Switch Pitching (Off the Bench #1)

26. James

26

JAMES

Well, this fucking sucks. It’s day one post-accident and everything hurts worse than it did yesterday.

I can’t move. I know I’m not supposed to, but I’m an athlete and I get restless. Moving and exercising are second nature to me. Even on my days off, I try to get in some light movement to get my blood flowing. But even that’s too much right now.

My left hand is still bandaged up and my right arm is in a sling. I can’t grab anything, cook for myself, take a shower effectively, or even jerk off. Usually, I take care of myself at least once a day, and I get insanely horny whenever I’m bored.

Yesterday, I was nervous about the game so I wasn’t in the mood for anything. Then we had the game, and Ethan and I didn’t have sex afterward for obvious reasons. Today, Ethan overslept and had to run out to make it to practice, leaving no time for anything to happen.

In other words, I’m approaching 48 hours in this involuntary no-orgasm streak and I’m losing my goddamn mind.

Shouldn’t breaking my finger and bruising a shoulder be enough to distract me?

Nope. The ache in my nuts apparently matters more than the ache in my limbs.

I spent the morning at the Massachusetts Medical Center for way too many appointments, and then I went back home and crashed. Around four, I woke up with the afternoon equivalent of morning wood and turned the game on to distract myself, but as fate would have it, the camera operators chose today of all days to focus their lenses on Ethan for what seemed like the entire game.

While I don’t consider myself a weak person by any means, a guy can only take so many zoomed-in shots of his boyfriend’s sexy arms and gratuitous slow-mo replays of his amazing ass without getting uncontrollably horned up. Our uniforms aren’t supposed to be revealing, but anyone with an athlete’s build is gonna fill out anything in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Great. Now I’m thinking about Ethan’s body, and that’s making me hard. Fuck. I shut the game off and yell frustratedly out into the open because my hands aren’t working well enough to grab a pillow.

Time for me to stare at the ceiling. Again.

I space out for a while, but eventually, I hear the front door open.

“Ethan, help!” I yell. After a brief pause, I hear commotion and fast footsteps before Ethan comes crashing into the room, his face flushed.

“What’s wrong, are you hurt? What’s going on?” Seeing him like this makes me feel somewhat bad for playing up my “emergency”, but it’s still funny.

“My dick hurts! I can’t jerk off and I’m so horny. I’m dying ,” I wail.

Ethan’s eyes widen. “James, shut up!”

“But it’s an emergency!” I’m getting carried away, but it’s fun. “It’s so bad. You gotta kiss it better with one of your magical blowjobs!”

Ethan’s expression is stunned, and I have no idea why he’s acting weird. “James, I’m serious,” he hisses. “Stop. Fucking. Talking.”

Before I have a chance to ask why, Will walks calmly into the room, one hand placed dramatically over his eyes as he tries to hold back a laugh. Ethan looks like he wants to crawl under the bed.

“Is it safe for me to come in now, or am I interrupting a magical blowjob?”

I burst into laughter and Will does the same, while Ethan buries his face in his hands. Even though he’s covered up, I can still see Ethan’s cute blush creeping up to his ears.

Will eyes me with a playful grin. “I wanted to check and see if you were doing alright, but I guess you’re in good hands.” He raises an eyebrow just enough to send Ethan back into blush-mode.

Ethan punches Will in the shoulder. “Oh my god, fuck off.”

Ignoring Ethan, Will faces me. “But seriously, how are you holding up? You seem fine, given how bad everything looked yesterday.”

I wave my bandaged hand. “I’m doing okay, but I’m bored out of my mind.”

Will chuckles. “Cool. I wanted to make sure the injury isn’t getting worse.”

Ethan somehow manages to stop blushing, and he clears his throat. “He’s doing well, just resting up and staying still.”

Will offers a warm smile. “Great, looking forward to having you back.” A pause. “Alright, I can’t stay for too long, but it was nice to check in. Ethan, make sure you don’t… aggravate anything too much.” He flashes one more suggestive grin before heading to the door.

Ethan’s face is almost crimson, and I can’t stop laughing. “I’ll lock up behind you,” he manages to say, walking out of the room with Will.

