Hello, friends! Quite a few of you had some big questions about Xander's unusual suggestion... and some interesting predictions about what it could be! This part is a little different to the last few, but I'm hoping you're along for the ride with me...
My inbox has been treated to some incredibly nice emails recently, and I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who takes the time. I'm trying to respond to them all. Feedback is always appreciated at alexp336@gmail.com.
If you're looking for my other stories, you can find me under the Nifty author list as "Alex P"; my story "Jock Auction" has been re-released at https://www.alexpendragon.com/ along with other stories from my back catalog and a brand new one, called "A Rumor and a Grebe." It's about what happens when a size-obsessed straight guy finds the gay kid he's been ignoring has something he might be interested in...
Of course, I still love Nifty too, and donations to keep this fine resource running are always appreciated.
Yours, cheekily, -Alex (aka alexp336)
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** Xander Shows Me My Prostate - Part 14 **
My belly hurts as I laugh, unable to hold in my reaction. "Unusual compared to the stuff we've done so far," I tease him. With the heat of his wet chest against my back, his thighs spread around my legs, and the way his hand is stoking across me through the soap bubbles, it's difficult to imagine how things could escalate any further. Not when I can still taste our cum, strong in my mouth, and feel the rest of it slowly dripping out of my twice-fucked hole.
Xander chuckles; I can feel it as much as I hear it. The shift of his skin against mine.
"Different, maybe, then," he clarifies.
I stop his hand, mine atop his, fingers pausing in their scrub across my chest. "Just tell me."
Another chuckle. But then, when he speaks again, it's like I can hear something new in his voice. Some shift in his tone, that doin't think he could blame on the acoustics of the shower.
"I just thought we could, y'know. Get coffee or something."
I blink, even though he can't see my face. And suddenly I'm glad of that; no, relieved. Because if he sees my expression, if I see his, I'm not sure I can also manage words right now.
"Get coffee," I repeat. Feel Xander shrug.
"It's a drink, Luka."
Now I do turn; twisting - even though it shifts me out from the warmth of his body, dragging his hand from me - until I'm on my knees, facing him. Staring, searching his face for what I know is behind the blithe sarcasm. The truth of it; the thing he feels the need to downplay, somehow.
"Why?"
It's a dumb question, but Xander treats it seriously. "I just thought we might... y'know, talk."
Another blink. "Talk?" I'm feeling increasingly stupid, only able to repeat his words not summon any of my own, but my brain really is struggling.
Xander sighs, leaning his head back against the tiles. My eyes can't help but track down the long stretch of his neck, taut from his posture.
"Look, we can just fuck, that's fine."
Up until a minute ago, the idea of Xander and I hanging out, doing so in a way that wasn't about sex or him showing me how my body could feel, hadn't ever entered my head. Now, I was feeling a sudden flush of desperation: as though something I never knew I wanted, needed, was about to be snatched away from me.
"No! No... I mean, the fucking is good..." He smiles, still looking up at the ceiling. "But coffee would be... good. Too."
He looks at me, again. Eyes flitting down my body, taking in how I'm crouched on my knees, watching him with a look of unexpected urgency.
"So let's get coffee."
His towels are soft, but he rubs me briskly. There's something strange about standing there, in his bathroom, as he dries me. I could do it, we both know that, but Xander seems intent on taking care of that himself.
"Are you going to dress me, too?" I ask him, grinning. He rolls his eyes, and so I pull on my shorts myself. Hold my shirt - still damp with cold sweat - up so that I can sniff at it. The idea of putting it back on doesn't exactly fill me with glee.
"Let me guess, now you want to borrow my clothes, too," Xander teases. I give him what I hope counts as a winning smile.
He's gone for a moment; returns with something sleeveless, basically a tank top. I tug it on, skeptically, then give him a look. Am about to question his choice, in fact, when I see the expression on his face.
Hunger, and something close to need.
"That looks good on you," he observes. I'm still fighting the urge to cross my arms, to hold his gaze and my nerve too. "It makes your arms look hot," Xander adds.
