Knowing Dave

KNOWING DAVE maverick's fifth story

Copyright (c) maverick 2003. All rights reserved.

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I don't remember how I met Dave: our friendship just kind of grew naturally. One minute he was just one of a few guys I chatted to on my corridor at work, the next we were finding ourselves regularly sitting together in conversation in the pub on Friday evenings.

The more I got to know him, the more I liked him. He was funny in an intelligent way and, unlike most of the men in our workplace, seemed open and honest. I found it especially endearing - perhaps even cute - that he tended to get a little nervous in social situations: he never seemed sure what to do with his hands and laughed longer than would be natural as if afraid of a leaving a silence.

Despite his slightly rough appearance and the guys he hung around with, it became quickly clear that Dave wasn't your average straight lad. He made jokes about getting pissed and getting laid, but always seemed to be the one who had walked home on his own at the end of the night. And he seemed to like to stay in as often as he came out. During those first few weeks of getting to know him, I'd often ask one of his mates where he was in the pub after work and they'd laugh and say something like, "Knowing Dave, he's probably at home reading something by fucking Einstein or someone." And they'd laugh and I'd have to pretend to.

He was the guy who first introduced me to the internet: that will give you an idea of how long ago this was. Until Dave showed me Netscape, I'd thought of the internet as being a thing of DOS-based chat programs and Telnet services. The first time I saw a webpage, with colour and graphics, I was flabbergasted. It was a website about Newcastle United - Dave's team - and it had a photo of former-player Alex Shearer on it.

I said, "That's on the internet?"

Dave grinned. He liked showing off his new toy. "Yeah. And you can press on the blue words to go to pages on other stuff."

He showed me some other sites he'd found. One was about the formation of black holes; the other about the supposed reality of time travel. These were, he explained rather sheepishly like he was confessing to being a cross-dresser, both interests of his.

"I'm a closet anorak. Don't out me," he grinned.

I smiled and liked him a bit more. Most people thought he was thick because he had a Northern accent and went out on the pull with the rest of the lads. He could eat curry and throw up with the best of them. But he had depths he didn't want most people to see.

I asked, "Have you a computer at home?"

He shook his head. "Not yet. I'm trying to save up... at the minute I just look at this stuff in my lunch hour and," he smirked, "when no-one's watching."

He showed me some other sites on science fiction, which we were both into, and I was hooked.

Then he said, "If anyone looks over my shoulder, I always have a page open I can flick onto quickly... like the Newcastle United one... or... this..."

He opened up a page on what looked like the Playboy site. Remember, these were the days before the regulation of the internet in the workplace.

He grinned. "Guys in this office would freak out if they saw me looking at a page on 'Doctor Who' or 'Sapphire and Steel'. But put a naked girl on the screen and they'll just wolf whistle, make a joke about me going blind or something, and then piss off..."

I remember that I had made it clear, at a fairly early stage, that I'm gay and that Dave had, in turn, made his acceptance of that fact equally clear. He was straight - though hopelessly inept and unsuccessful in that role - and I was gay: what more was there to say?

We had started going out more and more. We'd meet up in the pub after work among the crowd of other people, and then slink off together to a quiet table in the corner and talk together for hours.

He told me about a novel he was planning on writing. It was about a group of aliens on some distant planet monitoring transmissions which had travelled through space from Earth. The story revolved around their attempts to communicate with us but the best part, as far as I was concerned, was his ideas on how they would struggle to understand things we, as humans, take for granted.

"Like music," he had said, grinning over the top of his pint which he held in front of his mouth, intending to take a drink but too caught up in what he was saying to do so. "I mean, imagine how an alien race would view our enjoyment of music. When you strip it down, music's just a load of tones of different wavelengths put together in such a way that we humans find it pleasant.

"But to alien ears, it might sound like a cacophony of noise, or be totally soundless... they might have no concept of how sounds can be put together in harmonies. You can imagine them staring at a transmission of people playing instruments in an orchestra. Looking at each other and thinking, 'What the fuck are they doing now...?!'"

He was the ideal companion to share time in a pub with and to get quietly drunk with. He always had interesting angles on things, unusual ways of perceiving the ordinary, and I liked to fuel his mental wanderings by suggesting different scenarios and possibilities.

I'd said, staggering out of the pub one night, "What do you think your aliens would make of gay sex?"

He smiled. "I never thought of that." Then, after a few seconds thought: "Actually, they might have just one gender so even straight sex would freak them out."

I liked that idea. I said, "Imagine them being faced with idea of one human putting a part of his body inside another human... and wiggling it around for twenty minutes or so... supposedly for fun..."

He laughed. "And then of them finding out which part gay guys push their knobs into... Jesus, how the hell would they come to terms with that...!"

About a month after we'd started chatting on a regular basis, and following a meandering Friday night chat at our corner table, he came around to my flat, picking up an eight-pack of cans from the off licence at the end of my road, to watch a couple of my old seventies sci-fi videos.

I joked, "Guys will start talking about you... saying I'm leading you off the straight and narrow..."

He grinned but shook his head. "Naah..."

"You know what guys are like... especially some of the twats we work with..."

He kept shaking his head. "They know I'm straight. And they're smart enough to know a guy can't just decide to change his sexuality..."

I kept teasing him. "They might think... you know... because you haven't had a girl in so long..."

He laughed loudly. "Fuck off, Wes! Even if I haven't they know I'm not that desperate..."

Now I laughed. "Why, thank you, Dave... nice to know I'm regarded as the ultimate last resort..."

"No... you know what I'm saying... if I was gay then you'd be my type exactly... but I'm not, and so no amount of desperation is gonna make us get together... I mean, there'd be absolutely no sexual desire on my side so it just wouldn't happen..."

I smiled and nodded and realised I felt a little disappointed. I hadn't deliberately raised the issue to hear his opinion on it, but now that I had, his rejection made it clear to me that I had, perhaps subconsciously, been speculating on the possibility of something happening between us.

