Rory and Sebastian

-- Thank you to everyone for your feedback and encouragement. Everyone in this story is over the age of 18. The first part of the story is told from Rory's POV --

I turned at the sound of voices outside. Lights, oddly chequered and orange-tinged, were now flickering through the blinds, as well. I was confused and rolled over in my bed. From what I could tell, it was still pitch-black outside and the train wasn't due to reach London until nearly eight o'clock in the morning. Still, I reasoned, it is December -- it could still be dark at eight. Had we reached London already? I flicked the reading light on above my head and glanced at my watch. It was only just after half-past four. Hours before we were due to reach the capital. I got up and immediately felt a tidal-wave of nausea crash over me. I paced over to my cabin window to lift the blue blinds up so that I could see what was going on outside. Through the dim lights of the platform, I could make out a red-and-white signboard with the word "Preston" written on it. We were in the north of England -- half-way between where we'd boarded and where we were going to. A few people were getting on; one or two were getting off. I pulled the blind down and swayed for a few seconds, wondering whether to go back to bed or if I'd need to go into my bathroom to be sick again.

The stomach bug I'd developed in the last two weeks of my first term at university had not gone away. In fact, it had gotten worse. I was vomiting regularly, sweating and shivering simultaneously, and I was permanently exhausted. Realising that there was absolutely no way that I would make it through a flight back home for Christmas, much less a long drive, my parents had booked me a cabin on the Caledonian over-night sleeper train that ran between Aberdeen and London. My mother had come up to Scotland to help me and we'd boarded together at Leuchars, shortly before midnight. We'd booked two first class cabins, because they were single berth rooms and each had their own bathroom. An unfortunate necessity for me, given the current state of my vomit-prone biology. Any illusion that first class meant that I'd be travelling on something akin to the Orient Express, however, was blown out of the water by seeing the cool white-and-blue modernity of the train. It looked like the interior of a very small business hotel. Still, it was room and I could sleep -- or shiver -- until we reached London, where a prayer card and a sick bag would hopefully enable me to survive the one hour journey drive back to Kent.

I hadn't realised the train stopped so many times. It seemed to defeat the purpose of getting a good night's sleep, I thought irritably. (Maybe that was just my drained body talking through its almighty humanity-hating, sleep-addled strop.) A whistle blew outside and the train gave a lurch as it began its journey southward again. I felt my skin begin to break out in a cold sweat again and I slid open the door to the bathroom. The whole cabin already smelt like the room of a sick person. I repulsed myself as I wretched into the toilet. I didn't know how my body kept producing so much sick. Surely, it was all gone? Surely, there was nothing left to vomit? I hadn't eaten properly in days. I couldn't keep anything down.

When I was done, I got shakily too my feet and looked in the bathroom mirror. Even allowing for the unforgiving harshness of a sink light, I looked awful. My eyes were black beneath them and my skin looked like paper. I was disgusting and I needed to sleep. As I moved back into bed, pulling the covers up around me and wondering how long it would be before I found them too hot, I checked my phone through instinct, rather than anything else. There was nothing there; I switched it off. For a second, I had contemplated phoning someone or texting someone. Texting a someone was an honest declaration, but to phone a 'someone' at this time of the night or about something this trivial would not have entailed a 'someone.' It would have meant -- could only have meant, even after six months -- Sebastian.

I slipped my phone underneath my pillow. A little loneliness when I was feeling sick was no reason to wake Sebastian Carson, or anyone, out of their slumber. During my time with Sebastian, I had become entirely dependent on his unerring, unwavering support and companionship. I could see that now. He was always pleased to hear from me - and vice-versa, of course. But we were not together now and I was no longer in the full flush of first love. As I grew up, I was going to have to become responsible for dealing with the less pleasant parts of my life on my own. I could not always expect constant company and validation from those around me; it was not their job to act as a permanent hug to my ego or self-esteem. By being so dependent on people like Sebastian for validation, I'd also opened myself up to being too susceptible to people like Joshua Peterly for criticism. I guess, in that sense, speaking to a councillor for a few months had been a good idea. And having a brain of my own, too -- that helped. There was no need to call or text anyone just now. I wasn't feeling well; that was unfortunate. But I was a big boy and I could sleep it off on my own.

I reached up above my head and flicked-off the compartment's light. The darkness swept over my like a soothing blanket. From outside, a few bursts of half-dimmed orange light swirled and distorted behind the blinds. After a few moments, the train must have left behind all signs of urban life as it sped through the night of the English countryside towards London. The darkness was complete and the gentle rocking of the train, which my mother despised, was, to me, like a calming rocking of the cradle. Rain began to fall -- hard and heavy. Or perhaps it just sounded heavier because it was falling on the roof of the train? I didn't mind. I liked it, actually. It felt cosy, somehow. In this kind of dark and this kind of mood, you could almost believe it was the Orient Express. Or something like it. The nausea and head pain remained, but the insomnia did not. In a few moments, I drifted gratefully off into my sleep.

-- The rest of this installment is from Sebastian's POV --

I rolled over in my bed at the sound of the rain -- hard, thick and heavy -- lashing against my windows. It was my last night of semester in London and tomorrow I was due to go home. I'd chosen to spend it alone. There were lots of last-minute parties going on and both Will and Lewis had indicated that they'd like to spend the night with me. But I wanted to be alone. The last week of semester had been manic. I'd had a paper due in on regalism in 18th century Spain and I'd never done Spanish history before, which meant I'd spent weeks researching it and by the time I finished it, I was beat. I'd handed the finished paper in that morning and my room still had a trash can full of disposable coffee cups; a well-thumbed copy of a weather-beaten book called "King Charles III of Spain: An Enlightened Despot," still sat, spine practically broken, on my bedside table. I was exhausted and Evan was coming to pick me up at noon the next day. I needed to be up early to pack. But, annoyingly, I couldn't get into a proper sleep and kept waking.

I was nervous about going home. I was excited to see my family again, since I'd only been able to have a few lunches and dinners with them when they were in London individually and never all together, since I'd left. But it did occur to me that now was probably the time to try and properly mend bridges with Robbie. He had been one of the people whose friendship I valued the most in the whole school, but after Rory and I broke-up, it was hard for Robbie and I to remain as close as we had been. I didn't blame him for that. He was one of Rory's best friends and he had been for years. I also knew, though, that although he didn't approve of what had happened, he'd been forgiving, in his own way. He was a good guy; he understood. I hoped that him and I could go grab a drink together and maybe just ease back into how easy conversation between us had once been. I had faith Robbie and I were both decent enough guys and good enough friends for that to be possible. The only thing I worried about was that I didn't want it to look like I was being disregarding of Rory's feelings in re-initiating contact with his best friend. And not him.

Although it had been Rory who instigated our break-up, and it was him who stuck to it, despite my initial pleas, I also knew that I'd given him cause. I did not want to be cruel to him or for him to think that I was some douchebag who thought I could carry on with my life back home without any regard for my ex. But maybe I was exaggerating Rory's wrath in my head? Maybe, actually, going to see him would be the best thing, before seeing Robbie. I mean, did I actually think I'd go my whole life without ever seeing Rory Masterton again? But what would happen when we saw each other again? Would it kick up all the old feelings? It would be so complicated if it did, but even worse, somehow, if it did not. What if it was awkward or weird or just plain comfortable? Comfortable would be the worst, I decided. It would mean we could act as if we'd never been anything to each other. I'd rather have it be hideous than be nothing. I sighed in the darkness and tried to put Rory from my mind. But for the first time in a few weeks, he wouldn't go and the memories, drip, drip, dripping, of how happy we'd been, fell on my brain and kept me awake far longer than if I'd yielded to my teammates' suggestion and gone out partying instead.

