Double Play
Ch. 1: The Battery
The wind gusts at third base as Cruz turns away from the dust lifting toward him, the block 16 on his back reminding me of my dad's old jersey folded in a box under my bed. He ducks into the dugout, stifling a cough.
Dex pounds his glove behind the plate to get my attention. Back in the box is Stanowicz staring me down while taking a couple abbreviated swings. Stano's a class A ass-wipe; his brother played farm league in Toledo, and baby bro thinks he's on his way to Cooperstown simply by association. It was a long way from Tuscaloosa but all the same to him.
"Bring it, Stinger!" Cruz shouts encouragement from the dugout, wiping his eyes to clear the grit and tears. I catch Dex's quick flash of a call--high and inside, scare the fucker off the plate. Crouching stretches his uniform around muscular thighs; fingers press against his crotch, his junk protected by a black rubber cup in his favorite Russel A jock. Face covered by a mask, he has only these signals to communicate. I have a head shake or a nod, and I call him off, waiting for that Mork-and-Mindy greeting before setting my signature motion: high knee cock, a pause, rip it fast and furious. My hand slaps my back on the follow through and the ball hurls toward the plate. I watch in slow-motion and muted colors. Dex's glove starts to drop, anticipating the path of my slider.
Tunnel vision has its downside. Stano leans in, and suddenly the ball is screaming right back at my face. Reflexes snap my glove into place, my heart pounding as the stinging clap of leather on leather punctuates the long afternoon with staccato finality, our single run holding up for the W. Color returns. The guys swarm around me taking swats at my butt before heading to shake hands with the other team. My body hums with adrenaline, feeling on top for now.
Dex canters up, mask off, eyes wide and wild. A chest bump on the mound then his calloused hand on my neck and his sweaty forehead against my chest. I have six inches on him and look down on a bird's nest of hair. The high from winning would inevitably lead to a letdown, but I soak up the moment.
"You OK, you crazy fuck?!" He chuckles, but I feel his concern. Warm blood flushes my body, and I laugh to put him at ease, returning a pat to the back of his head. "Got a little cocky, I guess," and I release the grip, share a semi-serious look, and separate to go and do the sportsmanship thing. Dex follows, chatter spreads, and the sun dips lower toward the hills.
Heading out of the trainer's room with my shoulder capped in an icepack, I pass Dex in the cold tub. I cringe at the cubes floating around him. "How can you stand that shit?!"
"Just think warm thoughts, man." His voice is steady but ridiculous; he sounds a little high, a hint of mischief in his eyes.
He's a fireplug of a guy. Muscle like slabs of meat wrap around his shoulders; his traps pop. His chest is smooth and pink and puffs in the ice bath, his blonde curls--stuck in catcher's gear all day--flattened above a chiseled face. I know how he hurts from squatting all game, and I feel for him. He's my closest friend on the team.
I met him freshman year. He was a sophomore, but we were chill and I got to know his prankster side. He was also a lady-killer, a one-and-done type they called him. I guess you would say he's a stud, but I never get that vibe when we're together. To be honest, he acts like a kid a lot. Even so, girls beat each other back when we go to a bar or hit the clubs in the off-season. He always has a story about some freaky shit they're into: role play, water sports, pegging. "Pegging?"
"Yeah, man. Strap-ons--she's in charge. They get off on that shit." I raised an eyebrow but shrugged it off because he didn't seem shy when he said it. He was a goofball at times.
Thinking I'd annoy him, I reach into the frigid water and grab for his junk. "How warm ARE your thoughts, buddy?" I laugh as I close on his crotch. He doesn't flinch as I bump his stiff wrist with my own. I grab it before noticing his arms on both sides of the tub.
It is thick and near-bone-hard. Not warm, but a fat pickle in the icy murk of the cool-down bath. It pulses.
"So sorry, man, shit," I stammer, releasing his cock, withdrawing my frozen arm as heat burns across my face and around my stomach. What kind of monster dick? He splashes at me and laughs, thrusting upwards in mock copulation. A flash of periscope pink, and then he scoots me out of the room with his middle finger.
"Git!"
I hustle to our expansive locker room and, like a laser, home-in on the safety of my locker.
