This one took a little longer than I intended; we're going to blame too much work travel and ensuing sickness for that. The reception to part 5 was unexpectedly muted; I think I'd expected you all to enjoy threesomes more than you seemingly do. Oops.
As always, don't read this if you shouldn't. Consider donating to Nifty if you can afford to. Drop me an email or a message through my poor neglected tumblr (https://dirtyanon.tumblr.com/) if you liked the story. I hugely appreciate everybody who took the time to write already.
Oh, and while fictional boys in made-up stories may not need to worry about safe sex, you do.
-Alex P (alexp336)
==================
EIGHTEEN by Alex Pendragon - Part 6
"I told you so," Jacob pointed out, running a fingertip down the slick mess that was Ash's cum-splashed face. Their slopping kissing had reapportioned a lot of it across Jacob's own chin, but there was enough remaining to give Ash's skin a wet sheen. As I watched, the youth twisted under his friend's touch, until he could suck his fingertip into his mouth.
The sight of it - swollen lips hungry around Jacob's outstretched digit, where just minutes before my cock had been - was enough to send jolts down to my groin. Letting my gaze trail along Ash's splayed body, his pale skin a stark counterpoint to Jacob's honeyed glow, my eyes settled on the clear hardness jutting inside his jock.
I reached out and gripped him through the taut fabric, feeling his erection twitching against my palm.
"Do you want to cum?" I asked him. Ash turned to look at me, letting Jacob's finger slip wetly from his mouth, then nodded mutely. I squeezed a little harder. "I asked you a question."
He nodded again. "Please."
For a moment I stared at him, then looked up at Jacob, still sandwiched between Ash's spread thighs.
"What do you think, does he deserve it?"
Jacob chuckled, then reached forward and gripped Ash's chin, turning the boy's face to him. "I don't know, how hard is he?"
I squeezed again, practically pinching the throbbing dick. Ash wriggled underneath my hand.
"Pretty fucking hard," I observed. "But I don't know if he's earned it yet." Ash let out a mewl of frustration, then hissed through clenched teeth as I groped him again.
Sitting back on his haunches, Jacob lifted his friend's legs. Held them apart, and nodded down between them.
"Look at this mess," he observed.
I looked down, between the smooth curve of Ash's cheeks. His hole was glistening, Jacob's cum smeared across it. Still gripping his dick with one hand, with the other I ran my fingertips around his entrance, feeling the slickness there. Ash bucked when I pushed two fingers inside.
Jacob leaned forward, pushing Ash's legs as he went, further spreading the youth open. Looking down at his face, framed between his thighs, I could see how huge his pupils had grown. Could see the hunger and lust in the slackness of his jaw, his lips parted. Body almost vibrating with desire.
I snapped at the elastic of his jockstrap; smirked when Ash flinched as the band clipped against his flesh.
"You wanna taste?" I asked him. He grunted in response. Carelessly, I pulled my fingers out of his hole and - Jacob's load dripping liberally - presented them to his pouting mouth. Ash didn't hesitate; I felt his eager tongue swarming around me.
"Fuck..." Jacob muttered, and I could only wordlessly agree. Between my thighs, my half-hard cock was finding its second wind; I slapped it against Ash's cheek.
Glancing down at the sound of flesh, Jacob wrapped his fist around me. His grip was soft, careless, but the stroking motions didn't take long to work their magic.
"You should fuck him," he observed. Ash's contribution was to not-so-gently nip at the tips of my fingers with his teeth. Hissing, I yanked them to safety, then shuddered as Jacob ran a rough thumb across the head of my cock. "You wouldn't even need lube, he's so ready for it."
Ash groaned, an eager, needy noise from the depths of his throat. Suddenly the thought of being inside him again was irresistible.
I curled my body around him, Jacob pulling on his legs until his hips were pressed against my pelvis. Reaching underneath him, I guided the head of my cock against his slippery hole. Felt Ash's back tense against my chest as I nudged the first inch or so inside.
For all he'd just been roughly pounded, he still felt tight. Like wet velvet wrapped around the tip of my prick.
Easing my hips up, I pushed further into him. No resistance, just that eager grip that seemed to draw me in as much as anything.
"That's so hot," Jacob observed, looking down on our coupled bodies. Ash had reached back, a hand at the nape of my neck as he braced himself against me. I gave one, experimental thrust, and felt him shudder in response.
"Please," he grunted, "come on..."
One hand on his hip, steadying him in place, I dragged my hips back and then drove them forward again. Felt the heat of him as I buried myself in deep. That first, frantic rutting in his throat had been desperate, needy. Now, I wanted to take my time.
