Boston, Fall 2007

to M.C.

this is a true story -

I needed a break. I needed a place to stay.

I had moved to Boston some six months ago, in a particular cold spring. Boston seemed as good of a place as any to get a fresh start after the hellish last two years I had spent in New York trying to fix a relationship, trying to like my job, trying to drink and party a little less. The company I worked for had an opening in their Boston branch; I was well-liked, well-regarded and got the job easily. I had just turned 30 and felt no ties strong enough to keep me from trying something new.

My first apartment was always supposed to be temporary; it was small, blandly furnished, way too quiet and I hated it. My landlord seemed to reciprocate the feeling, for reasons about which I was never really clear about. I had intended to look for a place to buy, but kept postponing the endeavor. I was loving my new job, building a social life at the slow pace I had intended and enjoying the city. When I received an unexpected notice from my landlord to vacate my apartment by the end of September, I had just been back from some time off on the West Coast and was not prepared to look for nor settle on a place to buy. My trip had been intense and less than relaxing. I was actually looking forward to shutting myself off in my apartment and emerge only for work, until I found some sort of drive and energy to mix in the world again.

One of my colleagues at work, Jake Winfield, came to me with an offer that was just perfect: he was taking a month off work, traveling to Australia to visit the country and a college friend who had moved there a few years before. He was looking for someone to house-sit or sublet his apartment.

I liked Jake; I couldn't say I knew him very well, but we always had been friendly towards each other. He was a couple of years older than me, but it still put us both in a somewhat sparse age-bracket at work. Most of the people, or the men at least, seemed to be either over 50 or just fresh out of college (interns and PAs mostly). Jake was tall, lean and muscular, with short dark hair, a permanent stubble and, I noticed early on, very large, long and bony hands. He had caught my eyes on my first day at work, but, for all his warm, calm and easy-going demeanor, there had been no obvious sign of him coming on to me. He worked on a different floor than mine, but we would often run into each other and chat briefly. I do remember that, sometime during my first week there, he had asked inquisitively whether we knew each other from somewhere or whether I was a "model or something", because I looked familiar. His whole line of questioning was matter-of-factedly enough that I left it at that.

As an occasional smoker, I benefited from quite a few gossiping sessions during smoking breaks with colleagues, mostly women. There were all in obvious awe with Jake's subdued sexiness and elegant charm, but I never got more than titbits about a rumored broken engagement, giggles about their desire to set him up with someone they knew, and general deference towards his privacy. On three occasions, I shared a cigarette with Jake himself; Jake didn't smoke, except before important presentations he felt nervous about. These moments had a particular beauty to them, they lasted longer than my usual ten minutes and were always brought to an end by the interrupting arrival of a third person. Jake's attitude was usually an inordinate sequence of showing himself relaxed, intense or politely guarded. I tried and managed to keep myself in check and maintain some distance that felt appropriate. The two men in my life who left me quite unraveled for a while had been one straight man I fell hard for and one co-worker with whom I had been involved. Jake Winfield fit at least one of these criteria and I found the inner discipline to channel my libido in other directions – which were numerous enough as a newcomer in a new city.

The deal was quickly done, a week before his departure, leaving us both relieved to have found a mutually beneficial solution. I offered to pick him up and drive him to Logan the day he was set to leave.

Jake left on a Saturday morning. He was excited to go and was more animated than I had ever seen him. He didn't seem worried to leave his place to a stranger, which in a sense I wasn't. I had packed the little I owned in my car and was all settled in by midday. I had not even seen the apartment before (or after) agreeing to sublet it. It wasn't before I had put all my stuff in place and dropped on the sofa that I started to take it all in. The place was beautiful. In many ways, it resembled Jake himself. It was dark, elegant, masculine, a little austere. Some exposed brick walls in the living room and bedroom. Retro style leather couches, tons of books and magazines neatly stacked, big tv, nice cluttered desk in the bedroom, large comfortable empty bed. Some weights were on the bedroom floor, pushed in a corner. It looked like an apartment that had been quite messy before a recent, somewhat rushed tidying effort.

I felt a strange intoxication; this place was mine, for the time being. Jake's place was mine. I was suddenly a bit overwhelmed by a sort of realization that I fancied him much more than I had myself noticed. And here I was, within his most intimate space. I started to walk around the apartment, making a point to grasp that this is where beautiful, sexy, intriguing Jake is brewing coffee, showering, sleeping, relaxing, watching tv. This is also where he wakes up with a boner, brings women (men?) home to have sex with, this is where he lounges in his underwear, killing time. This is where he watches porn probably (doesn't everybody?), this is where he jerks off.