The drive home to Kent with my big brother, Evan, was nice and it passed quickly. Evan and I had a similar sense of humor and a similar outlook on life. He drove and helped me down with my bags. As the less-attractive of the London suburbs gave way to the green countryside I knew so well, Evan began teasing me about my love life. He'd broken up with his high school girlfriend, Sarah, just before college and by his own admission, he'd lived wildly afterwards. They were back together now, though, something that could not be said for me and Rory.

"So," he teased, as we drove down the motorway, "fucking all round you?"

"There've been four," I said, tapping my leg through my gray sweats.

"Sounds about right," Evan replied. "Anyone special?"

"No," I answered, with sledgehammer honesty. "A couple of regulars, though."

"That's a Carson for you! Any word from Rory?"

I fell silent and shrugged.

"Take it that's a no, then?"

"No," I agreed. "Nothing."

"How are you feeling about you two now?"

"I dunno. I thought I was over it, but last night, I couldn't stop thinking about him, Ev. Like, not even a little bit. Do you think I should see him?"

Evan bit his lip and thought. "I dunno, Seb. I really, really don't know. I mean, if you do go and it's weird, you'll be annoyed. If you don't go... Geez, I dunno! Are you over him?"

"I dunno."

"That means you're not."

"I... he just... Fuck's sake! I'm not even home yet and he's already..." I lightly tapped the window with my clenched fist. "How am I not over this?" Evan gave me a mocking, pitying smile and I laughed: "Fuck off."

I was right about how nice it would be to be home with family again for Christmas. Even if the euphoric welcome home given by my mother lasted exactly fifteen minutes before she had me doing chores again and berating me for the deplorable state of my laundry. My kid sister Jenny was thrilled to have me back, even though we'd last seen each other two weeks earlier when she was up in London to visit; me, her and Evan went for a siblings-reunited walk around the country lanes near our house. The air was crisp and cool, and night was setting in. Yesterday's rain had vanished, to be replaced by an encroaching frost. I liked it. I liked being back and being out of London for a while. Jenny, too, brought up Rory to me, but she did it less seriously than Evan had -- she'd always liked Rory and known less of why he and I broke-up than Evan, who'd been the one to comfort me when I was most upset about it.

The next couple of days were taken-up by frantic last minute Christmas shopping. Evan and I, despite both having been in London with thousands of shops to do our shopping in, had, of course, both left it all to the last minute and were now in a fluster, racing from village to town to village trying to find appropriate presents for our parents and Jenny. It was when we were passing the Catholic church near us that I thought back to how I'd spent last Christmas Eve, when Rory had gone to Midnight Mass there with his family; with that I went with my gut and called him as soon as I got home -- silently hoping he hadn't changed his cell number since we were together.

A beat. A panic. A ring.

A few more rings.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Rory?"

"Yes?"

"It's Sebastian."

A pause; he was gathering his thoughts and the realization hit me that he mustn't have had Caller ID for me. He'd deleted my number. "Hi," he said. He sounded weird.

"Are you... okay?"

"In general?"

"Well, specifically, actually? You sound weird."

"I'm in bed," he answered. Once that answer would have elicited a flurry of filthy comments from me and I heard a small laugh in his throat, faint but genuine, as he made the connection at the same time I did. "Sick," he clarified. "It's nothing serious, just a virus. I should be fine in a week or so, apparently. Dr Symonds said so today. How are you? Are you home?"

"Yes," I answered. "Just finished Christmas shopping with Evan."

"You left it late." He sounded absolutely awful.

"You know me." I found myself thinking 'don't you?' pathetically and I was annoyed at myself for it. I wanted him, just for a second to sound like the old Rory. Just give me one second. Please. "I got you a Christmas card."

"Does it have Jesus on it?"

"Yes. And Mary, Joseph, the three wise men and angels in the top corner. It looks like the Renaissance exploded on it."

"Good," he laughed. "You know Christmas cards with Santa and some fat elves on it make me sick."

"Maybe that's what has you flat on your back now? Secularism?" I laughed. "At least something's done it. Now that I'm not there."

I just made a sex joke. Fuck.

He laughed. Thank God.

"Sebastian..."

"Yes?"

"Nothing."

I didn't speak. I wanted him to correct his 'nothing.'

"I should go. Mummy will be here with food soon. If I... If I feel any better, would you maybe like to meet up for coffee before new year's?"

"I'd like that, yes. A lot. I really would, Rory."

"Okay. Me too. I'll call you when I'm feeling better. Happy Christmas."

"You too. Bye, Rory."

"Bye, Sebastian."

Rory, of course, never did call. He sent me a message a few days later, explaining that he was still in bed, still sick and didn't feel up to seeing anybody. But he wished me a merry Christmas and a happy new year's. A few days after that, I flew over to America to visit my grandparents and by the time we came back to England, it was time for me to go back to college. It was a wonderful trip and while I was disappointed not to have seen Rory, his politeness gave me the courage to contact Robbie. We met, we laughed, and the subject of Rory was carefully avoided, without too much awkwardness being drawn to the absence of him. I deluded myself, I think, into believing that our short phone call had offered both Rory and I a kind of closure that we hadn't had before. That, by being able to speak to one another and to be able to pass by one another in such close proximity without being devastated by a failure to meet, we had somehow crossed the Rubicon of one another. I thought that, now, at last, I could put Rory in a box of memories -- perfect and preserved forever in my memory as we'd been when we were happy. I could trap him and I like a fly caught in amber. I had, so I thought, put to rest all hope of ever getting back together with him and I was still functioning. I was no longer heartbroken; we were finished and what we had left one another with, at least in my head, were happy memories of a first love. A glorious, foolish, hysterical, cloying, crippling, heart-crushing, soul-hugging summer love. The pain had gone and I could move on.

Initially, at least, that did not translate into any great desire to find another relationship. I was aware, on some level, that Rory would be a hard act to follow and that everything would suffer by virtue of comparison. I was also keenly conscious that I was young, single, in good health, good shape and a rugby player at college. For some reason, a rugby player, a jock, whatever, seems to be a staple of a lot of gay guys' fantasies and when there are only two of you in the whole university -- myself and Will -- (well, two openly), then you're in a good position to reap the advantages of that collective fantasy. To put it bluntly, I had a lot of sex over that next year and, like I promised, a short stroll down Memory Lane is in order -- the good, the bad and the ugly.

Sometimes, the wrong key goes in the right lock -- in this case, sometimes people just aren't sexually compatible. Without sounding too full of myself, I consider myself to be fairly good in bed. But that year saw three incidents of bad sex: Tyler, Philip and Grant. Tyler was a twinky medical student with overly-dyed hair, who I ended up inside after too many jaegerbombs at a flat party. Given how much I'd drunk, it's admittedly probable that the awkward friction and constant dick-falling-out-of-ass situation that occurred was more my fault than Tyler's. Philip was a handsome politics student in the year above me, with a well-kept dark beard and lovely blue eyes. By his own admission, Philip was "a bit of a slut," who had slept with most of the gay guys in all three academic undergraduate year groups. His head-giving abilities were incredible, but once the actual sex started, he kept trying to change positions as many times as possible. I felt like a gymnast and by the end of it, I definitely wanted to execute the dismount. Grant, the last of the bad sex triplets, was tall, with a retro Zac-Efron-style haircut. He was a nice guy, camp and really funny, but for all his bravado, once we actually made it into bed after going to a friend's flat for dinner, he lay there like a piece of lettuce. He tried to initiate sex again with me a few weeks later, but I'd learnt my lesson and politely declined, using the (actually quite valid) excuse of the paper I had due in the next day.

