Chapter Four Friday night, later
The uncontrolled sobs filled the room, creating in Tom, unbearable pain. Suddenly, unconsciously, he was vaulted into action.
Getting out of his chair, he knelt in front of Bill, put his arms around him, laid his head against Bill's, and he began to rock him as he had six months before. He didn't say a word, just held and rocked his friend. After what seemed like an eon, the sobs subsided and were replaced by short, shallow breaths as Bill fought for control.
"It's okay, Bill, it's okay," murmured Tom as he continued to rock his friend. He could feel the tension in Bill's body drain away.
Minutes later, Bill lifted his head, unwrapped his body, sheepishly glancing into Tom's eyes and apologetically said, "Sorry."
Tom stood up, looked down at his friends' drooped shoulders, "Hey, that's okay." And, not knowing what else to say, " A good cry clears out the cobwebs."
Glancing up, Bill genuinely smiled his appreciation and slowly lifted his frame from the chair, "Think maybe I ought to get some sleep. Sorry about this. I'll be better tomorrow."
"Come on. Don't worry about it. Yeah, get some sleep. It'll cure what ails ya."
"Thanks," came the reply, appreciating the understanding and a little embarrassed for losing control. Bill walked, a little unsteadily to his room.
Tom watched his friend disappear behind the closing door, picked up the two glasses--one almost empty and the other hardly touched, took the paper napkins and wiped the wet rings off the table's surface. Turning of the lamp and stereo, he walked to the kitchen, poured the contents down the drain, put the glasses in the washer, snapped off the lights and walked past Bill's room to his own, glancing at the light flowing from under the closed door. His heart ached.
He closed his door, slipped off the sweater, loafers and pants, and uncharacteristically threw them across the chair by his closet. "I'll hang them up tomorrow," he thought as he drew back the covers and slipped in between the crisp, cool sheets. Somehow he always enjoyed the shock of cool winter sheets on his nude body, the weight of the heavy wool blanket and the gradual infusion of warmth as his body heated up the under covers. He breathed in deeply the cool room's air, locked his fingers behind his head and reflected on this evening's events. "I hope that this will get him out of his funk," he thought. Slowly, he began to drift into the arms of sleep.
His senses reluctantly drug him back to wakefulness. He didn't know how long he had been asleep, or even if he had slept at all. But, his senses, his ears picked up sounds from Bill's room. Low sobs could be heard through the wall. His eyes snapped open, he threw off the covers, reached into the closet for his short robe, hastily tied the belt as he padded down the hall to Bill's room. The light was out. He paused a moment, then deliberately opened the door and entered the room.
As the muted light from the street lamps filtered through the sheer curtains, he made out Bill's form curled up, fetal-like, in the center of the double bed, back toward the door. The soft sobs continued to wrack the solitary form. He sat on the edge of the bed and gently placed his hand on his friend's shoulder. He could feel a shudder run through the pain wracked body.
"It's okay," he said gently, patting his shoulder.
Bill had somehow felt the presence of Tom when he entered the room. His touch and words were not a total shock, but were accepted and welcomed. He turned towards his friend and managed to say, "Oh, God, I feel so shitty, so alone, so helpless," and then, "don't leave. I need to talk."
"I won't," Tom whispered. The night chill permeated the room. Tom shivered. He hesitantly lifted the covers and slipped in next to his friend, a little tentatively and being careful not to make direct contact with his body. He lay on his right side, right hand cradling his head, his left hand again touching the blanket covered shoulder of his friend, gently, knowingly patting it.
Suddenly, the dam broke and words poured from Bill's mouth. Recounting the emotions, the feelings he experienced since that June night when the call had arrived knelling the accident and Karen's death. All the plans that he and Karen had made, the love, the passion that they had shared, all the time that they had been together, gone, all gone. The anger, the pain, the disbelief, the terrible unrelenting loneliness and guilt--all this tumbled forth in an awesome and total, all-cleansing catharsis.
All that Tom could do was to listen to the violent range of emotions that flooded and flailed the room. Somehow, he knew that he was not required to say anything, just listen to this soul-confession, just be there, just keep his hand in contact with Bill's shoulder and to feel the warm, moist exhalings of Tom's words. He didn't even bother to wipe the tears that flowed down his own cheeks, grateful in the knowledge that this emotion charged time would help free his friend from his self-imposed prison. The words, like some inexorable and cleansing flood continued for some time. Finally, they stopped and a deep, deep sigh escaped from Bill's lips.
Everything was cleansed. Exhausted by the incredible emotional release, they lay there trying to internalize, to analyze all that had happened.
Neither was aware of the full implication of this 'opening up.' Tom knew that it was necessary for his friend to do so. And, Bill? he only knew that this release, under any other set of circumstances would have been to embarrassing to allow. Yet it had happened. And, he was glad. The walls of their 'guarded-friendship' had been breached, and it felt strangely good to both of them.