I started to feel flustered and incredibly aroused.

There were a lot of framed pictures everywhere around his apartment. He was on almost all of them, but never alone. They showed him at all ages, in all moods, in all sorts of company. I felt almost guilty to be there; I had to remind myself that he had himself asked me to spend a month amongst all his belongings, that everything I would see, touch or use was left there by him knowingly and willingly. I was not an intruder, I was not a stalker. But it felt like it, just slightly, just enough to be actually quite exciting.

I decided to calm down and savor the thought of having a whole uninterrupted weekend to get all this strange trepidation out of my system. I could actually take my time.

I made some coffee and went outside, on his tiny little balcony, to have a cigarette. Jake's apartment was on the fourth floor, there was a nice, urban view on the busy street, and other buildings facing his. I thought about all these windows, all these people behind these windows who could watch Jake every night. What did they see?

I went inside and started looking around. The magazines were quite what I could have expected if I had ever taken the time to think about Jake's interests or personality: The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic, some alumni magazines from Cornell, a couple of fitness magazines (whose covers all seemed to promise great abs and strong arms – is that something he is concerned about?). A few DVDs were piled orderly next to the TV – they mostly turned out to be video games on closer inspection, except for "Office Space", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and a couple of classic DeNiro movies.

I opened every cupboard in the kitchen, every drawer and wardrobe. He eats healthy, he dresses well and has a rather impressive collection of T-shirts and sneakers. I did find all these shirts, suits and ties in which I see him every day. I found his stack of underwear, most of them white or grey Y-fronts, a bunch of boxers too. Without thinking much, I undressed, almost mechanically, and put on one of his pair of briefs. They fitted perfectly. I put my jeans back, pulled a white t-shirt from his pile, and went back to the living room, to the couch, to catch my breath and enjoy the feeling of Jake's underwear on my cock, my balls and my butt. I felt incredibly, intensely horny.

I tried to tell myself to enjoy the feeling, jerk off and move on to actually do something with my weekend, but I was too engrossed in my own running imagination brought my immediate surroundings and the possibilities it offered for further fantasies. I had to know more, I had to do more.

I knew that the mother-load of information would be on his computer. This is where, nowadays, all our life is stored, including gigabytes of our most intimate longings and experiences. But I wasn't sure whether it was password protected and I wasn't sure I actually wanted to know too much too fast. I liked basking in the emerging idea of Jake as a horndog, masturbating constantly in every room of his apartment. I liked the idea of him having a wild, intense sex life, of which I might find traces somewhere. I wasn't quite ready to be brought back to a reality of Jake having little porn on his computer, of him boringly watching overexposed pictures of lame straight websites with milfs, sluts and eager Eastern European whores. It would have been hot enough for sure, and would push me nicely and quickly to a satisfying climax. But the infinite possibilities of Jake's sex life would whither down to insignificance, and I would spend a month lusting about a fairly average, albeit good-looking, straight guy.

I decided to stick for the time being to the image of Jake masturbating. Where would he do it? How? He might need or like some lube – most guys do. Where would I hide it if I lived here and had to vacate the place for a while? I went straight to the first bed stand, on the right side of his bed. I was almost disappointed to be successful so fast. I did have to rummage a bit through Advil's, watches, or cufflinks, but there it was, at the rear of the drawer: a bottle of KY. So he sleeps on the right side of his bed. So he likes to have lube handy. So he probably sometimes jerks off lying on his bed.

The bottle was almost empty – which made me irritatingly aware that I couldn't be using it myself more than once or twice without making it possible that he notices it when he gets back. The thought occurred to me that I should actually use it, and use it all, to have him know that I jerked off here using his lube. I could picture the moment when he would be by his computer, his pants open and his dick out, getting hard, and he'd come to his bed stand and find the empty lube, realizing while gripping his hard cock that I had just been doing the same just some days before. He would have the image of me, pumping my dick, at the very same time he is stroking his own. Me, who he thought he knew from somewhere, me who he thought might have been a model, me who he ran into every day, me who was inexplicably aloof to his oozing sexiness.

I felt a little dizzy. I was so incredibly turned on. I needed sex. I needed to touch a body, to fuck, to get blown, to hold someone tight. I went through all the picture frames again in his apartment, until I found the one I had noticed earlier: Jake on a beach, in swim trunks, standing next to a shorter, stockier blond surfer, flashing a big smile. His body was tan and ripped, his trunks hanging low, showcasing tights abs and some protruding pubic hair. He was really thin, yet with big shoulders and strong arms. The picture didn't show his legs, which was a disappointment – or a task for the rest of my weekend. His chest was somewhat hairy, but whether he trimmed it slightly or the hair itself was short, I couldn't tell.