There four hook-ups that were neither bad, nor good. All of them forgettable one-night stands and par for the course for most people's college experience. Keith was a short guy, with short brown hair but beautiful big dark brown eyes, which I love, and naturally tanned skin. We'd flirted a bit before being left alone together at the end of a party he'd hosted in his room; I offered to help tidy up and one thing led to another. The sex was okay, but neither of us were tempted to let it lead onto anything else or to re-initiate it afterwards. A few of our friends knew and we were both good-naturedly teased about it on-and-off in drinking games and 'I have nevers' for months to come. Nathan was a music student -- tall, dark and handsome with a definite "edge" to him. He had a few tattoos, which I'm usually not too big a fan of, but they certainly worked on him. Unfortunately, after our one and only date, we ended up back at my room and he wanted to be the top. He jack-rabbited me and while I'm all for a bit of rough sex, there are limits. He irritated me even more the next day by Facebook messaging me to say that he hoped he hadn't led me on, but he really wasn't looking for anything too serious. Considering that we'd had one date and I had, at no point, indicated that I was looking for something serious, it seemed like an asshole thing to do to dump someone before you actually start dating them. I didn't write back; life is too short to indulge in somebody else's fantasies of importance.

After Nathan, there was Matty and then Eric. Matty was a good looking guy, but he was far too aware of it, and while he was great to look at in bed, like most people who've been told they're beautiful their entire lives, he made no real effort -- either in bed or out of it. Eric was a pretty musical theatre student from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, near our college, but after we slept together, he told me that he had a boyfriend back home in Canada and I got pretty pissed. I told him I didn't want to get caught up in anything like that and left. Fuck, I was angry that night. It brought back a lot of memories that I was keen to avoid and I was livid that someone could glibly hop into bed with someone who wasn't their boyfriend, when I'd torn myself up about one kiss. One that I hadn't even particularly wanted. People always have the power to surprise you and usually in a bad way.

There was also four guys who I really enjoyed having sex with -- Steve, Joe, John and Paul. Steve was a good-looking bisexual guy from Belfast, with spiky brown hair and a cute smile. We'd been friends since we both took a class in Spanish history together in first semester and I liked him a lot. Steve was open, engaging, genuine, friendly and honest. One night we were talking about our sex lives and he was explaining how frustrating he found it when people reacted badly or rudely to the label of bisexuality.

"Dude, I think that's bullshit," I said, honestly. "Fuck! I'm sure it must be more frustrating to be bi than gay. At least most people believe being gay actually exists."

"Nah, I wouldn't want to say that," Steve said, quickly. "I wouldn't want to diminish anybody else's difficulties, you know? It's just frustrating when people act like you're confused or greedy or a nymphomaniac."

We ended up kissing as he left and as I slipped my hand up under his t-shirt, I felt him smile into our kiss. As I took him over to the bed, I felt how hard he was.

"Do you want to be on top?" I asked, removing my own sweater.

"No, Seb," he grinned. "I really, really want to be fucked tonight."

I could never pinpoint afterwards why exactly nothing ever happened between Steve and I. Or why even the question of something happening was never raised. After we were finished fucking, he got up and happily chatted to me as he got dressed, like nothing had happened. The next day, we were back to normal as friends. We drank together, socialized together, stayed as friends and what happened that night never seemed to have any discernible impact on either of us.

Joseph was a finalist student, also doing History, who I met one night when he was sitting next to me working frantically on his dissertation about the Irish War of Independence. I was working on a paper on the South Sea Bubble crisis and looked down in confusion when I'd absent-mindedly reached out to my pile of books and lifted back one entitled "Green against Green." At the same time, the guy opposite me at the library table was glancing down at a biography I'd been looking for called "The Great Outsider." We looked over at each other and our eyes met; he looked like an edgier version of Rory. Brown eyes that seemed to glitter solely through the force of his personality, brown hair (longer than Rory's) and a strange, enigmatic half-smile that seemed to be amused at both himself and the world, all in one go.

"I think this is yours," he said, handing over the biography. "Sorry, lad, I must have set some of my books on your pile. The stress'll do that to you."

I passed over his book on the Irish war. "Not a problem, dude," I smiled. I caught the Irish accent; warm and melodious. Different to Steve's; southern, rather than northern. Slightly less distinct and more musical. There were quite a few Irish students at college and I'd learned, roughly, when to tell the difference- well, that, coupled with the fact that half of Rory's cousins had been Irish and they're picky about that kind of thing.

"How's it going?" I asked, by way of keeping conversation going so that I didn't have to start working again right away. This topic was torture to write about.

"My dissertation," he said, ruefully. "Irish War of Independence. You?"

"South Sea crash. Ye Olde Recession," I joked. "You're a finalist, then?"

"For my sins, yes. It's hard going. First year?"

I answered in the affirmative and that was the beginning of my friendship with Joseph Dempsey. Joe was a nice guy, with a wicked sense of humor, but naturally shy and quite quiet. He had come-out in his gap year after high school and had dated the same guy for all of his time at university. Three months before we met, they had broken up and although he would seldom talk about it, you could tell his heart was still hurting.

We sat next to each other throughout spring term, working comfortably in the library. My work load was heavy and his was psychotic. One night, after I'd spent far more time in the company of William Pitt the Younger than I'd have liked and Joe had exhausted himself translating a document from Irish into English, we both went for a drink at a bar nearby. One drink turned into three and then into five and that turned into us making out furiously in his apartment. Fifteen minutes later and I was on my back with his sheathed cock sliding in and out of me. The sex was good and Joe was an amazing kisser, but during the kisses, I could sense his loneliness and his desperation. The unseen ghost of his dead relationship was in that room with us and as much as I liked him, it began to make me feel uncomfortable. Especially afterwards. Joe sat on the edge of the bed, gently rubbing my leg, but gazing off into the distance and slightly hunched over. I got up and kissed him on the cheek, before getting my clothes from where they'd scattered in our pre-sex rush.

"It's okay, Joe," I whispered. "We don't have to talk about this and nothing has to change. I get it. You're not over him and that's okay. I'll see you tomorrow."

We never slept together again and although we continued to work near one another in the library, I could tell he felt uncomfortable around me now. The friendship slowly died and four months later, Joe graduated with a first class honors degree. Part of his dissertation was later published academically and today, he's married with an adopted kid. He and his husband live near to the university where Joe teaches Irish history and his husband teaches something to do with science. From what I can tell, the husband is not the guy who broke Joe's heart in that final year of university. I'm glad about that and happy that Joe is happy. He deserves it and I know he'd be a great husband and father.

There is a tiny, tiny part of me that wonders what would have happened if Joe had reacted differently the first time after we slept together. While I wouldn't change the direction my life has gone in, there's no point in denying that it was simply a friendship that had spiraled into sex, like Steve and mine's had. I had grown to like Joe and, looking back on it, I definitely had a crush on him. His discomfort at the fact we'd slept together did hurt me, not least because I didn't like to see him upset. That encounter with Joe Dempsey was a bit of a turning-point for me. It reawakened a desire for something slightly more serious and I began to enjoy casual hook-ups a lot less than I had done before. In the bacchanalian last week of spring semester, I slept with two different guys -- a blond tennis player called John and a drama student called Paul. When I told my friend Helen that I'd slept with two guys called John and Paul, she made a joke about that being the name of the last pope and that maybe I had some secret fetish for Catholicism. Unbidden, the image of Rory arose in my head and conflated with Joe. The knowledge that I was beginning to look for something deeper moved from my unconscious into my conscious.

Joe Dempsey also changed something else in me. For months I'd happily been bed hopping and enjoying myself. Like I said, I don't regret it too much now and I love sex, but the image of him on the night we'd slept together made me realize that it wasn't always possible for sex just to be fun and devoid of attachments. Not everyone was going to be able to experience it in the same laissez-faire way that me, Steve, Will or Lewis could. Even they couldn't do it all the time. In April, Will broke off our friends-with-benefit style arrangement to pursue dating someone he actually cared about and Steve was dating a girl from our course by the time we left college for Easter.

