Part 217: Wars of the Roses [White]
Though a 6-2 defeat could easily seem momentous, the mood on the Leeds coach home was relatively high. Their enigmatic South American coach had really focused on breeding an optimistic and ambitious culture in the club that had powered them this far, and an easy-going resilience in the face of defeat was at the centre of it: in his team talk to the sweet white-clad men in the away rooms of Old Trafford, he had reinforced how well they had played and that the score-line did not reflect their performance or their potential. The consequence of this ethos was a low friendly buzz of chatter as the team bus rolled over the Pennines between the two great northern cities, and a mood not of complacence or disinterest, but of comfortable reflection and confidence about their next game, which they would begin preparing for instantly the next day, hence no overnight stay in the Northwest.
The upbeat mood was particularly strong for the two of the younger squad members, seated near the front of the bus, excitably comparing notes on how it felt to step out in Old Trafford and play at such a prestigious ground as junior members of this surprisingly successful team. As the night-time road trip wore on, though, the lads' chat wavered from the night's unsuccessful but plucky football to other topics: the virus, their Christmas shopping, their attractive girlfriends, their... sex lives.
Leif Davis had been meaning to make some fishing comment about it before now, weighing a little on his mind as it had been for a few awkward weeks. Still, the 20-year-old Geordie was a little surprised at himself when the leading question slipped out, slumped sideways into the vibrating windows and hugging his knees to him as he watched his teammate recline the other way with his elbow draped comfortably into the spacious aisle.
How d'ye mean, lad?' the other young Leeds junior responded with a warm and puzzled little laugh, frowning his craggy brows at him and shifting his position a little bit where he relaxed. Jamie Shackleton was a proper local Leeds lad and it showed in his gruff voice and bemused expression, and Leif already mildly regretted his simple question, but it was a little late now. You ever try anything a bit weird with your bird?' he'd asked his 21-year-old flatmate, just as their relaxed patter had been about to wander back from their better halves to the topic of football.
Davis shrugged a single shoulder and avoided Jamie's searching eyes, echoing his laddish titter of laughter. `Oh, I dunno, just wondering,' the young Tynesider mumbled sheepishly, hugging his legs a bit more tightly and trying to turn his body language away from the other northern lad.
Bit bold for a Sunday night on the coach!' Shackleton exclaimed quietly, throwing a gentle punch into his arm and leaning in a bit closer across the broad plush coach seats, but grinning quite enthusiastically. Always thought you were more prudish than that, Leify. Jeez. Now you wanna talk kinks in the middle of the Pennines...!'
Ah, shush,' Leif sniggered at him, comforted a little by his jokey enjoyment, but still unsure if he should have steered the conversation this way at all. He frowned inquisitively at the 21-year-old midfielder, short and well-built like himself. I was just thinkin' aloud, man. Forget it.'
Nah, it's cool,' his housemate reassured him in a less teasing tone, elbowing him more forcefully as he did. Like what? Me and my baby get pretty FREAKY, lemme assure you -- as if you don't hear the screams across the landing, matey...!' He smirked arrogantly and gave him a wink, which just made Leif groan and think embarrassedly of many semi-nude encounters between the horny youngsters and their female counterparts in their shared Leeds pad, queuing for the shared bathroom or overhearing the wrong thing early morning or late in the night.
Freaky,' the Geordie defender mocked back quietly. Yeah, bet sometimes you even do it with the lights on, whoa...' He chuckled stupidly, edging around the more specific question he had been building up to asking him in recent weeks -- as it crossed his mind, he found himself glancing surreptitiously about them on the packed busload of sportsmen, not just to see if anyone might overhear their private discourse, but on the lookout for someone in particular. But nah, he was right down the far end, wasn't he? He'd noticed the distance between them again in one of his paranoid little moments of discomfort.
We've tried this and that,' Shackleton muttered vaguely for him, in a way that suggested a tiny bit of his own insecurity on the matter. I mean, nothing like too mental, but -- what are you thinking about like, you dirty dog...?' He leaned in with a leer.
Leif spat it out, seizing his moment. `She ever slipped a finger in?' he asked in a shrill, silly-sounding voice, fixing his good mate with a curious stare, then regretting the bluntness immediately. He remembered with a shudder how it had felt, lying on his side and being attended to in that way by Patrick Bamford as some weird gesture to... restore the balance. Weird, as much as anything else, in the way it had... kinda worked. He HAD felt a lot better since then, in a way, and yet still...
Jamie snorted and laughed, then looked into the aisle and over the headrests at the dozing bloke behind them, then sniggered more privately. Course she has, the dirty slag,' he muttered. Why, your girlfriend do the same to you...?' He winked and leaned in even closer. `It's okay to admit you liked it, y'know, Davy boy. It's pretty vanilla these days.'
It is?' Leif corrected his serious frown and tried to look as laddish and jokey as the other tracksuited youth, shifting his posture and clearing his throat uncomfortably. I just wondered, is all.' He struggled to picture his pristine Instagram model girlfriend doing anything of the sort: she barely wanted to kiss him unless he'd been in the shower for over half an hour, and she sucked him off strictly once every three months providing he bought her a gift afterwards. He couldn't imagine her wanting to ruin a manicured nail by putting it anywhere near his-
God, is that all you wanted to ask?' Shackleton was teasing him warmly. I thought you were gonna say something much weirder and kinkier, buddy, like watersports or some crazy shite, y'know, or...'
Watersports?' the young Newcastle bloke asked in sincere innocence, fixing his housemate with a confused grin and staring naively into his smirking titter. What the hell does water-skiing have to do with anything...?'
Near the back of the Leeds coach, rolling through the high roads between Lancashire and Yorkshire, the conversation was not much more sophisticated. Around him, the brash chatter of the older and more cynical Leeds blokes had spent about the past twenty minutes debating which of the female behind-the-scenes staff at Old Trafford they would have most wanted to join them in the showers afterwards -- it left Patrick Bamford quietly reflecting that there wasn't much difference between a collection of working-class yobs and the fifth-form rugby squad of his Nottingham private school back in his teens.