"Come on," he hissed, the needy frustration clear. I molded my hand around his jaw, pulled his head back until it was pressed ahead my forehead.
"Have... some... patience..." I told him, punctuating each word with a long stroke of my cock into his depths. The sloppy wetness of his hole embracing me has his body flexed and twisted in my grip. Tugging his face to the side, I ran my tongue up his cheek. He tasted of fresh sweat, hot and salty. Body thrumming like a struck violin string.
Glancing across the bed at Jacob, I saw him grinning down at us. Hand languidly stroking his half-hardness, playing with it between his splayed thighs. When he saw me watching him, lifting his eyes from where my prick was stretching Ash's hole, he smirked at me.
"How does he feel?"
Gently, I took the nub of Ash's earlobe in-between my teeth. Bit down experimentally on it, just enough to cause the youth to jerk in my arms.
"Like someone just dumped a huge load in him, and I get to stir it around," I observed. Jacob laughed.
"I wish you could see it, it looks fucking hot."
I looked down at his returning erection. "Is it turning you on?"
Jacob pushed down on the head of his cock with a finger; let it spring back up and bob between his legs. "What do you think?" My turn to smirk.
I tugged Ash's jaw open. "Want to put it in here?"
He laughed again, then shuffled forward on his knees until he could feed his length in-between his friend's lips. Wordlessly Ash began sucking, eagerly, his body rocking as we screwed him from both ends.
"Are you gonna share?" I whispered in his ear. Got a contented gurgling in response, and then he was half-turning his face to me, Jacob moving to follow until I could press my lips against his spit-slicked shaft as it ground in and out of Ash's face. Ran my tongue around the youth's thickness and across Ash's mouth indiscriminately, savoring the heat and musk from Jacob's crotch as he knelt over us.
It was the perfect angle to watch as Ash's hand slid along Jacob's inner thigh, fingertips disappearing into the cleft of his ass. He flinched as Ash pushed into his hole, cock pulsing momentarily between my lips, before settling back onto his friend's hand and grinding down on the probing fingers.
The sight of it was enough to get my balls churning, and the feel of Ash clenching sloppily around my dick was doing nothing to delay my orgasm. My thrusts getting sharper, more aggressive; shaking the boy's body as I hunched further into him, around him. That urge to bury myself completely inside him almost irresistible.
"Fuck," I gasped through clenched teeth, feeling Jacob's cock slapping wetly on my face. Fingers digging hard into Ash's flesh, as though I feared he might slip away if I didn't pin him in place. His grunts, timed to each hard jab of my hips, filling my ears as I focused on one more stroke, one more stroke, just one more stroke... trying to delay the inevitability as long as I possibly could.
Until I couldn't delay it any more. Until it was too much for me.
Harder, wilder than the first time. A white hot surge between my legs that sent sparks the length of my spine. My vision tunneling, teeth clenching. As though all the muscles in my core tensed at once, as I flooded his insides.
No time to relax, though, or savor the sensations. "Please," Ash whimpered, pawing at his erection through the strained fabric of his jock. Pulling my cock free, I milked the last few drops of cum into my fist, then tugged the elastic down to expose his hardness. He jolted when he felt my slick fingers wrap around him.
"Yes," he gurgled, the sound stretching out as I pumped him. Jacob by turns chuckling and hissing above us, as his friend lapped at the cock resting across his lips while fingering his hole.
"Harder" came the instruction, and I complied. Tightened my grip and made each stroke longer, more aggressive. Ash bucking his hips to meet me each time, his body lifting from the bed as he pumped himself through my hand. "Yes, please... please, just keep... oh god, so close."
HIs fists threatened to tear holes in the sheets as the orgasm overtook him, his body bowstring-taut. The spray reaching his face, my chest; landing with audible splatters and dripping across our skin.
"Stop," he hissed, bucking in my grip. I kept pumping his sensitive dick. "Please, oh fuck, please stop."
Glancing up, I made eye contact with Jacob, who winked knowingly at me. I gave a cruel smile in return.
"I thought you wanted 'harder', no?" Ran my thumb across the swollen head of his prick, and then almost lost him from my fist when his body threatened to fold itself in half at the rush of sensations.
A half-throttled groan rumbled up from his chest, gaining in volume as I held his cock up with one hand and then ran circles across the tip with the palm of my other.
"Please!" he squealed. I paused in my rubbing, and looked up again, across Ash's panting body to where Jacob was watching.
"Mercy?" he suggested. I made a show of considering it. Then, with one last rasp across Ash's dick - causing another full-body flinch - I released him.
"Fuck," he whispered, narrow chest heaving. "Fuck."