Spring break was short for us and I didn't go back to Kent, but to Virginia to spend time with my grandparents and cousins. It was great and I had the best time; I begin to think about spending my summer out here. There'd certainly be more to do than in Kent. When I was on my own, I'd think back to my first year at college and about what I really wanted from my second. Since moving to London in September, I had slept with fifteen people: Patrick, Will, Ed, Lewis, Eric, Grant, Keith, Matty, Nathan, Philip, Tyler, Steve, Joe, John and Paul. Fifteen people in eight months isn't doing too badly, but it's not exactly great for your inner self-esteem, either, when you realize that not one of those people was interested in pursuing anything more serious with you.

By the time I returned to London, the final semester was taken up a lot with house hunting. I had decided to move in with two girls, my Irish friend Helen and her friend Jess, and a friend from my course, Peter. I figured if I moved in with any guys from the rugby team, I'd never get any work done and Pete, who played soccer for our college, had become a really good friend of mine over the last few months. He was funny, tall, lean and had a filthy sense of humor. He'd been dating his girlfriend, Ruth, since high school and she was so nice that none of us minded the fact that she'd been down to London to visit and stay fairly often once we had a house together.

That summer semester between April and June I ended-up having sex with four more people, despite my vague intention to quit the sex-heavy lifestyle. As if I was being taunted by what I was potentially distancing myself from, the sex with all four of those guys was absolutely fantastic. Jamie, an indie kid in the year above me with a cocky smirk and a "v" on his abs, fucked me so hard over my room's desk that I swear I had the elusive double male orgasm and shot a huge wad of spunk onto my laptop. Lee was a guy from my class who, by his own admission, planned to sleep with anything and everything until graduation. He was ridiculously arrogant and, I suspect, slightly stupid, but the sex was mind-blowing. Tim was a friend of Peter's, visiting from their home in Scotland; he was tall, like Peter, and thin, with cropped light brown hair and hazel eyes. Like Peter, he was a really sweet guy. He also turned out to have a massive cock, which I experienced firsthand (if you'll pardon the pun) after a game of shot roulette got out of hand one night, resulting in us stumbling into my room to fuck our brains out. He was easily about nine inches long and it hurt, in a good way, as I felt his head break in through my back door. Tim reminded me of myself in a lot of ways. He was laid back about sex and enjoyed it. He was on top first and then, when we'd gathered our breath, it was my turn. When it was over, he gave me a playful smirk and rubbed his ass, "Fuck, lad, I'll not be able to sit down properly for a week after that."

"Worth it," I laughed. "A good fuck is always worth it."

But it was the two nights that I went to bed with a guy called Harry that ended up teaching me the biggest lesson about myself and what I wanted in life. The sex with Harry was out of this world; a no-holds-barred fuck-fest. But the feelings that came along with it were far less enjoyable.

Harry, to be clear from the start, is over twenty years older than me. He's a businessman from Washington State, who my father used to work with and who never married, never settled down. I had vaguely remembered hearing about him, in passing, when my father was talking about a company he'd done some work for in Singapore, years earlier. But if he'd ever been to the house or met our family, I didn't remember him. On the afternoon when I submitted my last piece of work for the summer semester, I got a phone call from my dad.

"Hey, Dad. What's up?"

"Hey, son. Did you get your work handed in okay?"

"Yep. About twenty minutes ago."

"Bet that feels good?"

"Like you wouldn't believe. What's up?"

"I know you probably have plans to go out and celebrate tonight, but could you do me a favor?"

"Maybe," I said, instantly wary. I suspected I'd be asked to say hello to one of Dad's colleagues, who was in town on business but who Dad couldn't meet himself. Last time we'd been wheedled into this favor, Evan and I had ended up spending 90 minutes in conversation with a personality bypass number cruncher who couldn't talk about anything but the FTSE 100. Which I didn't know anything about and Evan didn't care anything about.

"Harry Martyn is in the City on business for a couple of nights and he's there on his own and he doesn't know anyone. He took me and your uncle Simon out for drinks when we were in Seattle and he's been a good friend to me. I'd like to take him out myself, but..."

"You're in Cardiff," I finished for him, with a smile.

"I'm in Cardiff," he said. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't ask on the last night of your semester, but Harry's been a great friend to me and Simon and he'd do the same if we were stuck in town for a few days with no one to show us around. He's working with a Japanese bank in the City and if you met him for a drink or coffee this evening, I know he'd really appreciate it."

I groaned but agreed. My parents had raised all of us to have manners and in fairness, any time Dad or Uncle Simon were staying where their close business partners lived or worked, them and their families were equally good to them. I knew Dad hated traveling and the loneliness that could come with it, which is why he was doing it less and less as he got older, and I figured I may as well do a family friend a solid and meet up with him for a pint. I took down Harry's number from my father, called him and arranged to meet him at a bar near his hotel in Mayfair at 7:30. That would give him time to arrange dinner plans for later, if he had any, and me time to meet up with my friends back at college, too.

As soon as I met Harry Martyn, my cock began to twitch. He was in his forties, I'd guess, and in great shape. His hair had a few streaks of silver, he was well-dressed, with a well-kept dark beard and a strong jaw. When he shook my hand, it was a strong handshake and he smelt of just the right amount of cologne. The man was definitely a silver fox. As we both ordered a beer and got to talking, he told me how he'd only been in London a few times, because his end of the business world was mostly with the States and Asia. He said he liked London as much as any big city, but since he had no real interest in history, he couldn't get as excited about it as he knew a lot of people would. He mentioned that he'd had to Google who Anne Boleyn and Thomas More were when his cabbie had pointed to the Tower of London as they drove past to tell him that's where the famous queen and the Catholic saint had died. I smiled politely at that and felt my attraction waning slightly. Even if you knew nothing about history, when someone points to the Tower of London and says a famous woman was beheaded inside it, at the very least some of the ads for "The Tudors" TV show should probably appear in your head. But when Harry got to talking about what he was good at -- namely business and sports -- he sounded less arrogant and less dismissive. He sounded upbeat and confident.

"Do you play any sports yourself, Sebastian?" he asked, over our second pint.

"Rugby and horse-riding," I said. "I like to swim, too."

"Rugby," he nodded. "Well, you've got the build for it -- although, I'll admit it's not a sport I know a lot about. I was a quarterback back in college, myself."

I nodded. I could see that.

"So, are you enjoying college?"

"I am," I said, setting down my drink after a sip. "It was a lot to get used to at first, but, yeah, I really like it."

"I bet the girls go wild over a guy like you. Good looking, athlete, American."

I laughed a little. "Well, if they do, Harry, that's not much use to me."

"Pardon?"

"I'm gay."

"Oh," he said and I saw a spark of interest in his eyes. At least he wasn't a homophobe, I thought, not that I'd have moderated my answer if I thought he had been. "Well, I bet all the guys go crazy then too."

I shrugged and smiled. "I do alright."

"I bet you do," Harry laughed. "I was the same as you, back in college. I did alright."

"With the boys or the girls?" I teased.

"With the boys," he answered, staring at me.

"Really?" I smiled. I definitely had not expected that. "I must have a crappy gaydar, Harry. I did not get a gay vibe off you at all."

"Ditto. I might have dressed up if I'd known."

"You look just fine," I answered, as I realized that we had now slipped into openly flirting with each other.

"So do you," he replied.

Ten minutes later, Harry and I were talking about fun things to do in London and he rested his hand on my knee underneath the table. I felt a jolt of pure electricity between us and I looked at his smirking eyes, deciding what to do. On the one hand, this guy was a colleague of my father's and yet I was planning to swap cum with him as soon as I could. I wanted it; he wanted it. But he still worked for my father. Not that I assumed he'd say anything, but I needed to hear out loud that he wouldn't, because as much as I loved sex, I loved my father and his respect more.

"Harry."

"Yeah?"