The star striker stared out of his window with primly stiff posture, trying not to get dragged into the misogynistic competition of the guys' chat, even if he had privately had his eye on one hot filly in particular throughout the post-match routines. Next to him, his neighbour for the trip gave a wheezing laugh and nudged him, but to his relief, did not invite him into the general patter of the other fellas, just checked in on him. `Penny for yer thoughts, Paddy lad?' the Northern Irish player and one of today's goal-scorers asked curiously, while beyond them, captain Cooper and many of the others shared in harsh loud guffaws at some crude in-joke.
Sorry,' Patrick apologised politely, I don't mean to be off. Just tired.'
Sure,' Stu Dallas agreed quietly, relaxing back in his own seat and seeming to lose interest in the lads' banter he'd been heavily invested in a minute ago. Long night and now this trip home. Surprised half the bus ain't asleep already.'
Bamford made a vague noise. `Hyped up, I guess. The gaffer keeping everyone excited.'
Yeah,' Dallas agreed quietly. It's good for the young uns,' the 29-year-old added sagely. `Good to be in a culture like this, y'know. Just optimistic and good-hearted, it's pretty special really...' He scratched at his thick dark stubble, looking relaxed and pleased with himself in spite of tonight's loss, having scored a rare defender's goal and made his own personal mark on the Man Utd defence, even if it was too little too late to equalise against the flailing giants.
Yeah,' Paddy agreed wearily, and at the mention of youth', he couldn't help but stare over the headrests and down the aisle, catching vague site of Leif's boyish profile between the forest of seats and men, pink-cheeked and sniggering as he spoke to his neighbour, probably young Jamie.
Annoyingly, Stuart seemed to pick up on this; Paddy was about to dismiss the look and moment as his own simmering paranoia, but the other experienced footballer nodded forwards and nudged him again. It's good, the way you've been looking out for that one,' he said simply. He's a bit green about the gills, young Davis. Bit wet, y'know. Good to have a guy like you keep him in check after all that fuss in the summer.'
Patrick gave him a careful look, knowing that all that fuss' meant to the ridiculous drunken cock-measuring contest, but almost sure Stuart could not know exactly how much fuss' it had led to between its winner and loser -- though he DID know that the gruff Northern Irishman had been one of the key blokes in teasing and harassing Leif about it afterwards, with even their crude Scotland-playing captain pretty happy to chip in and make fun of Leif as the `small cock loser'. And more.
I respect you a lot for stuff like that,' Dallas was telling him now, cutting through his touchy reaction. You're captain material, everyone says so. More level headed than Coops, anyhow!' The two Leeds players shared a quiet but open laugh at this remark, with the skipper sat only a row or two behind them. Paddy relaxed somewhat. So yeah, I don't mean anything funny,' grunted Stu, but I like to see it. You're a good pal to a young un like that.'
Well, thanks,' Paddy told him sincerely, still a little discomfited by any attention to the friendship, especially from someone who was usually such a willing wind-up merchant. I do try, y'know. I've been about the leagues!' He stared at Stu's ambiguous nod and grin, feeling a little spike in the paranoia that had haunted him in recent weeks -- it was very specific, really: what did other guys think of the way he'd taken Davis under his wing this season, and his brief insistence on room-sharing with him, now largely dropped...?
`He's a good kid,' he told his coach neighbour evasively.
Aye, I think so,' Stu agreed, but yeh... bit lost, don't ya think...?' Paddy shrugged. `Bit of a lovesick pup, ya know the type...?'
Now Paddy fixed him with a more stern look and spoke in an irritated whisper. I hope you're not implying he's lovesick for ME, mate,' the Grantham-born forward said sternly, folding his arms across the chest of his Leeds sweatshirt. That's exactly the kinda bullshit I was protecting him from after the summer, you know, and-`
Relax!' insisted Dallas, but matching his confidential tone. I'm sure it's just a... crush, at worst.' Paddy's eyes and nostrils flared at his teammate's choice of words but he didn't know what to say to contradict or challenge this banter. It happens,' the Northern Ireland player told him blandly, shrugging the muscular balls of his shoulders and stretching out a little in his seat. I wouldn't worry about it, fella with your looks -- must happen all the time. Kids get confused.'
Bamford made a dismissive tut but couldn't stop staring hotly at his partner here, fidgeting where he sat and tugging at his tight dark tracky pants. I think you're bullshitting,' he told the other player accusingly. Is it you with the crush on me?' he demanded more jokingly, edging an inch away from the other man and closer to the window with its sweeping view of the hilltops by the motorway.
Don't flatter yerself, blondie,' Dallas muttered, shutting his eyes lazily and reclining. But if you can't see the way that Geordie munchkin tails after you, then... Seriously, don't frown and blush about it, Paddy mate. It's... inevitable. Just relax, ride it out. Let it pass. I'm sure he'll get it out of his system.'
Patrick frowned his way and then back out of the window, irritated even more by the other guy's cool posture and almost disinterested refusal to look at him while he cast these ridiculous assertions. Ridiculous! Except, of course, not: all Paddy could think about was the two of them, winner and loser, piling into a small public toilet in the Leeds stadium that night of Premiership promotion, and then again an image of the rosy-cheeked youth sitting on the edge of his bad, asking in a shaky little Geordie accent: `You want me to do you now, man...?' The handsome 27-year-old striker pictured himself in their shared hotel bathroom, scrubbing his dirty finger clean.
Say he does have a crush,' he muttered very quietly to his neighbour, what do I do about it?'
Nowt,' grunted Dallas sleepily. I never do.'
Patrick gave him a curious sidelong glance, holding back the inevitable follow-up questions that this quiet exclamation so obviously demanded from him. You're full of shit,' was all he said instead, shaking his head and glaring out at the wintry scene, the frosty December night they were cruising through. He was about to say more when Dallas just gave a sleazy half-conscious snigger and told him, These kids get muddled all the time, you just have to let it go and take what you can from `em, that's all...' And the words faded out into a relaxed chuckle and a stretching of his limbs, one thick leg rubbing briefly at Paddy's knees and resting hand, making him twitch uncomfortably away and reach for a harsher comeback, some pithy attack on the implications of Stu's philosophy here, but -- the coach stopped with such jolting force that both men lurched forward, almost crashing into the hard seats in front of them but snapped back by the belts diagonal across their strong chests, shaken but unharmed as the vehicle came to its grinding roadside halt.