The water pounds my shoulder, heat spreading and separating the knots that formed there during the game. My hair, a little too shaggy, plasters against my head, water dripping along the closed mask of my face as I stand dreamily unconscious of my surroundings. My hands soap my body, an autopilot motion that soothes away residual soreness.
Growing up near Philly spared me a Southern mentality when mom relocated us to Macon, Georgia. We went to live with my dad's family. It was senior year in high school, and I had zero interest in all those kids in thrall to their good ole boy traditions. Girls, grades, parties--not for me. I focused on baseball.
It was a risk moving senior year, but the scouting reports followed me. Yes, I'm that good. (But I'm not a dick about it.) Recruiters liked what they saw, and I went with my heart to the SEC, a farm system all its own. Coach Hendricks was tough but honest and encouraging. He'd heard of me, of course, but said he wasn't looking for any prima donnas. I signed my letter on the spot. As a bonus, I was picked up by the Marlins for the future, putting a franchise mark on my back. It wasn't my beloved Phillies, but it was still the National League, and anyway, who knew what the next four years would bring.
I lived in the dorm and played sporadically that first year, mostly to build more muscle. Sophomore year saw a pivot as I was coming into my own.
The guys on the team rent a couple houses near campus. I have my own room in a place with two other pitchers; Dex lives with four guys a few blocks over. From the beginning, I followed his lead. I wasn't much for socializing, but I got a lot of attention for my size and talent. He used to visit my dorm, where we were idolized as jocks even if I was just a freshman. I guess I'm considered good looking. Light eyes, dark features, lean. I can fill out a tank top. Some chicks approached me, but word got out I wasn't interested in anything but the team and school. They call me aloof. A 'Yankee' by birth, so don't get too disappointed. Dex does a lot of talking on my behalf, and I pay it all no mind. He's a damn good catcher, and a good guy to help me navigate the scene by keeping the rest of the world at bay.
As advertised, I'm no prima donna. I do the hard work on the field and in the classroom. I keep myself busy: in the gym, the training room, watching film, study table. I hang out from time to time at one of the team houses, but only if I know Dex is there.
His name is Andy. Andrew Barrington on paper. We call him Dex because he's a switch hitter--like Andy-dexterous. Don't even say it--I didn't come up with that, but it stuck. He's from Atlanta, so my year in Macon made me like a cousin to him. He doesn't fit the pedigree in personality, although his family has money and bought the house where he lives with the guys. The parents can't fathom paying rent. And they despise his choice in school--the Crimson Tide are anathema to their Bulldogs--but he's building his own field of dreams and knows he could use the space the distance provides. Not a prodigal son but a young Henry V all the same.
Dex is generous in subtle ways. I balked the first time he tried to pay for something. "You're not a charity case, Scotty. I like to do stuff, and I consider you my friend." I didn't push it, but I make sure to pick up the tab every now and then to keep things in check.
We're barely twenty our second season--he skipped a grade somewhere along the line--and can't get into much trouble even if we want to. The local bartenders know we're athletes and Dex used family connections to get us into a fancy club one weekend, but we aren't getting hammered or anything and those outings are rare. We take our sport seriously. Well, there's the sex thing with all the girls he meets. I'm game to hear his crazy stories, but I don't grill him about that stuff. He leaves me alone, too. Usually.
"Feels good, huh Scotty?" Startled, I open my eyes. Dex reaches for the shower on the opposite wall with his back turned. "I'm jonesin' for hot water!" He smiles over his shoulder, adjusting the temp with one hand, squirting shampoo over his head with the other. Sudsing up with both hands, he faces the spray and spits out a mouthful of water.
I watch the bubbles funnel from his head down his thick neck and undulating back, sliding into the crease of his spine and collecting above his meaty butt. The color has returned to his creamy skin. I stare. More tunnel vision and the slow slow build-up of soap clouds collecting at the edge of a waterfall. In the steam and bright light, his ass shines slippery and smooth. His hamstrings are tree trunks holding him up. When he bends to scrub his shins, his cheeks separate slightly. I search the mysterious shadow, a glimpse of something dangles below.
I flinch when he turns, looking up to his face to defend myself, but his eyes stay closed.
