All things considered...
Part One: The qualifications
The usual stuff, you know. Is it legal for you to read about sex with the same gender, not that that is going to stop you. Even if you came here by accident and are offended by the thought of gay sex, be gone. All the characters portrayed are at the age of consent in Belgium. If I left something out that's important, mail me.
About the story it takes place in Belgium, Flanders to be more specific. The characters and places and some of the situations are based on real events. The story however is a mosaic of my dreams, reality and pure fiction. Most of the names are aliases. This story consists out of three chapters and yes, there is sex in it. I've tried to mingle the (too?) soft love stories and the (too?) hard erotica that populate Nifty. Let me know what you think about it; you can mail me about almost everything at the address optionalomen@hotmail.com. My thanks to Nifty for making this possible and I'd also like to thank L. and J. who helped editing this story.
Before I even opened my eyes, I was wallowing in bliss and true happiness. While still in the aftermath of the world that lies between dreams and reality it seemed all so unreal. That lasted until I peered through my windows to this world, and it all came back to me. Because right in front of me laid this gorgeous boy, still sound asleep, like he was sent from Valhalla. Motionless I watched his slim body go up and down with every breath he draw into his lungs. What did I do to deserve such a fantasy in the flesh? My mind went back in time, to before the time we even met.
One year ago
"Eehhhh, mmmmmmmmh ... hhhhaaaaaaahhhh" I exclaimed
I did some push-ups to end my work out; I kept it brief because I`d have to play some tennis later. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a jock at all. Sure as hell don't look like one either, but I'd just like to keep a bit in shape for my tennis game.
"Mom, I'm going to play tennis, OK"?
"Sure hon."
As I left my parents house, where I stay over the weekend, my body made the acquaintance with the cool breeze that makes summer mornings what they are in Belgium. Quickly I got in the car that my mother uses to drive to work.
Passing through the streets of our town my mind went to focus on the things at hand; our town's tennis championships. I liked things like sports or reading because I'm not really that interested in girls. Amongst other things I play tennis, as you would have guessed, and not too bad, if I do say so myself. By the way, the name is Steve and I don't look a day past 17; nevertheless, I'm 21 years old. I don't know the feet, inch thing but I'm 190 cm (almost 6 foot 3 inches) tall and weigh 154 lbs (that's 70 kilo's?). Well, this bio wouldn't be complete without saying that I'm very fair-skinned, brown chestnut hair, blue-greyish eyes and do not consider myself to be very good looking.
The CD I'm playing now and again is Madonna's (cliche, cliche ???) 'Immaculate' collection, you know, the older stuff. The song Material Girl' was playing and for some reason it's one of my favourite songs. Must be the some boys kiss ... me and boys may come and boys may go' lyrics. Maybe also the reasons why I'm studying economics, `living in a material world' the background singers agreed to this hypothesis.
Well, I didn't have that many boys come or go at the moment, none to be exact. Maybe because it has taken me long enough to accept the fact that I was different and make the mental switch. Of course this didn't mattered today because I hoped to hit some frustration out of me and with some luck win, too.
As I arrived at the courts I saw Mitch already waiting for me. I drew him as my adversary in the first round but I had already known him for a long time.
We took our first tennis lessons together and I knew I could still beat him if I could make the mental mode change from friend to killer instinct. It's difficult to motivate myself to beat a person I like. Believe it or not, I think you should temporarily hate your adversary if you want to be a good player.
"Hey Mitch, are ya ready mate?" I said as I walked towards him.
"As ready as I'll ever be," He answered.
"Which court did we get?" I asked.
"Number four, so no sun in our eyes, man" Mitch replied.
This may be interesting, in Belgium 99% of the outdoor courts are clay courts. Well, it isn't really clay, but more ground red brick that needs to be just a little moist, because otherwise it turns either into dust clouds or a kind of red clay. Why is it my favourite surface? Well it slows the game down enough to compensate my lack of sprinting abilities and exploit my tactical insight. Another cool thing is the slide towards the ball that no other surface permits. Hard court or other rubber surfaces make me to slow or the ball too fast, I haven't decided which yet. For the curious Belgian tennisers among you, that's not very likely but anyway, my ranking is C+30.
" Oh oh the no.4 looks way too dry to me," Mitch said.
"Does it look dry? Wait, I'll get the sprinklers online," I said while walking towards the cafeteria.
Mitch is not bad looking I thought when I was by myself, but he didn't do it for me. It's not like I had a chance with him anyway. He's got a girlfriend so that makes the odds even smaller, but not quite non-existent of course.
After the automatic sprinklers were on, I went back to sit next to Mitch and wait until the artificial rain had fulfilled its purpose. On the neighbouring court the familiar noise of hitting a ball attracted my attention. All of a sudden I saw on that no.3 court this awesome looking boy; I hadn't seen him around. Believe me, I would have remembered this guy. Because his face seemed so perfect, as if it were made by the Greek goddess of beauty, Aphrodite herself. That slim body got me all heated up and its presence made me uncoordinated for a few moments.