===
I'm not a sadist. At least, I don't think I am. Yet as Jacob and I led Ash to the bathroom and helped him, on shaking legs, into the shower, I couldn't help but remember just how it had felt, his body at my utter control. That sensation of power, magnified through the lens of the intermingled pleasure and agony I was applying.
It was new territory for me, and while it made me a little uncomfortable to consider it, I couldn't help but return over and over again to the memory. Probing it, like a tongue nudging at the gap where a tooth once was.
As distractions from over-thinking go, however, two wet teenagers squeezed into a fairly regular-sized shower cubicle with you ranks pretty highly. There wasn't much space for anything more organized than touching, but that alone was enough. Soapy hands running across skin indiscriminately; fingers sliding into the gaps where our bodies came apart.
It was disorganized, and playful, and there was lots of giggling. Not so much sexual, as just... friendly, somehow. I wasn't sure how to describe it, but I knew I didn't want it to end.
Then again, neither Jacob or Ash seemed particularly keen for that to happen either. Reaching up, one arm around my neck, Ash pulled me down until my forehead was touching his.
"I'm glad Jacob called me," he whispered, voice only just louder than the falling water. I couldn't have stopped the grin that creased my face had I wanted to.
"I'm glad he did too," I replied, glancing to the side where Jacob watched us, his face glistening with the spray. "I never realized it could be so much fun to share."
He rolled his eyes. "Man, you're learning that and you're what, fifty?"
I gave him a playful shove, and took no small amount of pleasure at the yelp he gave when his ass hit the cold tiles behind him.
"Fine, fine," he conceded, pushing his way back under the warm water, "you're not fifty. Not a day over forty-five."
I fixed as mean an expression across my face as I could muster, glanced at Jacob, and then looked pointedly back at Ash. "Next time, no mercy," I suggested.
"Deal," Jacob replied. Ash's nervous looks between us were bordering on comical by now. "I think he could've handled more, anyway."
"No no no," Ash stuttered, holding up his hands as if that might placate us. "I couldn't, I really couldn't."
"Good point," I told Jacob, ignoring the protests. "Next time let's see how much further he can go."
"Oh fuck," he groaned, closing his eyes. Then opened them again when he heard us both laughing. "You bastards."
===
The hot water held up longer than our skin did, and it was with fingertips wrinkled like prunes that we reluctantly stepped out and began toweling off. The sound of Jacob's stomach rumbling was enough to stop us all in our tracks, though, and turn to stare at him.
"What?" he said, "I'm hungry."
His stomach punctuated it with another growl, making Ash and I laugh out loud.
Jacob gave us a somewhat grumpy look, that heavily suggested he was unimpressed at our chuckling. I only stopped, though, when he snapped his towel at my ass.
"Hey!"
He fixed me with an expression that was a pantomime version of lust.
"Feed me, daddy," he murmured, seductively. I winced.
"I thought we said no "daddy" stuff," I told him, unimpressed. Jacob shrugged.
"Easy way to fix that," he pointed out, rubbing his belly. I took the hint.
"Fine. Ash, do you eat or is that not 'rock & roll' enough for you?" He glared at me from under an arched eyebrow. "Fine, fine," I held out my hands in placation, "you want takeout?"
A look passed between them, and I felt a shiver that mixed both fear and anticipation.
It was Jacob who finally spoke, though. "Let's go out."
===
I was having strong feelings of deja-vu by the time we reached the restaurant. It might've been a burger joint rather than the fancy French place I'd taken Jacob, but that wasn't stopping the memories of how unsettled I'd felt being out in public with him from flooding back. I just wasn't sure whether the fact that I now had two significantly younger companions, rather than one, made it more or less unnerving.
For their part, though, Ash and Jacob didn't seem to give the situation a second thought. Instead, they were more interested in deciding what excesses to order from the menu.
As we sat, waiting for our order to be called, I tried not to glance around the room. The thought of finding we were being watched was, perhaps, just as bad at being watched and not realizing it. At least, my brain couldn't quite decide which bad situation it would prefer.
It was a fairly busy time of day, with a few families with young kids along with some couples and one or two singles. Nobody, as far as I could tell from my stolen glances, was paying the three of us much attention. Not that it had much effect on my simmering paranoia.
When I finally paid attention to our table again, though, Jacob was looking at me shrewdly.
"You're over-thinking again, aren't you," he observed. It was a statement, not a question. Still, I shrugged in wordless reply.
Ash looked between us. "He has a habit of zoning out while waiting for food?" Jacob chuckled.
"He thinks everybody in the room is watching the dirty old man with his two young concubines."