Maybe he saw me looking a little hurt, because he added, "I guess we could put you in a long blond wig... but... naah... that wouldn't work... you've too much stubble..."

I was going to say something about me being more than willing to shave it off but thought that might put a slightly uncomfortable edge on what had clearly been a half-hearted humorous remark. So I just laughed and said, "Yeah, when you're kissing someone with stubble, you're gonna be aware that it's a guy no matter how good the wig is..."

And that's where we left for a few weeks.

Our meetings in the pub continued, and he kept coming around to my flat two or three times a week to watch videos. Then we started going to a sandwich bar for lunch together and I found that, knowing I'd see him in the middle of the day, made my mornings go faster.

He obviously did too. He'd keep saying things like, "We've got to keep doing this... it's really good to get out that place at lunch time..."

And I'd say, "But what about the internet... the sites you were looking at..."

And he'd come back with something about the guys in his office doing his head in or the fresh air doing him good. Then, "But if you don't want to... I mean, we could stay at work if you want..."

And I'd laugh and say, "No way."

After a couple of weeks he admitted that some of the guys he worked with had made comments about the two of us being "bum boys".

He had seemed so convinced that they wouldn't be derisive about our friendship that I was a little surprised they had. I said, "What did you say?"

He grinned. "I just nodded. Said we'd gone halves on a blond wig and a tub of Vaseline..."

"And what did they say?"

"They just kept making stupid jokes until I pointed out that in assuming a straight guy is going to have sex with a gay guy just because there aren't any girls giving him a second look, they were proving how unstable their own sexualities are..."

"How did they take that?"

He laughed. "I don't think they knew what the fuck I was talking about. It sounded intelligent so, through force of habit, they left well alone..."

A couple of nights later he came around to my flat to return a book on the way home from his weekly football game. It was something by Paul Davies; something on the formation of the universe, I think.

I was amazed at how good he looked in his dirty football strip and how attractive I found the sweaty, earthy smell of him. His legs were hairy and muscular and his biceps looked as thick as his calves. His face was red and he had dried blood above his right eyebrow from where he'd collided with someone during the game.

And he just walked in, smiling his greetings and saying something about the book; quoting a part of it that had really interested him.

Brains and brawn combined magnificently, right there in my hallway.

All I could do was gape at him, wide-eyed, and to try not to look like I was drooling.

He took my reaction to mean I found him a little ridiculous.

He said, "Yeah... I know, I know... I haven't really got the build for it... but it gets me a bit of a runaround once a week..."

It was true that he was a little short and probably not as well-toned as he would have liked, but the strip looked fantastic on him. The shirt clung to his large firm chest and was unbuttoned low enough for me to see a tangle of dark thick hair sprouting from it. The shorts were tight and flimsy and showed off a bulge between his legs I'd noticed before on frequent occasions but had always dismissed as off limits.

I decided not to let him know the real reason for my surprise. After all, it probably came from the same desperation that we'd discussed him feeling on earlier occasions: Dave never seemed to have considered the implications of the absence of other gay men from my life on our relationship, only the absence of women from his.

I said, "I just never expected to see you in a football strip..."

"You know I play every Wednesday night..."

"Yeah but knowing it in theory and seeing you actually in it... I mean, as a hobby, it seems so at odds with everything else you're into..."

He smiled and shrugged. "Yeah. I dunno. I suppose, it's one of those things you either really enjoy or just can't see the point of... one of the guys on the team I play with is really into poetry... that surprised me at first, but then - when you think about it - why should the one interest exclude the other, just because they're so different? It's like saying just because you're into fishing, you can't like chess..."

I nodded. I wanted to him stay. I was bored on my own, watching mindless television and drinking lager, and I realised how much I missed Dave when he wasn't here with me.

I said, "I've loads of cans in the fridge. Do you want to stay for a while?"

He shook his head. "I probably stink like a pig. I want to get showered and stuff..."

I knew I might be overstepping the bounds of our friendship - I'd never offered anything so open to being misinterpreted before - but I went ahead and said, "Why don't you take a shower here?"

He shook his head. "I haven't got my stuff..."

I tried again. One last time. I promised myself that if he refused again I'd let him go, no matter how much I wanted him to stay.

I said, "You can use my soap and shampoo and stuff... I've loads of clean towels... and you can borrow a pair of my jeans if you like..."

As it came out I thought, "Jesus, Wes, why don't you just be done with and offer him money? That's how fucking desperate you sound, mate..."

But he smiled and said, "Okay... I mean, if you don't mind. I don't want to put you to any trouble..."

I smiled back and shrugged. "Naah... it'll be good to have you here... there's fuck all on telly..."

He grinned more broadly. "I'm your entertainment, then?"

"Well, you're cheaper than renting a video..."

We laughed and he closed the front door. I took him through to my bathroom and showed him how the shower worked. I said I'd fetch him a towel and some clothes and left him to undress.

When I went back in, he'd taken off his trainers and socks and pulled off his football shirt. His chest was really hairy. I wasn't usually into hairy chests but on Dave it looked fantastic. I loved the way that clumps of it swirled around his nipples and how a thick black line of it led downward from his stomach toward the secrets inside his football shorts.

He looked like he was waiting to pull off his shorts. I knew - we both knew - that in front of any other of his mates he'd have done it without thinking. But in front of me he hesitated. Maybe he was uncomfortable; maybe he was afraid I'd see it as a come-on; maybe he was just shy in front of me.

I placed the towel and clothes onto the side of the bathtub and said, "Enjoy your shower..."

He said, "You really don't mind me using your shower?"

Again the hesitance.

I turned and faced him again. "Why should I?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I just don't want you think I'm taking liberties..."

I laughed. "It's only a shower, Dave. It's not like... I dunno... relatives coming to visit and ending up staying six months, or something..."

He smiled and nodded but his eyes were on me like stone. Cold and serious. I saw what he was thinking. He was afraid I was reading things into this situation that he hadn't intended.

I kept smiling. "Just take your shower and don't worry about it. I'll be watching telly..."

I left the bathroom and closed the door behind me.

