It's crunch time. Jacob and Ash have taught Shaun well, but have they done enough to shake him out of his comfort zone and take the opportunities life throws at him?
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 7
Up until the very last moment, my fingertips on the latch, I couldn't have told you whether I was reaching out to check it was securely locked or to slide it open. My hand on autopilot, body simply reacting to the knock. Hardly giving a thought to the fact that I was standing in nothing but an unbuttoned shirt and a pair of Calvin Klein briefs that weren't even my own.
There are probably plenty of moments like these, moments where we teeter on the join between two very different decisions. Maybe we're just too caught up at the time to ever notice them.
The latch slid across with a soft snick.
I tried to angle the door so that the bulk of my body was behind it, but at the same time in a way that didn't make it look like I was self-conscious. Not that being so would be such a strange thing, of course, but Curtis seemed to be treating this whole thing so casually, as if it was all so unremarkable, that the idea of seeming off-balance was mortifying.
A beat. That flick again, of his gaze racing down from my face to my feet, and back up. Too quick, even, to say conclusively whether he actually saw anything more than a blur, but still enough to make me wriggle inwardly at the feeling of being stared at.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
"What do you think?" Curtis asked, eventually. There was a half-smile turning the corner of his mouth. I swallowed.
"They're good. I mean, the grey goes well. You were right," I managed. The half-smile spread to a full-on beam.
"Oh good," he replied. "Can I see?"
Said so... matter-of-factly. As though I was trying on a jacket or a pair of slacks, not stood practically naked just a foot or two from him. I tried to swallow again, but it felt like my throat had closed up.
All I could do was nod.
His hand, gentle, on the door. Pushing it further open, and forcing me to step back into the cubicle in the process. By the time it was fully open, I was fighting the urge to pull the shirt closed across my chest.
Curtis' gaze was slower now, more obvious. His eyes taking in my bare legs, the brief slip of fabric taut across my midriff, and then up over my stomach. Ending up at my face, where I was sure my expression must've been along the lines of "terrified small animal" or something of that sort.
He nodded, slowly. "Yes," he commented, eventually, "they definitely go together."
Another pause.
"Um... thank you," I said, finally, because the silence had gone far, far beyond comfortable and I had almost forgotten what my own voice sounded like.
I forced myself to look at him in the eyes. Curtis grinned back at me.
"So..." he said, eventually, "is there anything else I can... help you with?"
I didn't imagine the quick lick of his lips just then. That absolutely happened.
A week ago, I would've said no. Closed the door and, heart pounding a drum solo in my chest, tried desperately to catch my breath before running home.
Only to probably spend the next hour or three frantically jerking off at the "what if" possibilities I'd fled from.
Instead, though, I heard Jacob's voice. Telling me to stop being so goddamn uptight, or restrained, or just plain stubborn about denying myself what I truly wanted out of some odd sense of propriety that nobody but myself cared about or even knew existed. A scolding I could either take to heart or ignore, and stay dutifully locked up in the dreary little holding pattern he and Ash had done their level best to shake me out of.
"Do you want it?" I could hear Jacob ask me, the note of exasperation clear in his tone. As though he was stood behind me in this tiny square of space, looking over my shoulder and his words pushing me forward with as much force as hands might on my shoulder-blades. "If you want it, you have to do something about it."
I took a breath. Curtis stared at me, expectantly.
"What color did you get?" He frowned, momentarily, at my question. "I mean, you said you tried a pair yourself," I explained.
There was that smile again.
"Oh, I went for the yellow," he told me. I nodded, inwardly building up the resolve to ask what I wanted to ask.
"Are you wearing them now?"
Curtis winked. "Yes."
I waited a beat, then another. Then realized that he wasn't going to make this entirely easy for me. I'd have to push myself forward if I really wanted it.
I could almost feel Jacob's shove in the small of my back.
"Can I see?"
That moment of terror, as you wait to see whether you've completely misread a situation, only to feel my chest unfreeze as Curtis' smile broadened - looked, perhaps for the first time, as though it was entirely genuine, with none of the guile of the shop assistant to it - and then glanced to either side.
"Sure," he said, simply, and then stepped into the cubicle with me.