I winced. It wasn't exactly inaccurate, though I might have preferred some softer phrasing. Ash ran a hand through his unruly hair.
"Maybe they'd be jealous?" I frowned at him. "Maybe they want a couple of teenagers of their own to fuck."
Another wince. Again, nothing Ash was describing was incorrect in terms of what the three of us had been doing, but hearing it explained so bluntly... Well, it had me looking around the room again, to see if anybody had overheard him.
"God," he muttered, watching my reaction. "Do you always assume the worst like this?" Jacob nudged him in the arm.
"Hey, we can't all be entirely uninterested in the opinions of everybody else," he pointed out to his friend. Ash shook his head.
"It's only worth being interested when they actually have opinions," he argued. "Otherwise you're just giving people room in your brain when they don't even want it."
I guess I must've been giving him a skeptical look, because he rolled his eyes again even more dramatically.
"Look, they don't care," he said, exasperated. Then, to my horror, leaned over to the next table. "Hey," he said, interrupting them.
It was a group of college kids, maybe early twenties if that. Mortified, I watched as they turned to look at Ash.
"I'm Ash," he told them, "that's Jacob, and that's Shaun." He pointed us out.
"Um, okay?" one of the girls at the table replied. They all looked as confused as I expected they would be; I'd have commiserated with them, had my lungs not frozen in my chest with horror.
Ash, though, didn't seem to care either way. "Jacob and I, we're eighteen, but Shaun's, like, in his thirties. We just had fucking mind-blowing sex. Like, amazing, y'know?"
I could see some bemused expressions being shared across their table, and it looked like one of the guys was on the verge of laughing. Ash absent-mindedly pushed a rogue strand of hair behind his ear.
"Anyway, he" - Ash nodded in my direction - "thinks people would freak out if they knew, but I know nobody actually gives a fuck and it's all in his head, right?"
I could see them glancing at me, probably taking in my bug-eyed expression. I think my jaw might have fallen open some, but I'd lost a lot of the feelings in my face.
"He's cute," one of the girls commented, staring at me more directly. "Even if he does look like a hunted animal right now."
"He looks better when he's fucking you," Ash confided, bluntly. Even Jacob winced at that one, I could see out the corner of my eye.
"Seriously?" he complained, shoving Ash with his elbow. The teen looked unrepentant.
"I'm right though, aren't I," he continued, ignoring his friend. "You give zero fucks."
The second guy at the table shrugged, wearing half a smile. "Hey, as long as everybody is playing because they want to play, you do you, right?"
Ash nodded, thoughtfully, as though he was giving this great consideration.
"I mean, I dated a guy in his thirties last year, and it wasn't weird," the first girl added. Her friend snorted.
"I mean, he did want you to wear a nurse's uniform, which was kinda weird," she pointed out. The first girl shrugged, smiling.
"Yeah," Ash replied, nodding again. "He wanted to fuck me while I was wearing a jockstrap, but I don't know if that's too weird, y'know?"
I'd always sort of wondered what it felt like to have all the blood in your body drain down to your feet, and right now it felt like I was discovering it. Yet the horrified reaction I'd expected Ash's comments to have, never actually arrived.
Instead they were laughing, not unkindly or with shock, but as though we'd been talking about some comedy show on Netflix that everybody had watched. I glanced at Jacob, who shook his head and shrugged at me.
Ash seemed to think he had made his point. "Anyway, like I told him, nobody gives a damn. Nice talking to you guys."
I watched their bemused smiles. One of the guys lifted his soda to me, like a toast, grinning as though he thought the whole thing was hilarious. It was only when Ash sat back up that I could bring myself to look back.
"See, I told you," he commented, mildly. I could only stare at him. "What?" he asked, eventually.
"That... that was payback, wasn't it," I managed to say, my voice sounding strangled. "I torture you, you torture me." He frowned.
"That was an example of why you should give no concerns whatsoever about what any of these people think. Or any people period, really. Beyond those you're, like, fucking or dating or whatever. Because it's a waste of your time, and you're better off spending that mental energy on other things."
I had no words for that, just watched him as he stared back at me.
A chime, and then the plastic pager we'd been given at the register began to flash and buzz on the table. Ash looked down, suddenly focused.
"Oh, great. I'll get it. You want extra ketchup?" I nodded, mutely. Jacob shrugged. "I'll get extra."
I watched his back as he weaved his way between tables to the counter.
"Is he..." I started, eventually, when I managed to get my tongue working again. Then trailed off.
Jacob chuckled. "Always like that?" I nodded. "Yeah, mostly. I mean, he does love an audience."