I don't understand the compliment, but that doesn't stop me preening a little in the face of it. It's still strange to think of myself as being attractive, or anything out of the ordinary, really. I'm not sure I'll ever see myself like Xander apparently sees me, but I'm doing my best to take it at face value rather than question it.
"Come on, then," he says, with a grin.
It's weird being back in his car; knowing that, not all that long ago, I was telling him he needed to fuck me. Demanding in a way that seems impossible now. Only the heightened awareness of my ass, still a little sensitive after he reamed me twice over, confirmation that it really did happen. With Xander watching the road ahead, I can covertly stare at him, his profile. Trying not to make it obvious, but at the same time attempting to memorize the sharpness of his features and the casual tumble of his hair.
I jolt when he pulls the car to a halt, stops the engine.
Turns, to give me a grin, and I wonder suddenly just how aware he was of my eyes on him all that time. How much he knew of it happening, and allowed me to do it all the same.
It's a cafe I haven't been to before, but Xander seems to know his way around. The thought of it makes me wonder if this is somewhere he comes with his girlfriend normally; whether I'm the stand-in for Lucy today, and whether the people behind the counter will somehow recognize that. Knowing, even as I think it, that it's ridiculous, but still feeling a flutter of something in my chest when the girl at the register turns to ask for my order.
I want to tell her that Xander picked out the shirt for me. That I normally wouldn't be so... brash, with showing off my body like this.
The antsy feeling is still there as I cradle the mug between my hands, sat opposite him on the sofas by the window that he led me to. Escaping my attempts to understand what's leaving me feeling so unsteady.
"Do you not like coffee or something?"
I frown, nudged from my attempts at self-diagnosis. "I like coffee."
Xander tilts his head. "We didn't have to come..." he starts. I stop him with a glare.
"I wanted to."
He watches me, for a beat, and then lifts his drink to his lips. "So why do you look so... unhappy?" His turn to frown. "Are you... did you, well, did I... y'know... Are you hurting?"
His voice had softened, almost a whisper toward the end. Even so, I feel the overwhelming urge to glance around us, even though I knew we have the area to ourselves. Turn back to him to find Xander is looking at me with concern, now, and I realize what I should've done was reassure him first.
"I'm not. You... didn't." I swallow; it's difficult, despite everything, to talk about that stuff. Like when we hook up, it happens in a different, adjacent universe to the one we're in now.
He looks relieved, and I feel another flood of warmth through me. Reminded that, for all the fierceness of our sex, the reality is that Xander is just a nice guy, at least as far as I can tell.
"It was really good," I add, watching his concern morph into a smile. "Like... really, really good."
I have to be careful what I say. Not so much because I'm worried that the vague complements might be overheard, but because they're still enough to conjure the mental images of what we did. A jumble of snapshots of us in the shower, his body pressed against mine as he pounds me, and the way I'd rode atop him on his couch. The way he'd replaced his fingers with his cock; the catch in his voice as he'd told me he wanted to cum deep inside me.
He's grinning, now. The expression broad. "I thought so too."
Even though I'd seen, and felt, the orgasms; even though I'd heard the way he gasped and grunted as he plowed me, and felt the sharp dig of his fingers into my flesh, it still means something to hear him say that now. A sense of reassurance, that I wasn't a disappointment. I'm grinning back at him, I realize, my own expression goofy.
"I'm not unhappy," I tell him. "It's just still strange to be, y'know, hanging out with you."
Xander shrugs. "We're friends, aren't we?"
There's something about the way he says it. Like I'm supposed to have just assumed that too, but also like it's a challenge. Or an opportunity, even; a chance for me to clarify, if I so desire.
"I wasn't really sure what we are," I admit to him. "Beyond... y'know."
"Fuck buddies?"
I wince at the words, or - more accurately - at the bluntness. Force myself not to glance around for eavesdroppers again. "Yeah, I guess."
Xander stares at me. "I already told you I was into you."
It's my turn to shrug, the gesture a little lopsided, awkward. "You told me you wanted to fuck me."
It's getting harder to hold his gaze, but I try my best. "Are they the same thing, then?" Xander asks, and it feels like something close to a criticism. As though I've automatically associated whatever he might've felt with the physical things we've done together; no more, no less.
"I wasn't sure..."