I lied down on the left side of the bed, undressed completely but for Jake's underwear and started to slowly stroke my already hard cock. I held the frame with my hand, staring at Jake's dashing smile and body. Once it was burned in my brain, I put it back down and reached for the lube. The bottle was a little sticky, which brought back flashes of Jake jerking off on this very bed. I held on to that image, picturing him jerking off with me, right next to me, looking at me intensely, smiling warmly. The fantasy was so intense that I had a hard time not cumming too fast. I edged over and over again. Then I saw him cumming, I saw his sperm splattered all over his chest and I too reached climax, in somewhat violent shaking bursts.

I was panting, dizzy and flushed. I decided to stay still, not move, feel my cum dry on my body, trying to hold on to the image of Jake lying next to me, recovering from an equally intense orgasm. I closed my eyes and was filled with the bliss of realizing that this was just the beginning of the weekend, of the whole month I would be spending here. I fell deeply asleep, warmed by the autumnal setting sun through the window and the heater who seemed to be going full blast.

I woke up two hours later. It was dark outside already, the sun was almost down. I was starving. I hopped in the shower and as I was looking for some clothes, decided to use Jake's. I snapped a couple of pictures of the inside of his drawers and wardrobe, to help me put everything back into place at the end of my stay here.

I put on a pair of his boxers and a Cornell Lacrosse t-shirt. I had bought some sandwich that morning and ate it, sitting on the couch. I noticed that I had received some texts from friends I had made in Boston; Charlie (a girl) and Chuck were among my favorite people here and were trying to get me to join them at some party in Cambridge. Any evening with Charlie and Chuck was bound to be lovely, or fun, or wild, and Chuck was a very enthusiastic bisexual guy with whom I had ended up hooking up more times that I could recall.

Yet, I couldn't bring myself to set the motions needed to leave this apartment. Not tonight, possibly not this weekend at all. I ignored the texts and quickly cleaned up the plate I had used. I didn't want just yet for this apartment to display the visual evidence of my presence here.

I went back to his bedroom and sat at the desk. I took a deep breath. I had noticed that the laptop we all received from work and use wherever we go was missing; he had most likely taken it with him on his trip. A Mac was on his desk however, the one he must have gotten for private use. I opened it and turned it on slowly, aware that much of my fate was resting on whether I could actually access it. It blinked and I was facing the image of his desktop, cluttered with files and documents. A spark seemed to rush through my spine. This is it.

I tried to collect myself and concentrate on the things I should not be doing, for fear of him finding that I had been snooping in his things – he had given me the wifi code but hadn't mentioned I could use his computer. Do not open his email. Do not save anything. If I did end up on the internet, which I would, erase all cookies and history. This was actually where I decided to start. I opened his Safari and went straight to his browsing history. Here again, as earlier in my search for his lube, I didn't have the time to think much before I found exactly what I was looking for. Last night, Jake Winfield had been watching gay porn.

The names of the sites did not leave any room for doubt. Most of them I didn't know, some I was turned on to notice were sites I often visited myself. I opened them one by one. Since I have learned from previous experience that you can never fully guess what kind of porn people you know or meet do watch in their own time, I was careful not to make too many assumptions as I went through the list. By the time I reached its end, I could establish that Jake had been wanking between 10:27pm (I remember he called me at 10:15 to quickly go over the last details of my picking him up) and 11:19pm. He had first gone to a site that showed a whole bunch of pictures of guys jerking off, then moved to a few sites dedicated to fucking (a couple of them bisexual), then spent the last ten minutes on a site that seemed to specialize in various kinds of athletes fucking each other's brains in locker rooms.

I paused for a second, to take it all in and reconcile my recollections of Jake and what I had just found. Jake is attracted to men, Jake is turned on by guys jerking off, guys fucking women together, guys having sex. Then, smiling, I said out loud "Jake Winfield likes cock".

I stood up, walked zombie-like to the living room and started pacing. I opened the window a little and smoked a cigarette, carefully blowing through the crack. I opened one of the beer left in the fridge. I sat on the couch, but quickly stood back up. I was restless, my mind cluttered by surprise, exhilaration, perplexity and lust.

I went back to the laptop and to the browsing history, and looked further back in time. Jake apparently jerks almost every night, typically around 10:30 for thirty minutes to an hour, sometimes he starts past midnight – probably when he's back from a night out. That pattern seemed to indicate that he didn't hook up much, at least in the past two weeks. I checked some other, different sites he visited; they confirmed he had fairly regular tastes – and very much similar to mine.