A scattering of players, too restless to stay in the relative warmth of the unmoving coach, loitered on the roadside and in the shallow frosty grass of the verge. Among them was the 25-year-old star of last year's promotion battle, and a recent graduate to the England senior side. Like the other guys out here, he was too impatient to wait inside for news on the fact their bus had broken down here in the middle of nowhere, and hopping about from slider to slider in the cold, watching the driver and the assistant manager in deep conversation a few yards ahead.
Kalvin Phillips shivered against the Pennine night, hands dug into the loose pockets of his baggy grey sweatpants, a thin gilet buttoned up over his white tshirt, a cap pulled backwards over his scruffily tied-back hair. `What's he saying?' the young Yorkshireman demanded of the nearest fella, one of the younger members of the coaching team, who looked tired and worried.
The coach turned his way with a frown. I don't think anyone is getting a bloody hint of signal,' the thirtysomething trainer told him grimly, his teeth chattering a bit. And it's starting to feel like we might spend the whole fuckin' night up here. Jesus Christ. Merry fucking Christmas, lad.'
Phillips made a whistling little exclamation of camaraderie and annoyance, peering past his informer towards the intense conference between the boss and their driver, then at the scattering of other restless footballers who had spilled off the coach and onto the verge, taking in the dim view or staring irritably up and down the silent A-road in the hope of a passerby. Kalvin found himself laughing idly at the prospect of the entire Leeds squad trying to hitchhike their way through the hills and back into West Yorkshire.
He fiddled with the buckle of his baseball cap and played with the zip of his gilet, then shuffled closer to get in on the crisis conversation. I saw a turning down into the valley just before,' he chipped in boldly. I reckon it was less than a mile off this road, y'know. Maybe we just walk into town and find a hotel?' He saw a certain affront in the assistant manager's expression, so the young Leeds champion pushed on from a more specific angle. `The lads are shattered, gaffer, and they really need their rest -- if we spend the night waiting here, they'll be no good for training in the morning...!'
The man turned away and, the driver trailing after him, marched a few metres on down the roadside to speak to Bielsa himself, who was sulking alone and playing pointlessly with a mobile phone despite the absolute black spot of phone signal their coach had broken down in up here in the high northern hills. Phillips watched them bicker over his idea, and shrugged his shoulders exasperatedly, glancing back to the other guys milling about and the boyish frustration of the faces in the dim coach windows, all watching for some sign of action and hope. Everyone half-asleep and wanting to be in their comfortable beds around the outskirts of Leeds, not stranded out here in the wintry night with no sign of the engine restarting.
Kalvin was one of many unofficial leaders within the squad, a homegrown talent who everybody loved and respected, and he felt a certain duty to represent them, since their captain Liam Cooper was probably too busy telling a dirty joke somewhere at the back of the bus. Bunching his muscular arms at his side, the long-haired Leeds lad marched down the verge to join the gaffers and gave them a pleading look. We need to get the lads moving,' he said earnestly, and he saw a stiff nod from the South American football manager. Great, I'll lead the way,' he offered.
`Well, this is a funny little shithole,' his roommate chimed happily across the cramped room they were now sharing, while Leif pulled the single rickety wicker chair against their one radiator and tried to get some warmth back into his body. It had been a long trudge for the Leeds guys from the coach into this small hillside town with its one empty hotel, and the loud banter that had rang out across the frosty hills for the first twenty minutes of walking had soon subsided into sleepy quiet.
Davis and Shackleton had taken the walk in their stride for longer than most, having made briefer appearances in the night's football game, and approaching the whole detour with vague amusement and lots of cheeky jokes to keep them upbeat. But now they were here in the cramped second-floor room of the run-down motel, their energy felt annoying and wasted -- neither lad was in any rush to get into bed, having had their return homes to their girlfriends cut off by the broken-down coach and the diversion into this nowhere town on the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
`As if we haven't spent enough of tonight talking about our own shitholes,' quipped Jamie with a sleazy chuckle, giving him a look from the window, shivering a little and hugging his arms over his chest as he lingered there.
`Ugh, mate,' laughed Leif, not enjoying his choice of labels for their nervous jokey discussion of how it felt having a girlfriend briefly poke at their rear door -- though in Leif's case, it was done with such dishonesty and evasiveness, given the truth of the only person to poke him there, a few rooms away in this last-minute pitstop. They'd passed each other silently in the march from the coach to the side-road and then the town, and Leif was increasingly sure that he'd done something very wrong that night -- as much as he'd felt more relaxed and less mocked in the squad since, anointed with Bamford's special interest and attention, he also felt as if the handsome striker could barely stomach talking to him. Leif suspected he'd misbehaved or gone too far at some point, disgraced himself in some private way, and now he just glumly supposed that his brief closeness with the star striker was all but over.
Oh, come on,' muttered Jamie in his broad Leeds accent, crashing down into a sitting position on the bed beside him and stretching out each of his limbs. We agreed -- no shame in a bit of jiggery-pokery back there, I told ya. I kinda like it when my Becca gives me the finger, y'know. She only does it when we're really going for it and that, and it's always a surprise, and-`
`And it always makes you cum buckets. Yeah, you said. Fuck's sake.'
`Heh -- YOU brought it up, remember, Leif-blower.'
Aye, I kna,' he muttered back defensively. But it was you started suggesting I get... what did you call them? Beads! Fuck's sake. You and Becca try that too, do ya? Love beads. What a fucking expression.'
Jamie smirked knowingly at him. I wasn't exactly speaking from experience there,' he confirmed with a slight yawn. Nor about the piss, either! That bit was just banter, Geordie, don't be getting any funny ideas when we're home and the bathroom is occupied...! Hehe. But...' Leif perked up at the wistful and curious tone of his voice. `I'm not saying I wouldn't let her try something other than a pinky, y'know, since it feels kinda good.'
Davis stared awkwardly at him from the creaking chair, thumbing at the jangle of their room keys in one of his hands. `What, seriously...?'
The broadly built 5ft6 midfielder just leaned back against both arms and spread his legs casually, kicking his heels against the side of the bed. I'm always up for new stuff,' he said fairly. And so's she. I dunno. She's never suggested it. I'm just sayin', I... I'm only 21, mate. I wouldn't rule stuff out at our age. You never know. And like I said, it's not even that kinky these days, guys our age...'
Maybe not in Leeds,' Leif grumbled self-consciously, hiding behind his brash Geordieness and squirming against the wicker chair with a slight creak. Don't think lads up on Tyneside get up to this weird shit, mate. Beads! Fuck...'