"This is the best feeling." A sigh. "Such a tight game, buddy." He twists his head left then right. "You pitched great today." He soaps his chest, lifting his arms to get his pits. I look down to see it. Pulled by gravity but still thick as a wrist. We showered as a team plenty, but the banter and buzz of college dudes served to distract me.
The head is smaller than the shaft, torpedo like. I grab my own missile in mock scrubbing fashion in case he notices. I clean down the shaft, left hand then right. Left, right. Thumb and index finger circled. An OK symbol, my new sign language. Left. My dick thickens and I wonder how it might feel standing right there behind him.
For maybe the first time I notice how wide I am at the root where the shaft meshes with my wrinkly sack. Left, right. I had trimmed there, and tiny regenerating hairs poink out along the sides. Stroke. Right. I had never paid attention to the shape of it, never compared it to anything or anyone else. But I appreciate how thick it feels where it sprouts beneath my Adonis belt.
"How's it feel?" I glance up into his face. Across the open space he's casual, no challenge, not thrown by my state of arousal. I can't hide my semi but am strangely at ease.
"Just wondering what you were thinking about back there." As nonchalant as I could muster. I can't scrub because I would have to pull up now not down. I resist the urge to turn away. "How do you get it up in that shit?!" My compliment is genuine but a diversion. He smirks.
"I was thinking about this babe when we came back from Arkansas. Remember I was pissed we were late?"
"U-huh." I'd never seen him so antsy to get home that day.
"We were naked as soon as she closed the door. We got into it right away." He locks his blue eyes on mine. "She pulled me over to her window." It's a whisper. Dex floats toward me conspiratorial like, even though no one is here but us. The water keeps the steam alive, knee high. My hands move again. Left. I never felt so hard. Something's beating in my throat.
He reaches for the shower next to me and turns it on high. "Let me see that." I follow his gaze to my stiffy, now at full staff. I knew I had a nice one; eight inches on my six-two, 200-pound frame. "You're uncut." That and a Slavic skin tone belie my heritage on my mom's side. Right now, the head squeezes out of its hood. My hand pauses at the base; the dark wiry hair on my forearm beads with water. I drop my hand, a little spring making a point.
Time stands still as Dex wraps his hand around my beef. "Nice one, man. You're a stud." Pride draws back my shoulders and I forget myself for a sec. "See, she was doing this to me. Stroking it like I am for you. It was hot. I thought someone might see us from the street, and I was breathing heavy." I breathe heavily, searching for words as my eyes drop again. His might be an inch or so shorter, but shit it's fat. I want to touch it. It twitches for me.
"Go ahead, Scotty. It's OK" He rests his forehead against my shoulder and moves his other hand behind my neck like after the game. My knees bend slightly. My hand moves on its own, erasing the distance between us. A piece of spongy bone meets my palm, and I grip it and tug, grip and tug it toward me, vice-like, the skin sliding along the veined and knotty fuck muscle. It doesn't seem human arcing up like that, like a tree limb below the pure muscle paunch of his powerful abs. Like a satyr about to breed a virgin. I breathe his hair.
"Here's what she did next." He grabs me, squeezing hard on my cock, too, licking his lips. I drop my hands as I let go of him, watching my dick from above. "She rubbed herself." Their story unfolds before me, his hand squeezing me hard and stroking up as he pulls on his own rod. I can't look at him. It is surreal to do this to each other, to have it done by him. "You're so big, Scotty." It's huge. "What do you think about mine?" He lets go of me to take my hand and grip it around his dick again. We jack it up and down together.
"Yeah," is all I can say.
I forget who I am as he talks. "She moved closer like this and turned her back to me." His dick's still in my hand, so I rotate my wrist to keep holding it as he twists beside me. I am hypnotized by his voice. "She rubbed her ass against me like this." His juicy ass backing into my dick, wedging me right in there. A little jiggle in his glutes that are otherwise hard as melons. The hot water raises a pink Rorschach print on his back and the top of his buns. My exposed knob seeks attention, settles in the lumbar curve of his spine. "She took my right hand and moved it to her nipple. I squeezed it hard. Yeah, like you're doing now." His chest is bundled strength, massive and pliant, his nipple a hard eraser that rolls between my thumb and finger. I feel his invisible chest hair. I glue myself to his back.