I listened to hear if he locked the door but he didn't. I think I'd have been a little hurt if he had. Like he thought I was going to run in there and try and get in with him or something.

But he left it open; he trusted me.

My flat was fairly small and, as I sat watching the TV, I could clearly hear the sounds of Dave taking a shower. I could hear water falling intermittently onto the plastic base of the shower unit: water that had poured down his hairy chest; water that had coursed over his stomach; water that had trickled downward into the dense, thick bush of his pubic hair.

I could almost see it, as I listened to it, dribbling from the end of Dave's cock down between his feet. I imagined it streaming from his balls, making the hair matt together like dark brown icicles.

I began to get hard and then felt guilty for it.

"He's your mate," I told myself. "He likes girls. And he trusts you not to think of him like this. He's not a sexual object for you to fantasise about, Wes..."

I turned volume on the television up to drown out the noise of him in the shower.

But I kept thinking of him in there, wondering how big his cock was, how low his balls hung, how round and meaty his arse was.

And really hating myself for it.

He surprised me, a few minutes later, by coming into my sitting room while I was sitting in front of the blaring telly alternately visualising his body and then trying to dismiss the picture from my mind.

I hadn't even heard him switch off the shower.

I looked round, trying not to look taken aback, and said, "You were quick."

He smiled and tried to say something but his voice was drowned out by the music of a car commercial.

I turned the telly down, saying, "Sorry, the adverts are always so loud..."

He said, "I like your shower. It's really powerful. The shower at my place is just a dribble."

I couldn't stop myself from saying, "Well you can shower any time you like around here..."

He smiled but gave me those cold, serious eyes again.

He didn't like that sort of comment. Straight friends didn't make offers like that.

But, after that night, he did start coming around unannounced more often.

I rarely went round his - in fact, I don't think I visited his flat more than once because he didn't have a video - but he often turned up in my doorway for a chat and a few drinks.

The first few times he'd say, "I was on the way back from the library..." or "I went for a walk and thought I'd pop in..."

But after that he didn't feel he needed an excuse.

It was around Easter when he first stayed over.

My flat was only had one bed - a double - and I'd offered to sleep on the sofa so that he would stay the night.

It had seemed so wonderful that he'd want to stay; that he trusted me to the point of actually sleeping in my flat. I'd have slept hanging from the ceiling like a bat if it had meant him staying over that night.

My suggestion had made him laugh drunkenly. That was his reason for staying; he was too pissed to stagger back to his place.

He'd said, "Don't be daft, Wes. We can share a double bed. I've shared a bed with other guys before. It doesn't, like, mean anything..."

"Yeah, but I'm gay. They probably weren't."

"I know you're gay. But, Jesus, you're not gonna jump me in the night, are you?"

I smiled at him mischievously. "You're very cute, Dave. I might."

He smiled back. "Well if you do, Wes, you get a smack in the teeth. Is that a deal?"

I smiled. "What if I wear the blond wig?"

He chuckled. "I'm rat-arsed, Wes, but I'm not that rat-arsed. I still know the difference between boys and girls, mate..."

When we'd got into bed together, in our teeshirts and briefs, he'd asked, "Do you really think I'm cute?"

"Yes. Very." Not even a hesitation.

He smiled for a few seconds. Then he looked sad. Then he looked like he might cry.

He said, "I wish you were a girl. I really wish you were a fucking girl."

One minute I'd been smiling - feeling ridiculously cheerful just because Dave was lying next to me in my bed - the next I was feeling shocked by his outburst.

All I could say was, "Why?"

"I've never got on as well with anyone as I have with you. If I said half of the stuff to a girl that I say to you, she'd run a fucking mile..."

His voice was starting to crack like he was about to burst into tears.

I said, "Come on, Dave... there's loads of girls who are into the stuff we're into..."

He didn't seem to hear me. He went on, "I like you so much, Wes... you're such a nice guy... I've even tried to imagine what it would be like to... you know... do some stuff with you..."

I was really dumbfounded; totally speechless.

He went on, "But you're the wrong sex for me. Neither of us can change that."

He turned over, away from me. Staring at the wall.

He said, "Sorry, mate... I shouldn't have said that..."

I just lay there, looking at the back of Dave's head and then at the wallpaper above him.

What he'd said had really thrown me; I just hadn't expected it.

Just a few seconds ago he'd be threatening to punch me, albeit jokingly, if I touched him in the night. Then he'd confessed that he'd been imagining what it would be like if he and I had sex.

Part of me said that I should be feeling been ecstatic by what he'd said. This was progress: he was, at least, acknowledging that we had something special.

But I felt so upset for him. He was nearly crying and I was just lying here looking at the pattern on the wallpaper.

I turned over towards him and put my hand on his shoulder.

Before I could say anything he shrugged me off and moved closer to the wall.

He said, "'Night Wes."

I whispered, "Dave. If you wanna talk..."

He said, more forcefully, "I said, 'Night Wes'." His tone suggested that the threat of a smack in the teeth may not have been as jovial as I'd assumed.

I pulled away and left him alone.

I turned off the light and lay there, looking up at the ceiling I couldn't see.

We were both awake and we both knew it. He was feeling annoyed with himself for saying what he'd said; I was feeling annoyed with myself for being unable, somehow, to steer the situation towards a more favourable outcome.

I really wanted to put my arm around him; to pull him close to me, press my chest up against his back and stroke his chest hair with my fingers. To make circles around his pink little nipples. To play with his belly button.

To say, "It's alright, Dave. Whatever you're feeling, it's alright."

But I knew he'd either cry or hit me.

So I left him alone.

Next morning, while he was drinking coffee sitting up against the headboard, he'd laughed and said, "I'm surprised you managed to keep your hands off me, Wes. If I had a girl I thought was cute in my bed... well, it might have been a different story..."

He'd chuckled to himself but I hadn't even pretended to laugh.

He'd looked up at me, surprised at my serious expression.