God, you're really stuck on that word beads,' laughed Jamie now, reaching a foot over to kick him lightly in the calf. I dunno why I said that. Could be anything. Any kinda toy. I dunno, I'm no pro! I mean, could be a bit of fruit or veg, for all I care, haha...!' He started laughing happily to himself. `Bit of banana or something, just to give it a go -- anything for a laugh, ya know...?'
`Mate!' Davis responded hotly, his cheeks going crimson and his body curling nervously back into his seat, regretting ever broaching this topic with Shackleton -- but also feeling a nervous little tremor run through his muscular young form at the silly notion. Almost instantly, he was picturing the big fruit bowl on the reception table when they'd been stood around bored during the check-in, trying not to feel too snobbish about the low-quality dive they were now stuck in overnight.
Plenty downstairs,' mused Jamie now, alarming him with the sympatico of their thoughts. He was giggling stupidly and kicking him in the calf muscle again. Could go down and fetch a `nana or two if you wanted to try it out, Kinky Bro... haha... see if you can handle it, y'know...!'
Leif, red and hot with embarrassment, stared him down and spat out his half-joking Why aye, mate' before he could stop himself, and then caught the serious little glint in Jamie's eyes as he rolled this way across the bed on one elbow and tilted his head thoughtfully. Why aye?' he questioned with a playful tone to his voice, and Leif felt his cheeks burn behind his patchy young stubble.
For Bamford, the walk into town and the check-in to the hotel had amounted to a bit of gloomy reflection on what Stuart had said about `crushes'. He was still self-absorbed and quiet in his room now, paying little attention to the sitcom on their TV while his randomly allotted roommate fussed with the remote and made sporadic snatches of conversation with him. Paddy stared at the other guy where he squatted on the edge of the parallel other bed, stripped down to simple black tshirt and tight grey trunks, his dark hair tied up in that silly little miniature ponytail of his hipster style.
`This is shit,' Jack Harrison said now, about the show on the screen, changing the channel yet again and beginning to say more about the new show playing in front of them; talking vaguely to himself and not really making much effort to actually interact with his roommate or draw him out of his brooding silence.
Bamford was looking at him and remembering the last time they had been alone in a hotel room together, a memory that he had largely suppressed over the autumn and winter, but now seemed starkly unavoidable, here in this cramped cheap room in the middle of the Pennines. For many minutes more, Patrick just sat there and glowered thoughtfully at him, unsure if the Manchester City loanee even knew he was staring his way.
And then, some dormant tension finally snapping, Paddy swung his legs to the side and got up to his feet, barefoot in trackies and sweatshirt, and moved around to block Jack's view of the television, standing between he and the screen, arms folded and staring frostily down at him.
The dark-haired young winger raised his brows and stared blandly his way. `What's up?'
Patrick blinked a few times at him and held his ground. What was your problem with Leif?' he demanded, ignoring the weeks of silence that lay between the start of this conversation and the here-and-now. Why were you being so mean to him, start of this season?' Jack went to answer but he found himself cutting him off already. `It was more than just banter. More than jokes about summer, and general stuff. You were really weird about it.'
He watched Jack's frozen face and gently twitching expression, his slow indecision on what to say. Paddy unfolded his arms, gripped by some weird energy now that had been implanted in him by Stuart Dallas and his gruff careless remarks about confused young lads and their crushes.
Again, Harrison went to speak, fiddling with the TV remote, but Bamford cut him off with his firm odd voice, needing to say these things. You made a pass at me,' he said accusingly. When I confronted you. You tried to touch me, didn't you? You were, what, jealous of me being mates with him?' He frowned demandingly at the other player, towering over him here on this spot between bed and telly, folding and unfolding his arms and then rolling his shoulder muscles aimlessly. He stared imperiously at the other star player, someone he had a perfect relationship with on the pitch, but had struggled to understand off it. Crushes, he thought. Just let them get it out of their system. That's all. How had Stu put it, earlier...? Take what you can from em...'
Jack looked nervous now, his usual smug confidence draining from his face and posture where he sat, arms draped over his bare knees, tapping the remote against his legs; behind Paddy, the TV played on quietly with some late-night comedy show. But it was invisible and silenced compared to the sudden sexual tension that burned between him and the 24-year-old sat a couple of feet in front of and below him, staring up at him with wide eyes and quivering lip.
`Paddy,' the City midfielder began to murmur.
What did you want from me?' Patrick demanded, and he took a step closer, really looming over his roommate and teammate now, ignoring the weeks of untouched baggage that lay here, and just returning to that tense confrontation all those weeks ago when he'd first intervened on Leif's behalf, saved him from these daft bullies and their so-called banter'. He stared harshly down at Harrison and thought about the confused way this repressed lad had began to touch him that evening in the hotel room, making him jolt back and snap at him aggressively.
Harrison's eyes flickered up and down a little, one moment meeting Paddy's gaze and the next... looking where? At the bulging crotch of his tracksuit pants...? Bamford took a long deep breath, and then reached down and squeezed that bulge, grabbed the front of his trackies, and didn't take his eyes off Jack's for a moment. He nodded his head once. `Suck me off,' he commanded simply, and let go of his own looming package, giving in to the strange tension in the room.
Phillips wasn't sure how he ended up sharing with Dallas, but he felt too tired to be too interested. Almost as soon as he was locked away in their tiny shared room, the 25-year-old was peeling off his clothes and going through his metrosexual routine of moisturising creams in the en suite, then approaching his bed in just his tight clingy dark green underpants, his stocky muscular frame on show in the dull glow of the television, a quiet American sitcom buzzing away there with its canned laughter and jingling theme tunes.
On the other bed, Stuart was lying in just a pair of white briefs, one leg folded loosely over the other, and one arm resting over his gently haired six-pack of dense mature muscle. The 29-year-old turned to look this way with an expression of vague surprise or disappointment, and then without barely moving his other arm, reached for the remote and switched off the telly, darkening the space between them in an instant.
`You just going straight to sleep?' barked the Northern Irish defender.
Kalvin nodded simply in the dim dark. `Sure. I'm fuckin' knackered, pal.'
`Huh. Fair.'
`Why? You staying up and partyin', or summat?'
`Dunno. Can't sleep without getting laid, me.'