Browsing down, and just before reaching the point when I had seen enough for now, something did stand out. Two weeks ago, on a Sunday, he had spent five hours straight on gaydar, a hookup site. I tried to open it, but it asked for a username and password.

I was quite familiar myself with this site. It was one of the popular ones, which I had used quite intensively, even if sporadically. I would go through phases, usually lasting two weeks to a month, where I would somewhat obsessively spend hours on end chatting with guys and sometimes actually meeting up for a fairly anonymous one-night-stand. I knew the feeling of logging in, browsing profiles of users online, fielding lame, tiresome inquiries (sup? Stats?), looking at pictures of dicks and chests and muscles until they all start to blur into one. But I also knew the feeling of ultimately hitting it off with someone, shedding of lot of inhibitions by sharing intimate fantasies and dirty talk, unlocking private pictures for us to actually see each other's faces and letting the fantasy becoming a touch more real and very much more intense. I knew the feeling of spending five hours straight on this site, and usually ending them with a quick and at times abrupt disconnect right after you have finally released all the cum that had been building up.

It dawned on me that I may have been chatting once with Jake, if he had been visiting the site for a while. But I would have recognized him, as I would never spend too much time chatting with a guy if he didn't, at some point, show a picture of his face. But Jake definitely has a profile on the site and it felt suddenly urgent that I find it out. I went to fetch my own laptop, sat on the bed and turned it on. I opened gaydar, logged in and went to the search function. I filtered my search by location (Boston – downtown) and age (28 – 32, as Jake might be one of those guys who shed a couple of years on their profile). A bunch of profiles came back. The ones displaying a face were easy to go through and eliminate. The ones displaying a chest I had to scan through attentively, holding Jake's picture on the beach to make a more careful comparison whenever in doubt. The ones showing just an erect penis were, unfortunately, useless to me. Nothing seemed to match – which meant he probably was one of those "dickpic" profiles. My mounting, and irrational, resentment was quickly quashed down when I realized that, indeed, so was I (my profile was on the search results).

I closed my laptop and went back to the desk. I finished scanning through his web history, but it didn't go further back than three weeks. He did erase it at some point and probably had a good reason to do so. Yet his leaving for a month and letting his computer near a total stranger hadn't been enough of one to erase before he left.

I was still convinced that there was more to be found. If Jake was such an avid consumer of online porn, he most likely had some sort of private collection. I surprised myself when I stood up and went to lift his mattress. Nothing there, of course, and I smiled at my old-school foolishness that made me think, just for a moment, that a single grown-up man would hide a stash of dirty magazines under his mattress, like a 1970s teenager. I went to the living room and rummaged through the area and pieces of furniture around his TV set, but I did not find any hidden DVDs. It had to be on his computer.

I sat down in front the desk and started a careful examination of the different folders that were on his hard drive. I had started by the main pictures folder but knew beforehand nothing of a sexual nature would be stored there. I decided to keep the enjoyment of watching hundreds of pictures Jake for a later time, a later day. He had many other folders, and had many sub-folders, and sub-sub-folders created and filled with various documents pertaining to work, academic interests, hobbies. I went through each, one by one.

I was started to feel a little numb when, four levels down some kind of accounting folder, I was faced with two new sub-folders that, finally, seemed promising. One was named "pics", another "vids". I had seen so many pictures already today, browsing through the websites Jake had been jacking off to last night, I opened the video folder first. I had a quick, shuddering, startle as dozens (hundreds) of video files icons suddenly appeared on the screen. That was a lot of porn. I quickly scanned through their names and they seemed to fit with I had made out of Jake's tastes so far. Of course, to see whether Jake had more deviant or peculiar fetishes would require watching them all. I had a whole month ahead of me and I was, again after the tedious fifteen minutes opening boring folders, back to a level of frantic arousal and curiosity that led me to open the picture folder. It was neatly organized in various subfolders, most of them apparently describing the main attraction to the pics ("JO", "fuck", "oral", etc). Two other stood out: "me" and "gaydar". I noticed my hand shaking a bit when moving the mouse to the "me" folder" and double-clicking it.

This is where it all comes together, I thought, glancing at tiny icons of pictures apparently displaying Jake and his naked body in various forms. This was where this whole day has led me to. From the first drawer I opened, from the first stack of magazines I checked through, this was what I was always trying to find or to get a sense of. This was how I was hoping my horny quest would be ending, in a fantasy world constructed since noon today.

