Part 384: The Third Leg
The young football player opened up the screen of his shiny new iPhone and looked at the notifications that had buzzed against his thigh - a few messages of condolences and support from close friends and family at the night's FA Cup knockout, which he appreciated but didn't feel quickly inclined to open or read. Instead, he slid his thumb instinctively towards the most active of several group chats which skulked about the top of the screen - a couple of dozen unread chat messages from the `Young Lions Versus the Fucking World' group that had been set up over the past few call-ups by the national U21s.
Looking idly for distraction, Tyler Morton skimmed his eyes past the coarse laddish banter of the other young England hopefuls who were proud to wear that shirt but were all jostling for promotion into Southgate's senior squad. With deft taps, the 21-year-old loan player tapped laughing emoji reactions to a few messages but then hesitated over a morally dubious meme shared by one member of the crew - he scrolled further down to see a few boastful holiday pics shared by that sender, whose Premiership Club had given him several days off for the `winter break' and allowed him to pose obnoxiously by a hotel pool wherever he was. Tyler found himself frowning ambivalently at the deckchair selfie, unable to look at the rugged facial features of the Everton lad who had been his international teammate since their first call-up in their teens.
It was hard for Morton to encounter any sign now of lanky Jarrad Branthwaite without remembering first their aggressive clash on the training ground and then, making him shiver a little, the smug expectant look on those rugged features as the tall broad centre-back welcomed him into the en suite bathroom of his own fucking hotel room; blinking awkwardly into the glow of the phone screen and the shared selfie, Tyler pictured that same face leering slightly with a little sheen of sweat on the cheeks and brow, looming over him as the two 21-year-old lads stood close by under the electric light in the cramped little bathroom. For a moment it was like the lazy eyes of the smirking Cumbrian met his via the photograph as they had that night after the scrap, and Tyler frowned uncomfortably.
He left the group chat without weighing in on the way the other lads were abusing Jarrad's choice of swim shorts and sliders, and noticed that just down the screen was a separate 1-to-1 message from the closest of those U21 buddies - but then Harv was more than just one of his Young Lions' mate, more than just an acquaintance to banter with during international breaks and to try and climb that career ladder with. Whilst ignoring friendly support from many other close people in his life, the footballer lad slid open the brief message from Harvey Elliot: Soz about the result, broski - chin up and fight on, Ty-dog xx'. There was of course something immediately warming about such casual friendliness from a fellow Liverpool baller, one of his Academy mates who went further back and more consistently than any connection from the England ranks.
But... well, it wasn't as if kindness and affection from the other young Liverpool star came without the same baggage and pause for thought, and he was mentally back in that same dully lit bathroom, wandering sleepily from bed to threshold and then close next to the two of them. In his mind's eye, he saw Jarrad's cocky expression and slouching giant posture... and he saw Harv back on his knees between them, doing the dirty deed.
A voice cut into the young man's reverie and, jolted and uneasy, he instantly locked the phone screen as if he had anything to hide, as if somehow the WhatsApp inbox could project his inner imaginings to the world around him: his friend Harvey noisily noshing off Jarrad fucking Branthwaite and then turning his wet lips this way to pleasure half-asleep Tyler too. Fucking hell.
`Here, are you just gonna sit and text your girlfriends, or are we gonna play this game?' And with that, Morton's roommate lobbed a Ps5 remote at him from the doorway, having just returned to their shared space from a neighbouring suite of the Birmingham hotel. He caught it instinctively in one hand and shifted off the bed, shaking away the slight daze that came with poring over his smartphone for too long.
Shit this room is cold,' complained the other young man harshly. Does the heating not go up any more? Bloody freezing. Here, I'll just get this set up - knock some tunes on or something will ya, Tyler?'
`Er - oh, yeh, will do - good thinking.'
He pushed his phone away without properly acknowledging Harvey's message, or any of those unread in the list; he wasn't in the mood for dwelling on the night's defeat in the FA Cup, with his loan team Hull City knocked out by their Brummie hosts. The visiting Tigers would be on their back into South Yorkshire if there weren't such icy conditions on the roads, hence an unscheduled second night in the city-centre hotel where he now sat, with his teammate and roomie setting up the console at the TV and himself looking about for the portable speaker he'd brought.