After a few minutes of renewing silence, Bill, devoid of the strictures that had inhabited him over the past months, and with a new-felt freedom to express how he felt, said, in a quiet, calm voice, "I'm glad I came here. I'm glad you're here."
"Me too," was all that came from Tom's lips.
Without a word needing to be uttered, inexplicably Bill slipped his right arm around Tom. Pushing aside his robe, Bill's hand came to rest in the middle of Tom's bare back. Maybe, it was the need for the closeness of another human being. The touch of Bill's hand brought them both a strange tingle and he moved closer. Tom released his head from his right hand-rest, slipping his hand under Bill's head, gently he drew it towards him, and brought it to rest in the hollow of his shoulder. They felt eminently at ease. Then he moved his hand back and forth over Bill's back in a soothing motion.
Tom knew not what else to do. He knew that Bill's release had left him with a feeling of relief and happiness for his friend.
"Mmmm, that feels good," sleepily Bill said, reacting to Tom's rubbing hand. He adjusted his head against the robe-covered shoulder, reciprocating with the same action on Tom's back.
Tom increased the pressure of his rubbing hand in a little hug of acknowledgement. Bill returned the same. They both felt so comfortable, the comfort experienced after some titanic exertion when the whole body relaxes, all tension gone, no immediate problems. Breathing, which before had been labored gasps, now overtook both in a deep, cleansing rhythm. Their individual warmth infused each other.
Tom turned his head and placed a soft kiss on the sweat-matted brow of his friend. Why? He didn't know. It was right to do.
"Thanks," Bill murmured as he raised his head and looked into Tom's eyes barely visible in the half-darkness. Half-smiles spread across their faces
Then slowly, pushed by some indescribable force, Bill tentatively pressed his warm moist lips against Tom's, not taking his eyes from those of his friend. He withdrew an inch or two, still their eyes locked on each other's. Again, an incredible energy began to oscillate between the two pair of eyes, equally as strong as the emotion laden energy that had manifested itself earlier that evening, but this time it wasn't unbearable. It was inexorable, wonderfully inexorable, frighteningly inexorable.
Tom's hand slowly slid up Bills back, leaving a wake of indescribable sensations. It came to rest and capped the back of Bill's head, feeling his tousled hair matted by the sobs. Slowly, its pressure drew Bill's lips across the infinite distance for which those inches stood. Both knowing and yet not knowing what this short, but incredibly important space implied. Their eyes, questioning, searching, questioning, fearful, questioning, suddenly desiring, were inextricably locked. In that eternity of time, their lips were slightly parted and when contact was made, nothing could have pulled them apart. Their eyes closed.
Without conscious control, their bodies came together along their whole length and held. Their encircling arms did not move as they were locked in that primal embrace. The only movement was the externally invisible was their lightly twitching bodies. Their tentative probings of their tongues and the electrically charged sensations that their touching shot through their bodies opened new doors. This embrace, this kiss, this uniting continued with out breath until finally Bill pulled back, opened his eyes.
"Oh, God!" was the first sound. It was disbelieving, it was wondering, it was prayerful, it was a statement, it was all of these.
Tentatively, so tentatively, Bill removed his arm from around Tom's back, moved it, palm down, up and over his chest, feeling the beat of the heart, up and over the pulsing shaft of the neck and lovingly touched the side of his face--tracing his fingers over the eyebrows, down the ridge of the nose and over the full, chisel-edged lips. The feel of his fingers sent indescribable sensations through Tom. The touch was hesitant, Bill was hesitant, moving his hand as if uncontrolled yet somehow, subconsciously aware. They kissed again, this time not lengthy, but passionate.
Slipping his left arm under the bed-covers, Tom encircled Bills waist, feeling the quivering flesh beneath his hand and came to rest on the small of the back. He pulled Bill even closer.
Bill slipped his motionless left hand from beneath his body and under Tom's, clumsily untying the robe's sash so that he could feel warm flesh beneath his hand. Likewise, he pressed his hand into the quivering small of Tom's back.
They both could now feel each other's erections, reacting in jerky response to their movements. But they were not ready to deal with this, yet. They weren't sure that they wanted to deal with that issue. This was a slow, carefully choreographed dance that demanded tentativeness in order to solidify emotions and desires.
Again their lips came together, not quite as tentative as before, their probing tongues explored their new found sensations--sensations that automatically fueled their entire bodies and caused unconscious movements that exponentially unleashed unknown, unfathomable passions and movements. Hands began to explore each other's bodies--up the spine, causing uncontrollable arching, further forcing their already enmeshed bodies into stronger contact; over shoulders, clutching drawing the other closer; into the warm moist recesses of the underarms, running their fingers through the silken hair, sending additional megavolts of shock through their bodies; over chests, pausing with sensitive finger tips to feel, to roll equally sensitive nipples into erectness; down over the quaking belly, spasmodically reacting to the slightest touch and fingering the navel's depression; feeling muscles, skin, underlying bones, all becoming increasingly reactive to the touch.