I quickly opened a bunch of the pictures, at random, to get an idea of what I had just found. The folder seemed to consist of sets of pictures of Jake taken with a web cam from the very place where I was sitting. It also had yet another folder, named with an apparently random sequence of numbers. Each series of pictures, obviously captured at different points over the last few months, showed Jake progressively undressing, jerking off, posing sexy, zooming on various parts of his body (including many shots of his cock in different stages of arousal), and cumming for the camera. In one series, he starts wearing a t-shirt and jeans, in another just wearing a robe (and looking like he just took a shower), in yet another wearing the kind of business attire I see him every day in. One caught my eyes too, where he looks like he's just back from a run: he's all sweaty and wearing the jogging attire in which I had once seen him leave the office building.

I did feel a certain shortness of breath, a shakiness that I rarely experienced. I was so horny, my dick was so hard it almost hurt a bit. I started stroking it, but the lightest touch seemed to be close to sending me over the edge. I couldn't go on much longer, I knew, so I decided to take one series of pictures and enjoy it, just that one for today, instead of frantically opening all these pictures in no order.

I picked the series with his shirt and tie. There were about fifteen pictures. In the first one, he was fully dressed and staring intensely at the webcam. In the next one, he had his shirt open with his tie still hanging loose and wearing only white briefs underneath. He was rubbing his chest. The next two were close ups of his dick, half hard, with his briefs slightly pulled downed. His cock was beautiful; it wasn't particularly thick, but it seemed very long, with a great smooth skin texture and a shiny bulbous head. Then he was jerking off, with his shirt wide open and no tie. Then, close-ups of his now hard dick, one clearly showing precum dripping a bit. Then he was fully naked and the rest of the series showed him jacking off, closing his eyes, or staring at the cam, or looking up at the ceiling in some kind of ecstasy, or looking down at his own cock, at the movement of his hand stroking it.

I started the series from the beginning again, watching them slowly while carefully jacking off. It was odd to recognize the room, every object in the background. I could see that, at some point, the lube bottle is on the night stand behind him; he must have stood up and helped himself. I was enthralled; the elegant beauty of everyday Jake was here transformed and channeled into an oozing, magnetic sex god. I couldn't last longer; I pulled out my t-shirt, quickened my stroking pace and came all over my chest.

My vision was a little blurry, but when I recovered and could see clearly again, I was facing, on the screen, an image of Jake mirroring almost exactly my own situation: on this chair, facing a screen, chest full of fresh cum. I smiled.

I wiped myself off with Jake's t-shirt and took a deep breath. The release had been incredible and I needed to cool off, if I wanted to avoid being driven mad by lust. But yet unable to fully tame my emerging addiction, I decided to take a brief look at the "gaydar" folder, to get a teasing preview of what my Sunday would most likely be made of. The folder had about a hundred of pictures of different guys. Jake had obviously saved the profile and private pictures of guys he had chatted with – or just fancied. Most of them were at least decent-looking, but their types and ages varies widely. Scruffy and preppy, twinks and mature, nerds and bad boys, Jake seemed to be non-discriminating – and easily turned on. As I scrolled down and opened a few of them, I did recognize a small number of guys I had myself either noticed on the site or actually chatted with (none with whom I hooked up). Then I froze.

Towards the end of the list, I recognized my pictures. Pictures of my dick and body, which a lot of people could see by browsing the site. But also my private pictures (webcam shots of my face or flattering pictures taken at Central Park a couple of years ago). And one picture of the kind I almost never take, let alone send: a picture that shows both my face and my cock.

I could count on my hand the occasions on which, and against my better, cooler judgement, my lust had led me to snap cam pics of my jerking off; there were all when I had become so enthralled in a very hot chat session. And this hadn't happened for a while; in fact, it had happened only once since I had moved to Boston. It was during my last spell on gaydar, the first half of June. I had started chatting with this guy Will and we had managed to quickly get past the usual banalities. Whereas I usually led the conversation and liked to push the other guy beyond his comfort sex zone, Will had managed to do the same to me. He succeeded in making me pour out fantasy scenarios I was barely aware I longed for, sharing past experiences I had forgotten about and driving me completely mad with lust. This happened only twice and the second time, he dared me to snap a picture of me at that very moment and email it to him. It was that picture at which I was staring right now, on Jake's computer, in Jake's room.

I could not make sense of any of it. Had Will and Jake met on gaydar and exchanged pictures of guys they previously chatted with? I felt angry, upset at my stupidity and at their callousness. But something was nagging at me. I went back to the "me" picture folder and opened the sub-folder with strange numbers in its name. I had neglected to look inside it earlier, the abundance of sex treasures in the main folder being captivating enough. This is where I worked out something that shook me even harder than anything I had found out about Jake in the last few hours. The folder contained all the pictures that Will had made available to me in our chat sessions. And that folder was in the "me" folder, not the "gaydar" folder where I, and a dozen of other, unsuspecting men, had all our intimate body parts and public appearance saved up for Jake's personal pleasure. Will was Jake and Jake was Will. Will never actually existed, the pictures used had probably been taken from anywhere on the web. Find a few pics of a guy and you can build on online profile.