It was not, thankfully, so tiny a space that two bodies made it unmanageable. Even so, when he turned to latch the door shut behind him, I automatically took another half-step back and felt the cold of the mirror through the cotton shirt.
He was pulling at his fly as he turned back to me, my eyes flitting between the movements of his fingers and the suddenly hungry expression on his face. The urge to squeeze myself through the briefs was excruciating.
Eventually, pushing his pants down to mid-thigh, Curtis stood back up and pulled his shirt up his chest. The muscles of his stomach funneled down into a narrow waist, bright yellow fabric bold against the darkness of his skin. I felt the breath catch in my throat.
"That looks... good," I told him, "I mean, very good." They clung to him like a second skin, the bulge of his dick clearly outlined as it stretched across his hip. My fingertips were itching at the thought of touching him.
"Thanks," Curtis chuckled, letting the shirt drop. I stifled a groan of disappointment as his torso was covered. "Is that all you wanted, just to see?"
That sense of Jacob pushing me forward again...
"Could you just check the fit of these for me?"
He smirked, knowingly. "Oh, absolutely sir," he replied, "you know we pride ourselves here on attention to detail and excellent customer service."
I laughed, but then it caught in my throat as he closed the gap between us and looked down.
"I mean, they look like they fit just right," he observed, "but that's the problem sometimes, it can be so hard to tell just by looking."
As I watched, he sank down to his knees in front of me. A glance up - the look on his face edging on the wicked - and then he was reaching out to my waistband. I flinched when his fingertips touched me, rubbing gently where the elastic met my flesh.
"Sorry, cold hands?" he asked, as I shivered.
I shook my head. "Just surprised me, is all."
Curtis smirked again. "I'll try to avoid any further surprises, then."
I felt the push of his fingers, digging just slightly under the elastic band. Sliding around my waist, easing the fabric away from my skin as though testing how firmly it was gripping me.
"That seems in order," he commented. There was only a slight thickness to his voice to betray his interest. "But it's always around the legs where we have problems."
Another gasp, as he nudged his fingertips in, under the hem either side of my bulge. Drew them down, pulling at the swollen pouch; the inevitable graze against my skin. I could feel myself thickening, knew that Curtis had a front row seat to that in action. That there was no way he could miss my cock as it grew harder in front of him.
"Well..." I managed to ask, my throat husky. Curtis didn't look up, just stayed fixated on my erection. Carefully, he manhandled it up, trapping it against my hip.
"Seems like there's just enough room to grow," he told me, voice low. My hips pushed forward, reacting on instinct, as he ran his palm across me.
Jacob's voice in my ear, a whispered "just do it" that only I could hear.
"I... I appreciate your close attention," I told the youth crouching in front of me, looking down at his knowing expression. Tentatively, I stroked my fingers through his closely-cropped hair, until my hand was splayed at the back of his head. The urge to pull his face into my crotch was near-overwhelming.
From the way he licked his lips, I got the impression he was feeling the same way.
The silence between us was loaded with unspoken meaning; stretched long enough that, when he finally broke it, my body jolted.
"Fuck it," Curtis muttered, and buried himself in my bulge.
"Oh shit..." I gasped, and then it felt like my knees would buckle. His lips working their way around the thick length of my dick through the cotton, the heat of his breath on my skin. I could see the damp patches where he'd sucked on me, the sensations somehow both muffled by the tight briefs but also exaggerated by them too.
Still, my brain was screaming by the time he finally slipped his fingers under the waistband and peeled the Calvins down. Just enough to free my cock, which Curtis eagerly dove upon. Half of my shaft disappearing into his mouth, his lips stretched around me as his eyes narrowed to little more than slits.
My body on autopilot, only focused on amplifying the feelings he was generating in me, I pulled his head in closer. The tightness of this stranger's throat folding around me, a slickly muscled sleeve milking every inch of me. I could feel the low hum from deep in Curtis' chest more than I could hear it, the vibrations buzzing through my shaft as his tongue swarmed around my tip.
Voices outside, and I jerked in Curtis' grip. My head jolting frantically to see who might be walking down this row of changing rooms. It was only when he began dragging down the briefs, his fingertips eagerly slipping in-between my cheeks, that I dared look back - the thrill of his touch finally overwhelming my fear of being caught.