Successful at the TV, Regan Slater turned around and saluted him - `Where's the tunes, DJ?' - before clapping his hands together and going away to fiddle with the controls of two different radiators, seemingly convinced he could make the small shared suite cosier. Tyler returned to his phone and fumbled with Spotify, self-consciously selecting a playlist of old indie tunes for them, and then clambering further down the bed for a comfier position from which to join in the two-player action.
Tyler was mildly intimidated by Regan, though he did like him a lot; the 24-year-old Yorkshire lad was very confident and relaxed, similar in some ways to his mate Harvey - a charmingly cocky extrovert who presented himself as unfazed by the older and more experienced men on the squad, and full of throwaway comments about just how far he expected his career to go in the years ahead. To listen to Regan's self-assessment, it sounded like Tyler's midfield colleague expected to be at Real Madrid in two years and making billions in Saudi in ten.
Slater was one of several more permanent Hull players who had casually welcomed him into their friendship group, their nights out, their in-jokes and banter, and so Morton was of course very grateful and vaguely deferential to him, almost apologetic about his own roots at a much bigger and higher-status club. Perhaps what really made the 21-year-old nervous around the other lad, more than his confidence or humour or bluntness, was the nickname used for him by most of the other Hull City squad members: `Tripod'.
Squatted adjacently at the foot of their beds to play some shoot-em-up warfare and listen to indie bands from their boyhood, Tyler could start to relax and enjoy himself - he was quite good at this particular Call of Duty and hold his own against the arrogant claims of the 24-year-old, and they bantered easily, their chat moving from the game to the tunes to random insults against other lads on the team. This was all very comfortable, and Tyler could begin to feel quite settled as a Hull lad, pretty content to be roomed in central Birmingham with this Sheffield ruffian, rather than enjoying some Premiership time off like most of his colleagues and Everton's Branthwaite.
It was when a lull in play, a shout from outside the room, or a notification from Regan's slow-charging phone, any distraction at all in fact, would make the other football player get up from his cross-legged position to move about the room. Like Tyler, Regan wore a slim-fitting team t-shirt on his upper half, and the soft dark tracksuit pants that formed part of their travel-wear for away games - but it was in these branded trackies that the problem lay, the source of Slater's crude epithet. Right now the other midfielder was up to get them more snacks from his backpack on the shelf, returning with a tube of Pringles in one hand and a bag of Giant Buttons in the other, and himself stood prominently in Tyler's line of sight at the TV screen where his character was still alive in another death-match - and the problem with Regan Slater, ultimately, was the obscenely prominent weight that bulged in the front of his Hull gear.
It was ridiculous, really - it wasn't even as if Tyler was the sort of nosey or insecure lad who spent time comparing these things, not really, and he certainly had no OTHER reason to be checking out what was in his teammate's shorts! But it had been something which became obscenely clear in only his first few days of loan play in the Yorkshire city: it was seemingly impossible for the 24-year-old lad's lad to strut about in trackies or shorts or pretty much anything without bulging so ridiculously. At some early point, Morton could remember thinking it was an actual joke, that the roguish club joker had stuffed some stupid items down his shorts while they trained - it had only been when he looked his way across a pitch one damp autumn night that he observed that, nope, Slater genuinely played football with such an eye-catching mound swinging and bouncing in his kit! Then, gradually, Tyler had caught on to the `Tripod' labelling that was thrown at the guy, and accepted that yep, it really wasn't some prank or stupidity on Regan's part... he really just couldn't help but be so publicly on show without wearing oversized baggy trousers or jeans.
My eyes are up here, Anfield,' barked Slater now, since Morton had apparently fallen into the trap of staring awkwardly down at the front of the other lad's trackies for a moment, though he swiftly retorted, What? Get out of the way, I'm playing!' And Regan, apparently fully comfortable with his dumb nickname, giggled stupidly and shook the sweet and savour snacks, throwing himself down onto the foot of Tyler's bed with him, out of his way but too late - a sniper killed Tyler's avatar and the game ended, so that he could lay down his controller and sit there receiving a handful of Pringles from the other player.