I hear the front door click and Ethan comes back, still blushing and embarrassed as hell.

“What?” I ask him, hoping I sound innocent.

“You had to blurt out the magical blowjob line, didn’t you?”

I laugh. “Nah, you’re just embarrassed because he caught you taking such good care of me,” I tease, still grinning.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“So,” I start. “About that issue from earlier…”

Ethan looks at me and rolls his eyes. “You’re quite insistent, you know?”

“I am. Sue me for thinking you’re hot.”

There’s no time for me to say anything else because Ethan’s climbing onto the bed, smirking at me. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world as Ethan pulls my shorts down and releases my cock, only to envelop it in his perfect mouth.

Nobody, and I mean nobody , has ever done this to me so well. I swear I’m about to fall apart in the best kind of way.

Ethan hums contentedly and it doesn’t take long before I convulse, exploding into his mouth while yelling out his name and a bunch of curses. Ethan keeps up the sweet suction as my climax finishes pulsing through my body. Eventually, he slows down, releasing me and rolling over.

I exhale loudly. “I needed that so fucking bad.”

Ethan laughs. “For real? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“You have no idea how hard today was,” I groan, putting suggestive emphasis on the end of my sentence.

“Oh, I’ll bet, must’ve been devastating to not jack off ten times today,” he chirps.

“I don’t jerk off ten times a day! Stop projecting!”

Seriously, if Ethan was injured like me, he would have begged me to get him off at least three times by now, if not more. That guy is so goddamn horny, and that’s coming from me.

“Yeah, right. If today was bad, how are you gonna survive next week?” he asks.

Oh shit. The team is leaving for a week-long, six-game road trip tomorrow.

“Can you stay behind?” I’m only half-joking when I ask.

“What would I even say? ‘Hey, Coach, I’m sitting out the next six games because James needs me to stay home and suck him off or else he won’t be alive to play next year’?”

Okay, he has a point, but I’m at least a week from being able to move my shoulder again.

“I’ll figure something out,” I mutter.

Today sucked and next week is gonna suck. Everything sucks.

Ethan leaves early the next morning, as expected, but he makes sure to take care of me one last time before I have to spend the next seven days alone. Right on schedule, at around two in the afternoon, that familiar tingly, horny itch starts to radiate out from my dick. I take a break from pacing the house and flop onto the couch, groaning. It hasn’t even been six hours and I’m already crawling out of my skin.

Right as I’m thinking of ways to solve my conundrum without defiling any of the furniture, I hear the doorbell chime with a delivery notification. Intrigued, I retrieve a small, heavy box from the doormat and gingerly open it on the kitchen counter with a stray pair of scissors.

Then I burst out laughing.

Ethan sent me a Super Stroker 5000. With a suction cup on the end. And a liter-sized bottle of lube. I balance a paper towel on my bandaged wrist to wipe my eyes, wondering why I didn’t think of this first, and then I realize that there’s a gift note inside the box.

Thought you might need some help with your concerns. Hopefully this is enough to last you until I come back.

-Ethan

I snicker. Typical Ethan, managing to be his usual thoughtful self while still making me laugh. Right now, though, there’s a more pressing matter to deal with. Not wasting any time, I gather up the cylinder and bottle in my arms, wobbling over to the spa-bathroom. I give the sleeve a cursory rinse with the shower head, suction it to the wall, and squirt some lube inside. Once I’m done, I drop my shorts and expose my hard, desperate cock before ramming it in.

It’s so good. I thrust in and out, fast and needy, and it doesn’t take long for me to come hard with a satisfied sigh. My head spinning, I slide my softening erection out and lean back against the shower glass.

Then the post-nut clarity hits, and I come to terms with the fact that I busted a nut inside a glorified plastic tube. I’m a slave to my dick, and it’s apparently well-known enough for my boyfriend to overnight a sex toy to our house.

As I rinse the Super Stroker 5000 out, I decide once and for all that no, this is not pathetic. Yeah, I’m stupidly horny, but I’m gonna be honest, that usually doesn’t cause any problems for me. In fact, it’s pretty great. Sex is awesome. It’s just that when both of my arms are out of commission and Ethan’s away, my life gets a tiny bit more difficult.