I don't have the end to that sentence, to that protest. Because I don't know if I'm trying to ask him whether he's feeling something more than just lust and attraction, the pleasure of the new. Whether what we do is more than just him getting off on teaching an inexperienced guy how his body can feel good, and how it can make another man feel good too. I don't have the confidence to assume, to hope, that it could mean something broader than the many ways we've chased friction together so far.
He's not going to rescue me this time, I realize, as we stare at each other across the coffee table. The silence dragging out, Xander's jaw clenched with a tension I'm struggling to recognize, to understand.
"You have a girlfriend," I tell him, finally. Stating the obvious, and yet not really saying anything at all. Even as the layers of subtext beneath that stack up, like sheafs of ill-balanced paper; all the reasons it does neither of us any good to think about this as more than him fucking me and making me squeal as some grand story to tell his actual partner.
"Yeah," Xander says, finally, and looks away. I'm not sure if that counts as victory or defeat.
It's not fair, I want to tell him. That the physical stuff is one thing, overwhelming certainly, but somehow manageable. That maybe the fact that I haven't been freaking out at what we've done together is unnerving in itself, but that I can handle that uncertainty. Just about process it; understand that there are things you can do which feel good - no, which feel fucking amazing - as long as you can set aside whatever guilt or self-recrimination you've grown up with about playing around with another guy.
That, I can deal with. I just didn't expect to feel more. Or, for that matter, expect Xander to feel more.
"What's it like with the other guys?" I ask him. Knowing he'll know what I mean.
He still isn't making eye-contact, but I can see him smirk. "Hot. Unplanned. Pretty much always a one-off." He glances at me. "Physical. Just... physical stuff."
I nod at him, slowly. Imagining that; trying to map what he's saying about his other hook-ups onto what we've done together so far. What he's told me he still wants us to do.
"So why is this... different?" I'm not sure if he can hear the catch in my voice.
Xander sighs. "It's not meant to be."
There's a "but" there. I know there is, and so does he.
"So what went wrong?" I press. Then flinch back, instinctively, at the heat of his expression. A frown almost edging on a glare.
"Is it wrong?" The way he's saying it, it feels like another accusation. I shrug, feeling helpless.
"I don't even know what the fuck it is to begin with," I point out, a shiver of something close to desperation in my stomach. Watch as the fierceness on his face fades almost as quickly as it appeared.
"You're angry at me," I tell him. Xander sighs again.
"I'm not. I'm angry with... fuck, with myself, I guess."
There's a part of me which wants him to feel better; which wants to make it all okay again. To push us back on track, to the physical stuff we were doing so well at. So that I don't have to see him frustrated and furious; so that I don't need to feel this odd sense of guilt that I can't put into words.
And yet, there's part of me which needs to know the why of it, too.
"What did you do wrong?"
He sets his mug down, then rubs a hand across his face. Suddenly looks younger than I think of him; a reminder, just a flicker of it, that while he's older than me, it's not some huge gulf of years. Even if I find it so easy to defer to him, usually, to treat him like the expert and me the novice.
"Liked you too much," Xander says, plainly.
I know I must look confused. Certainly, I feel that way.
He gives me a wry smile. "Look, I told you we have an agreement. Lucy and me, yeah?" I nod. "And it's real simple, because she likes girls too and I like guys. And it's, y'know, hot to hear about that shit."
He leans forward, twisting the mug on the table and watching the way the coffee spins and ripples. "And it works because it's not about being in some big, open relationship with lots of people. It's... fuck, it's about getting off. Like, in the ways that she can't get me off, and I can't get her off. But it's not an, an... an emotional thing."
Xander looks up, finding me staring at him already. Shrugs, the gesture a little half-hearted.
"So I fucked up, because the rule - the way all this shit works - is 'don't catch feelings' about other people. Fuck them, and get fucked by them, and blow them, and whatever else... but just don't get attached. Because that's when shit goes wrong."
I frown, brain spinning as I try to understand. "So we should've... it should've only happened one time, between us?"
Xander stares at me, as though he's trying to figure out if I'm being serious or intentionally obtuse. I'm not sure what he sees in my face, but after a few seconds more he grunts with frustration, flopping back on the couch.