"You wouldn't tell people if we fucked tonight, would you?" No point playing coy about it, I reckoned.

He smiled at my candor. "Absolutely not. Would you?"

"Hell, no."

"So, if I take you back to my hotel room," he said, quietly, "and ram-fucked the shit out of you all night long, you'd keep your mouth closed?"

"Not when I'm in the hotel room," I joked. "But, yeah, I want to, but you work with my dad."

"Not that often. And you're an adult; this has nothing to do with him."

That was all I needed to hear. I finished off my drink, re-arranged my boner underneath the table and stood up. I figured Dad probably didn't even know Harry was gay or if he did, wouldn't have thought it was relevant.

"Let's go then," I said.

He grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and walked out with me. We hailed a taxi and when the driver wasn't looked, Harry rubbed his hand over my denim-clad crotch. We took the steel and glass elevator in his soulless, business hotel up to the eighth flower and as he slid his electric key card into the look, he turned to me and winked. The phallic imagery was too much for either of us to ignore. The second we were in through the door, he pressed me up against the wall and kissed me. It wasn't exactly a falling on each other kind of thing. No clothes had come off, but I felt his firm dick through the fabric of his pants as he pressed against me and his tongue, forceful and insistent, invaded my mouth. I felt unexpectedly weak and heady in this guy's company and I liked it.

"That's an impressive hard on, you've got there," he whispered, throatily.

"Right back at you," I said, pulling him back in for another kiss and unbuttoning his shirt. When I'd pulled it off him, he took me over to the bed and he sat down on it. He kicked his shoes off and reached down to remove his socks. As he unbuckled his belt, he looked at me and said, "Strip for me, Sebastian."

"Seb'll do just fine," I corrected him, since 'Sebastian' was something that only my Mom called me. And Rory. I removed my shirt and shoes. Then I unbuckled my belt and yanked down my jeans a bit so that he could see the tag line of my underwear, then I slowly unbuttoned my crotch, pulled down by jeans and stepped out of them. My dick was poking out of my briefs it was so hard. I pulled my underwear off; I was left standing solely in my socks, jerking my dick. Harry was doing the same, having extracted his from his pants. I let him get a good look at me and then walked over, held his head and kissed him, deeply. He pulled me onto the bed, rolling me over onto my back. He kicked himself out of his trousers and underwear and we began making out on the bed. I could feel the wetness of our pre-cums mixing off one another and the weight of him, solid muscle and strength, bearing down upon me. I ran my hands down to his butt and caressed his smooth cheeks. He must wax or something down there, because he had a fine dusting of hair on his chest which led me to think he would have it elsewhere.

"I'm going to be rough with you," he promised.

"I love to fuck, dude," I replied.

"Suck my dick."

I pushed him onto his back and got up to stand over him. I reached down to peel away my socks and then his, so that we were both completely naked. I lowered myself down and began circling my tongue round and round on his cock head, like it was a candy cane. Harry groaned and ran his hand through my hair. After a while, I started to go down further and further on him, slowly opening up my throat and coating his rod in a fine sheen of my saliva. The guy's cock kept growing and, honestly, it was a fucking monster. If I'd thought Tim was big, I hadn't seen anything yet. Harry had a monster cock and giant, heavy balls. He was cut, too. I began gagging and choking, but I was determined to keep going. I felt Harry's hand on the back of my head get a little bit more aggressive, as he held me in place and began to slowly fuck in and out of my mouth. I was jerking my own dick as we went.

"You like getting your face fucked, Seb?"

I thought, 'Heck, why not?' and nodded through the penis filling my mouth and throat.

Harry gave a short laugh. "I thought that. Get on your back."

I eased my mouth off his cock and lay back on the bed. He pulled me forward until my head was hanging off the bed, upside down. I knew what was coming; I'd been face fucked a few times by Will and done it myself. I relaxed my throat as Harry reinserted his thickness into me and began gathering speed as he fucked my face like it was an asshole. I could feel his balls banging off my nose and wondered stupidly how I'd been able to take him so he was balls deep in my throat.

"Oh, fuck, yeah. Take that, you hot slut," Harry growled. He saw me jerking off and then leaned over me. I choked a little as he moved and I could feel rivers of saliva pouring out the sides of my abused mouth. Then I felt his mouth slide over my tool and I groaned into his dick. As we kept up the sixty-nine, I ran my hands appreciatively over his ass. The guy may be fucking me like a whore, but he was giving as good as he got with the reciprocal blowjob. Eventually, though, it all got a bit much and I had to push him off to breathe properly. Taking the hint, he spun me round the opposite direction and pushed me back up on the bed. I'm a big guy and strong, but Harry could move me fairly easily. It was new experience. He forced my legs open properly, crawled between them and began slobbering over my dick again.

"This is a beautiful cock," he said, as he went to town on it. He stretched his hands up to my mouth and began to finger-fuck my face a little. I sucked on his fingers, running my tongue across them and I felt him murmur appreciatively into my crotch.

By the time he took his fingers out, I was panting and red faced. "Fuck me," I said hoarsely.

He climbed on top of me full again and stabbed his tongue deep into my mouth as his hand reached over to the bedside cabinet and extracted a tube of lube and some rubbers. He went back down on me to rim for a bit; it was the thing he was least good at it in sex, but still, a mediocre rim job is better than none. Am I right?

He clambered up to my face; his angry red piss slit only a few inches away from my mouth. He tossed the condom down onto me.

"Unwrap it and put it on me," he ordered, "then tell me what you want me to do to you."

I'm all for getting into sex properly when you're there, so I complied and opened it with my teeth. I knelt up, next to him, face to face, and began slowly unpeeling it, back onto his shaft. How the fuck that dom fitted onto him, I don't know. In another life, it must have been a parachute.

"I want you to throw on my back, on my knees, on my side," I said, slowly and calmly, looking right into his eyes. I clicked open the lube and began to slather his erection with it. "I want you to fuck me on the pillows, on the floor, against the wall, against the door, against the sink, on the couch and on the bed. Let's fuck like there's no fucking tomorrow."

I bent over right in front of him and parted my cheeks as I slid a lubed up finger into it. "I want you to use this, Harry, and for us both to have a really fucking good time."

He growled and stepped forward, grabbing onto my hips in a vice grip, before placing his cock at the entrance to my body. "Ever had one this big in you before?"

"Would I be walking if I had?" I jibed.

Harry laughed and slowly began sliding into me. I gritted my teeth when we passed the eight inches mark, but I knew he was nearly finished. The discomfort was momentary and soon gave way to a feeling of pleasing fullness.

"Fuck, yes," I hissed. "That's amazing."

Slowly, Harry began to fuck in and out of me, hitting my prostate and all the right places as he went. He built up speed and spat in his hand, then gave me a reach around. For a while there was no sound in the room except for the slap, slap, slap of flesh on flesh, the slippery slurping sounds of a cock sliding through lube and our satisfied, masculine grunts. Then Harry said, "Ride me, boy."

He pulled out and lay on his back, hands cockily behind his head. I lowered myself onto his dick and sighed as it re-entered me. I locked into eye contact with him as I began riding him. I built up a rhythm more quickly this time. I contracted my chute around his erection a couple of times and he gasped in pleased delight, giving my ass a congratulatory spank when I did so. His hands were beefy and strong and they left a pleasant sting when they slapped me. I spat on his chest and used the spit to wetly tweak and roll his nipples.

We fucked like that for about five or ten minutes and my asshole was beginning to hurt when he said, "Get on your back."

I pulled off him, grateful for the secondary respite. I flung my legs open and up in the air, like the cheapest whore I could imagine; he leaned down and kissed my again. I could feel his hand guiding his cock back in and he took no time at all, this time, in starting to brutally fuck me. The slap sounds of his balls against the bare skin of my butt were now constant. I ran my hands lustily across his rock hard chest and abs. Here I was, I thought, being fucked senseless by a guy who's over double my age. It felt just the right amount of filthy and I gave him a grin, before groaning again as my grin was wiped away by an especially hard thrust.