I'd said, "Dave... come on... you know I never would do anything like that. I mean, if you want us to get together, it has to start from you. Until then, I have to assume you're straight and out of bounds. And I keep my hands well off you."

He'd looked surprised at my honesty.

But then he'd looked down at his coffee and nodded.

After a few seconds, he'd said, "Yeah. I guess that's fair enough."

We saw a lot of each other in the week that followed. We went out to the pub three nights that week, and on the others he came round to my flat. He'd phone me on the internal line at work, four or five times a day, and send a dozen or so e-mails. His reasons were usually ridiculous, like his evidence for why the guy who worked in the sandwich bar was an "agent", but I loved to hear from him. Whenever the phone rang and the grey LED read "382", or whenever my computer flashed up a message box saying "New internal mail from d_ronson", I'd smile.

It was on the Friday night that he asked if he could stay over again.

Of course, I'd agreed. I said, "Same terms as last time?"

He grinned and, without committing himself, took a swig from his can.

Then, as I took a gulp from my own, he said, "What would you do - right - if I..."

"What?"

He giggled. "No. You'd think I was being weird."

I smiled. "No I wouldn't. What were you going to say?"

He paused and then opened his mouth to say something. Then he snapped it shut and giggled again. "No. I can't..."

"Come on, Dave. What?"

He paused again. "Well - I'm not gonna actually do this - but what would you do if I said I was gonna sleep naked...?"

I looked at my drink. I felt a little disappointed. While what he said was interesting, it wasn't as interesting as what I'd hoped he was going to say.

I said, "I wouldn't be bothered. I'd probably do the same. That's the way I usually sleep..."

He smiled.

Then he said, "Would you see it as a come-on?"

"No."

"What would you see as a come-on?"

I considered. "I dunno... I've never really thought about how a straight guy gives a gay guy a come-on. I guess you'd have to use your imagination on that one."

He smiled more broadly. "What sort of things, though?"

I shook my head, smiling back. "I honestly don't know, Dave. Like I said last time, I've got to assume you're straight until you let me know otherwise. And your letting me know has to be fairly unambiguous... I don't want to get a smack in the teeth..."

He looked more serious. He said quietly, "You know I'd never lay a finger on you, Wes. You know that, don't you?"

I was surprised by the intensity of his expression. I said, "But if I made a move on you..."

He shook his head. "No. Never. No matter what you did."

Dave undressed while I was brushing my teeth. When I walked into the bedroom he was just getting into bed. I noticed he'd kept his briefs on - taken his teeshirt off, but retained the briefs.

Progress, but not enough progress for my liking.

I did the same as he had done. Took my teeshirt off, exposing my almost hairless chest (I noticed he was watching closely), but kept my underpants on.

Then I said, "Night then, Dave."

And turned off the light.

We lay there for a minute or so in the darkness.

Then he said, "Wes. Would this be unambiguous enough?"

And he reached over beneath the duvet, grabbed my forearm and directed it across to his crotch. He placed my hand right on the bulge in his briefs.

He had a hard-on. That much was obvious instantly.

I caressed the mound in the front of his underwear gently. His cock seemed thick but fairly short. Five inches or so.

I said, "Well... I cant' exactly accuse you of being subtle..."

He rolled over towards me. I turned my body towards him.

Then he pushed his face forwards, trying to kiss me. His lips, warm and wet, landed on my left cheek and he moved them downward to find my mouth.

He kissed in a way that was surprisingly aggressively. His tongue pushed into my mouth, forcing its way between my teeth. He wouldn't let mine do anything: he seemed to want his to be the one to take charge. His breath was hot and clammy inside my mouth; it tasted of lager and my Listerine mouthwash.

His tongue seemed to search around inside my mouth; it moved about and pressed against mine; then it swept across my teeth, his lips sucking gently against mine all the while.

After a minute or so, he pulled back and said, his voice almost a whimper, "Fuck, Wes. I've wanted to do this so long. I think of you all day... I can't wait to talk to you, to see you... it's like I've got a crush on you or something..."

I whispered, "There's nothing wrong with that, Dave..."

"But it is for me. This has been totally screwing me up. I've never even thought of being in bed with another guy before... but now... I dunno... I really want it... I've been imagining how it would feel... to do stuff with you..."

It felt wonderful to hear him say that. But my elation was tarnished with the thought that, with just one badly-chosen line, I could mess this up irrevocably.

I said, "Dave... if you want to have sex with me... you know how much I'd love that... and if you want to just play around a bit... totally non-serious... you know I'd love that, too,..."

He kissed me on the lips again and then said, "I dunno, Wes. I dunno how much I can do with you..."

He groped down my body, past my stomach, to my briefs. Felt the front of them.

He said, "You're not even hard." He sounded really hurt by that. Like my limpness was a direct rejection.

I explained, "I'm nervous, Dave. I mean... if I fuck this up, I fuck up you and me. Our friendship. There's no way I'm gonna get hard like this..."

That seemed to slow him down a little. He seemed to realise how much pressure I was under; seemed to become aware that he wasn't the only one with a lot riding on this.

He whispered, "Wes, mate. Even if I'm not gay - even if this doesn't work out - you know you and me will still be mates. You know that..."

I put my arm around his shoulders.

I said, "You might totally hate me in the morning..."

He said, "Nooooo..." It was a long, soothing sound. "You know I never could. Even if we don't get it together in bed, Wes, you know I think you're the best mate I ever had... nothing's gonna change that..."

I kissed him gently on the lips and he held me close to him, his fingers running down my back, caressing my skin.

Then, after a few gentle pecks of lips against each other, he opened his mouth and pushed his tongue into mine, forceful and insistent. I pushed mine back against his and I felt him smile and heard him gently moan in encouragement. He wanted to tongue-wrestle!

We started fighting for dominance with our tongues, our saliva mixing in our mouths and our lips rubbing almost painfully against each other. He moaned again in pleasure and, pressing his hips towards mine, started rubbing his erection against the front of my briefs. I ran my hands down to his arse and pushed them inside the back of his briefs. His cheeks felt round and muscular; warm and smooth. I could feel them flexing slightly as he worked his crotch into mine.