Kalvin raised eyebrows at this pointless comment, pulling back his duvet and flopping his bare muscular body down against the mattress, the dim shapes of furniture and his roommate beginning to form a little more clearly in the shadows that the blackened TV left them in. He chuckled to himself, patting and adjusting the crumpled thin pillows, already dreading a poor night's sleep in this shitty cheap bed. This was NOT what he'd expected from Premier League life this year!
`Thanks for that, Stu.'
`You're welcome. You mind if I toss one off, then?'
Huh?' Pause. Are you serious?'
`Aye, I am. I need to. You don't mind, do ya...?'
`Er, fuck's sake, I mean... I guess not. You do you, buddy. But...'
`What?'
`Keep the noise down, will ya?'
`Hah. I'll try. You not horny, too...?'
`Oh, I'm hard at the thought of you grunting next to me, you old perv,' the Leeds lad muttered sarcastically, trying to get comfortable in his bed and peering across at the dim form of Stuart in the parallel bed, hands clearly adventuring down his broad 6ft frame towards whatever lay between his legs. And then, quite suddenly, his hairy muscular form half-lit by a fresh glow of light: a rectangle of glow in one of his palms as he began to load up some pornography on his mobile phone, its dim glow illuminating his lightly haired pecs and erect red nipples, and the flexing of his other arm as he reached for himself in the dark. It also reflected on his hard-set jaw and grimly determined facial expression as he chose his porn for the night, Kalvin staring on in disbelief.
A twitch of Dallas' thumb and his video was selected; seedy music and leering voices sounded with stupid loudness from the mobile device, and the muscular hairy arm began to jerk into action. Kalvin, agog and a bit appalled, stared across at him, and asked in his head...
`So, we're actually doing this?'
He sat on the edge of his bed, the brightly coloured stripes of his boxer briefs hugging tightly about the tops of his thighs as he sat there. In one hand he was holding the small brown-spotted banana from the reception desk and in the other a small round tin of Vaseline that lived in a side-pocket of his weekend bag for chapped winter lips, not... this.
Opposite him, on the other bed, Shackleton was grinning playfully at the banana in his right hand as if making eyes at a potential lover, stroking and patting it and sniggering stupidly at the whole immature exploit the two young footballers were now on the verge of. Well, we may as well,' Jamie pointed out firmly, lying on his side, stripped to his undies and vest just like Leif. It's funny, ain't it? I mean, it is us. Like, we're only gonna laugh about it and tell nobody, ain't we...?'
`Aye, of course,' Davis found himself returning firmly, as if he was much more certain and confident in the plan than he actually felt, fingering the ripe fruit and the hastily sourced lubricant in each hand, and tapping his bare ankles together quietly.
Right, then,' chimed Jamie jokily, chuck us that Vaseline, will ya?'
He did so, and he watched as his roomie deftly caught the tin, popped it open, and began smearing some of its greasy contents onto the bottom tip of the curved yellow fruit and its thick waxy skin. Leif gawped at this action and waited for the punchline to the joke; the moment Jamie would burst into mean cackles and reveal he had the whole dialogue in a voicenote ready to share with the other youth players in their group chat. But nope. Instead of that, the open tin was just tossed back his way and the 21-year-old midfielder pushed himself up properly onto his bed and lay back against the thin cheap pillows while fingering at the waist of his tight black trunks.
So Leif, shivering nervously, smeared two fingers in the aleo vera sludge and rubbed some of it tentatively against the fruity hardness of the banana, then began shuffling his muscular little bottom across the bedding in the same recumbent position as his teammate. A glance to the right confirmed that Jamie was peeling off his undies but leaving his tshirt on, so Leif did the same, pushing and rolling down at his brightly-coloured boxer briefs and resisting the urge to look more closely at the flash of thigh and side-arse from where Jamie lay, focusing instead on the lubricated banana in his hand.
What are you doing?' yelped Jamie's mocking voice, as he got his undies down to just above his knees, and began sticking the yellow fruit down below the soft rise of his cock and balls and in between his fluffy thighs, ready to give this madness a go. He jerked his head to the right to look at Jamie again, who was smirking this way, and evidently reaching his left hand down around the big meaty globe of one buttock. You gotta do a bit of fingering first!' the Leeds lad laughed at him. `You think you're gonna push a bit of that in straight off?!'
`Oh, erm... haha... nah, man, erm... aye...!'
Leif blinked furiously and questioned if any of this was really happening. Then he lifted his legs a bit more and tried not to be self-conscious about his slightly shrivelled privates in the cold night, undersized and embarrassing again like the night of competition that had left him so ashamed and defeated amongst the squad. Lying on his back and refusing to risk another glance towards his teammate, Leif reached for his own bottom and stroked with a greasy finger at the fuzzy crack between his cool chunky cheeks, distracted by a sudden giggle and yelp from the other young lad, but still resisting the strong urge to look and watch. Instead, he prodded at his arse-crack and tried not to picture Bamford's long fine finger going there before, tried to believe his own lie and imagine his prudish girlfriend doing it to him in bed, but no... the image just did not work...
Now I'm gonna try it,' Shackleton announced, and Davis shivered in anticipation, silently mouthing Me too' at the ceiling and gripping firmly at the fruit in his hand, and then beginning to aim it down below his ball-sack and gooch. He pushed its rough, waxy tip in against the greased crack with a tightening of his muscular little body, and then finally dared to look right: see the curled knuckles of Jamie's hand positioned just past his thigh and buttock, trying to shove the spotty curved thing in there, oh fuck...! In a moment of voyeuristic excitement, the 20-year-old felt his most private muscles relax and soften and then felt a scratchy insertion pop against his ring -- oh bloody hell!
Bamford remained standing at all times, as if sitting or lying down would somehow make him more engaged and culpable in what was happening; if he remained up on his feet with his trackies and briefs nestled around his hairy ankles, just watching impassively as the kneeling footballer mouthed at his large posh cock, tonguing and slavering at his loaded hairy balls, then... he could remain detached, separate, above it. To keep his hands away from stroking Jack's daft hair and unkotting his little ponytail, he brought them up behind his neck, elbows sticking out at angles, and held them there, heightening the separation between his own elevated position and the sloppy hungry blowjob going on just below waist height.