Later, we moved over to the wall. I stood with my hands bracing me against it, like a bottom in a real clichéd prison porno. Harry shimmied in and out of me with his hips moving with the fluidity of a professional dancer, snaking his arm around my chest that was just beginning to develop a spray of blond fuzz. I'd twist my head around to him and he sucked my tongue, possessively, domineeringly. After that, he had me turn round and hoisted me up until my legs were spread on either side of his hips, dangling completely in the air. Like I said, I'm not a little guy or a light one, but Harry was strong and I could see the muscles in his arms twitching as he held me, suspended in mid-air. From there, I was positioned so that my shoulders were bent up against the wall and I put my hands behind me. Once I had some kind of self-support, I began to fuck my ass off him. I could see he was impressed and he managed to hold himself still as I bucked up and down his pole. Halfway through this, he felt the condom break. After the abuse we'd put it through, it was pretty surprising that it lasted as long as it had. He pulled out of me and I half-groaned, half-actually-fucking-whimpered. It hurt like hell sometimes, but it was an amazing piece of meat and I'd gotten used to having it in me.

"On your knees," he panted, through gritted teeth.

I did and I looked up at him as he winked off above me. I knew a facial was coming and I was jerking my own rod in anticipation. A shower of cum shot out from my slit and splattered over Harry's ankle, feet and the hotel carpets. I exhaled deeply and could feel the sweat cooling on my body. Harry was still looming over me, then, with a massive grunt, the first glob of his spunk landed on my forehead. The rest landed in thick gooey lumps onto my eyes, nose and chin. There was a lot of it. A big load. It was warm and I stroked his leg as he came. When it was over, I stood up. Panting.

"Dude, I'm crashing here tonight," I told him. My clothes were flung around the room. We'd been at it for over an hour. I was swore, soaked in jizz and sweat, and I was exhausted. I was not getting dressed and walking home after this. After the fuck I'd just given him, the least Harry could do was let me rest a little.

He slapped my ass by way of an affirmation. "Sure thing, kid. I'll have you again in the morning. Let's shower up."

We took a shower together. It was a big shower unit and it felt a bit like a hose down after a game. I admired Harry's body again, but more dispassionately. We dried-off comfortable in front of one another and I padded into bed, naked. Harry checked his phone for messages and then got in; his enormous dick swinging flaccidly as he walked over. He looked like he was going to get some sleeping shorts, but when he glanced over at me in his bed, he shrugged. I think he thought that since I was naked too, there was no point in the shorts.

The next morning, I woke up to the slurp and sensation of Harry Martyn giving me morning head. It was, needless to say, far better than any alarm clock and I gave him fair warning before I came. He held his head there and he let me come inside him - although I felt him pool it in his mouth then spit it into the sink when we were done. He showered alone and dried, before coming back in to me to get dressed.

"Order anything you like from room service," he told me. "I've got to get going."

I stretched and let the covers fall off me. I was still naked and I could see him looking at me with lust. "What are you doing tonight?" I asked. He was going out of town in a few days, I theorized; why not enjoying him while he's here? Last night had been wild and while obviously there'd be no relationship between us, I wanted to see how much wilder it could get.

"I was hoping: you," he smirked.

"That sounds good. It'll give my hole time to recover. Just."

"I like the way you talk, Seb," he replied. "I wish I was in you right now."

"See you here at nine?" I asked.

"No dinner?"

"We can order some here when we're done," I suggested. We'd probably exhausted all decent topics of conversation in the pub last night, anyway. What was the point in going for dinner?

"Good idea. See you at nine," he said, grabbing his jacket and briefcase. "And I meant what I said about room service."

After he was gone, I left without ordering anything. I didn't want to come across like some twink rent boy who'd spread his hole for a wealthy businessman. I'd get my own breakfast; we were both adults here, not clients or customers. I returned to Harry Martyn's hotel at nine p.m. Like we'd arranged. It was a Saturday night and since Harry had no work the next day, he'd obviously decided to cut loose and relax. As soon as we got in, I could smell the whisky on his breath. We got down to business right away and within ten minutes, I was flat on my back as he pounded me vigorously.

"Ah, yeah, that's it," I encouraged him, reveling in the fullness and the force of his fucking.

"Yeah, you like that?"

"Fuck, yes."

"That's right," he hissed. "Who's your daddy?"

I grunted as he buried himself fully in me, but didn't answer. The guy knew my dad, so any reference to any of that "who's your daddy" shit was just downright fucking weird. I didn't say anything and I think he got the hint. We kept the rest of the fuck going without any more wordplay, beyond the usual spurring on and gasps. I jerked myself off and it hit his stomach and my chest; this time, Harry came in the rubber inside me and tossed it in the trash can when we he'd finished with it. We lay, sweat-soaked and panting, on his massive king sized bed. The kind of unfathomably comfortable ones that only hotels seem to have.

I firmed up again soon, as did Harry and we sixty-nined, blew and fingered each other to orgasm. After that, things took a bit of a turn. Harry got up, checked his phone and responded to a message, before walking over to his desk and removing a bag of cocaine from his briefcase. He started cutting it into lines on the table and glanced over at me: "Want some?" he asked, casually snorting a line.

"No, man, I'm good right now -- thanks."

I'm not a big drugs prude, but I'm not a fan either. A couple of spliffs, at a party, maybe. But lines of coke in a hotel room with just two other people wasn't my scene. It made me a bit uncomfortable, though I tried to rein it in; not being judgmental was one of the few personality traits I genuinely prided myself on.

Harry came back to bed and rolled on his side to look at me -- tiny flecks of white powder around his nostril. "Have you ever done a threesome?" he asked, intently.

"No," I replied, keeping my voice devoid of sentiment about threesomes. I probably would have, under the right circumstances.

Harry's big hand -- the hand that had brought me so much pleasure over the last twenty-four hours -- trailed down to my stomach. He appreciated the physique; I could feel it in the way he moved. Slowly, caressingly, sensually. "Would you like to?"

"With the right guys and if everyone involved was single, yeah. Why not."

"Good. I just invited a buddy of mine to come over. You'll like him. He's quite attractive, but gives great head."

My head raised up off the pillow. "You've invited him here?"

"Yeah," Harry said nonchalantly, rolling away from me to check his phone.

"What the hell, dude? What if I'd said no?" I realized as soon as I said that, that it implied I was therefore actually saying 'yes' now.

"You're a nineteen year-old rugby player, who fucked better than a porn star last night, Seb. You weren't going to say no to a little fun."

I definitely didn't want to seem like a prude, but railroading someone into a situation they're not comfortable with was always something that I'd disliked. "You should have asked," I snapped. "You didn't know what I'd say. And he's actually on his way now?"

"He'll be here in five minutes. At the most. Relax. Honestly. It'll be fun. Trust me!"

He reached for my dick and began to massage it to fullness again. I lay back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. I tried to force myself to do what he'd said and relax, but I was still pretty pissed off. Harry then lowered his mouth down onto my shaft and began to work on it. There was a knock at the door and he got up, naked and with a semi, to get it. I found myself thinking: what if someone saw him in the corridor. There was an absurdly low possibility of that though, given both the time and the angle the door was at. Why was I thinking of this? Of the mathematics of social probability? When I was lying, naked and hard, on a bed, about to be involved, apparently, in my first threeway? Why wasn't I excited?