I gave into his tongue - he was way too strong - and our kissing became less aggressive and more passionate. He started gently biting my lips with his teeth and then made soft pecks against my bottom lip.

Still doing that, he whispered, "I never thought I'd ever enjoy kissing another guy... if you'd have told me two months ago I would be kissing another man, I'd have been totally freaked out..."

I smiled and gently worked my fingers into his arse crack. It was very hairy and felt hot and wet with his sweat.

He pulled back. He didn't like that.

He said, "I dunno whether I can do much else with you, though, Wes. I mean, not yet..."

I thought, "Oh shit. You made him think of anal sex. You made him think you were wanting to fuck him."

Bad move.

I took my hands away from his arse and put one around his back; with the other, I gently played with the thick hair on his chest. I could feel his nipples through it; poking upwards like hard little beads.

I said, "There's no rush, Dave. If you just wanna lie here and kiss that's fine by me... well it's more than fine... it's fucking fantastic..."

He grinned.

I went on, working my hand down his stomach, "But if you want to do a bit more... well, whenever you don't feel comfortable with something, we stop... and that's a promise..."

I reached the front of his briefs and gently rubbed the thick stem of his cock through the material. He made no attempt to stop me; I didn't think he would.

I whispered, "I'd love to wank you off..."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. That'd be good. Yeah."

I pulled his cock out from the front of his underwear. It was so hard that I could hardly move it to free it from the material. It just wanted to point upwards toward his stomach and I found it almost impossible even to move it from side to side.

I gripped it with my right hand, tucking the waistband of his briefs under his large hairy balls with my left. His cock felt hot and thick in my palm. Like I said, it wasn't very long, but it was easily the thickest I'd ever held.

I gently worked his foreskin backwards, exposing his bulbous cock head. He gasped gently. I ran my thumb across the moist tip of it and he sighed, "Wank me off, Wes..."

I squeezed it inside my palm and started gently working his foreskin up and down the shaft of his cock.

With my left hand I played with the large paired mounds of his balls. I almost, through habit, went to push my fingers down between his thighs to find his hole, but remembered that, for the time being at least, that would not be a good idea.

He seemed to really enjoy what I was doing, gasping gently in time with my hand, and began bucking his hips upward to meet each stroke.

Then he turned his face towards me and started kissing me again, pushing his tongue back into my mouth and breathing heavily against my lips.

I couldn't believe I was masturbating Dave; that he was actually letting me. Even after our conversation before bed - even as I was getting into bed with him - I'd thought, "He's straight so nothing's gonna happen... he might be horny enough to feel a bit curious, but there's no way he's going to want to do anything..."

But now he was lying right next to me, getting wanked off by me! And panting into my mouth like he'd been waiting for this since we'd met.

By now I was achingly stiff; my cock was almost tearing its way out of my underwear. I wanted to pull it out and masturbate myself, but my urge to show Dave how well I could I handle his cock and balls was stronger.

I moved my mouth away from his and down to his neck, kissing it gently and feeling the roughness of his stubble chafe against my lips. Then I pushed my head underneath the duvet that was over our bodies, and worked my face into the thick hair on his chest, smelling his musky odour in it.

He groaned and I tightened my grip on his cock, wanking him more quickly. His hips started bucking more fiercely, his cock thrusting up and down to fuck my fist.

I licked and gently bit one nipple and then moved across to play with the other. His chest hair felt fantastic against my face: it was coarse and rough but its thickness intensified the sense of strength and masculinity that the guy was giving off. It was my first experience of such dense chest hair but it seemed totally right and natural on him. It seemed, perhaps bizarrely, to reinforce his heterosexuality.

I moved my face down to his stomach, tracing my tongue along the thick black line of hair leading down into his pubic bush. I could smell the sharp, slightly acrid, odour of his cock as I masturbated it and the thicker, more sweaty, smell from his pubic hair and balls.

I moved my face towards his cock, relishing the scent of it in the hot air beneath the duvet.

But he pulled the covers away and stopped me.

He called out, "Wes... don't suck it..."

"What's up?"

"I dunno... I don't think I'll enjoy it..."

His cock was two or three inches from my face and I continued wanking it. Although I couldn't see it clearly in the darkness of the room, its smell was so inviting and so sexual that I could almost taste it. I wanted to taste it.

I said, "Do you like getting sucked by girls?"

"Yeah. 'Course I do... when they'll give it..."

"Well how about I try it for a few seconds and see if you like it. If it feels too weird, let me know and I'll stop."

He didn't say anything.

I moved my head closer to his cock, expecting him to push me away. But he let me continue.

I kept working his foreskin up and down his shaft and gently licked the swollen round tip of his cock.

He gasped as I did so.

But he didn't stop me.

Then I slowed the rhythm of my hand and took the whole of the head of his cock into my mouth, feeling his foreskin sliding over it, back and forth, against my tongue.

I licked around the thin puckered slit at the tip of it, tasting the salty ooze of his precum around it and he groaned.

Again, he made no attempt to stop me.

So I stopped wanking him with my hand and took up the same motion with my lips, working my mouth back and forth along the length of his cock and sucking gently. It tasted like it had smelled: slightly sharp and bitter but with that unmistakably masculine, sexual tang.

I felt his hands on my head and thought he was about to push me away, but instead he just ran his fingers through my hair and played with my ears. Then he started bucking his hips again, driving his cock in and out of my mouth and I knew he was enjoying it.

I gripped his balls firmly with my left hand, roughly squeezing them inside his hairy loose scrotum. With my right I ran my fingers through his dense chest hair, feeling his nipples standing proud and upright through the thick wiry tangle of it.

He was a difficult guy to give a blow job to: his cock was so inflexible I had get my face right down to it, my cheek pressing into his hairy stomach. It was almost impossible to direct it upwards: you had to come to it, rather than get it to come to you.