I instantly shut off his laptop. I felt dizzy, upset. Jake had seen me naked, had read my wildest thoughts and fantasies, had had me jerk off for him, had made me take a picture to capture the moment. And since then, Jake had politely greeted me at work every day, shared a couple of smoking breaks with me, casually chatted in the hallways, and had offered me to house-sit his place.

I stood up, put on a pair of jeans, took a clean t-shirt in Jake's drawer, and tried on one of his pairs of sneakers. His feet were obviously bigger than mine and I felt like I was wearing clown shoes. I kicked them off and put on my own old pair of stan smiths. I grabbed a jacket, my ipod and the keys, and left the apartment in a hurry. I put on an old Tom Waits album, set the volume to very loud and started to walk, with no clear sense of direction or intent. I just needed to walk, to be on the street, with real people surrounding me, going about their business on a cool autumnal Saturday night in Boston.

I felt manic, I couldn't sort through all the conflicting emotions running through my cluttered brain. There was anger, a sense of betrayal, spite at his pathetic cowardly behavior, puzzlement at how fucked up Mr Pretty Boy from Cornell actually is. There was also lust, undeniably. Jake's own naked pictures kept flashing in my mind. Lust and anger must have converged at some point, as I found myself thinking about all the ways and positions I would angry-fuck him one day, debase and defile him as dirtily as I could.

None of this made me calmer – it only ended up making me slightly hard again. When I realized I must have been walking for almost an hour (the tom waits album had started back at track 1), I sat down on a bench, closed my eyes and for the umpteenth time that day, took a deep breath. This had been an insane day. I became aware that I hadn't eaten anything, apart from that sandwich a while ago. I had spent the whole day obsessing about a guy, sneaking on him, driven purely by lust and a not entirely healthy fascination for him. I had rummaged through his things, snooped in his computer, trying to construct his sexual identity, tastes and quirks. I was even wearing his own underwear and t-shirt.

Yes, of course, I wasn't behaving much better or much worse than he had. There were differences, many of them that I could self-righteously bring up in my internal suffocating monologue. But I suddenly felt too exhausted to think about it any longer and at peace enough with our awkward, messed up little dance. I just wanted to go home and sleep. Home was Jake's place, however comfortable I then felt about that, so Jake's place was where I dazedly walked back.

I took out my jacket, didn't shower, didn't eat. I just gulped half of a beer can, kicked off my shoes and lied down on the couch. I couldn't be in Jake's bedroom, not while it was night, while it was just as I left it, just as it appeared on Jake's pictures of him jerking off. I needed to be in the other room, the one with the New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, the one with the video games and "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind". I dozed off surprisingly quickly and slept like a log.

I woke up before dawn. My body ached a bit and I was starving. I took a long shower, which seemed to bring me back to life and some degree of clarity. I went to Jake's bedroom to grab a pair of his underwear. I realized, first, that I was now doing this automatically and would probably be using them until I leave and, second, that being in Jake's bedroom didn't bring back any mixed or angry feelings similar to those last night. I took some time to look again at all the objects, frames, pictures, and furniture, to bring back a fuller, more real picture of the actual Jake, the one I know and liked, the one I see at work and on whom I probably have had a crush on. I went for a walk, got some double espressos at Starbucks, and enjoyed the rising sun under a crisp dark blue sky. I loved this city, I felt energized and content.

I came back to Jake's, sat at the kitchen counter and turned on my computer. I looked online at the Globe, the NY Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times (old habits die hard). I thought about Jake, briefly, thinking he is now settled in Sydney, probably soon headed to bed as they are about 15 hours ahead over there. I was surprised and a little amazed that thinking about him was starting to make me feel horny again. Yet it was quite usual, actually, for me to feel horny on early weekend mornings, rested and jazzed up by two shots of espresso. A quick wank in the shower was a common start of such days. I had already taken a shower, though, but I felt a tugging inside that led me to log in to gaydar. The events of last night had, among other things, brought back some of the feelings and excitement that were part of my bouts on the site. It had been a while, since June, and I felt curious to see if anything was happening so early on a hooking up site.

The site showed the number of guys online – that number was, as expected, much lower than when I usually logged in. It also showed whether guys whose profile you had bookmarked were online themselves. I bookmarked a lot of profiles, either because they caught my eyes and I may want to chat them up some day, or because I actually have chatted or hooked up with them. Three bookmarked guys were online. One of them was Will.