I stood up to greet Harry's guest -- cock pointing directly at him, cool sweat still drying on my body. The guy was about six foot, slim, early thirties I reckoned, with an intelligent face, combed chestnut hair and a shy smile. He was actually quite handsome, in a retro 1930s' sort of way. What must he have thought when he rounded into the room to see a 6'4 blond guy with tousled hair and a boner? I guess since he'd come to fuck me and Harry, he probably wasn't too surprised, actually. Still, for some bizarre reason, I couldn't seem to let go of my manners and I extended my hand to him. He shook it, clearly a little taken aback and even, I think, touched, by my adherence to the courtesies.

"Seb," I said, with a firm shake and a polite smile. "Good to meet you."

"Alistair Irwin," he replied. "You're beautiful."

I felt myself flush. The guy was obviously a bit of an innocent, despite the situation he'd willingly and easily put himself in. He looked abashed standing in front of me, as if he wasn't sure he was good enough. I found myself, for one brief idiotic second, remembering Rory's insecurities, before swiftly reminding myself that Rory would happily crawl on his knees all the way to Jerusalem before he ever let himself be roped into a situation like this.

Looking at Alistair Irwin's hopeful and slightly nervous face, I knew instinctively that I couldn't back out now, otherwise this guy would think it was because he was too ugly to fuck. Was that possibly the stupidest of all reasons to stay there? Someone's ego? Actually, even now, I don't think it was. I still don't think it was wrong to stay -- fucked up as that may sound. In its own way, it would have been cruel and callow to leave. I just wish I hadn't been put in the situation, at all.

"How do you know Harry?" I asked, trying to break the tension. Before cursing myself for asking a question that could only illicit an embarrassing answer given the circumstances.

"I used to fuck him when he was married to his wife," Harry sneered. It was the first sign of outright cruelty I'd seen him and he grabbed a rapidly-blushing Alistair's ass. "Didn't I?"

Harry nodded and looked at me, apologetically. "I used to be... married... to... uhm..."

"Hey, that's cool," I smiled, reassuringly. "You're divorced now?"

"Yes," he nodded, grateful to me for seeming so unfazed.

"Have some coke," Harry ordered.

Alistair looked at me and saw from my face, I suppose, that I didn't like the idea. "Later," he demurred. "If that's okay? Eh, shall we..."

I walked over and kissed him full on the mouth. Anything, I thought, to stop the uncomfortable atmosphere in the room and make him relax. I felt Alistair's surprise as I launched myself on him and his pleasure at being so obviously desired. He reached down and began stroking my dick. He was painfully hard through his pants. I pulled his sweater off him and ripped his shirt open. I threw them onto the couch behind us and began unbuckling his pants. I heard Harry chuckle at what he was seeing. Alistair and I broke the kiss to give Alistair time to strip in full. Once he was naked, he dropped to his knees, with a hungry look on his face. He began giving me head and, true to Harry's promise, Alistair was amazing at it. His mouth was wet, his tongue on constant patrol and his gag reflex was nearly non-existent. As I submitted myself to his expect ministrations, Harry came up behind me, knelt down and parted my ass cheeks. He began rimming me and for a few moments I stood in the middle of a London hotel room, having both ends of me attended to.

We moved onto the bed and I kissed Alistair as we went. I could tell he wasn't used to being kissed very much, because he was pretty terrible at it. Stabbing his tongue in and out of my mouth. It was surprising, given how great he'd been at oral sex, but it occurred to me that whatever way Alistair Irwin's life had gone, he was apparently much more used to sucking a guy's dick than being kissed by a man he cared for. The thought made me momentarily sad. This poor guy. He got on his hands and knees and turned to look at Harry and I.

"Please," he whispered. "Oh, please. Let him fuck me." He gestured to me and I winked back in reply. Harry lay in front of him and Alistair began giving him head as I put on a condom, coated my dick in lube, dribbled some on Alistair's asshole and finger fucked him until I felt he'd opened up enough. As I slid into him, he began to squeal with happy fuck-contentment. The squeals were drowned out by Harry's meat stuffing Alistair's mouth, but you could hear the general gist of them. I pounded on him, angling myself to hit his prostrate.

"Fuck. He's right," sighed Harry. "You really are beautiful."

Harry yanked Alistair off him and came on his face. It wasn't a huge amount, but, then, he'd come twice that night already. I thought that cocaine was supposed to make you last so long in bed that your boner got painful and you couldn't cum. But I assumed that was an urban legend or that Harry had done so much of it in his lifetime that it had stop having an immediate effect on him. I vowed I'd never do it.

With Harry done, I turned Alistair onto his back and wrapped his legs around my waist, as I fucked him for all I was worth, spitting on his cock and jerking it as we went. It wasn't an enormous cock, but Alistair was a good looking guy, who clearly appreciated my moves. I couldn't decide whether I found the fact he still had Harry's cum dripping off his face to be just the right side of sordid to be erotic. Or if it was just fucking disgusting.

Alistair shot a big load over his chest. So hard, in fact, that a bit of it hit his chin. I came into the condom and grunted, "You're so fucking hot," as I blew my nut. I saw him smile tremulously as I pulled out and rolled over.

"Thank you," he smiled.

Alistair left fifteen minutes later, without much of a farewell, although I gave him a hug -- still buck naked -- "It was great to meet you," I lied convincingly. Then I told him two truths, equally convincingly: "You're a really good-looking guy. I hope things work out for you with finding a boyfriend, now that you're out and single." He looked sad at that, but smiled in a friendly way before leaving.

"That was a bit of an asshole thing you did to him when he first arrived," I said, as soon as the door closed.

"What?" asked Harry, clearly taken aback by my tone.

"He was obviously fucking embarrassed for me to know about his marriage," I replied.

"You were about to put your dick inside him. The time for privacy had probably passed, Seb," Harry answered, trying to keep the mood light.

"He's a nice guy," I said, less aggressively. "How did you meet him anyway? Before you started fucking him."

"He used to work in Seattle. He sucked off and got fucked by half the guys in the office. Even a few of the 'straight' ones got their dicks wet in his mouth. The whole way through the time he was married, there wasn't a single week where he didn't have someone else's cum dribbling down some part of his body. On a business trip to Ontario, once, he apparently ended up taking on three gay guys from the Geneva office all at once -- ass, mouth and hand. His wife never knew, until the day she caught up him servicing their accountant." Harry sounded completely unmoved by the story. "Closeted guys his age are all the same, Seb. Fucking pathetic. Still, at least he's good for a few things."

"That seems like a pretty sad story, Harry," I said, reaching for my boxers.

"You sound like my ex," Harry said ruefully, with a soft smile. "He always felt sorry for Alistair, too. And that idiot wife of his. How she couldn't see it... He lives for dick. Anyone can see it..."

"Your ex felt sorry for him?"

"Johnny, yeah. We were together when Alistair first joined the company."

"Oh... Did you two..."

"No. Not until Johnny and I broke up. After that... Well, Alistair's easy. Why not? And he's good at what he does. Don't judge me too harshly, Seb. It may seem like I'm being a total bastard with the way I'm talking about him. But not everyone in our generation was forced to stay in the closet. It's easier now, but that doesn't mean it was impossible back then. People like me, people like Johnny, we all came out and told the truth. People like Alistair stayed in the closet and lied, until they were forced out. And ruined their lives in the process. And the lives of everyone they loved. But it was their choice. It was their choice to live a life like Alistair did."

I didn't stay long after that. I said goodbye to Harry and made my way back to my college halls, through the darkness. It was a warm night and my mind wandered. I had just participated in a three way and it had not been entirely of my own free will, even though it would be equally untrue to say that I had been forced into it. Part of what had repulsed me about it, in hindsight, was the sight of Alistair, pathetically touched by even the faintest sign of acceptance from another gay guy. Alistair, who had -- as Harry had so callously said -- ruined his own life entirely by being unable to deal with his sexuality. Even now, he wasn't dealing with it properly; he was reduced to being nothing more than a booty call for ex-colleagues, who knew he was so desperate and lonely that he'd never object to being called at midnight to participate in a threesome with a guy he hadn't seen in years and another that he'd never met. Maybe, I thought on a stupid whim, he had actually loved the wife he'd betrayed so many times? Maybe he was driven by his lust for other men, but in his own weird way, maybe his wife had been the one he'd loved. She could have been the one he loved being with or loved the idea of being with. Who knew? Maybe he was cast adrift now in a world that he didn't understand and didn't want to be a part of? All I did know was that the thought of Alistair Irwin made me sad. Hopefully making him feel desired and mentioning the possibility of him finding a relationship had been the best thing I could have done for him tonight?