With his hands, he pushed my head towards his cock at a rapidly increasing rhythm. His hips were bucking so hard that the mattress creaked and groaned beneath us and the headboard beat loudly against the wall. The girl who lived the flat next door would be in no doubt that I was finally getting a little action after months of near silence from my side of the wall!

He started groaning and panting, calling out my name and grunting "Yeah" and "Fuck" and stuff. He was the noisiest guy I've ever had sex with. I wondered whether maybe the girls he'd slept with had expected or demanded it from him.

My neck began to ache from being craned to accommodate the uncompromising angle of his cock. Perhaps I was out of practice at giving blow jobs, but the pain soon became too strong and I had to stop moving my mouth along his length. He responded by holding my head more firmly in his hands and then bucking his hips more vigorously, fucking my mouth with short frantic thrusts.

With each stroke he made, I could feel hot thick liquid oozing from the thin slit at the tip of his cock onto my tongue. There was so much of it I kept thinking he was starting to orgasm. But it never became more copious than a constant, seeping dribble: it seemed that Dave just produced a lot of precum.

He started really slamming his cock in and out of my mouth and his balls started hammering into my nose. They whacked against it so hard I thought it must be painful for him, but neither his rhythm nor his enthusiasm seemed to ebb.

Then he grabbed my right hand and placed it firmly on his right nipple. I squeezed it and he groaned loudly. I moved to the other and did the same and the response was even more impassioned.

His hips started thrusting even faster and the mattress made frantic "Eee-aaw" sounds like a manic donkey. The headboard whacked against the wall like a hammer drill.

Dave seemed oblivious; he was enjoying this far too much to hear it.

Then, without warning, he stopped. He pushed my head away and said, breathlessly, "Sorry..."

I thought he was about to cum but then realised he was struggling to pull off his briefs.

I said, out of breath myself, "Jesus, Dave. You're a big fan of blow jobs...!"

He chuckled. "Did it show?"

"Very slightly."

I pulled my own briefs off as he threw his to the floor.

As I discarded mine he surprised me by asking, "Can I have a feel of your knob?"

I said, "Yeah. 'Course."

Then he laughed. "Jesus. I can't believe I just said that to a guy..."

I sat up on the bed and got into a kneeling position in front of him. My cock arched upwards from between my legs, unseen in the darkness.

He did the same, kneeling in front of me.

His fingers groped against my thigh and then went too far up and felt my stomach. It was too dark to see anything clearly - and I didn't want to bring a possibly unwelcome reality to the situation by switching the light on - so I guided his hand across to my cock.

He flinched away from it and giggled.

Then he moved his fingers back and held it this time. "Sorry. It just felt really weird... I've never felt anything like it..."

"Didn't you play around a bit with other lads at school? You know, groping each other and stuff? I mean, I gather it happens a lot, even to straight lads..."

"No." He started feeling around my cock, squeezing the stem and tentatively touching the hot wet tip. "I don't think it went on in my school. Or if it did, it didn't come my way."

He played around with it, apparently intrigued by the smooth warm texture of it and the way the foreskin glided so easily down the shaft.

It felt nice but I was worried he might be feeling a little repelled by it. I said, "If it's too weird, Dave, you don't have to touch it..."

He laughed. "No! It's interesting!"

Then I felt his other hand playing with my balls, hanging down between my thighs.

He went on, "Your knob's totally different to mine... It's a lot longer but not as thick. And your balls are pretty freaky... you've hardly any hair down there..."

"If they disgust you..." I was paranoid.

"Come on, Wes! I've got a set of my own, mate. I know what to expect...!" He laughed and I relaxed a little.

I said, "I just thought, you know, if there was a part of a guy's body that might have you running for cover..."

He chuckled. "Girls hate guys' balls - or at least the girls that I've slept with have. One of them wouldn't even touch them. But they're not that bad. I mean, they don't do anything for me, but they're not repulsive or anything..."

He started masturbating my cock while he gently fondled my balls. His gripped the foreskin too roughly and jerked it rather than slid it but I enjoyed it nevertheless. The excitement of being in bed with Dave and the fact he was getting his first taste of gay sex with me easily outweighed any physical discomfort.

He asked, "Does that feel good?"

"Yeah. You're a natural."

He laughed, "Yeah, right," and I reached forward to grab his cock which was pressing up against stomach, rigid and unyielding. I masturbated it to the same rhythm he was using on me and then, with my other hand, I groped his large balls that were dangling beneath it.

He started bucking his hips and the bed started making low creaking sounds again.

I moved towards him and he did the same, pressing his chest against mine. His hair bristled against my nipples and my pecs, feeling like a thick woollen jumper rubbing into them.

Then he kissed me again, deeply and gently, as we worked at each other's cocks and balls.

After minute or so he said, "Do you like doing this with guys?"

"I don't think I've ever really done this... well not in this way..."

"I love doing it with girls. Kneeling in front of each other like this, me fingering her while she wanks me... it's one of my favourite positions."

I paused and then said, "Well you can do it that way with me too, if you like?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can finger me while I wank you off... I'd really enjoy that, actually..."

He seemed confused. "Finger you?"

"Yeah. You know... my arse..."

I thought he'd either love the idea or be totally freaked out by it. I thought the risk of the latter was worth the fun we'd have if he was up for it.

But he seemed fairly indifferent.

He said, "Maybe next time, Wes..."

I smiled, hearing the groaning of the bed springs grow louder as our rhythms increased. I said, "There'll be next time?"

"Why wouldn't there be?"

"I dunno... I guess I thought this might be a one-off for you. That you might not like it..."

He said, "Wes, come on. I'm not going to fuck you around. I mean, I didn't like straight sex first time I did it. We've got to give it a fair crack... try it a few times, in different ways..."

He kissed me gently on the lips again.

He whispered, "Don't worry. I'm not going to screw you up. If it ain't working for me, I'll be honest with you..."

I thought, "Jesus... I'm starting to fall in love with this guy..."

He said, "So what do you want to do? I can't suck you, not tonight, but I want you to have some fun too..."