Their whole bodies miraculously became an uncontrollable erogenous zone. Even their feet, legs and thighs twitched, probed and rubbed in automatic, sensation seeking, sensation giving movements. And, little by little their cocks began to assert a kind of undeniable dominance to the whole ritual--this dance of life.
Their increasingly passionate probings, and movement had brought Bill momentarily on top. He raised his lips from Tom, again gazed down deep into his friend's eyes, seeking, questioning, but he saw only his own quandary mirrored. He shook his head in disbelief and he lowered his open mouth over Tom's in unrestrained, undeniable desire.
They turned over, as one, Tom's hands momentarily trapped under Bill. He broke the kiss and began to cover Bill's face with quick kisses, each depositing pleasing and mounting sensations. He moved to that soft, sensitive area just under the angle of the jaw. His lips alternately kissed and licked this garden of delight. Chill-like contractions, pleasingly painful shot up Bill's spine and forced uncontrollable low moans from his lips. The tongue found the ear and with moist, hot probings brought forth a breathless, "Oh, God," from Bill's lips. Somehow, the fact that he was able to bring such expressions of uncontrolled passion from Bill fueled Tom's own desire. He drug his tongue down the by-now-sweating neck, across the hollow at the base of the throat and on to the broad plane of his chest. This was accompanied by a long, low, guttural moan that increased in intensity. His lips encircled one of the rigid nipples. A hissing intake of air across clenched
teeth issued from Bill as the nipple was sucked past those warm moist lips and tongued.
Bill could take no more. He grasped Tom's head with shaking hands and corkscrewed his body, bringing him again on top. He brought his lips roughly down on Tom's. With quick, half-sucking, half-licking movements Bill trailed his mouth over the chin, down the neck to the hollow of the collar-bone.
Almost unable to stand these sensations, Tom's arms flew up over his head as he tried to whip his body to the right, to the left. He could not dislodge Bill, nor did he want to, so consuming were these feelings. As lips released that most sensitive place, Tom momentarily relaxed, only to experience a multiplying of feeling as the searching lips and tongue found his exposed armpit.
That warm, light-musky-smelling hollow surprisingly increased Bill's passion and brought a sympathetic jolt from his arched cock. He lingered for a second or two before moving over to Tom's blue-black, erect nipple. Its hardness against his caressing tongue and sucking lips only seemed to increase. Unaware, by now, of Tom's groans, unaware of anything but the mutually fueled desire which had reached a critical mass, he shifted his body and trailed his tongue over the arched rib cage and down towards the navel as if he were being drawn by some primal urge to a centering point.
Subconsciously knowing the course, the direction, but consciously blacking it out of his thought. Bill's hand reached out and haltingly touched Tom's erect cock. It jerked stomach-ward, propelled by some inner energy. Suddenly, its angle changed. Tom had sat upright, and Bill felt hands on his shoulders lifting him up too.
Eyes wide with wonder and surprise, their whites making them stand out in the half light, Bill could see Tom's head slowly shaking in disbelief, a slow, questioning "No." With deliberateness, Bill placed his hand in the middle of Tom's chest and gently pushed him back onto the crumpled bed covers. Again, as before, their eyes locked, questioning, asking, probing, disbelieving.
Now bodies did not move in this slow-motion, premier, intensely erotic dance. Only Bill's hand moved, propelled by some unknown force, as it reached down to cup the ball-sac of his friend--eyes still locked. Slowly, very slowly he moved his hand up the rigid cock-shaft until he could feel its swelling head--eyes still locked. He felt the soft, loose velvet covering, that silky sheath that hid the swollen cock-head, and without haste retracted it, exposing the satiny, sensitive head--eyes still locked. He leaned over and gently kissed Tom's lips and moving up, kissed-closed his eyes. The next step was taken, directed by a primal power.
Their bodies quaked in passion and in conscious disbelief. This dance had brought them to what had before been considered the brink. Of what? They did not know the answer and were even fearful of the question.
Slowly rotating, Bill brought his face over the turgid cock, its exposed head glistening in the half-light of the bedroom. He brought his nose within a fraction of an inch of the cock-head and sniffed. A light musky order was detected. A heady sensation suffused his whole being, not knowing whether it was a sensual-olfactory reaction or the fact that he was embarking on a new and hereto for unthinkable path--the next step.
