Caveats: same as all those other stories: don't read if you're underage. Events portrayed only mildly represent reality and any resemblance to real people or events is--well--you'd have to be clever to pick up on it. I hope that you're enjoying it so far, tips, hints, suggestions and encouragement are always welcome--and, while always heard and appreciated, may not necessarily be followed. It is my story after all.
Nothing Special, Chapter 3 by uscboy41 (uscboy41@hotmail.com)
There were tables and chairs in the lobby of the gym, everything only a few months old--public universities in the south being, as they are, eager to entice young college students who generally look first for fancy new gyms, student unions, and dormitories at the university rather than an antique collection of manuscripts or the leading expert on gender roles in Shakespeare. A lofty ceiling led up to a rotunda that shed natural light on the entire lobby: and in my eyes the first ray fell on Jon. Sappy, but you get the picture.
"Heya Alex," he said.
"Yo. How are you, Jon?" I asked with a smile on my face. One of those smiles that can only come from a having a really good day--you got up on time with plenty of sleep the night before, you've impressed a few people during the day, got a compliment from someone and given a few. You can't help it but smile, and then a little bit of that joy begins to spread. And I got to see Jon.
"Had a good day today?"
"Of course! Just like every day."
"Sounds great. As for me, let's just say that I'm glad to be here now rather than sitting in class. You can only get so much out of sitting in a lecture room with two hundred other people."
"Don't worry, you'll get out of it soon enough. Third, fourth year you don't really have any lectures--unless you've put off Western Civ or something." I was a year ahead of him, so I could offer a little advice.
"Yeah, can't wait for that." As we were walking down the stairs to the locker room, we must have jabbed on for a little bit; eventually we got into the locker room, found a suitable place and opened up the lockers. It was still a bit busy--we had come in the early evening, around dinner time, although when you're in college, dinner is just as often at 11pm as it is at 6pm. We should have plenty of time to swim before the pool closed. We skimmed down to our suits, each wearing a light regular suit over our speedos. Ah--he was wearing a speedo. So was I. I can control myself, I promise. I had to keep telling myself that.
Standing next to him at the locker, I actually got a decent close look at him shirtless. It's more priceless than any pic you can find on the internet--no matter how vivid, how many terapixels (or whatever it is these days) the picture has, the real thing is so much more real. To touch him, to reach out and rub against his chest, to pull him into a tight embrace, and seal it with a kiss...now that's what fantasy is about. But to take hold of that fantasy and make it real, here, now--now. Now that's what this story is about, isn't it?
But I couldn't--well, I didn't. Not there, not then. Not yet. My glance was only for the fraction of a second before I was back pulling out a water bottle to take with me to the pool. I didn't ogle, I didn't get distracted there. Thinking back, now, I always linger at that moment, drawing it out, imagining him doing the same to me. But what did I have for him?
He has blonde hair, and I realized that he had a light coating of hair on his chest. But it was that beautiful light blonde, so it could only be noticed if you were able to look at it up close. I was dirty blonde, turning a bit brown now and again. I didn't have much hair on my chest or stomach; what I did have I shaved off as my own secret personal act of vanity. It wasn't really noticeable anyway.
We both agreed that we wanted to start out easy on the swimming. If we could keep it regular then we could work up to something more, but for now we wanted to actually manage to still be alive after swimming for an hour. I wasn't worried about Jon, of course.
"This is great!" I panted, forty minutes into it. We were between sets, I grabbed something to drink.
"Yeah, I love getting in the pool. Thanks for giving me the reason to get out here."
"No problem. I feel the same way--it makes a big difference having you here. I mean, for the company and all."
"It's great cardio, and swimming actually helps your body as a whole a lot. It's really hard to damage your muscles in the pool."
We'd had these kind of conversations before. I mean, he's really into lifting and all that--he's the sort that can do something really well if he puts his mind to it. Besides, he's a biology major, so he cares about this stuff on a personal as well as an academic level. I'd learned a lot already, about nutrition, diet, working out. Gym visits were still sporadic, but he was making me want to go after it more. I liked cooking, which goes hand-in-hand with nutrition, and I could come up to his level there, too. I mean, there's more to a high protein diet than eating a pound of chicken for every meal and some crappy-tasting powdered whey protein milkshake, which seemed to be his approach. I enjoyed thinking things through, too, and though I was in the liberal arts, not the sciences, analyzing approaches and learning more about how the body works is really cool. If only I could get to the gym more.