I sighed. "Clearly."
"But..." he paused, until I looked in his direction. "He might say it in a blunt way, but he's not wrong. You saw those people, they didn't care."
"They didn't care," I repeated, feeling like I was trying to convince myself of that fact.
"So maybe you could, y'know, cut yourself some slack?"
"Cut myself some slack." I knew I was parroting him like an echo, but I was trying to get my thoughts in some sort of order.
A process interrupted by Ash slapping a couple of full trays down on the table.
"Man, I'm starving," he exclaimed, looking over the spread hungrily. As I watched, he unwrapped two burgers, removed the bun from one of them, and then combined it with the other to make some monstrous Frankenburger. Sucking the grease from his fingertips with what I felt was an undue amount of relish, he eventually realized I was staring. "What?"
"I don't even know," I confessed. He laughed, loudly.
"Then you might as well eat, and be confused and full, rather than confused and malnourished, right?"
It was logic my brain was in no state to argue with. Hands on autopilot, I reached out for the fries.
===
Our impromptu friends at the next table left before we were finished, saying goodbye and giving us wide, knowing grins. I felt myself blushing at the attention, but managed to nod and smile in some vague semblance of polite response.
One of the guys leaned down closer to me as he stepped past the table. "Living the dream, right?" he murmured in my ear; then, when I turned to look at him, gave me a wink. "I mean, if he's as wild in bed as he is in public..."
I froze, then nodded again. Got an even wider smirk in reply. He clapped me on the shoulder, then followed his group out.
After a few minutes more - minutes which only further cemented my astonishment that someone so slender could fit so much food into his body without being, well, vast - Ash sat back, rubbing his stomach contentedly.
"That was just right," he observed. I surveyed what remained of his feasting, spread haphazardly across the table.
"Do you, like, work out every day or something?" I asked, eventually. He shrugged.
"You burn calories on stage, I think."
I had to shake my head at that, trying not to laugh. "You think?"
His smile was loaded. "Hey, I'm sex fiend not a biologist, how would I know?"
Jacob chuckled. "That sounds about right." He pushed back his chair, standing up and stretching. "Some of us, though, don't have the luxury of a life on the stage, and need to actually, y'know, exercise."
I took the opportunity to look him over as he said it, taking in the firm bulge of his muscles through his shirt. When my gaze reached his face, though, I realized he'd been watching me in return.
"You're picturing me in workout shorts, aren't you," he accused, looking entertained.
Caught. I totally had been.
"Guilty as charged," I confessed. Jacob shook his head, feigning dismay.
"There's really no redeeming you, is there."
No, probably not.
"Maybe I can come spot you sometime," I offered. HIs look was fairly doubtful.
"Could I be entirely confident you were watching the weights and not, well, something else?"
I attempted contrition. "I promise to only look at the most important parts."
Jacob sighed, dramatically. "You're as bad as he is," he observed, "just in a different way."
Ash stood up, then rested his head playfully on his friend's shoulder. Jacob looked down at him, with an expression that spoke of long-suffering affection.
"Would you have us any other way?"
Shaking his head, Jacob gestured me up. "On all fours, maybe?" Ash's expression turned wicked in an instant, his hungry gaze flicking over to me.
"Now that I'd like to see."
"Voyeur," Jacob told him.
"Very observant participant," Ash corrected.
"You two are not safe in public," I pointed out, standing and picking up my jacket. Neither of them contested it, only followed me as I led them out to the parking lot.
===
Ash, it turned out, had practice with his band to go to, so I dropped him off at the ramshackle looking rehearsal space he said was the only location they'd discovered where neighbors wouldn't complain at the noise levels. Quietly I decided that whoever owned the building was probably hoping that the volume would tip things over the edge and bring the whole precarious structure down, likely so they could claim the insurance, though I kept the theory to myself.
"What about you?" I asked Jacob, after we'd watched Ash slip in through the front door. The youth turned to me from the passenger seat.
"It'd be nice to hang out more," he told me, "but I probably should go home."
"You have homework to do?" I teased. He shook his head, grinning.
"Actually, yes. I'm starting to think you ask these questions knowing the answer is only going to emphasize the age difference, Shaun."
I shrugged. The thought had occurred to me, too.
"Well I wouldn't want to keep you from your studies," I replied. Jacob laughed. "As much as I might like to."
"Something tells me your idea of homework wouldn't get me much credit," he observed, wryly.
I started the engine up, and put the car in gear. "Maybe not, but the tests would be more fun."
He pushed the side of my head, playfully. "Just drive, joker."
"Yes sir."