I took another risk. I said, "I really want you to fuck me, Dave. I mean, I really, really want that..."

He hesitated. "I don't think I can do that..."

"Would you enjoy doing that?"

Again a hesitation. "I dunno..."

"Have you thought about it?"

"Yeah... you know... a bit..."

"Well why don't you try it? Same terms as the blow job. If you don't like it, we'll stop. If you don't, well... you know... ride 'em cowboy...!"

He paused and thought deeply. He wasn't ready for this. I wasn't sure I was, for that matter, but I wanted it more than anything right then.

I took my hands away from his cock and balls and reached over to my bedside table. Again, I didn't put the light on: I opened the drawer and groped around for the condoms and lube I knew were in there.

I fished a condom out and tore it open. Then I reached forwards and rolled it onto the head of his cock.

He muttered, taking his hands away from me, "I didn't say yes, Wes..."

"I know. You can still back out. But you're ready if you decide you want it..."

I squirted some lube onto my fingers and the tube made a farting noise that was kind of unfortunate at that particular moment.

I fingered my arsehole with the lube, smearing it around inside myself as deeply as I could.

Then I said, "I really want it, Dave. I really want you to fuck me."

I heard him unfurling the condom down the stem of his cock.

He said, "I'll have a try but I don't think I'll like it. I mean, no offence Wes, but... you know... it's your arse. I don't think I'm ready for that yet..."

I turned around and knelt over the pillow.

He shoved the piles of bedding out of the way and got behind me. He said, "If I cant, you won't get upset or pissed off...?"

"'Course I won't..."

"I mean, I've thought of it... wondered what it would feel like..."

He positioned his cock against my arse crack, gently easing it between my cheeks.

He went on, "All this week, every time you've walked ahead of me, I've looked your arse, wondering how it would feel..."

I reached around and guided his cock towards my hole. I willed myself to relax even though I was as nervous as hell.

I said, "Did you like the look of it?"

"Kind of, yeah." He pressed his cock against my ring and pushed gently. He muttered, "But, you know, I can't help thinking of what guys do through their arses, Wes. I can't get that out of my mind..."

"Just push yourself into me, Dave."

He pressed his cock a little more firmly against me and I let out an involuntary gasp. He called out, concerned, "I don't wanna hurt you..."

It felt like he was trying to push a marrow into me but I didn't want to let him know how bad the pain was.

I said, my voice sounding far more shaky than I intended, "It's okay... just push it in..."

He didn't. He just held it there, pressing against my anus, unsure of what to do. He said, "Wes, if it hurts, I want to stop. My cock's probably too thick for bum stuff..."

I pushed back against him and an inch or so of his cock burned its way into me. I gasped, "Aah yeah. It hurts a bit but it feels good at the same time." It actually felt like a very thick red hot poker was being pushed into my arse, but my assurance seemed to make him a little happier about things.

He grabbed my hips and pushed his cock a little further into me.

I gasped again and tried to open my legs a little wider. I'd never felt anything so thick inside me. I probably hadn't been fucked for six months and my arse wasn't used to anything broader than my finger, but even so, Dave's was undoubtedly the biggest cock I'd ever received.

He pushed a little further. Three inches of him were inside me.

He said, "Does that feel okay, Wes?"

I didn't trust my voice enough to say anything substantial so I just mouthed, "Mmmmm...."

He wasn't convinced. He rubbed a hand down my back as if stroking me. He said, uncertainly, "Come on. Seriously. Do you want me to stop?"

I managed, "No, Dave. Please..."

He accepted that.

He held onto my hips again and pushed another inch or so of his cock into my arse. I could feel the tops of his thighs against the bottom of my buttocks.

Then he withdrew his cock and little and pushed it in again.

It felt like it was singeing my insides.

He started making gentle fucking motions and I felt his balls thumping softly against my arse crack just below where his cock was entering me.

He whispered, "I can't believe I'm fucking a guy's arse." Then, laughing, he added, "My dad would disown me if he saw me like this..."

His rhythm began to gradually increase and the mattress started to creak.

He began to enjoy the sensation of my arse around his cock and gripped my hips more firmly. Then he started making longer strokes, almost withdrawing his cock completely from my rectum and then sliding it as far as he could back into me.

He gasped. "Your arse is so fucking tight. I can see why the guys go on about butt-fucking so much..."

I assumed he meant the guys he worked with talking about butt-fucking girls.

He got into a fairly rapid rhythm, sliding in and out of me in a smooth, regular motion. As I'd hoped, the pain started to subside and the sensation of being fucked by him became progressively less unpleasant.

He bent over me and I felt his chest hair tickling the skin of my back. Then he put his arms around my chest and held me firm as he buggered me.

The headboard of the bed started banging against the wall again.

He started grunting and panting as he had when I'd sucked his cock. He was saying, "Yeah" and "Fuck" and "Wes" in rhythm with the pounding of his thick cock.

He gripped my body more firmly and I felt how wet his chest had become with his sweat.

His cock kept popping out from my arse but he would push it back in as quickly as he could. Sometimes, without being able to stop myself, I farted when his cock slid out of me, but he ignored it.

He pushed down against my back and I ended up being pinned down beneath the heaving weight of his body. My chest was held tightly against the bed, his arms wrapped tightly around it, and my cock and balls were grinding into the mattress with every thrust he made against my buttocks.

He was grunting and panting; breathing against the back of my neck like an enraged animal. His cock was slamming in and out of me making long fast strokes deep into my bowels. His balls were whacking against the tops of my thighs, feeling loose and heavy as they jumped around.

The air was thick with the cloying smell of Dave's sweat, and behind that the unmistakable pungent odour of anal sex.

He must have been aware of both but seemed bothered by neither. I worried momentarily that the sounds and smells from my arse might bring home to him the cold reality of what we were doing - that they might sober him up and stop him continuing - but his rhythm increased relentlessly and his passion intensified.

He held me more firmly and fucked me more roughly. He'd keep grunting things like, "Oh Wes... your fucking arse", and I knew he was thinking of fucking me as a man and not fantasising that I might be a woman.