"Hey Steve, you look like you seen a ghost," Mitch exclaimed as I finally sat down next to him.
"Who's the guy on the far side of the no.3?" I asked forgetting for a moment all the inhibitions that usually shielded me against this kind of revealing situations.
"Oh that's Matthew, you know, Wesley's friend," Mitch said, luckily unaware of the motivation of my interest.
The flow of water stopped as abruptly as it had started and interrupted my inquiry about this demigod. As Mitch and I grabbed our bags and rackets my mind was still with this phenomenon. Preoccupied, I started to warm up not able to shake the feelings that clouded my usually rational mind. Before I even realised it, we had started the match and I was down 3 to nothing, and as we switched sides Mitch looked puzzled, as I usually start off strong until my physique lets me down in the second set. This must be the most serious crush I'd ever had.
Eventually I managed to regain some control and was able to take the match at 6-4, 6-4 in just two sets. Mostly because it just dawned me that probably the winner would be the next opponent of this Matthew. My motivation was at its all time high for this prospect. Usually an attraction just meant that it was just more difficult to beat some guy, how did Martina Navratilova do it? At the male tennissers I never heard of a gay player make it to the top. Enough cute players though, like the Spanish talent Ferrero and of course Magnus Normann. Wasn't he the boyfriend of Martina Hingis?
At the net Mitch shook my hand and stated,
"Good match Steve, you had it difficult at the start, huh?"
"You played well too. Mitch, Yeah I think my concentration wasn't focused enough," I replied truthfully.
"No shit, almost all love games, you looked completely out of it!" He continued.
Damn. I shouldn't be this obvious I reminded myself. Couldn't ask him about Matthew right away, that would be pushing it, but I nearly died of lust as I walked by the same no. 3 court where they were still competing. All kinds of images were playing through my mind, and as usual, I kept them to myself.
Patiently waiting a little while to reduce the chance of making the link between my concentration problems and Matthew, we were making small talk as we sat down in front of the cafeteria and I got us some drinks.
"So is this Matthew guy a difficult player?" I began my search for information as I was drinking my coke and trying to look as casual as possible.
"Now and again, but he can't keep the same level for long" Mitch answered while having a sip of his beer while continuing. "Weird that you haven't seen him play before; he's here quite often".
An opening to the personal character I thought, so I found out that except for being a tennis freak, he was quite the opposite of me. Very outgoing, carefree, direct and not to mention cute, I thought. I keep falling for this kind of guy and a swift memory of Alan came to mind. Swiftly I repressed it and thought that it must be like Paula Abdul once sang, opposites attract.
Watching Mitch more closely I noticed this blond haired guy with defined muscles, probably from working out. Firm legs and strong calves made me ponder why I never considered him, he wasn't bad to look at and pretty easy to talk to. Oh Jeez why do I even make these assumptions, it's not like anything like that is ever going to happen to me.
Mitch had to go and I stayed and used the free time to ponder about all kinds of stuff. During my silent contemplations I didn't notice that Matthew's match had ended and he was walking towards me. Suddenly he appeared in front of me close enough to study his physique in far greater detail than I did earlier. But he started to talk and in our very cute local Dutch accent he asked me,
"Hi, you must be Steve, I'm Matthew, your next opponent."
"Er hey, not too tired I hope," I opened my mouth and that came out.
"Nah, can go on for hours like that," He said with a cocky flair that I found sooo attractive.
"Want something to drink while we're waiting?" I asked.
"Sure, why not?" He answered.
As I fetched him a Coke I thought about this guy that made me feel so incredibly nervous and excited at the same time. This black-haired boy with heavenly blue sky-coloured eyes, not to mention this cute small nose and his slightly tanned and perfect skin seemed to be flawless. His short hair spiked up and his slim body made me warm all over. I returned with the Cokes and quickly sipped to make me cool down.
Thank God for good conversationalists like him; with little effort I could let him talk by just asking a few questions and the required ooh's and ah's.
I found out he had taken up tennis a few years ago and it just evolved into a passion. He was also going to attend his last year in high school next year and was already 17, which surprised me because he struck me as a bit younger. Something we had in common because when I told him I was 20, he seemed equally surprised.
During our little conversation I had been smiling, looking at him disguising the fact I just wanted to jump this kid. Making my -I'm very interested in what you're saying-face while I just kept smiling and thinking about what it would be like to kiss these lips, undress that body, etc, of course. At a given point I felt a slight change in Matthew's look at me. For a moment I felt a pause in his flow of words and he watched me just for a second with a more profound smile and then he continued.
Must be imagining things, I let it go because it seemed too unreal as did this guy. I started to make more and more comments in our chat. After a while the people who organised this championship interrupted us. We should play our match at the no3 court.
"Good, one of my favourites," Matthew joked
"Probably not for much longer," I had to reply.
Although every minute with Matthew seemed like heaven, it put me in a difficult position. Could I put my feelings aside to play this figment of my wildest fantasies? I seriously doubted it.
Comments are welcomed at optionalomen@hotmail.com
In a few days parts 2 and 3 will be submitted.