Hungrily he kneaded at my hole, grunting his satisfaction as I lifted one leg onto the stool to give him better access. For a moment he pulled off my dick and sucked wetly on his fingers, before I felt myself taken on both sides. A slick digit probing my hole as he inhaled my erection back into his throat.
I didn't start my hips rocking intentionally, but I doubt I could've stopped it had I even wanted to. By turns driving my cock into his gullet and then bucking back, fucking myself on his finger and then, my ass twitching at the second intrusion, his two fingers as they worked me.
My shoulders slumped back against the mirror as he stroked the hardened nub of my prostate, the breath catching in my chest. Curtis followed me down as I slipped to the floor, my legs spreading as my body opened up to him obscenely. Aware of little more than the feeling of him plying my ass, the third finger he added doing little more than sending another wave of precum down his gulping throat.
By the time he sat up, lips glistening and pupils wide with lust, I was close to whimpering with the sensations. Still aware enough - greedy enough - to reach out to the heavy bulge pushing against the bright yellow of his underwear and squeeze it, though. Clumsily hook my fingers into the waistband and pull down, his prick spilling out and already wet with excitement.
"Fuck..." I whispered, my voice thick with need. Curtis raised an eyebrow, teasingly.
"I mean, sure, if you want," he chuckled. I writhed as he flexed his fingers inside me. Looking down to where his hand pushed into me, I watched a thick stream of juice trickle from the painfully swollen head of my cock.
Suddenly the thought of not having him inside me was unimaginable.
Something in my expression must've telegraphed my need. Reaching out, Curtis ran his fist up my shaft, then used that same hand to give his own dick a few languid strokes. When he spat in his palm, nudging forward on his knees to sit further in-between my splayed thighs, I knew it was going to hurt, but neither fire nor earthquake nor sudden discovery could've made me stop him.
"Such a pretty little hole," he muttered, looking down to where his fingers still stretched me. My hips tilted up as if in response, anticipating the push of him inside me.
"Please," I begged him, my hands reaching out now to pull him even closer by the waist. "Come on..."
He laughed again but it was a playful sound, not cruel or taunting. When his fingers left me it felt like I'd been hollowed out, but only for a moment. Then the wet, blunt head of his cock, greased with spit and my own precum, replaced it with an urgent pressure.
Curtis reached down, pulling on my hips as I pushed into me. My body resisting for a moment, before the flesh yielded and - my jaw dropping, a brief stab of pain no less sharp for all I'd known to expect it - he sank his thickness into me.
"Oh fuck... oh..."
I dug my fingertips into his skin, could almost believe I felt the shudder of his restraint thrum through him as he resisted the animal urge to bury himself inside me completely. Fought my own urgency too, the near-overwhelming need to crush our bodies together.
Forcing myself, instead, to drag him to me inch by slowly sunken inch; my body tilting up as he ground into me, until my ass was pressed against his crotch. Torso almost horizontal now, shoulders braced on the mirror.
In the back of my mind I could hear Jacob crowing "attaboy!" at my daring.
Not that I could dwell on that, not when Curtis began to gently ease himself in and out of me. A slow but insistent grinding, his strong arms holding me up as his cock filled me.
"So fucking tight," he said through gritted teeth. I squeezed down on him, then saw stars as he jerked in response. He smirked down at my hissed expletives. "That was your fault."
I rubbed a hand across my sweat-damp face. "You're not the one with god knows how much dick in you right now," I pointed out. Curtis shrugged as best he could while still supporting me.
"I think you like it," he observed, nodding down at where my cock was throbbing. Yeah, he had me there.
"It's remembering how it felt in your throat," I explained. He chuckled. "And it knows you're gonna do that again until I cum."
Curtis' grin was devilish. "Sure," he told me, "but I'm gonna fill your ass up first."
I opened my mouth to snark back, then promptly lost the contents of my lungs in one hard gasp as he pounded his body against me. Could only hold on as best I could, in fact, as he began to nail me in earnest.
It'd been a while since Jacob had fucked me; even then, that had been a slow, languid, teasing screw. Curtis, it felt like, wanted to hammer me through the cubicle wall and into the next building. It felt like firecrackers going off in my ass, my hole stretched and rubbed with the constant friction of his bare flesh against mine. He was rough, and unrelenting, and every nerve ending in my body had apparently been redirected to my butt whereupon it was promptly cranked up to maximum sensations.