To Morton's relief, Slater didn't elaborate on his suggestive jokey comment - he slagged off the mechanics of the video game instead, complaining about the AI and weapon options, and they were just too young blokes in front of a telly, arguing nonsensically about gaming and anything else that came to mind. Tyler let the reddening of his cheeks fade and he chastised himself for being intimidated or uneasy with Regan's showy complacency; it was hardly the Sheffield lad's fault what God had given him, and it was good that he had such a zero-fucks-given attitude to everything, wasn't it? Inevitably, the 21-year-old's thoughts spiralled back in the direction of England Under-21 service: it had been hard to be relaxed and normal after what happened in his shared room with Harv, and he'd not really had the proper confidence to confront or dissect it with his buddy. Mostly, it had put an awkward tension in his friendship with the Anfield regular, and made him wary of Branthwaite and some of the other burly alphas of their England crew... but apparently it had also skewed the youth's dynamic with guys at Hull City too.
Still, a mouthful of crisps and then chocolate, a switch over to a less contentiou computer game, and Tyler began to relax properly. He half-wished that his roomie would shift over to the other bed to give him space, but it seemed rude to point out, and so they huddled here together at the foot of one bed, eventually sharing a duvet over their shoulders for extra warmth because the suite refused to heat up.
As they became inevitably bored of this second game too, Slater pushed his remote away and lounged backwards, falling into the bunched-up duvet as a back support, with much of it closed about his neck and shoulders for comfort - and Morton glanced unthinkingly his way to see what he was doing, briefly considered lounging back in the same fashion but stayed still, cross-legged next to him, cradling a defunct remote in both hands. And his eyes, unconsciously, roved down the slim-fit of Regan's tee, down to the thin stripe of white skin before his Diesel underpants and the waist of the trackies, which... uh, stretched a bit stupidly at the front over the mound of the lad's privates, prominent and obvious in his gear even as he slid into this recumbent relaxation. Thinking that Regan was still watching the video game outro on the TV, Tyler blinked and stared, marvelling for the three dozenth time at how the other lad somehow contrived to bulge so ridiculously in literally whatever he wore, and how idly it was labelled and joked about by their teammates - the thought of being so obvious with his own tackle made the 21-year-old blush and cower, far less confident or assertive in his masculinity.
It's not my fault,' Tripod' grunted, as if reading his mind.
Huh?' Tyler muttered back, immediately flustered. Wha'...?'
I did ask for an even bigger pair,' Regan continued in a lower voice. I always go XXL, even though I'm hardly the tallest or broadest fella on the team - but then they'll be stupidly big on me and the fit is terrible, so- Yeah, it's not like there's anything I can do about it.' Tyler flashed his eyes over to Regan's, caught his vague scowl of defensiveness, and he felt his own thin face flush redder.
What are you on about?' the young Scouser murmured back, looking away, refusing to acknowledge that he'd been staring so thoughtfully. All your kit fits fine, you daft lad, stop worrying...'
Oh fuck off,' Slater said, quite quietly. You know what I'm on about, matey. But I just have to not give a shit about it.' A thoughtful pause, in which Tyler blushed fiercely and looked anywhere but at his roomie - How'd you think it was when I was still at school and shit like that? I'm used to the stares and the jokes, for fuck's sake, you don't need to be so bashful.' He chucked his PS5 remote at Tyler's side and sniggered. I know my own nickname here, for fuck's sake - it is what it is.'
Morton shook himself and got up, collecting the remotes into his hands and crossing the room to place them by the console and telly; when he turned, he was faced by the slouched relaxed posture of Slater on his bed, lounging back into the mound of duvet, bulging obscenely in his trackies, and shooting him a lopsided grin. Go on, stare it out, I swear you'll blink first,' joked the 24-year-old with a roll of his eyes. Never get into a staring contest with a Basilisk - ain't you read your Harry Potter, Anfield? Heh.' And Tyler mumbled out a laugh as he returned to the edge of his bed, sitting back down next to his friend, strangely charmed by the openness and surprising vulnerability of Regan's talk - the familiar intimidating confidence was still there, sure, but there was a quiet reflectiveness that was kinda alluring at the same time.