While I made a good attempt at concentrating on the road, I couldn't help but steal quick glances at him out of the corner of my eye. Jacob was tapping quietly on his phone, but I could tell from his half-smile that he knew I was occasionally looking.
Eventually, the silence was too much to bear.
"Is every social outing with Ash like that?"
He locked his phone and jammed it under one thigh. "Insufferable and with zero filters for taste or manners? Yeah, pretty much."
I nodded. I wasn't especially surprised.
"But what you said back there," Jacob continued, "about that being 'payback' for what we did in bed. You've got it all wrong."
Frowning, I spared another glance across at him. "I have?"
He chuckled. "Oh, Ash doesn't think like that. I mean, he might bite you when you next have sex with him, but he doesn't see things as being all connected or balancing out in some broad way. He just does what he feels like, in the moment."
We sat in silence for a few minutes more, as I thought that all through. "I guess it was a pretty effective demonstration," I said, eventually. "Even if it was painfully uncomfortable."
Jacob gave me a sly look. "Sure, because you've reacted so well to positive feedback before."
I scoffed a little. "So you brought out the big guns?"
He didn't rise to the bait. "It seemed like a pretty good demonstration to me. That you really don't need to give a damn about things like age differences, just as long as everybody is a consenting adult."
Another few moments of silence. "You're so wise," I said eventually, dryly.
"And you're needlessly sarcastic," he fired back. "It's a wonder you make any friends at all."
I couldn't help but agree with him about that, though I wasn't about to tell him that fact. Instead, I slowed in front of his house.
"Thanks for the ride," Jacob told me, smiling. I nodded; smiled back in return. There really was something infectious about his good humor.
"Thanks for, well... you know," I replied. The way his eyebrow lifted suggested he did indeed know just what I was referring to.
Jacob paused with his hand on the door, then leaned in and kissed me. Just quickly, but I still felt a tingle in my lips at the soft pressure of his mouth on mine.
"Text me?" I suggested, as he pushed open the door. Jacob looked back in, and winked.
"Sext me?"
Shaking my head in mock dismay, I sighed. "You young people and your filth."
He closed the door and leaned in through the window, his arms folded on the sill. "Please," he said, smirking, "as if you wouldn't suck my dick right here if you could."
I felt my mouth start to water. No way was I admitting that, though.
"Go do your homework, kid," I told him, waving my hand dismissively. Jacob stood up.
"Yes daddy," he said, pointedly. He was halfway up the path by the time I'd decided what names to call him.
===
The thought of driving back to an empty apartment wasn't especially appealing. The car alone felt positively depressing in how quiet it was without Jacob and Ash there; I could only guess at how much worse my place would be in the same circumstances.
I cruised around aimlessly for a while, then found myself pulling into the parking lot at the mall. Not, honestly, the sort of place I hung out at often - most of my clothes shopping was in the form of repeat purchases of things I already knew would fit me, and all completed online - though I'd picked up a couple of wedding gifts for old school friends who, unfathomably, had managed to find themselves not only coupled off but in the sort of relationships that ended up in a church.
It was, though, a place I thought I'd be guaranteed to find some people-noise, even if all the specific people were strangers to me. Locking up, I allowed myself to get sucked into the general circulation of shoppers, who orbited the various levels and balconies like schools of fish.
Their chatter was a persistent sort of white noise. Nothing clear or distinctive enough to break through my preoccupation; never words, just tone and tempo. That was fine with me, however. I didn't want to eavesdrop, I just needed a background hum that was as loud as it took to cancel out the echo in my brain.
Eventually, after my third circuit of the building, I broke out of the groove I was making and walked into a department store. One of those huge, multi-level places that has everything from clothes through to furnishings and kitchenware. All a little bit more expensive - or a lot more - than you would ever want to pay, naturally.
Wandering up and down the aisles, I absentmindedly browsed through the menswear. My personal style, if I could be said to have such a thing, was along the lines of "functionally average"; it was hard to imagine myself in the bright patterns that, if the rails were any indication, were fashionable this season.
"Can I help you find anything?"
I think I must've jolted, the surprise of a clear voice jerking me from my inner monologue. Looking up sharply, I saw a sales assistant smiling at me from the next rack.
"Sorry?" I managed to fumble out. I probably looked like a deer in the headlights.
"Can I help you at all, sir? Finding anything, I mean," he repeated.
I stared at him, still feeling like I was wading through the molasses of my thoughts as I tried to get my brain back into gear. He wasn't, I saw with a little relief, looking at me like I was crazy - at least, not yet.
He was also, it was belatedly dawning on me, cute. Very cute, in fact. Very early twenties perhaps, dark skin and closely cropped hair. A smile that, if he wasn't being entirely genuine, suggested he was disturbingly good at faking it.