Down below, Harrison slobbered and gasped. He'd attacked the job with a ferocity that told Bamford either he'd done it several times before, or had just wanted to for a long time. He drooled and gasped over Paddy's rapidly engorged cock, grasping at his bare hairy thigh muscles and even reaching to squeeze his muscular buttocks at one point, until Patrick just swore at him and pushed the questing fingers away from his fuzzy cheeks. `Just suck,' he snapped coldly at the other Leeds hero.
And so Harrison did, gobbling at his long thick equipment that had won out in that stupid drunken contest; his long thick equipment that he'd let Leif play with, first in front of the lads, and then more privately in the tense toilets, until he shot his load on him. Paddy pushed back that memory and focused on the present, turning over Stuart's advice: let them get it out of their system! Take what you can get! Mmm... well, this was happening, and this is what he was getting...!
On sucked Harrison, greedy and desperate and almost whimpering, tears glistening in his beady dark eyes, fingernails scratching down the sides of his thighs, mouth wide and eager around his shaft.
In the other bed, the other footballer was wanking himself off furiously. And on the phone, a very loud female pornstar was apparently enjoying the two massive cocks in her in a way that could only be expressed through panting shrieks and a lot of repetitive dirty talk. And in this bed, feeling incredibly awkward, Kalvin Phillips was poking at his redundant hard-on in the front of his boxer briefs, wondering if he should kick aside his shame and just toss one off, like the brash older bloke in the nearby bed was now doing.
It was as if Dallas had, despite his obvious concentration on the job at hand, read his mind: `Go on, I won't look if you jerk off, you shy loser. I'll be finished soon, don't worry.'
Phillips shook his head in quiet disbelief, but decided to follow the old adage: if you can't beat them, join them. Or, an updated version: if you can't beat them, beat it. He'd heard many times what a horny old lech Stuart Dallas was, he and his crony Barry Douglas rarely leaving a hotel room without seeing off an inappropriate guest, yet still he was shocked by the brazen randiness of the 29-year-old defender, so smug and complacent about his own goal tonight in Manchester.
Fucking hell, the 25-year-old Yorkshire lad thought, wondering which of his mates he would choose to confide this surreal experience in, and then deciding that he might actually have to keep it to himself, since he was now tugging his own erection from his undies and giving it a cautious stroke in the darkness, glancing over to the limited view he had of the other guy's phone screen and the graphic images flickering across it.
Once again, Stu seemed to read his mind: `Come over here, lad, you'll see it better. What? I don't fuckin' care. It's up to you, mate. I'm nearly done.'
Kalvin lay there, fondling his nob, and marvelling at the bizarre scene unfolding in the dark of their room. On the screen of Stu's phone, the female pornstar squealed some more and he was overcome with a burning desire to see her closer up. Holding his cock in his right hand, he shuffled off the bed and onto the side of Stu's, pushing an elbow against his upper arm and letting their calves brush a little bit, setting physical boundaries with his body, and staring fixedly at the iPhone screen: its vividness made everything else disappear in the dark, as if he was just lying on his own now having a cheeky wank to the video, not muscling in next to another guy to share his dirty video. Kalvin just fixed his eyes on the glow of the screen and the close-up of her spread cunt, jerking at his nob and trying to ignore the body heat of the other man.
The truth was that Phillips was very like Dallas: he struggled to sleep without sexual satisfaction, and his judgement of older horny pervs like Stu was dampened by an awareness of his own insatiable appetite in his early and mid 20s. So as he lay there, glaring fixedly at the shared porno, giving in to the surreal scene, he was really driven by his own unsatisfied lust, always so powerful after a night match like that; a lust that he SHOULD be burning up with his girlfriend back in Leeds tonight, not in this poky hotel room in the arse-end of nowhere...!
In short, Phillips was intensely horny, and his attention totally fixed on the little rectangle of high-definition internet pornography; not at all on the fact another hand was creeping over his thigh and waistline and beginning to finger at his fist, prising it away from his own dick and then pulling it further across...
It wasn't working. He was doing his best, he really was. But it didn't feel good at all, it just scratched and hurt. It felt weird and wrong. The banana barely even felt firm enough -- he could feel the skin
splitting and the fruit softening beneath his tight nervous grip as he tried to muscle it inside himself, into his tight virginal ring. With each push and wriggle of this makeshift sex toy, Leif felt more silly and exposed, and yet his small excitable cock got stiffer and more erect above the tight pull of his hairy balls, and his abs and arms ached with the posture on his back.
Again, he stole a curious and competitive look at his fellow experimental young stud, and saw to his quiet shock that Jamie was doing a bit better at it. Maybe his banana was an easier shape or size or hardness, or maybe he was just a bit looser down there -- maybe his Becca slipped him a couple more fingers than he let on, more regularly than he let on, or had actually tried the much-giggled anal beads that he brought up before, or...
Whatever the explanation, the 21-year-old Yorkshire lad was stretched out on his back groaning, and using his left hand to prod the seized fruit in between the rather stupendously broad cheeks, his right hand gripping and teasing at the curved hardness of his own cock, which made Leif blink and stare. He couldn't believe how gasping or excited his flatmate was here in front of him -- for all their crude chat over the past couple of years, the youth academy graduates had never done anything in front of each other like this, never watched porno together or had any group encounters with their string of attractive girlfriends. This was... totally new, and... terrifying? Fucking exciting.
Leif felt his own banana -- the actual banana, not his aching cock -- split and soften and become totally useless in his shivering hand, and he gave up, pulling its irritatingly scratchy tip away from his crack and regretting the whole venture. He just felt sore down there, and not in the tight funny way that Paddy's finger had felt at first before he... relaxed. But even as he pushed the greasy fruit away from him and regretted ever trying it, he found himself staring curiously over at moaning Shackleton, and slowly edging across the bed towards the narrow gap that separated them in this small room.
Was there something inviting and collaborative in Jamie's throaty moans, or was it just his own latent curiosity and perverse interest that drew him to clamber between the beds and lie beside his gasping teammate? He just needed a closer look, he told himself; he was fascinated by Shackleton's sleazy ease, his confidence, his greater success at the dirty experiment... he just wanted to see that, wanted to see how it was working... he was just grabbing for the banana out of that curiosity, he thought, wrestling Jamie's fingers aside and taking his own grip of the curved fruit, testing just how many inches of it were now buried between those soft, expansive butt cheeks that now grazed his thumb and knuckles so warmly and softly...