It startled me of course; I was not quite ready to plunge back into that Will/Jake mess. I cursed myself for logging in in the first place. Yet, I wanted to do something, I couldn't bring myself to just log off and get on with my day. I knew I didn't want to confront him either, not quite yet. So I chose to do nothing, to stay logged in, to force myself to wait at least fifteen minutes before doing anything. I cleaned up the apartment a bit; in less than 24 hours, they were already mugs and plates, clothes and shoes scattered everywhere. I went to smoke a cigarette on the balcony. The sun was now fully up; it must be 10:30pm in Australia. I was perplexed that Jake would already be logging in on gaydar on his very first night in Sydney. He is a horndog, I guess, which yesterday was one of the hottest thing I imagined about him.

I knew what I wanted to do. I took my computer to his bed, sat cross legged in front of it, and typed a message to "Will", just saying "Hey – how've you been?" I got an instant reply. "Hey!! It's been a while". After we'd established we've both been doing fine and that, yes, it was very hot chatting together earlier this summer, I asked him what he was up to so early in the morning. "Not much. I'm just chilling. You?". "You at home ?" "Yeah" I had to try something. «Nice how overcast weather makes you want to snuggle at home, right ?" The weather was bright and shiny. "Absolutely".

I decided to quicken the pace a little. I told him I was house siting a friend's place and was having a great time. It seemed to take him a little while to answer. Maybe he was chatting with some other guy on a different screen, maybe he was taken a little aback. "Oh yeah? How so?" "I've been jerking off constantly since I got here yesterday. I haven't left the place, just constant wanking." A pause. "Hot. You're making me hard", he typed back. He had been, in our two previous sessions, more eloquent. More proactive too in steering the conversation towards questions and areas that seem to get him off. "Who's the friend?" he then asked. "Someone from work. Nice guy. Hot" "Nice. So what got you all worked up ?" « I dunno. Just being here i guess. Among his stuff." "You into him ? » "I am now." "But not before ?" "I feel like I know him more, staying here. Hard to explain." "Try." "Let's say he has interesting porn on his computer."

There was a pause again. Was he thinking about to say next ? Deleting his first attempt at an answer ? He couldn't possibly be chatting with someone else too at this point.

"You looked inside his computer." There no was question mark. I felt it was significant, but couldn't tell precisely why or how. "He knows stuff about me, it only seemed fair". "What does he know about you ?" "That I'm gay. I'm fairly open about it." "Is he ?" "What ?" "Gay". "He never said. But his jerking off habits have some story to tell."

Another pause followed, which irritated me as it dragged on. I wasn't sure exactly where I was heading and I guess I had been hoping that he would be steering me in some kind of direction. Instead, he only seemed to want to know how much I had learned and what my reaction was. I wasn't sure I had any reaction left at this point. I just wanted something to happen. Anything.

I decided to go smoke a cigarette outside. I could make him wait to, I wasn't going to give him any upper hand and just wait there, in front of my screen, for Jake to decide when he would grant me a response.

When I came back to my computer, three lines were blinking. "So his porn made you into him ?" "?" "Are you still there ?"

"Yes", I replied. "Sorry. Just had a smoke in the other room." "You smoke inside ?" I smiled. He had told me on the drive to the airport to refrain from smoking inside and use the balcony instead. « Yes. It shouldn't smell by the time he gets back". "How many times have jerked off ?" "Three times yesterday". I thought I should spice it up a bit by adding one orgasm to my list. Besides, I probably would have jerked off one last time before heading to bed – if I hadn't found the pictures of me. "It's very hot that you jerked off to his porn". "It was. It was fucking awesome. I also jerked off to naked pics of him I found. Shot the biggest load".

Another pause on his end. I knew whatever he replied next would decide much of the rest of this conversation, possibly the nature of my future contacts with him. "What were you thinking about ?" "What I would do to him and with him". "Tell me". "I would undress him, while I keep my clothes on. I would touch him, caress him, hold him. I would bring him to my crotch, pull my cock out of my pants and have him blow me." "And ?" "I would fuck his face. Then I would kiss him. For a long long time. I would bring him to the window, have him face the street, hugging him close and tight from behind." "And ?" « I would kiss his neck, pinch his nipples, hold him very tight." « This is hot. You're making me hard." "Then, whip your dick out and start stroking." "Done" "Then I would spit on my fingers and wet his hole. I would slowly push my hard dick inside him, just the head at first." "Go on." "I would slide out just a bit, then push back in. I'd repeat that a few times, until he is ready for me ». "I'm so hard right now" "Then I would push all the way in and start to pound him. I'm still hugging him tight, his face is pressed to the window". "hmm" "I would take him to his bed, have him lie on his back, raise his legs and hold his ankles. I would watch him while I slowly finally undress for him". "yes" "Then I would start fucking him again. In and out. Real hard. Always staring at him while he stares at me". "hm"

His replies were getting shorter, a telling sign that he was jerking off. I was incredibly horny, thanks to the vivid fantasy I was describing, to the fact that it was turning him on and thanks to his jacking off with me all the way in Australia. My cock was really hard and I had to stroke it.