I realized I was still staring - had been for a little longer than was probably normal, indeed - and forced myself to glance away, awkwardly.
"Um... no, no I'm good," I stuttered out. "Thanks, though."
The smile gained a few extra lumens of brightness, and I felt my attention getting caught up in it again like it was a tractor beam.
"Well, I'll be around if you need anything. Just ask for Curtis and I'll be happy to help."
I nodded, my voice having done little to convince me over the past minute or two that it would not betray me if I trusted it again. All the same, I watched as he - as Curtis, I reminded myself - walked away down the aisle, and not without noticing the firm jut of his ass through the black pants he was wearing.
I pinched myself on the arm, sharp. Now was not the time to go mooning over cute shop boys. Or, at the very least, it was not the time to get caught doing that.
Instead I kept walking, forcing myself to at least look at some of the shirts, even if my first inclination was to roll my eyes at both their patterns and their price tags. My co-workers weren't above teasing me about my fairly pedestrian dress sense, despite my protestations that it was, in fact, a sort of focused simplicity that I'd been aiming for. It wasn't just lack of imagination, I insisted, it was a conscious choice to spend less time thinking about a day's outfit and more about a day's productivity.
It was with the memory of their disbelieving laughter ringing in my ears that I picked a couple of shirts off the rack to at least consider. Not exactly what I'd reach for normally, but close enough that my body didn't rebel completely.
Eventually, with about four or five possibilities draped over my arm, I found myself transitioning out of one section and into the next. A section which turned out to be the men's underwear.
Jacob might've been surprised to discover it, but it wasn't a department I visited all that often. In fact, despite my fascination - okay, my fetish - with underwear, I hardly bought any of it in stores. Doing so always felt a little too... loaded.
I could still remember the churning in my stomach that I'd felt when, not even a teenager, I'd been dragged around department stores much like this one by my mom. Getting clothes for school, maybe, or some sort of special-day outfit. Inevitably, I'd be drawn like a magnet to the rails of men's underwear, always casting nervous glances around myself in case somebody saw me and branded me a pervert.
It was the photos, of course. The perfect, almost artificial examples of men on the front of each box. Generally headless and hairless, but invariably bulging in whatever was stuffed unceremoniously inside the packaging. It was a strangely anodyne example of sexuality, but still more than enough to get me throbbing in my briefs and, with equal ferocity, wracked with shame at being so fascinated.
Over time the interest had bedded down; grown more fundamental. I'd also come to understand it more, too; access to porn will help with that. I'd gone from being a timid queer kid trying not to make it look as though he was unduly interested in a packet of boxer-briefs, to a full-grown gay man with a drawer full of underwear he'd chosen in line with his own particular interests. All the same, just being among those aisles was enough to set off a physiological reaction.
Partly it was that shiver of shame again. Topped with the idea of inadvertently getting an erection as the memories tickled my lizard brain and brought out that early reaction. Whatever the result, there was a good reason that I ordered most of my underwear online.
The shirts slung over my arm, still on their hangers, felt like a prop of sorts. As though I was playing the part of "mid-thirties man shopping at the mall" for a commercial. Maybe I was just desperately rationalizing, but it was enough that I felt okay to peruse through the displays and see what they had.
Most of the more unusual or niche brands were missing; for that stuff, you really need to go online. Instead, it was a selection of fairly well-known labels. Enough, still, though to prove fascinating to me.
I was gently rubbing the fabric of one pair between my thumb and forefinger, seeing how soft and stretchy the material was, when I was startled again.
"They're very popular, I've found."
If I'd been the deer in the headlights before, I was the squirrel facing a high-speed Michelin now. My head snapped up; my hand yanked back, as though it had been burned. The jolt was enough to send the top two shirts slithering down onto the floor.
"Here, let me help you." Before I could wave the offer away, Curtis had closed the few steps between us and was bending down to pick up after my clumsiness. When he stood again, the two shirts dangling on their hangers from his finger, he nodded at the rail beside us.
"Those Calvin Klein briefs, I mean. We can hardly keep them on the shelves," he explained. "Super popular."
I nodded, mutely. He made no move to hand me the shirts.
"At first I thought people would just go for black, maybe white," he continued, "but the colors have been going well, too. I guess people aren't as conservative as I thought, y'know?"
I nodded again. Shit, I really had to open my mouth and say something, or he was going to think I was crazy and call security.
"I like them," I mumbled, then tried to catch the ensuing wince. It was hardly me at my most eloquent.