There was a look of fierce consideration on his handsome face, his bottom lip just caught between his teeth as he frowned down at the place where our flesh joined. I imagined the ripple of his stomach muscles, flexing with every thrust. There was no strength in me to reach out and pull his shirt up, though, as he slammed me down onto his shaft.
"Fuck, I wish we could take our time, but they're gonna notice I'm gone," he complained. I had visions of his boss walking from cubicle to cubicle in search of him. All they'd need to do would be to crouch down and look under the door, or peer over the top of it, and they'd catch us fucking.
That's if the sound of my groaning didn't betray us first. I couldn't help but grunt as Curtis sped up, my aching body jerking in his grip as he powered through to his orgasm. Watching his face, I could see as the throes of it rose within him; lips parting, jaw beginning to drop as he allowed the rush of sensations to tip him closer and closer to the precipice.
I knew he was trying to be quiet, trying to stifle whatever noise he'd normally make as he came, but there was no hiding the way his dick thickened inside me as he filled me. The tendons in his neck as taut as guitar strings.
As his body slowly softened, I expected him to ease me down to the floor. Instead, though, Curtis dipped forward, curling his body until - his cock still stretching out my hole - he could just take the thick head of my dick between his lips. I hissed at the sensations, his tongue swirling around the precum-slicked tip as I tried desperately to muffle my own yelps at the overload of sensations he was creating in me.
I lasted less then a minute, Curtis showing no signs of pulling off even as my breaths grew ragged and it was clear I was about to unload in his mouth. Just kept sucking and swallowing, until I had to push him away, my arms and legs flailing weakly in defense of my over-sensitive flesh.
I slumped to the floor, half sprawled across his thighs. "Fuck... fuck."
For a minute, for two, we simply sat there. Little but the noise of our breathing, gradually easing back to normal, to disturb the silence of the cubicle. I stirred when I felt his hand gently stroking down my thigh, where it hung limply across his lap.
"I gotta go," he said, regretfully. Yeah. Right. We were in a shopping mall. Funny how you forget these things when you've just had your brains fucked out of your skull.
Awkwardly, I dragged my complaining body from on top of him. Curtis stood, then leaned down to help me to unsteady feet. Quickly, he buttoned up his trousers and tucked in his shirt. I was suddenly very aware of the fact that, aside from a gaping shirt that didn't even belong to me, I was completely naked.
"So..." he said, eventually, sparing glances to the mirror alongside me as he straightened his work clothes. The silence hung between us.
"That was fun," I said, eventually. Curtis' face broke out in a grin.
"It was," he agreed. "I mean, I don't normally... well. I don't normally go after customers, y'know?"
I nodded. "I don't either. Well, not customers. With people. You know what I mean." He chuckled, then leaned in to kiss me. I could taste myself on his mouth.
"I know. And I'm glad you changed your policy for me."
My turn to grin like a contented idiot. In the back of my mind I was really thanking Jacob, though I didn't think there was a way to explain quite how an eighteen year old had helped drag me out of my comfort zone. Not, at least, sandwiched into a changing room that probably smelled of sex.
Curtis turned, and snicked the latch across, then glanced back at me. "You should buy that shirt," he told me, nodding at the slightly disheveled top dangling from my shoulders. "It suits you."
I rolled my eyes, and shoo'd him out of the cubicle. Suddenly, on my own in there, the magnitude of what had just happened - the risk of it - came flooding through me, as icy as a brain-freeze.
To call it "risky" wouldn't be the start of it. Anybody could've seen us, had they happened to be walking through this part of the store at the wrong time. Curtis' boss, another customer... hell, mall security, who I'm sure would take a dim view of two guys fucking on the premises.
Part of me could feel my rational side being to spiral up into retroactive anxiety at the thought of it all. At the same time, though, I could still hear Jacob's voice like a dirty little demon on my shoulder, whispering into my ear to lead me astray.
"Did you want it?"
Yes, yes I wanted it.
"Did you enjoy it?"
Oh hell yes, I enjoyed it.
"Did you get caught?"
Nope.