"And ?"

He wanted more. I was torn between bringing him to climax and jerking myself off, which would keep me from the keyboard. I decided to let him know of my dilemma.

"Then jerk off with me", he said. "I can picture you, I can picture you fucking. It'll be hot". "I don't want to cum just now ». "I do. I'm so fucking horny right now. Jerk off with me. Cum with me". "I'm jerking off. Thinking about you." "About me or about your friend ?" "I'm jerking off and it feels fantastic ». Nothing much then happened on the screen, as we were both jacking our dicks – quite furiously on my part. The naked pictures of him, his body, his dick, kept flashing and knowing that he was right there with me was quickly sending me over the edge.

"I'm gonna cum soon", I managed to quickly type. "me 2" I erupted, spraying my t-shirt and gasping a bit. "I just came", I wrote.

After a while came his reply : "Me too. That was great." This is when chats usually ended – often quite abruptly. I didn't know what to do. Post-climax, I didn't feel the energy for a confession, nor a continuation of this cat-and mouse game. Nothing came from his end, but he didn't sign off.

I just typed "Good night, Jake. Enjoy Sydney. xo", then slammed shut my computer.

The whole thing barely lasted twenty minutes. My previous two chats with « Will" had lasted close to two hours each. There had been intense build-up, elaborate stories or fantasies described minutely, pointed and piercing questions. This morning was, comparatively, a quickie. It felt like a let-down for a minute, but I came to think that this was the climax of eight months' worth of foreplay between us. He had been fantasizing on his own about me and I had grown (albeit kept in check) an attraction towards him. We both had jerked off thinking about and engaging somewhat with the other, him as Will last June, me watching his pictures last night.

I actually felt like I had gotten something heavy out of my system. I had no idea what would happen next, on my part or his. But my head felt clearer and my mind at peace. I texted Charlie and Chuck and we ended up spending the day together, walking and lounging in Franklin Park. I did tell them everything about the strange last 24 hours. Charlie was mesmerized, Chuck was giggling like a teenager. I promised to keep them abreast of any further developments.

There weren't many. It had occurred to me that Jake could choose to stay in denial. Pretend that Will was Will and Jake was Jake. And this is what exactly what he did. Having heard nothing from either persona after two days, I sent Jake an email casually asking him if he was settling OK in Australia, and I logged in on gaydar to check for any news. There was a message from Will, which said "Hey there. Great chatting with you. Very hot. Hot for u 2 i guess, cos you sent off mixing my name !! is jake your friend ??? hope to chat some more soon." Jake replied to my email saying that indeed, all was well Down Under and that he was looking forward to four weeks of clearing his mind.

Charlie and Chuck seemed to be convinced that I had gotten things wrong. I myself wasn't sure any longer. But as the month passed and nothing else happened, I started to care less and less. I couldn't find in me to chat with Will and play Jake's game. In the end, he was a nice guy, confused and conflicted. Formerly straight, probably, but still slowly cracking open the door of an obfuscating closet. There is always collateral damage in these circumstances and I saw no joy in being part of that. I did wonder at how the pictures he had chosen for his fake Will profile showed someone who looked nothing like him, a short, bulky, blond guy. "Will" actually looked a bit like Jake's surfer friend on his beach picture. He was probably working through some issues ("He's on journey!", Charlie quipped once). And I did feel a pang of guilt and curiosity at the fact that I was more attracted to slightly flirtatious mystery Jake from work, than to confused masturbation addict Jake.

Jake came back at the end of the month, we exchanged niceties. It was cordial ; Jake, as before, displayed his strange mix of aloofness and flirtation. I, as before, kept my polite, smiling distance. We barely saw each other at work ; he might have been avoiding me or I was paying less attention. I went to live with Charlie, who was ecstatic to have a roommate ("Just like in college !"), and happily stayed with her for eight months, until I left Boston.

I did, and still do, wish the best for Jake. It does turn me on to think about him from time to time, and I confess I've jerked off quite often to his pictures in the following years. I had copied them all on a flash key, just before deleting all of mine from his computer.

Comments, suggestions, reactions are welcome: benashtonvilla@yahoo.com