It seemed enough for Curtis, however. "In the end I had to try them myself, just to see what all the fuss was about," he explained.
I tried - and failed - at not imagining him wearing nothing but a pair of low-rise briefs. Suddenly I had to fight the urge to hold the remaining shirts against my front, in the hope that they'd cover whatever might be happening around my crotch.
Curtis, though, held out the two he'd retrieved. "Did you want to try these on, sir?"
"Um... yes," I managed. "Yes, please." He nodded.
"If you could follow me."
I'm no saint. Yes, I absolutely watched his ass as he led me across the floor to the dressing rooms. It bulged atop thighs that looked as though they could belong to some sort of football player, or definitely an athlete in one way or another.
Pushing open one of the slatted wooden doors, he hung the shirts he'd been carrying on a hook, then reached out to take the remaining three or four from me, adding them to the collection.
"Do shout if you need a different size or color, okay?"
I gave him - oh, ensuing mortification - a thumbs-up before swinging the door closed as fast as was possible without inviting offense. For a few seconds I just stared at myself in the full-length mirror, trying to see if any of my absolute embarrassment was visible on my face. With the exception of a patchy line of blushing skin across my cheekbones, I seemed to check out.
I concentrated on fumbling open the buttons on my shirt, before pulling the first possibility off its hanger. Even forced myself to button it up all the way, so as to give it the best possible chance of impressing me.
The color was wrong. So was the cut.
One down, four or five to go.
It was as I was a third of the way buttoning up the second shirt that I was startled again, this time by a knock on the door.
I opened my mouth; coughed. Coughed again, before I could get the question out.
"Who's there?"
"It's Curtis," came the reply. "Just wanted to check how things were going."
I pulled open the door a little. There was that beaming smile again. Damn, he was a good looking guy.
"I... I think I'm good," I told him. As I watched, he looked the shirt up and down. Suddenly I was very aware that it was less than half buttoned.
"That's a really good color on you," he observed. It seemed like he was taking another look. Then he made eye contact again; there was a warmth in his expression that I couldn't quite drag my gaze from.
"Thanks," I said, eventually. Finding words any more complicated was still proving to be tricky.
He didn't seem dissuaded. "Can I bring you anything else?" he asked. "Anything at all?"
I swallowed. "Um, no..." I ventured, "I think... I'm good."
Was that a wink I saw?
"All right then," Curtis told me, flashing that toothy smile again. I pushed the door closed, and wondered whether I was getting signals or if this was all just wishful thinking.
I'd only just got my arms into the sleeves of the fourth shirt when the knock came again. When I opened the door, just a crack, the flicker of Curtis' gaze down my chest and then immediately back up to my face was so fast, I half-doubted whether I'd seen it at all.
"I thought," he started, then paused. "I mean, I know you said no, but I thought you might be interested in trying something else on too."
Looking down at his outstretched hand, I saw a pair of the briefs I'd been examining when he'd startled me earlier. Bright red, so bright in fact that they were almost bordering on orange. I swallowed.
"I took a guess at your size," Curtis explained, arm still held out. "And the color, well, it's one of my favorites too."
I found myself nodding in agreement; forced myself to stop.
"I didn't think I could... y'know, try that stuff on."
He glanced around, as though a supervisor might be about to pounce. The corridor of cubicles was empty beside the two of us.
"Well, normally... no," he conceded, "but I won't tell if you won't."
My brain was still thinking that offer through when my hand reached out on autopilot and took the underwear from him. Curtis grinned again, all teeth and enthusiasm.
"I think they'd go with the grey shirt," he suggested.
Carefully, as though this was all some weird dream that could evaporate with the slightest bump, I closed the door again. Pushed the shirt I'd not even finished buttoning off my shoulders, and reached for the grey one, the fifth and final one I'd picked up, instead.
Then it was a matter of pushing my jeans down, haphazardly folding them on the little stool in the cubicle with me. Deep breath. There was something weird about the feeling of taking off my underwear in a store, but I did it anyway.
I knew from the moment the Calvins hugged my ass that I wanted to keep them. Staring at my reflection in the mirror - the shirt still hanging open, unbuttoned - I rearranged myself in the pouch. My cock had chubbed up noticeably, thickening across my hip. I tried to resist the temptation to stroke it.
The knock, when it came, sounded as tentative as knuckles on wood can be. I froze.
And then reached for the door.
================
Conscientious customer service, or something more? And even if that's the case, has Shaun been sufficiently well trained by Jacob and Ash to act on it? Cliffhangers, don't you just love 'em.
If you're liking the story so far, tell me about it - alexp336@gmail.com or via https://dirtyanon.tumblr.com/