We have strayed out of the water. I am still jacking him. "'Do you want to stick it in?' That's how she asked. Fucking-A I wanted to stick it in. I wanted to fuck her ass so bad, and I told her so."
I want to fuck your ass so bad, Andy, I think to myself. But I need you to make me do it.
"Let me help you, Scotty." He cranes his neck and looks up at me; the shampoo bottle appears in his hand and he squirts it on my sausage. It's cold. He pulls my dick down and I bend lower to line it up with his crack. Heat drips off my forehead.
With determination, he aims and pushes back. "Do it." I push forward, my cockhead touching his pucker, and I push more. "Umf. Keep going." He shifts his hips, adjusting to us. It's so tight. I almost stumble backwards but grab his hips. "Easy." Said easily. He keeps his balance for us. I right myself, and pause to look below. I'm sliding in. All the way.
"Now just fuck me."
It's all I need to hear as I wrap my arms around his barrel chest and drive us home. For a minute, I hear only my grunts--his grunts?--and the slap of my pelvis on his quivering ass. Soooo tight. His body feels hard and alive under my wandering hands. I am inside him. My joint stuffs his hole, and I realize I?ve never known this privilege. I need to do something. I smack his ass, a satisfying crack sweeter than that final out earlier. What game?
Dex sinks to his knees taking me with him. He presses forward on all fours, and I drape over him, possess him, letting gravity and my own powerful legs piston my cock in and out. His head slings low from exertion or compliance or concentration. I flex on my toes on the wet tiles. This is heaven! I push off his back so I can watch my dick penetrate his ass. I am so thick at the base. Have I said that before? I feel massive and wide; I can't understand where it's all going. His hole stretches and swallows, stretches and swallows my beast. "Come on, Scotty, We're. Almost. There." I imagine what this is doing to his legs.
I hug my arms around his shoulders and pull him on his knees back into me, reaching for his cock once again. "I'll help you out, buddy." And I do, ragging on his piece like I know he can take it. His hips shuffle up and down. I ram. That's what I have for him. I jack-hammer my way in and out as I pull on his tool.
"Fuck!" And I feel him pulse up front. His chute spasms on my cock, a vice around my head, and I let go inside him, a bursting dam of heat, my heart pounding in my stomach and throat. I don't know why, but my arms curl tighter around him; I bite his neck as if to mark him.
I have pulled us back under the shower stream, now only lukewarm where it hits the floor. But our bodies make our own heat. I drop my head back and catch water in my nose, causing me to choke a bit. I cough, breaking the showery silence.
"Sorry." I let him go.
"You OK?" Looking back.
"I'm OK. You?" I stare down and slowly extract myself, mesmerized still by the connection. All eight inches. A slick and sticky mess on my tip. I am gentle on him now. Gentle on my knees and toes, too, as I try not to slip or tweak anything. I stand slowly and help him to his feet.
"Dude, that was awesome! Now I know why she wanted it so much." He stretches his arms wide, opens and closes his hands. "Thanks for helping me out, bud." He smiles like I did him a favor. Same old Dex. His attitude doesn't leave space for me to think about it, about this, as he saunters back to the shower across the way and grabs the shampoo tossed to the ground. I watch him lather his crotch and bend his knees as he cleans up his backside, unfazed as he asks, "What should we do this weekend?"
I turn toward the shower to avoid his question. I suddenly find I have lots of ideas, but I don't want him to see my cock's not getting any smaller. I make the water colder. "I've got a couple papers, but I can catch up with you tomorrow night around seven." A feeling is spinning away from me.
"Cool. You headed back home now? I'll get dressed and wait for you outside." He turns off the water and leaves the room before I can answer. He knows I need a minute.
Fifteen minutes later, back in my civvies--jeans, Chucks, an oversized tee--I meet him outside. He's on his phone, laughing with someone on the other end. "I'll be there in an hour," he assures them. He looks at me and my bag. "I've gotta walk my friend home and then drop my stuff at my place." He hangs up.
"Hot date?" I raise my eyebrows, a little restless.
"Don't you know it. That chick from my Bio lab. I've had her in my sights." He chuckles. Yep. Same Dex.
"Let's get you on your way then." I push him ahead of me and punch his shoulder playfully, everything going normal so fast. Not sure how I feel about that.