Harry Martyn, however, made me even more uncomfortable. I had been telling the truth when I'd said that I didn't like the way he'd mocked Alistair and I was a bit taken aback by his casual drug use in front of me. Nor had I appreciated his imposition of a threeway on me. But it wasn't necessarily any of that which jabbed at me like a splinter underneath my skin; it was more what Harry represented. Harry Martyn was a tall, well-built and athletic; he was also gay, American and socially confident. We weren't the same person, but we were the same type. There were a great deal of similarities and looking at what passed for Harry's life, I felt a chill wind of unease that my own could one day turn out like his. Harry was still good looking enough to get men into bed with relative ease; my own track record over the last year proved that I had the same tendency. Yet, his life had descended into a kind of ugly nihilism. It wasn't enough that he'd gotten a guy he was attracted to into his bed for a weekend of no-strings fun, he had to add drugs into the mix. And then, after that, he had to one-up it and add another guy as well.

Rory had once said that religion was necessary to prevent against nihilism, because it was a force of validation that also came with enough rules to stop people running amok with their baser instincts. At the time, I'd disagreed with him, thinking in part of some of the things that leaders of his own religion had done to pursue their baser instincts. However, now that I thought back on the examples of Harry and Alistair, I thought that Rory may have been right, but too narrow in how he saw it. Religion, in its own way, is a kind of a form of love. It's an illogical projection of feelings and subjugation of pure rationalism in a process that sees us submit ourselves to a force, person or entity outside ourselves. Maybe love is what guards us from self-destruction, I thought. Religion gives you something to live for, but so does love. And they both come with a set of rules.

I was a few weeks away from my twentieth birthday and I had already slept with twenty-three people. Twenty-four, I remembered, counting Alistair. That was actually a very, very high number and of those twenty-four, only two had any interest in pursuing a romantic relationship with me. One of them was a vicious psycho called Joshua Peterly and the other was... well, the other was the great guy, wasn't he? But not only had I not slept with Rory until quite late on in our relationship, but I had deliberately avoided it. I had consciously decided not to have sex with him until the time was right for us as a couple. That decision told me more than anything else that I knew that relationships didn't usually start out with sex. Or, rather, they wouldn't for me. Rory had been, so far, the great love of my life. If I wanted to fall in love again, then I had to stop behaving like I had tonight. And it was not until I was walking back from Harry Martyn's hotel room, with my ass and cock still slightly raw from the energetic but depressing sex we'd had together, that I reached this realization in full. Twenty-four people was a ridiculously high number to have reached before your twentieth birthday, even for a beer-swilling jock. I saw what my life could be like if I didn't start taking things a little more seriously; it could be like Harry's. Desperately trying to reach a high whenever I could. My life could be like Harry Martyn's and I did not want that. Just like that, I reached the point my brother Evan had once told me about reaching with himself -- I was tired of sleeping around. I got back in to my college room, showered, crawled into bed and cried, for the first time in months. I didn't know what I was crying for exactly, but I let it all out in big guttural sobs. It had been a long time coming.

Over summer, I decided to spend my time working on my grandparents' ranch in Virginia. My demented grandmother would still ideally have liked to refer to it as a plantation, but we had all firmly explained to her that outside of "Gone with the Wind," calling anywhere a plantation now would be considered hideously offensive. I worked hard on the ranch and toned up even more, which I was pleased about. I got a little bit of color and got to hang out with my cousins for longer than I had done in years. I drove the pick-up truck round the estate and got properly back into my equestrian stuff. I went back to spend a week in England and moved up to London early in September. The situation with the new house was great -- it was a little bit further from the main lecture hall than I'd like, but otherwise, it was perfect. Me, Pete, Jess and Helen got on great and Pete's girlfriend, Ruth, was a lovely girl.

Bit by bit I began to notice a friend of Peter's called Daniel, who called over to see him a lot. They were on the soccer team together -- or football, as they'd good-naturedly yell at me when I called it soccer. Daniel was about 6', with messy sandy colored hair, a few freckles and a great smile. I knew he was gay, from something Peter had said about him earlier, but I didn't pay too much attention to it. I found myself enjoying his company and laughing at his impressions of Peter's thick Scottish accent. A month later, to my great surprise, Daniel hung around in the kitchen while I was washing up and asked me if I'd like to have dinner with him. I'd no idea that he had any romantic designs on me and I'd never thought of him in that way before, but I figured that it was a good thing. I'd gotten to know him and appreciate his humor, his wit and his personality. Wasn't this what I was looking for? We went to dinner a few times, then a movie. Things moved forward naturally and we kissed on the second date. By the fourth date, I brought him in to start making out and when he tried to move below my belt, I shook my head, kissed him softly and said, "Let's take things slow, Dan." He soon became the person I texted the most and I looked forward to spending time with him more than anyone else in uni. Peter, Helen, Ruth and Jess thought the whole thing was adorable or hilarious by turns and I was teased remorselessly for my little grins when Daniel called or messaged me.

At the end of October, we had a week off from college, known as a 'reading week' -- essentially a joke of a concept, in which students are given a week off to catch up on their reading, which most of them actually spend catching up on their drinking and socializing. Peter persuaded me to come spend a few days with him and his family at their home in Edinburgh. We booked tickets on the overnight train from London to Edinburgh and got on at eleven o'clock on the Friday before reading week technically started.

The train sped north through a thunderous rain-storm and Peter took the upper bunk, since he was lighter and shorter than me. We reached Edinburgh the next morning and Peter's dad, a 50-something carbon copy of Peter, met us at the train station. They lived in a beautiful apartment in the city center, with amazing views of the famous castle and Arthur's Seat. Our evenings were often spent in the pubs or houses with Peter's school friends and their college friends. There were a lot of Scottish, northern English and Irish students around and they were warm, welcoming and fun. Very, very little reading was done.

On the Thursday morning, I left Peter in bed nursing a brutal hangover and made my way to see some of the sites in Edinburgh that only a secret history nerd like me would fully appreciate and which a native like Pete had no interest in, of course. I stopped off at the palace of Holyroodhouse, where the tour guides claimed you could still see the blood stains soaked into the floor of where Mary, Queen of Scots' secretary had been stabbed to death in front of her in the 1500s; I saw the great church where the Presbyterian religion had been founded and wandered through the imposing cavernous archways of Edinburgh Castle. Maybe it was just the über-geek in me, but in my head, it looked like Hogwarts. (I'm not even a little bit ashamed of that. Harry Potter is amazing and always will be.) After the castle, I made my way through the city center in search of somewhere to grab something to eat, before heading back to Pete's -- figuring that he was bound to have at least braved being vertical by this late stage of the afternoon. As I passed a tourism guide center, I saw a few leaflets advertising tours to Saint Andrew's University where Kate Middleton and, more importantly to me, Rory Masterton had studied. The university was a bit of a drive out of Edinburgh, but I figured that Rory was bound to have been in to the city a few times to look around and hang out. I wondered what he'd made of it?

Figuring that I was bound to find a sandwich shop near here, I passed by an enormous hotel that had been built at the height of the railway boom in Britain and as I rounded onto Princes Street, I walked straight bang into the black-cashmere-sweater-wearing figure of Rory Masterton.

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