It wasn't hard to imagine Jacob's conclusion after those three simple questions. I couldn't even argue with it; maybe on moral grounds, but I felt like he'd be even quicker to dismiss those than he would an argument that out was "out of character" to let a complete stranger screw me on the floor of a department store.
The warm glow radiating from my well-used hole suggested I wasn't going to let such qualms stop me any more.
===
Five minutes later, I was wearing my own clothes again and was steeling myself to open the door and brave the shop floor again. I'd stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying to pick out any sign that I'd just been on the receiving end of an epic fuck, but as far as I could tell it was my little secret. Well, mine and Curtis'.
Even so, I was self-conscious as I picked my way over to the registers. There was a young woman there, helping another customer, and so I waited in line, awkwardly glancing around as though the vice squad was going to burst in at any moment and tackle me to the floor.
Eventually, though, it was my turn to pay. As I stepped forward, though, I spotted Curtis moving over to the register.
"It's okay Sam, I've got this one," he told his colleague. She nodded and walked away. I waited until I felt like there was nobody within earshot before saying anything to him.
"Here to make sure I didn't walk out wearing those Calvins?" I asked him, smiling. Curtis shook his head, grinning.
"More like wanting to make sure you didn't leave before I could give you my number."
I blinked at him, at a loss for words. Curtis raised an eyebrow.
"Is this a good silence?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. His expression started to morph into something more unsettled.
"I mean, if you wanted this to just be a one time thing, y'know, that's fine..." He trailed off. I forced myself to swallow.
"No, it's not that," I stuttered out. "I just wasn't expecting you to... I didn't... oh, crap." Curtis' expression suggested he was beginning to suspect I could be crazy. "What I'm trying to say is that yes, I would like that. Your number, I mean. You just caught me by surprise."
He gave me a somewhat doubtful look, then pulled a length of receipt paper from the register and scrawled across the back of it.
"Look, call if you want. Or don't. I had fun, and it would be good to see you again. If you want."
I made a show of carefully folding the paper and tucking it safely into my wallet. The idea of a hot young twenty-something eager for me to get in touch with him was so out of the ordinary, I wasn't entirely sure how I was meant to be reacting.
Instead I swiped my credit card and then watched, only a little awkwardly, as Curtis bagged up the clothes. His smile as he held the bag out to me certainly seemed more genuine than his expression when he first introduced himself.
"Thanks," I told him, and tried not to let it look like I was fleeing from the store.
===
Back in my car, there was only one person I could think to text.
"You'll be proud of me," I tapped out, then hit send.
A few moments, and then a bubble popped up in reply. "You figured out how to sext?"
I rolled my eyes, even though Jacob wasn't actually there to see me do it. "No, pervert. I just channeled your go-get-'em spirit, and 'cut myself some slack' and picked up a hot guy at the mall in the process."
Cue a string of emojis, the gist of which appeared to be that I was a dancing lady in a red dress with brightly painted nails, flanked by red flashing lights. I consider requesting a translation, but decided that I'd never live it down.
I was about to make a joke in reply, when my phone lit up with a call. I thumbed the button.
"Details, please," Jacob chuckled down the line. I had to laugh.
"Oh, he was just some guy at the mall, working at one of the stores."
"Hmm," Jacob pondered, "'just some guy'? Describe him."
I let my mind drift back to Curtis, and perhaps unsurprisingly it opted to recall him in-between my thighs, his body thrusting into me. I reached down to readjust myself.
"Twenties, gorgeous... you would approve," I told him.
"Did you fuck him?"
Sudden flashback to the feel of Curtis' cock sliding inside me; the delicious friction of him building speed until he was pounding my hole. "No," I explained, "he fucked me. And then sucked me."
Jacob giggled. "My, he really must've been special."
"Well I have you to thank," I said, feeling generous.
"Why's that?"
I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror while I thought about how I wanted to reply to that question. "A week ago I would never have dreamed of having sex with a stranger in a public place. I wouldn't have even flirted with them, most likely," I explained. "So I guess, for better or worse, you've changed me."
It was Jacob's turn to be silent for a moment. "I think it's for the better, personally," he said, eventually. "I mean, I didn't know you before, but you seem happy now, right?"
I though about the fact that I still had Curtis' cum buried inside me, and had to resist the urge to knead my erection through my jeans. Yeah, this felt pretty good, all things considered.