He was at the brink, the dark abyss yawned beneath their feet. Pushed by his own unacknowledged passion, he slipped over the edge. His lips eased over the flared cock-head, making mental note of every sensation, texture and form. Down over the ridged, flared edge his lips slipped. He held his mouth there while his tongue explored every square millimeter. He moved further down its length noting the taste--slightly salty--gently sucking this wonderful instrument, and slowly withdrawing his lips causing the head to be re-encased in its sheath. From deep within dawned the conscious realization of what was taking place--of what he was doing! "Sucking a . . . ." His inner voice could not finish the phrase. But, the void of the abyss did not draw him down, rather, we was lifted up--away from the darkness below. He was lifted up into the light of what was, the light of life--the next step.
He sucked the fluted edge of the soft, elastic covering into his mouth. His tongue again explored this incredibly sensual delight--all the time his right hand explored the tightly curled pubic hairs. His left hand moved around the incredibly soft skin of the inner thigh--the next step.
Pushing the prepuce back over the pulsing head, this time with his tongue, he again lowered his head until almost the entire length was in his mouth. As the swollen glans reached the back of his mouth, an uncontrollable gaging sensation wracked his throat and he quickly withdrew. He sat back on his heels taking deep breaths to subdue the reflex.
Tom was breathless and tingled with a newfound desire. Unable to comprehend what had--what was happening he sat up, enfolded Bill in his arms and whispered, "Sorry."
With a warm partially accepting smile, Bill replied, "I'm not." He brought his lips again to those of Tom.
Tom's tongue explored frantically the inner reaches of Bill's mouth, searching for some taste-trace of his own. His arms encircled Bill, twisted him around and gently lowered him down onto the pillows.
In a low voice, husky with rampant desire, Tom stated, "It's my turn," --to dance
Tom inched, backing up, down Bill's body, gently insinuating his knees between those hairy thighs until his chin encountered the silky thatch of cock-hairs. He crouched back resting his buttocks upon his heels so that he would have his hands free as he debuted this new experience, this new dance.
Fired by what Bill had inexplicably done, his right hand grasped Bill's cock, hard, pulsingly rigid, its circumcised head, mushroom-like, and crimson with desire. His left hand hefted Bill's balls, feeling their size between his thumb and fore-finger--the next step.
He inhaled a long deep draught of air, ran his moist tongue over his lips and lowered them over the up-standing cock. He noted how its skin was tightly, but smoothly stretched over its entire length, not like the loose skin of his uncut dick. He, too, savored the slightly salty taste of this rigid tool as his lips slid up and down its length. His right hand was replaced around the shaft by the left. The free hand moved up over the tight, muscled stomach and up to the hard nipples that his lips recently remembered and he began to lightly pinch and twist them--the next step.
The combination of Tom's hot mouth on his cock and fingers manipulating his nipples began to focus all feeling in those lushly sensitive areas. Tom's lips continued to move up and down his cock with a gentle sucking motion--the next step.
Bill felt the cock-grasping hand release its grip and move down the length of his inner thigh. The movement shot wave after electric wave of ineffable sensations throughout his body--all returning and concentrating their energy in his mouth-sheathed cock. He didn't think that he could stand any more.
He reached down, hooked his hands in Tom's armpits and pulled him up face-to-face, nipples to nipples, stomach to stomach and cock to cock, and hoarsely whispered, "Enough, I'm about ready to cum." Did they believe that the denial of their orgasms would preserve them from the inexpressible? Maybe! Yet, the inertia of their actions, of their passions drove them onward--passion's momentum.
And so, this newly premiered choreography continued--each mirroring the other in this primal dance that seemed perfectly synchronized. They turned together onto their sides, mouth to mouth, rotating their hips outward to expose their hard erectness. Each gently grasped the other's torrid cock and began to sensually manipulate it. As their mutual desire mounted, so did the speed of their pistoning hands and uncontrolled moans of ecstasy. The edge was reached, their orgasmic moans were low, guttural, primitive--mirroring this new indescribable, guarded experience, not the cries of uncontrolled, freely expressed passion. They showered each other with the pearly, lustral fluid of their new-found passion.
Slowly the cock-being-centered explosion of their orgasm subsided. Their breathing returned to normal. Their hearts no longer beat a tympanic rhythm in their heads, their conscious awareness of each other, which was always there, took precedence and they turned their faces towards each other.
The dance was ended, the choreography was complete, the bows taken and their whole bodies smiled. Nothing was said--nothing could be said--the unthinkable had happened, it was undeniable, inexplicable, who could explain? The accepting knowledge of their actions was at this moment beyond the pale of their consciousness, beyond their ability to verbalize, yet they were filled with wonderment, and strangely content.
They pulled the rumpled bed-covers up over their sweat stained, cum spattered bodies, turned towards each other and embraced. Entwined, they both slipped wordlessly into a deep, satisfying and forgiving sleep.