I make sure to send Ethan a thank-you text once I leave the bathroom. His response is almost instant.

Ethan

Dude I got the delivery email like five minutes ago

Glad you like it tho

Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be just as desperate if you were in my position

No comment

Even though Ethan helped me escape horny purgatory, my issues are still numerous. I go to bed early, and the next day, after going to the hospital for even more scans, I come home to an empty apartment. Again. I mindlessly flip through all the channels on TV, scroll through social media, and read half a book from Ethan’s bookshelf, but nothing manages to distract me from the fact that I’m completely, undeniably alone.

In the five months since moving here, I didn’t make any friends outside of the team. Granted, my schedule doesn’t make it easy to socialize during the season, but maybe I should have at least tried. Then again, I didn’t think I’d get injured. Ideally, I wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.

I pick up my phone to call Ethan, but then I check the time. There’s a game now and calling him in the middle of one isn’t an option. We can’t bring our phones into the dugout, and there’s no way I’m calling the ballpark in Austin just to beg for a transfer to the visitor’s dugout. I’m not that desperate, at least not yet.

Scrolling through the rest of my contacts, I contemplate calling some university friends, but I don’t. The motivation to reach out to anyone simply doesn’t exist.

The only person I want to talk to right now is off playing professional baseball, just like I should be.

What if I never play professionally again?

I shove that intrusive, unwelcome thought out of my mind.

“I’ll be fine,” I tell myself out loud. “I’ll be perfectly fine.”

Out of options, I climb into bed, lie on my back, and try to rest. Shutting my eyes, I will sleep to come, even though I usually toss and turn and end up on my stomach. This position is completely, utterly unnatural to me, but I can’t risk injuring myself even more.

The next day is more of the same. So is the day after. Eventually, everything blurs into one. I don’t need any more scans, so I stay at home, following strict instructions to keep my broken finger immobile. My shoulder aches a little less, which offers some kind of relief, but I’m still in a lousy mood.

Then, one day, I hear the front door click. It’s Ethan. He’s home.

In the distance, Ethan’s voice calls my name, and I drag myself out of bed so I can trudge to the living room. Ethan, who’s looking effortlessly attractive and put-together, is standing next to the couch with his suitcase. Meanwhile, I’m a complete mess, and it shows.

That doesn’t seem to matter to Ethan, though, because he’s walking toward me with a massive smile on his face. He wraps himself around my body that’s been wearing the same clothes for the past two days. I half-heartedly return the embrace with my left arm.

“I missed you so much,” he says, resting his chin on my unwashed, messed-up hair.

“Missed you too,” I reply.

“You feeling better?”

I shrug. “Guess so. I can move my shoulder.”

Fixing me with a concerned expression, Ethan rests a hand on my good shoulder. We don’t say anything because what can either of us really say? I know how Ethan has been spending his time, and from my disheveled state, it’s clear to Ethan what I’ve been doing: nothing at all. I’ve just been lying in bed rotting away because I have nothing else to do.

Ethan turns back toward me and wraps me in another gentle hug, which confuses me because I probably smell awful.

“Let go of me,” I insist. “I smell like ass.”

Ethan kisses my forehead, and for the first time in days, I get a spark of something positive.

“I don’t care,” he says. “I just want you.”

That gets a laugh from me. “Suit yourself, but I should probably take a shower now that you’re home.”

“Are you up to that?”

The buzzing warmth inside me suddenly gives way to thorny, bristling annoyance. Am I up to that? Give me a break. I’m not useless. I can take a fucking shower.

Then I remember that showering is hard when one of your arms is basically immobile and the hand on your other arm can’t grip anything.

Turning away, I hide my glowering, resigned expression. “Do you think you could help?” I ask.

“Absolutely. Let’s get you into the shower.”

As Ethan leads me to the bathroom and gives me a thorough, clinical, entirely unsexy shower, I have to keep telling myself that I’m not completely useless.

Even though it sure feels that way.