"I'm not saying we counted wrong, Luka," he tells me, sounding exasperated. "I'm saying I caught feelings for you, just like I always kinda guessed I could, but I still went ahead and chased you all the same."
It's like my head is overloaded, too many thoughts and assumptions trying to squeeze inside at once. Part of me wants to stand up, walk out, take as deep a breath as I can of the air outside and hope that I can lose some of the uncertainties with the exhale that follows. And yet I know that I can't leave; that if I do, I'll be walking out on something important, even if I can't describe it in so many words.
"But... Lucy," I say, finally, and watch him wince. Something in that blended up with frustration and another emotion I don't have a name for.
"Yeah. Exactly. Because I have a girlfriend, and now I'm crushing on a guy, too, and that's not... it's not supposed to happen."
I can't help it, can't stop the giggle that escapes me. Don't even know it's coming, really, until I hear it myself. "A crush."
Xander gives me a look, and then he's grinning, suddenly. Like his capacity for being serious and angsty has overflowed, and a dumb smile is the only fix for it.
"Yeah, like a fucking kid or something."
I frown a little. "You have a crush on me."
He snorts, in disbelief. "Yes, Luka. Who the fuck else did you think I was talking about?"
I shrug again, feeling helpless. "This is just... new, is all." The explanation sounds weak even to my ears.
Xander chuckles, just once. "Yeah, same."
We're silent, for a while, each in our own thoughts.
"I think about you a... lot," I admit. I'm blushing as I say it, I can feel my cheeks burning, but it seems like something Xander should hear too. After all, he's just been honest with me.
He smirks at me. "That desperate to get off, eh?"
It'd be easy to let that be the extent of it. To allow that to be the depth of my embarrassment. For some reason, though, I can't leave it at that.
"I guess I have, y'know... kinda a crush on you, too," I tell him. "Beyond what we've... well, y'know."
Xander's staring, now. I don't know what his expression means.
"This is a bad idea," he says, finally. I blink at him.
"What is?"
"This. Us."
I frown, suddenly feeling like things are escaping through my fingers. Flooded with the need to grab onto them, to him.
"We can just go back to, y'know, sex," I tell him, feeling the burn of desperation in my chest. "Us having sex, and you telling... her." Saying Lucy's name feels wrong, somehow, after what we've just discussed. "It can be simple again."
His face is a picture of skepticism. "Can it?"
I want to go back in time, turn all the clocks back, to that moment we were in the shower together. It wouldn't take much, surely; I'm not asking for a do-over of months, of years. Just an hour or so, barely that. To go back to that feeling of leaning against Xander's chest, his legs spread either side of me, when all I had to think about was the heat of him and the feeling of his hands on me. The way he'd stroked and stretched me.
I don't want to have somehow fucked that up, and lost the chance of it ever happening again.
"We can control this," I tell him. Making my voice sound serious, convincing. Forcing every scrap of conviction I can muster into those four words.
"Control it?" Xander asks. I want to reach across the table and grab his shoulders; show him how serious I am with the squeeze of my fingertips. Settle, instead, for leaning back; pushing my hips forward as I do it, to the edge of the cushions. Feeling how it pulls my shorts tight around my crotch, the outline of my half-hardness unmistakable through the satiny red nylon. Spot, too, the exact moment when Xander's eyes drop to that thickness, and when his gaze lifts again I've made sure to stretch one arm out along the back of the couch. Feel a shudder of relief at the way his stare tracks across my bare shoulder and along the bicep I'm trying to surreptitiously but still noticeably tense and swell.
"I can, if you can," I insist. "This can all be physical." Hearing the intensity in my voice, the way it borders on desperation. Seeing, too, the look on his face. Something I could only think of as him wanting to believe it just as much as I did, blended with the heat of lust.
He stares at me, for a moment longer. Then shakes his head, and for a split second, stomach clenching, I think it's all over. Right up until I see the twist of his smile. "Fuck. Okay."
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Liked it? Hated it? Like most authors I'm a glutton for feedback (alexp336@gmail.com) and there's more to read plus a mailing list at https://www.alexpendragon.com/ where I'll periodically flag up new stories.