"I'm happy," I conceded, "and full up."
Jacob laughed again. "Slut. Just think, if Ash was there he'd probably have his face buried in your ass right now."
My cock lurched in my pants. I could definitely picture that, and it was giving my imagination some seriously dirty avenues to consider.
"Maybe next time," I told Jacob.
"Oh, so you're seeing him again?" he teased. I shrugged, then realized he couldn't see me.
"Well, he gave me his number," I admitted. "But I don't know if I'll call."
"Uh-huh," Jacob replied, sounding unconvinced. "Twenties, gorgeous, and someone I'd approve of, and you're not going to get some more of that? Damn, maybe I should head down to the mall right now myself."
My mental image shifted, now picturing Curtis kneeling between Jacob's outstretched thighs and fucking him roughly. Their naked bodies glistening with sweat, all decorum lost as they submitted to the flush of sensations grinding through them. Actually, that was something I'd definitely like to watch.
"Perhaps I should introduce the two of you," I suggested, thoughtfully. "I think you'd find him talented enough to keep you happy."
Jacob snorted. "Or, perhaps, the two of us could tag-team your old ass, since somehow you keep managing to get out of that fuck I keep meaning to give you, eh?"
Damn. I needed to stop rubbing myself through my pants else I was going to cum again. The idea of Jacob and Curtis each pounding me, my hole oozing their mingled cum as they took turns drilling me from every angle, was enough to make even my day so far seem mundane. At least, if the reality could get anywhere close to the hardcore porn my brain was currently generating.
"Yeah," I started, then stopped. Had to clear my throat. "I mean, yeah. I'd be down for that."
"Oh man," Jacob sighed, melodramatically, "we've created a monster."
===
A tired monster, I realized, by the time I was back home and under the shower again. Indeed the day had been filled with more sex - and more people to have that sex with - than probably any other time in my life. I hadn't been told that your thirties could still be the time for your sexual awakening to happen, but I wasn't going to complain about it.
It was easy to imagine it going on unabated, too. Jacob certainly showed no signs of slowing down, and Ash... well, Ash seemed to have so-far untapped depths of licentiousness that left me wondering if he actually had any limits whatsoever. I suspected I'd reach my own far sooner than coming close to edging upon his.
Part of me loved the idea of all that, too. The escalating frenzy of raw, passionate sex. If Jacob had unlocked the door, and Ash had demonstrated that there would, if I wanted them, be plenty of opportunities for experimentation, then hooking up with Curtis had cleared my eyes to the reality that - despite what self-doubts still festered - there were people out there who found me attractive. Legitimately beautiful, unambiguously alluring people, no less.
It was no exaggeration - just, frankly, kinda depressing - to say that I'd never had that experience before.
Sure, it was a cliché to point out that today's teenagers and twenty-somethings generally felt more confident about being openly gay than I had when I was their age. That didn't make it any less true, though. And, even if I hadn't had bad-gay-movie levels of hassle when word of my liking boys had got out beyond my closest circle of friends, there was still a gulf between my version of "growing up gay" and what Jacob, Ash, and probably Curtis were living.
It was that thought I kept coming back to, as I soaped myself up and felt gingerly around my ass, recalling the radiating sensations when Curtis had pushed the broad head of his cock in past my spit-slicked muscle. That for all I was getting a chance to live vicariously through their adolescence, an impromptu do-over of my youth, the truth was that we were in very different places.
And no amount of teen dom/sub games or public fucks would change that.
I was at an age where friends were not just getting coupled off around me, but married with it. Not even just the predictable straight pairings, either: I had gay and lesbian friends who had somehow managed to find "the one" and take advantage of those freshly-granted marriage rights, too. Watching them, I felt as though I was a decade younger - if not more - but at the same time I knew that wasn't the case.
Was there a halfway point between the two extremes? Some balance where the shadows of fucking like a XXX-rated Duracell bunny every day and settling down with your one true love overlapped, preferably with a spot large enough to stand in? Either way, I didn't know quite what I wanted, I just knew I wanted... something.
Yes, the sex with Jacob was hot, but part of the pleasure was from just being with him. It was a hook-up, absolutely, but I couldn't just shut off the other parts of me: the parts that were satisfied as much with conversation and jokes and playful teasing as they were with hard eighteen-year-old dick. That left me in a quandary.