But here I was. We started the next set. He was outpacing me, but I was keeping up. We were doing longer-distances and keeping the pace slow, so it wasn't too bad. Although here I was at the best I had and he was still making it easy. It was fine art to watch, though, when he started the next length of the pool, even with his chlorinated hair and goggley-eyes. His chest rounded just right, and when he stretched out his arm to the full length, the muscles in his torso curved in just the right places; his abs carved out carefully, individually, making a v down into the bathing suit. When I stretched you just got a big plain view of ribs, but his back muscles curved carefully into his triceps and biceps, forearm muscles carefully woven in each stroke.
Maybe that's what attracted me to swimming in the first place. The movements are extremely graceful and to do them well you have to have just the right touch so that the power you have is carefully focused into the right places at the right times. Get the rhythm off and you're gasping for breath and going nowhere. If you swim, you have to swim with style.
"That's the end of that set, do you want to call it a day?" he asked.
"Sounds good to me. Looks like we're the last to leave anyway--the lifeguard probably wants us out, too."
He got out first and his legs and ass tightened up as he jumped out off the ledge of the pool, giving me a first-rate glance to check out his tightly-covered glutes, obviously the result of some work on his part. I jumped out after him.
"You know, no matter how hard you try, you can't get that chlorine smell out of your hair until about the third shower after you swim," I added as we headed to the showers to attempt to get the reek out of our skin.
"Yeah, I hate that. Especially back in high school when chances are you'd be swimming the next morning anyway, so you never got the smell out for the whole season."
When we got to the shower area, we both hung our towels on the rack and walked over to the nozzles. I got to one first and waited for the water to get warm. He pulled up to the one next to me and started doing the same. We talked about this, that, the other thing while we were rinsing off--not wanting to be shy about the locker scene, I pulled off my suit before I started soaping up. I turned around and noticed he'd done the same, not because I was ogling, but because his back--flaring out at the top where it met his arms--tapered down to the most beautiful curve right into his ass, where each cheek had a little dimple on each side, rounding out in a tight mound right above his thighs. Nobody could've ignored that--least of all this closet-case.
I was enjoying the shower, cleaning the chlorine out of my skin pores, feeling refreshed in the warm water. We'd both been silent up to this point--so I looked over at Jon. As I turned, fantasy met eyes with the deep blue sky. He was looking straight at me, and I couldn't look away. He'd been checking me out! And he didn't mind; he didn't look away like he'd been caught. Were my eyes really as captivating to him as his to mine? For the first time, uninhibited by fear of being caught, I looked at his face, how the water was falling down his hair and dripping across the curves of his forehead, his cheeks, and his lips.
From one showerhead to the other, suddenly our lives were no longer the same, and time slowed down for a pure, unadulterated expression of--
love? (that seems too cliched)
He turned off his shower and approached mine, removing the trance that had come up between us. I was scared, not by the kind of fear that you have of hurricanes, or scary dreams, but a fear of the unknown; it may be bad, but it may very well be good. But whatever happens, you still don't know. He walked behind me, I never moved from my spot, and he started rubbing down my back, massaging my shoulders with a firm but supple touch--so his powerful hands worked out the knots in my neck and back. His hands worked their way down, seeming cool in the warm water, and he stepped closer and began kissing my neck, carefully, slowly, still working his hands against my lower back.
His lips on my neck first tensed it up from the surprise (the touch of his lips was so soft!), but soon I was as relaxed in my neck as I was in my whole body. He took a nip at my ear, as he worked his way up my neck, but tenderly, like between a kitten and his mother. He pulled away for a moment, and I turned around suddenly (catching him by surprise--or me?). I took his head in my hands, ran my hands through his wet hair, pulled his face to mine and, looking into his eyes, we locked lips. His tongue met mine, and we hold close to each other; his hands gripped my back and pulled me against the tight, flat muscles of his stomach and chest. Held so tightly in his embrace I felt needed and fulfilled; completely reliant on his strength and his support, I clung onto him as well, lost in the moment of passion, watching the time stretch slowly past.
A locker door slammed shut in the distance, bringing us out of the dream--the kiss broke, not suddenly like it was interrupted, but casually and gently. He gave a smile and, as I smiled back at him, he tousled my hair (how did he manage to make that sexy?) and I half turned my head to hide the blushing that wasn't even showing through the heat of the shower.
"Let's go, buddy," he said playfully, "it's late."
"Yeah--sure," I replied, a bit giddy, but keeping myself composed. My heartbeat was still racing; but my heart beat for when I could get back into his arms. I could wait.