Jesus,' he muttered, is that your nickname for it?'
`Haha - one of them! Mostly I just call him the GOAT, y'know-'
`Fuck off, haha...'
`Ah, you know how it is, if I didn't make a joke of it I'd be as shy as gimps like you, fella - I know everyone thinks I'm just all Mr Confident and that, but it can be embarrassing sometimes, let me tell you.'
`I bet it has it's upsides,' Tyler sniggered dumbly at him, looking away.
I mean, when you see yourself tagged in a dozen slow-mo clips on TikTok and that,' Regan muttered on. You know - not on like actual footy accounts, mate, but weird pages obsessed with players' bulges and that sorta shit!' Tyler paused, eyes bulging, and glancing curiously over at the strange expression on Regan's face - both puzzled frown and self-satisfied smirk - as he talked: Honestly, mate, like guys all over the fucking internet world, I think, sharing clips of me in my kit - on all these websites and forums and that. Seriously, don't google my name, it ain't footy stuff that you end up at. Fuck's sake.' Tyler blinked and stared at him, taking all of this in. That's weird,' was all he could murmur in response - it briefly occurred to him that he was probably too weedy and unassuming, that surely there weren't pervy gay guys on the internet wanking over HIM?
I know what you're thinking,' Slater told him simply, although he was wrong. You're thinking sure, that sounds great, right? I mean, yeah, don't get me wrong, it's nice to be fancied and all that, but - jeez, makes you feel a bit weird sometimes? I get messages asking me when I'm gonna set up my OnlyFans...!'
Tyler couldn't help but laugh at this. `Well, we got knocked out of the FA Cup tonight, but things aren't quite that desperate...!'
We'll see what happens when I get through another transfer window without PSG coming knocking,' the Tripod' chuckled at him with a touch more self-awareness and irony than was typical - again, it charmed Tyler and made him feel even more warmly towards the other player, who seemed to be confiding in him and dropping his bluster and bravado. Tyler nodded vaguely and lingered next to him, thinking he ought to change the subject - but Regan had more to say on the matter of his third leg - `Seriously, I'll find some decent sports briefs that are comfy enough for me eventually, I tell ya...!'
`My heart bleeds, hah...'
`You laugh, but you can't stop staring at it.'
`Oh, shurrup...'
`Where was the lie, bro?'
`Er- fuck off la'-'
And now Tyler was just uncomfortable again, wary of Regan's large character, and feeling vaguely as if he'd said the wrong thing and tripped himself up. He sat there, perched on the edge of the bed, and in spite of all uncertainty and resistance, or almost because he was trying not to, he swung to the right and stared right at it - the humongous mound in the front of the older lad's trackies. He flushed and blinked and stared up at Regan's face - there was nothing smug and obnoxious about the lad's expression though, oddly, and that disarmed him, made him feel hesitant and reserved.
Well, it's not my fault,' the 21-year-old Scouser found himself saying, defensively - If you will lie there like that - I think you WANT staring at, you attention-seeker.' He huffed and pushed at Regan as if to encourage him off the bed - glad when the older footballer player did indeed get up, but less so when he stood squarely at the corner of the bed and shoved down the taut waist of his trackies, right down to the midpoint of his thighs, so that the bulge now loomed and swelled from the pale grey of boxer briefs - `What the fuck?' Tyler demanded under his breath, frozen where he sat.
`Just need to show you I ain't tucked any socks down there to troll ya-!'
`We've been playing on the same team for a few months now, mate-'
Here, look-' And with that, Regan pushed down the undies too, and out it unfurled. Tyler stopped where he was, staring intently - he'd been tempted to look in the showers, curious and wary, but always kept a distance from Tripod' for that very reason. But there it was, the long thick snake of it, the surprisingly untrimmed bush of his ginger-brown pubes, the weighty cushion of large balls. And Regan just stood there, hips pressed forward, baring his equipment, t-shirt slightly lifted, a matter-of-fact apathy on his face. Go on, give it a good stare,' Slater barked almost accusingly, as if Morton had asked for this peep show - his eyes bulged and he stared at it and then up at that oddly whatever' expression on his face.