And what about the other hand? How would he explain that to himself later? As he reached across the front of Jamie's tshirt, his arm resting against his firm tummy muscles, his fingers finding their grip about that hard veiny tool to squeeze and pull on it, elbow digging into his mate's rib, his whole body poised beside him on the narrow bed... There were no good explanations fore any of it, he realised, at some point in the next few minutes, as he just felt Jamie moan and gasp and react. One hand pushing that banana more roughly into him and the other batting aside his hand to take control of his dick and jerk it, feeling it twitch and pulse and knowing before it came that the white spunk was about to jet from its exposed tip, all over his own hand and wrist. FUCK,' moaned Jamie, next to him, shaking and writhing and pushing at his shoulder, and then, FUCK, what are you doing, you puff?!'
Bamford finished himself off by hand, but did not pull his cock fully out of Harrison's greedy mouth; he planted one hand firmly on the top of his head, holding him by his top-knot, and with the other he wanked his long thick too into that open gob until he was spilling all of his creamy privileged seed against tongue and lips, spurting it against all that drool and spittle and the shaking curls of his tongue. He came silently, barely emitting a grunt and just standing firmly rooted to the spot, emptying his balls into Jack's mouth and then over his smooth chin, a couple of drops hitting the front of his black tshirt and standing out like snow on the bleak hills outside.
Then, without a word, the 6ft1 striker stepped back away from him, cock bouncing up and down a little above the tight pull of his ball-sack. Jack's nails scratched a little more at his thighs then and let go, wilting sideways and leaning an elbow at the bed to support himself, just gasping for air and drooling messily down his chin with a mix of cum and spit.
A little disgusted, Paddy tore his eyes off the sight of that reddened face and away across the small room, but just landing on a wall mirror that reflected the powerful dynamic of them, he stood tall and the other player buckled on his knees, whimpering and catching his breath. Seeing it externally like that disgusted him more, made him stare wonderingly at himself and not recognise the stony authority figure with cum drooling from his foreskin.
Fuck,' Harrison gasped, reaching a hand out for his leg. Your cock is beautiful. So beautiful.' Paddy just grunted dismissively at this seedy compliment, seeing in the mirror Jack shuffle closer to him and stoop in to kiss his short wiry pubes just above the edifice of his cock. And then the shocking bit: I'm so hard,' gasped the Stoke-born footballer, purring at his privates and stroking hands up his muscular pelvis, I'm so hard for you, Paddy, will you suck me too...?'
Fuck off,' the striker announced instinctively, pushing at Jack's face and shoulder and taking some shaky sideways steps away from him. Like fuck am I doing that! You sicko.'
He stared down at Harrison, who stared back with a stricken expression, and then leaned back heavily against the bed. Another droplet of cum or saliva or both dropped from his chin to the chest of his tshirt, and then he turned shamefacedly away, his excitement stiff and obvious in the front of his underpants. Paddy blinked furiously and looked again at his own reflection, the tall powerful blond lad and his slowly wilting big weapon between his legs, sucked to completion.
Mate,' whimpered Jack, somewhere by the bed, I just... I mean I thought we might...'
Fuck off!' Bamford repeated, without even looking at him. I'd never touch you, for fuck's sake. Ugh!'
At some point, Kalvin must have become a little more aware of the mutual wank he was now engaging in, but the video on the screen was somehow still taking up the majority of his attention. After all, he had a cock in his hand, and a hand was on his cock; in the darkness, the distinction seemed partly irrelevant, compared to the hot female view dazzling him from the phone-screen, and the tingling in his fat balls.
It was Stuart's groans that first began to disrupt his fixed little fantasy of the video, his little delusion that he was being wanked by her, that he was deep inside HER, fucking and grinding at HER, not leg to leg and elbow to elbow with a big solid footballer bloke... It was Stuart's deep manly groans that broke the spell and shattered the illusion in the dark, and then because Dallas was actually finishing off, the little glowing rectangle slipped from view and dropped between their hips and thighs, hot and metallic on their brushing skin.
Kalvin lay there and become horribly aware of reality: beside him, Stuarts 6ft body was heaving and shaking, deep animal noises erupting from his square-jawed mouth and dark stubble; his left leg was kicking aggressively against Kalvin's right, and the cock in the young man's hand was trembling and sticky. It was also, quite importantly, not his own. He lay there in shock, unable to immediately tear his hand away from the thick quivering meat he held onto, feeling the sticky cum dribble across his fingertips; the issue was that his OWN dick was still being powerfully gripped and stimulated, so the sensations were quite confusing in the darkness.
`Shit yes,' groaned Stu belligerently beside him, and again the noise of the man seemed to snap him out of something; Kalvin pulled his hand away, dragging it hard over the firm hairy muscle of a six-pack, back towards himself, his fingers shaking and damp with strange cum...
He was about to say something, about to demand to know what Stu thought he was doing, about to make some loud brash exclamation about how hot that porno had been for them to get carried away like this. But he found he couldn't say anything, because his own cock was being pulled and squeezed too excitingly, and his balls really were tingling with the onset of climax. And so he just lay there, close beside the body of the bigger older man, and felt himself explode in the darkness, the action largely unseen, his eyes still blinking at the remembered vividness of the phone screen and the online porn. And the Leeds midfielder shot his load up his smooth tight six-pack in the darkness, his own hands held vaguely in the air, nowhere near his pulsating prick.
Leif skittered between the beds, shaking his right hand and letting little globs of his mate's cum drop from his knuckles to the rough cheap carpet. Jamie barged past him, something dropping with a thud to the carpet between their feet; he stared down at it, seeing the greasy dirty banana settle there against his bare toes. He kicked it lamely away from him, his left hand twitching at the muscle memory of holding it and trying to push it into his mate's fat broad bottom, and then he stared at his right hand, seeing the little slicks of spunk that smeared over the back of it. Holy fuck. The enormity of what he'd just done sank in for the 20-year-old, and he shot up to his feet off the bed, then stared through the lurid rectangle into their adjoining bathroom, where Jamie was swearing to himself and washing his hands off.