I wasn't naive enough to mistake this first flush of fascination for something more, but I knew how my mind worked. That it would inevitably see sex, not as merely an activity in and of itself, but as the starting point for something more. And the implications of that... well, the phrase "catching feelings" seemed ominously appropriate.
"Stop overthinking it," I told myself, as I brusquely toweled my shoulders. The heat-flushed face of the guy staring back in the mirror had the wince of someone who knows how he's fucking up, but also knows he's not entirely confident he could stop it. Even though we know we're doing it, we still persist in trying to lie to ourselves.
So I did what's easiest in this situation: poured myself a drink and ordered a pizza.
===
I was a pizza delivery guy when I was in high school, so I always made sure to have cash on hand for a tip. I also made sure to count how many nuggets there were in the box if I ordered them, too; I remembered how tempting the smell could be. When the door buzzer rang, I grabbed my wallet.
Pulling out some bills, I saw the carefully folded slip of paper that Curtis had written his number on as I'd been about to leave the store. The pizza guy looked a me a little oddly when I absent-mindedly held out a fistful of cash, still staring at the unexpected after-effect of my afternoon's hookup, but seemed to brighten when he realized I wasn't going to ask for change. I hardly heard him as I pushed the door closed behind me and, pizza box braced across one arm, made my way back to the kitchen.
I can't say I particularly tasted the first couple of slices. Instead, I looked at the neat row of numbers - and the "Curtis" in admirably level cursive - in blue ink and second-guessed things obsessively. Was I meant to call him? Was this really just politeness, or maybe borne from the concern that, had he not at least given the impression of wanting to meet up again, I'd be pissed and might report him to his manager?
The annuls of my relatively few hook-ups had left me with expectations of mortification, not second-helpings. The pepperoni grease on my fingers soaked into the receipt paper as I slid it thoughtfully across the countertop. Even if I was going to call, when should I actually do it? There was undoubtedly some sort of agreed-upon timeline, outside of which you'd look either desperate or neglectful. If so, it was a timeline that hadn't been shared with me.
Then again, I'd run from the store like a startled hare, and so Curtis probably already had a pretty solid grasp of my general awkwardness. That's the thing about being terribly bad at something: at some point, it starts to become liberating. After all, there's nowhere further to fall.
I unlocked my phone and opened the dialer. Even got so far as punching Curtis' number in, before my fingers seized up. Stabbed at the delete key a few times, telling myself this was ridiculous, then punched the number in a second time.
And then gave up on it again.
He'd said to call. I remembered that clearly, even with the blood rushing to my ears at the time. He'd definitely said I should call.
But maybe I could text instead, right?
Even without the threat of actual, real-time conversation to freak me out, it still took me four or five attempts to piece together a message I didn't feel was entirely dire. That said, it was hardly going to threaten Hemingway.
"Hey Curtis, it's Shaun. From today. I had fun. Was good to meet you."
Nobody would mistake it for elegant prose - or even print it on a knock-off Hallmark greetings card - but it was better than nothing. Steeling myself, I thumbed the send button before I could overthink it any more.
Then locked the phone and turned it face-down on the counter, to stop myself from staring at it obsessively.
The pizza certainly helped. In fact, I suspected that whatever calories I'd burned off in the course of the day's exertions were being replaced - if not doubled - by melting cheese and glistening meat. Not exactly pretty, but definitely delicious.
Messy enough, too, that when my phone buzzed I had to give up on paper towel and actually wash my hands in the sink before I dared try to pick it up. There was a little apprehension in the mix, too, about what a message from Curtis might say.
"Hey Shaun, really glad to hear from you!" his reply read. "I had fun too. Not something I normally do, but I'm pleased we did! Would be great to see you again, sometime, if you want."
It was, even I could tell, about as good a message as you could hope for from a stranger who knew little more about you than the fact that you'd spread your legs in a changing room. Of course, it also left me in a quandary. Did I want to meet up with Curtis again?
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Should Shaun set something up with Curtis? Is Jacob going to get jealous at all this new attention Shaun is getting? And is any of that pizza going to be left over for breakfast tomorrow? So many questions.
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