`I mean, what do you want me to say?' Tyler grunted irritably, sitting painfully close to the exposure, hands pressed down at the bedding on the outside of his thighs. He felt irritated and oppressed but he still felt that lingering warmth at Regan's openness and his vague uncertain hidden insecurity - somehow, whilst standing there exposing his monstrous privates, the 5ft8 midfielder did actually contrive to look shy about it, embarrassed, as if this indecency was an inevitable ritual to be gotten out of the way, as if he'd shown so many blokes it in the past, baring himself to prove a point or to silence speculation. And so Tyler swallowed his aggressive retort and sat there, beetroot-faced, and glanced from the drooping meat to the sullen expression above, until he had to look away and wiped the back of a hand across his sweaty face. He looked back, and saw the droop of Regan's posture, some tension passing them by.
`Yup, there it is,' sighed Slater, almost wistfully.
`It must feel heavy...'
`Meh, dunno - it's just there, y'know?'
`But it must be so in the way when you're playing...'
`Oh, kinda, but you know, I hardly really notice, until I see the pics or clips...!'
`Mate, doesn't it annoy you when people use that nickname?'
`I can't let it - it is what it is, you know, fucking look at it - it's just THERE, the bastard.'
It's huge,' Tyler breathed, the intimacy of their quiet chat releasing some primal honesty that made him blush even more as he heard himself - Regan just chuckling softly. And then he thought his ears deceived him, the question that came to him, low and uncertain in Regan's South Yorkshire accent: no way could the midfielder lad have just asked him that? He met Regan's questioning eyes and frowned, and realised that he hadn't imagined it. You wanna touch it?' the 24-year-old had asked.
Tyler stared back, his breathing awkward, his chest heaving. `Wha'?' he murmured very quietly, feeling like his face was on fire.
A shrug from Regan. `You can, if you want.'
Tyler's mouth felt as dry as a desert. He stared at it. Had it got even thicker and longer in the past few moments? Carried on by some inexplicable instinct, he reached for it without answering the muttered suggestions. He brushed his fingers against its soft swollen warmth. It somehow felt even bigger than it looked, freaking him out, but he ran his fingers against some of its length and then, briefly meeting eyes with the face above, he gave it a little lift, weighing it against part of his palm... his touch lingering, until the loud internal question was thrown back at him: what the hell are you doing, Tyler? He retracted his hand and let it droop free again, and he wiped a clammy palm on the thigh of his own trackies, releasing a long-held breath and feeling very silly.
They stayed still and said nothing, exposed Regan standing over him, and Tyler just blinking his lashes furiously and wondering if he was going to be bullied for the rest of the season for what he'd just done - was Tripod just trolling him here? He looked nervously up and found Regan's face hard to read - the confident lad had nothing to say for himself, wasn't bursting into mocking laughter, or ribbing him with some insult for his complicity. Without being asked or invited, without saying anything more himself, Tyler lifted his hand and reached over, and this time he took it a little more securely in his fingers, then holding it and pulling very gently on its weight - now Regan did react, very slightly, with a breathy little sound that turned into some fraction of a laugh. Was he... nervous?
Driven by some intent that he could hardly identify or name, Tyler brought his hand back, but this time just to hold open in front of him. Quietly, he spat in his palm, and then he rubbed its lubricated touch down the weighty shaft, and under it, hoisting and holding it, feeling its weight, rubbing at it gently but insistently - stopping to spit some more on his palm and give it a good slow pull. He bit his lip and now found he couldn't bear to lifted his head and make eye contact with Regan, who was barely making a sound - he could just stare at his object of fascination and continue to rub it, stroke it, pull on it, feeling it grow, stiffen, expand. He rubbed a thumb against the creased skin of the sack and tickled at the curls of public hair. He helped the foreskin to peel back and he stared at the shinier pink of the head, which stared back; some more spit against his palm and he rubbed it, making Slater seem to shudder silently, and he gave a firmer tug on the huge bloated length which saluted him, yanking needily on Slater's huge rigid manhood.