On subsequent occasions when Dave would fuck me, he was more controlled and more sensual. He was able to think about what I was doing with my cock while he was having his fun and would make sure that we enjoyed our sex together. But that first time, all consideration went out of the window as he was overwhelmed by the pleasure of the unfamiliar sensations he was feeling. He simply used my arse like a masturbatory aid, pinning my body beneath his chest as he buggered me with all the finesse of a farm animal.

I must admit that, while I was still in some pain from being fucked by such a thick cock, I adored the sensation of being prostrate beneath the fury of his almost uncontrolled lust: the guttural sounds he was making; the hammering of his hips against my buttocks; the feel of his hot panting breath against my neck and the wetness of his sweat rubbing into my back with his wiry chest hair.

The smells and the sounds of our sex - rough, raw and unrestrained - began to excite me and I realised that I'd developed an erection that was rubbing against the mattress with each slam of Dave's cock into me.

Then he started cumming inside me. I felt the warm sensation of the condom filling with his semen and heard him grunting and gasping as his orgasm overtook him. He gripped my chest almost painfully as he pumped his seed into my rectum.

After his climax had subsided he pulled back from me and, without a word, applied his finger to my arse.

He started roughly fingering my hole, developing the same rapid rhythm that his cock had followed just seconds earlier.

He said, still out of breath, "Go for it, Wes," and his finger made gentle squelching noises as it slid in and out from my moist and loosened anus.

I assumed he'd been told to do this by a former girlfriend; that if he were to cum before her, he had to do the honourable thing and bring her to her own orgasm. No turning over and going to sleep for Dave.

I mentally thanked her for educating him so well.

I reared up onto all fours and pushed my arse backwards to receive his finger. The wet, rhythmic noises became louder as my arse opened up. The pungent, anal smell, now mixing with the thicker odour of Dave's semen, became stronger.

I started masturbating my cock while he fingered my arse. My balls jumped around inside my low-hanging scrotum and kept smacking against his thumb.

He bent over my back and kissed my cheek.

Then he raised his free hand to my nipples and began gently caressing them, squeezing and playing with the sensitive tips.

He said, "Imagine I'm still fucking you, Wes..."

I gasped, "I'm imagining... I don't need any help on that, Dave!"

He smiled and kissed my cheek again.

He said, "You enjoyed it?"

My strokes were becoming faster and harder. His finger speeded up inside my arsehole to keep up with my rhythm. The noise from it became louder.

I panted, "I fucking loved it... what about you?"

"It was way, way better than I thought it would be, Wes. And I'm not just saying that to get you off..."

He kissed me again.

I was close to cumming.

He said, "And I want you to do it to me sometime. I want to know how it feels... and I want you to have some fun..."

I grunted, "You want me to fuck you?"

"If you'd like that..."

I thought of Dave bending in front of me, my hands on his hips and my cock sliding in and out between his round, muscular cheeks. My arms around his chest, feeling his coarse wiry hair and playing with his hard sensitive nipples.

"Yeah, Dave... fuck, yeah..."

I slammed my arse back against his hand, thrusting my hips to fuck his finger as quickly and roughly as it was fucking me. Then I started cumming, my cock shooting a fountain or semen against the headboard and pillow, and up my stomach and chest and onto Dave's hand.

As the rhythm of my hand slowed down, Dave stopped fingering me. He just held his finger inside me, filling my arse with it while my climax subsided.

Then, when I was still and recovering my breath in front of him, he said, "Your arse went wild when you came... it was really going crazy against my finger..."

His finger was still inside me, feeling the last few spasms from my rectum as my orgasm ebbed to nothing.

He laughed, "That was so cool...!"

He pulled his finger out of me making a slurping sound.

I managed, "Don't you get that when you finger girls..."

"Not on that scale. I mean, there's a bit of squeezing but... Wes... your arse nearly broke my fucking knuckle, mate!"

I laughed and straightened up.

He said, "I guess you want some tissue..."

I nodded and he went to the bathroom. While he was out of the room I thought, "Well he's not too traumatised about what we just did yet. Maybe it'll hit him in the morning."

And then he came into the room, switched on the light, and we cleaned up.

His eyes were tired but unclouded with guilt or embarrassment. We were two naked guys wiping semen and lube from us but he didn't seem too upset by that.

We made jokes together and we both laughed.

Then he got back into bed and I lay next to him. He put his arm over me and I leaned over to switch off the light.

The next morning I awoke before he did and stared at his sleeping form for a few seconds. During the night, he'd turned away from me and was now lying facing the wall, but he looked content and peaceful as he breathed slowly and deeply.

I went into my kitchen, wondering how he would react when he awoke, sober and hungover. If he was going to get screwed up about the memory of what we'd done, he was the type who'd go silent on me for a few days. I imagined him sitting in his flat, staring angrily at the television that very evening, wondering why the hell he had let things get so out of hand.

I filled the kettle with water and waited for it to heat up and boil. While I was standing staring blankly at the coffee jar, I felt a painful crack against my buttocks.

I turned around and Dave was standing there, a tea towel in his hand.

Like me, he was naked, his cock hanging limply over his balls.

He grinned. "Morning, Wesley."

Then he whipped the tea towel across my thighs.

I laughed, "Hey, that fucking hurt, you twat!" And I grabbed my other tea towel to do the same to him.

We fell into the lounge, laughing and yelping, cracking the towels at each other's legs, chests and especially arses.

Then, with red streaks across our skin, we drank coffee naked on the couch and talked about what we were going to do that day.

And that, in short, was Dave's response to his first night with another guy.

As we left the flat I thought how different things were between us between then and the previous time Dave had stepped through my front door; how, in twelve hours or so, we'd gone from being friends to lovers.

I looked at Dave and he smiled at me. I thought he might be thinking the same and was going to ask him, but it sounded so twee when I tried to think of how I would put it into words that I thought I'd leave it.

So I just smiled back at him and he slapped my shoulder affectionately.

Then we walked away together.

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