sarah's pussy spewing Budweiser at you nonstop.
I'm not a rat anymore. I swore those things off a long time ago.
Sure, because Sarah wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole when you showed up stoned off your ass. And the dope...hah...weren't we just a little bundle of joy then.
Get off it. I gave those up.
Yeah, and you only ever scraped the surface of possibility to begin with. At any rate, you've gotta admit, Ty-Ty. John fucking you was the biggest high you've felt in three years.
I'm not living under Sarah anymore. What's your point?
My point? To pull this car into your driveway, to run upstairs and find what you've lost. My point is...was it really worth your time to waste time on a guy like that? Aside from the typical High School drama crap, was he really what you wanted? Are you even really queer--as it were? Or did you--already the "coolest" cat around--just want to be cool? I think so...
===SOON...JOHN===
His car is in the driveway. The front door hangs open. By the time I get to it, I still can't see any lights on.
Walk into the living room. His tennis shoes are sitting neatly at the base of the stairs. His mesh shorts are at the first step, plaid boxers at the fifth, and wifebeater at the top of the stairs. I follow the trail, and the sound of something mechanical coming from what I remember to be his parent's bedroom.
Shit.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing just his trademark red singlet No shoes, no socks, and no headgear. It'd be hot if it weren't so damn frightening. One drawer of his parent's bureau is slid open. He's holding an L-shaped black...thing in one hand.
"Tyler?"
He doesn't answer. His head drifts back and forth between the syringe and the...
"Is that...is that a gun?"
He nods slowly. It's now that I notice the lights are off. Despite that, I can still see a tear stream down his face.
"Where...did you get that?"
"My dad," he says, calm and frail. "Belongs to the Gun Club. It's a C96 Mauser. Last used in the First World War. But you don't care do you?"
"Tyler--"
"You never cared. You just wanted to fuck my brains out. You wanted to have a science experiment that showed a fucking nerd could bag the hottest guy in school? It worked."
"It wasn't about that. It never was."
"Then why did you make it like that? I thought the progression was natural...that whatever problems we had were part of the transition for me. Guess I didn't count on you being a fucking douchebag about this."
I clench my teeth, almost ready to pop. And then I see that he's holding just the gun. I'm no idiot.
"Look. I'm sorry. But...I thought it was the only way."
"And you couldn't just ask me out?"
"No," I say frankly. "It's not easy for me to do a thing like that. People like me--"
"Like us."
"--we're not...as good at it. Not as much as people like you are."
He looks at me with dead, glazed eyes. His hair is a mess. Even in the darkness his eyes are teary and bloodshot. I suddenly feel a chill.
"But I'm not like other guys, John. I like cock. I like your cock. Don't you like mine?"
"I...I loved it."
"Loved? Past tense?" He puts the gun aside and stands, all of it done slowly. Kind of a Norman Bates quality to it all. He walks toward me, just as slow. He gets right in my face and whispers--lips to lips. "What about now?"
He reaches to my waist and undoes the fly. Gravity takes my pants down, and he rolls my briefs down past my growing cock.
"Oh ho," he smiles, glancing down and back up. "Excited, I see. And with me with a gun here."
"Tyler, just calm down. Don't do anything--""
"Stupid?" His eyes light up for a moment, and he starts jacking me off. "No, we wouldn't want that would we? Using a gun is stupid; fucking my very hot girlfriend whom I love is stupid. What next? Falling for you?"
His voice gets ever shakier. Every word is weaker and stronger than the last. God...
I think...I think he might be losing it.
My cock is getting closer to climax. He smiles and kisses me. Pulls away quickly.
"Did you love me?" he asks. Eyes still burning.
"Yes." I say it quietly. Frankly. No need to say anything else, because we both know everything else.
"Then you won't need anything else. As long as we have...each other." His eyes narrow, and it comes. Without warning.
First a hit to my gut, knocking the air out. Then him punching me in the side of the head. I fall to the ground, and try to refill my lungs. The world goes blurry, and I figure out that's just me crying.
He stands over me, hands formed into fists. In the time it took me to regain faculties, he's pulled his singlet down to his waist. His bare chest, in all its sculpted glory, glistens in the light of the hallway.
"We were great together, you know," he says, suddenly quiet. The fire in his eyes goes out. "We could have been. But you fucked it up. I hope you know that. Everything that's happened is on your hands."
He peels the singlet off and tosses it in my face. "You can have that. Think of it as a trophy to us. A monument to a failure in your life."
"Wait!" I blurt. He turns back slowly. "You don't understand! I loved you! From the very first moment I met you, I loved you! And every time I saw you since then made me sick to think about you, Tyler. What we had? It was beautiful, Tyler, and you know it. You fucking know it. I did what I did because I saw you and I was tired of the secrecy. I was tired of lying to myself and everyone around me. And I wanted you, oh God did I want you."
Still facing away from me, he speaks calmly. "You got me, John."
"I wanted to be you, Tyler," I say quietly. "Everything you are is everything I've wanted. Popularity. A killer body. Friends--much less friends that would take a fuckin bullet for you! I wanted to be those people. And I was. For a while at least."
He shakes his head vigorously. It turns red. And the tears come. He's changing over: first anger, then it was madness, then apathy. Now it's sadness.
"Did you always think you could get me by bribing people?"
"I just wanted you," I quiver. "I would've done anything."
"You did do everything. So I guess I can give you marks for that."
Silence. I slide my hands into my pockets. "I'm sorry, Tyler. For everything. All of it. Whatever I've done to you, I'm sorry. I'm not even asking for forgiveness, I'm just saying what I feel."
"As have I," he grunts.
I cock my head for a moment. And then I remove my shoes. Socks. The pants slide off with gravity, due to Tyler jacking me off just moments ago. I slide off my tee.
And it's just the two of us. In a chilly room, two naked boys are staring at each other's full-frontals. It's oddly...liberating. My cock doesn't even stir, but I register this as something not quite hot. No, it's beyond hot. It's...straight-up erotic.
He calms down, his muscles relax. He stares at me through focused eyes. And suddenly, I remember the best parts about this Adonis in front of me.
His sculpted chest and abs and arms and legs--all of them the product of a relentless perfectionist in search of another physical equal. They're as flawless as everything else. As if the Gods that created him had done so with the express purpose of making him look like one of them: the Ideal Type, strong and virile, reeking masculinity and athleticism, with no physical flaws whatsoever.
An Adonis.
"I'm here, Tyler. No strings attached. I'm tired of lying--as I've said. Wherever we go from here...is in your hands."
He looks away for a moment. Back at me, analyzing my figure. Without a word, we come together. The kiss is mutual and deep and hot. The kind a god gives.
And he is a god. My god.
My Tyler.