Dick still hard and upright between his legs, boxer briefs tangled halfway down his shins, Leif stood lamely on the spot, wiping both greasy hands against the front of his plain white tshirt, stunned and appalled by the dazed way he'd interfered with his friend and let the experiment go too far. Then, seeming to remember himself and gather some awareness, he stooped to grab at his undies and pulled them up, stuffing his swollen hard-on into them with some difficulty, then wiping his dirtied paws against the hips of them again.
`Mate,' he gasped, approaching the bathroom door.
Suddenly Jamie was back, facing him, standing in the door, his expression puzzled and worried, not QUITE the anger it had been ten seconds ago. The two young players stared each other down, standing there in the consequences of their daft curiosity and fruity experimentation. Jamie seemed about to shout at him or demand an explanation, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, his pants pulled clumsily up but not all the way; a little wet patch in the bulging front exposing the lingering stains of his assisted orgasm. His chest and arms heaving in his tight black vest.
`Mate,' Leif repeated weakly, giving him apologetic eyes.
There seemed to be some conflict and indecision for Shackleton here on how to advance past this cliff-face of awkwardness, and Davis too felt there was no good way of addressing what he'd just done. (What Jamie had LET HIM DO, a tiny critical part of his brain might have added, if the majority of his troubled mind wasn't consumed with guilt and embarrassment at his own active part in tugging off his cocky mate in the throes of his climax.)
Then, just as suddenly, the local Leeds lad was laughing loudly, drying his hands down the front of his tight vest, and rolling his eyes. Fuck, that was mental,' he evaluated simply. Those poor nanas!' And he was bustling idly past Leif as if it wasn't such a big deal after all, not looking at him again; this left Leif hovering awkwardly on his own and staring at the banana on his bed and the other one on the scruffy carpeted floor, feeling like he had to be the one to pick up and bin them, while his roommate just peeled off his vest and clambered in under his sheets, still laughing and repeating to himself Mental! As if! Stupid tits, aren't we...'
And a few rooms away, Bamford lay down on top of the bedsheets alone, having not bothered to remove his sweatshirt or pull his briefs and trackies back on. He just lay there, fully clothed above the waist, but his long footballer's legs bare and hairy against the cheap sheets; his soft large privates draped loosely between his thigh muscles and against the bed.
He stared and sighed at the ceiling, then turned his neck and stared over at the other bed. He replayed the awkward moments in his head again: his own repeated shouting and swearing, the way Harrison had pulled on clothing and grabbed his bag and fled the room. Fled the room to... what? Search the hotel for a spare bed? To sleep on the couch in reception? To catch a cab into Leeds itself and be the first to make it home after all?
Bamford found that he didn't particularly care: he was just glad that he didn't have to share this room with that slimy bully who had degraded himself on his knees when confronted. He found little empathy or compassion for Jack, who he knew to have been so unnecessarily cruel to poor sweet Leif; no, he felt no real guilt or unhappiness about the way he'd treated the 24-year-old winger. But... he did feel an abject disgust at himself, the same as he'd felt scrubbing at his hands and washing away the taint of a young lad's arse from his digits.
Bamford lay silently on his own and closed his eyes, concluding bitterly that if Stuart's advice was true, then at least he was halfway there: one silly crush confronted and handled. One silly crush from a confused younger player got out of their system, right? He'd let the weirdo suck him off, given in to his appetite, fed him what he fucking wanted. So it was done. Out of the system. And he, as Stu suggested, had quietly benefitted from it with the sloppy oral sex that had brought him to cream like that.
Right. Cool. Sorted. Ugh. One crush down. That's all. Sorted. One crush done and dusted.
He opened one eye and stared at the ceiling again, lying where he was and ignoring the cold on his legs and privates. One crush down, done and dusted; and just one weirdo crush to be dealt with now.
Phillips emerged silently from the bathroom, the interior of the main hotel room briefly illuminated by the faintly buzzing bulb above his head. Then he wrapped one damp cleaned hand about the cord of the light switch and tugged on it, removing this glow and sinking the tiny suite into complete darkness again, before padding quietly over the room, freshly scrubbed down in the shower and then roughly towelled dry.
At last, the young footballer slid into his bed and pushed his head back against the lumpy pillows, resting his hands on top of the sheets and yanking them up above his tingling nipples. He lay there in the silent dark, staring unseeingly at the ceiling of the room. His cock ached a little in the pouch of his underpants, and he could feel the little spots on his legs where he'd failed to dry properly, skin cooling and drying against the itchy bedsheets.
Mate,' puffed Stu's abrasive accent somewhere in the dark, I can hear ya sulkin' from here.'
Kalvin held his tongue for a moment before answering, `Dunno what you mean.'
A cold little laugh emerged somewhere in the shadows. `Don't worry about it, okay?'
He stayed quiet for a little bit, then answered. `Worry about... what?'
Another of those odd little trademark laughs of the 29-year-old defender. `Good answer, mate.'
But Kalvin couldn't quite let it go. After another minute had passed, We just-
We just had a good wank,' snapped Stuart's voice in the sleepy dark. Nowt more, okay? Relax.'
Kalvin bit his tongue and resisted the next statement and the next two questions. He nodded his head silently in the shadows, closing his eyes and trying to relax his muscular young body against the bed. Right. Yeah. Um. Just a wank. Nowt more.
He lay there, listening to the other man's deep breaths turn into gentle snores, and thought about how mad it was. They'd just wanked each other off. Just lay there, side by side, and jerked the wrong cocks until both of them had spunked. Fuck-ing hell. He turned the madness over in his puzzled mind, and slowly slipped into a fitful sleep that was both deeply satisfied and deeply disturbed. He found himself puzzling over a few patchy memories of last month and his latest trip away with the Three Lions, little fragments of memory that he wouldn't recall or dwell on in the morning light: snatched glimpses of Mason rubbing at Dec's shoulder on the edge of the training ground, or the sight of Jack and Ben sneaking around a corner in a way that was very mysterious and secretive. That night when he'd been on his way back to his room and heard about five guy's voices coming from the same room. Just little snatches of memory that played on the edges of his dreams that night, trying to sleep in spite of Stu's loud growling snores. He'd forget it all in the morning and move on, happy to dismiss the memory of the mutual jerk-off with the other athlete; more than happy to buy the lie that he'd wanked himself off over a simple bit of borrowed porn, `nowt more'.
'Writer guy' - Premiership Lads on Nifty https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/celebrity/premiership-lads/
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