`This okay?' Morton asked eventually in a harsh little whisper.
`Yeah,' Slater grunted simply.
`I've never...'
`Don't talk, mate.'
`Okay.'
So it was like that - there was just the sound of their breathing, Regan's low growling breaths, suppressed and tense, as if he wanted to moan - Tyler hoped he wanted to moan - but was doing his best to be stoic. And Tyler's quick nervous chittering pants, and the vague wet sound of his spit-lubed hand as it slid more quickly up and down it, finding the right angle, the right rhythm, the right pressure. Just that, nothing more said, Tyler following Regan's instruction loyally - until it was Tripod' himself who contradicted this, muttering Fucking hell' to himself, and provoking another `Am I doing it right?' query from the Liverpudlian, his voice all shakes.
Panting, from both of them, and the steady wet back-and-forth of the young player's tugging hand. He sat forward, tense, reaching his other hand for Regan's hip to steady himself. Jerk, jerk, jerk. He alternated between staring at it, making glossy eye contact with the monstrous tip, and shutting his eyes, questioning over and over what he was doing. And then he looked up, squinting into the tension of his mate's face - Regan had his eyes squeezed shut, his lightly freckled face contorted as if in pain, teeth bared and visible - he had his hands up on top of his head, elbows in the air, all pressure and restraint. Tyler pulled harder, desperate to free those suppressed moans, wanting to hear how good his hand might feel, how much relief and satisfaction he was giving to this surprisingly vulnerable boy behind the well-hung machismo of the footy crowd - and there it was, the `Ohhhghgh' that escaped wobbling lips, the unsteadiness of the short muscular lad, and suddenly one of Regan's hands reaching down to squabble with his, taking a grip, control... but too late? Right in front of Morton, the deed was done, and his handiwork had done its job.
When it had finished, the 24-year-old was staggering a couple of paces backwards, and Tyler himself was just panting heavily, resting his right hand on his lap as if it was lame and injured - he could feel it damp and hot on his skin, but cooling, and he shuddered uncomfortably, absolutely bewildered. And then his mate's voice, gruff and urgent - `Oh, fuck, sorry sorry mate, sorry about that, er-'
And before Morton really knew what was happening, the other midfielder was yanking up his pants and jiggling past, and then back with a towel - Tyler reached for it but Regan took control, rubbing it against his cheek, his chin, down his neck, wiping away the spunk that had splattered there in the moment of intensity. Pulling the towel back, Slater shot him a look of wide-eyed concern. Sorry,' the permanent Hull player hissed at him again, I didn't mean to-' He seemed awfully worried about the mess, making Morton feel all the more uncertain about the deed that had summoned it.
He grasped for the towel and rubbed at himself, catching a dirty slick on the chest of his t-shirt, and he got up from the bed, shifting away from the other lad. He was tense and shaking and - he couldn't bear to let the roommate see - as hard as a rock in his own pants. He went into the bathroom silently, where he washed his face and hands thoroughly - another vague `Sorry' called through from the other lad, but he didn't answer, just rinsing at himself and then chucking the soiled towel into a corner. He leaned on the sink and hung there on his own - another hotel, another bathroom, another dirty deed, another... regret? He rubbed at his pink face and pictured it, Jarrad's groaning satisfaction, and downwards, the dirty shiny mess of Harvey's goatee...! Oh god, oh god, oh god.
When the 21-year-old loan player moved back through, the PS5 was back on, video game playing, and Regan was perched on his own bed, not even looking up. Alone. Tyler tidied the rumple of his bedding, scratched at his neck, thinking he found a little dried crust there at the collar of his t-shirt, and he picked up the other remote controller, taking it with him as he clambered into bed. Without a word, he buzzed the buttons and joined the game that Regan had set up, and the two lads set about shooting each other to imaginary death - and the elephant in the room, the huge trunk of it, just fell silently away between them as if nothing had happened, the matter of Slater's third leg.
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