Chapter 5
Dane
Ah, there’s nothing quite like watching porn on a big screen. Ever since upgrading my PC monitor, my wank sessions have been off the charts. Lounged back in my gamer chair, feet propped on the lip of my desk, knees spread, I expose myself completely to an online video of my favorite porn couple.
Their bio says they’re married, and while I’m smart enough not to trust everything that’s written in a Pornhub profile, I hope it’s true.
It feels true, the way they have sex like they know everything about each other, inside and out.
It feels real, and even if it’s not, I’d rather watch them have sex by lamplight in their cluttered bedroom than two waxed muscle daddies boning to a script in high-definition before strangling out their choreographed cum shots.
Call me a romantic, but porn is so much hotter when I can convince myself they’re in love.
I’m naked, eyes glued to my monitor. One hand works my lubed-up shaft while I sneak my other hand beneath my balls to tease my hole.
I haven’t bottomed since my senior year of high school, and as awful as that night was, I sometimes think about giving it a second shot.
Maybe the fantasy alone is enough to make me vers.
Most of the dudes I’ve hooked up with say I’ve got major top energy, but they don’t see all my sides.
I’m not sure any of them knew me at all.
I go for it with a firm push.
Nope, nope, nope.
The tip of one finger is enough to convince me I’m not ready. I’m too tense. Not traumatized, I don’t think, but too in my head about it to relax. It doesn’t feel good. I give up quickly, lower my feet to the floor, and focus on my weeping cock.
My throat makes noises I hope won’t make it through the walls. Then again, I’d absolutely love it if Connor hears.
Eyes on the porno, my mind drifts to the night when I burst in on that cutie beating off.
Oh, how I wish my reflexes were quick enough to glimpse his cock before he hid it from me.
All that sits in my memory bank is a lightning-quick flash of pale flesh and blond pubes, but I have no other defining characteristics to latch onto.
Is he long or stout? Slender or thick? Cut or uncut?
Does his shaft round seamlessly into an unimposing tip, or does he have a flared, bulbous head I could hang a hat on?
The video obscures as I imagine Connor putting a leg over my lap and grinding his firm ass onto my cock.
When I come, Connor’s name is on the tip of my tongue, but I somehow find the strength not to howl it toward the ceiling as I paint my stomach.
My body goes limp. I feel a pre-sleep muscle spasm even before I let go of my dick.
But before I reach that post-nut dreamland, my bedroom door rattles with a shy knock I used to associate with Joss.
Now, there’s a fifty-fifty shot it’s Connor, and those odds are good enough for my heart to race all over again.
“One minute!” I close out of the browser tab and shuffle around my room, cleaning my body off with a dirty t-shirt from the floor. I find a pair of shorts and trip into them on my way to the door.
Coming face to face with Connor so soon after a climax is disorienting. He’s in workout clothes that still smell like detergent, and he’s sizing me up like I’m in a clown costume.
“You’re not ready.”
Ready?
Oh fuck. Got so horny, I forgot we have plans to go running today.
“Heh. Gimme, like, four minutes, okay? Just gotta, uh, wash the cum off my hand.”
With an amused chuckle, Connor says he’ll be waiting for me outside. He must’ve been telling the truth when he said he has experience living with bros, because he didn’t bat an eye about my jizz fingers.
He just keeps getting better and better.
When I agreed to go running with Connor, I told him we’d have to do it my way. So, instead of a track, I navigate him to the beginning of a sprawling beachside path.
It’s the afternoon, evening fast approaching, but by this time of year, the sun won’t set for a few hours. I leave my shirt in the car, then slather myself in Connor’s sunblock. With how often I catch Connor staring at me, I’m disappointed when I find his starry-eyed focus is on the horizon.
If he were anyone else, I’d find his wonderment frustrating, but it looks so sweet on him.
It makes me feel jaded—that someone three years older than me finds childlike amazement with the world while all I see are mild nuisances to dodge.
Like all these stupid people milling around when I’d love this moment so much more if they would vamoose.
Nudging Connor’s shoulder with mine, I ask, “You wanna get your camera?”
“No, no.” He breaks from whatever reveries are floating within that fascinating head of his, and he nods toward the sea. “It just never gets old, seeing all this. Really puts life into perspective.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Like, the world is so much bigger than you or me. Looking at all this, I realize how incredibly insignificant we are to the grander design.”
“Dude, that’s bleak as hell.”
“It’s comforting, really. If we’re insignificant, then so are our troubles and our fears. And if those are insignificant, why do we stress over them so much?”
“What troubles could you possibly have, Connor?”
“I have troubles.” He shrugs so casually it’s funny.
“Name one.”
“Why, so you can make fun of me?”
“When have I ever made fun of you?”
His lips stretch into a bashful smile. “Promise you won’t tell Thalia?”
Intrigue replaces my amusement. Finding out there’s something Connor’s hiding from Thalia is juicy enough, but what the hell could it be if he’s willing to share it with me, of all people?
I’m the walking red-flag waving black sheep of the dysfunctional family.
I shouldn’t be the one Connor wants to confide in.
“I don’t talk to Thalia,” I promise.
“I’ve been really homesick. Ever since I got here, I’ve been wondering if I should’ve stayed in Sacramento.
But I can’t go back, because then I’ll be a coward.
I don’t wanna be the pathetic guy who stuck around his hometown because he was too afraid to leave.
But I also don’t wanna be someplace I’m not supposed to be.
Then, that begs the question…how do I know if I’m supposed to be someplace or not? Is there any way to know for sure?”
Figures that a man with everything in the world going for him would overthink himself into a crisis.
I guess humans are just meant to suffer.
Unfortunately, Connor came to the wrong person if he needs advice on knowing his place in the world.
I’ve never belonged anywhere. Not sure I was even supposed to be born.
“Sounds like you’ve been in your head a lot,” I say.
“I have.”
“Well, get out of it, ‘cause we’re burning daylight.” I slap his firm back and tip my chin toward the trail.
The corners of Connor’s mouth stretch, and his eyes drift downward until they stall at the center of my body.
My muscles flex under his inspection. I might not be as muscular as I’d like, but I want Connor to see the virility in me, as if he’d care. Watching his studious, sun-pinked face, I wonder how pink his cock gets when he’s aroused.
“What is it?” I ask.
He blinks and points to my middle. “You missed a spot.”
There’s a smear of white sunscreen under my navel that I stroke into the skin. “Better?”
“You’re good now.” He flashes another smile before finally crossing the boundary between the parking strip and the shore.
I follow him down a few concrete steps and across the pale sand until we’re on the paved exercise path. It cuts a line down the beach as far as the eye can see.
He picks the pace, and I follow alongside, but my legs are so long that it’s a conscious effort not to stride longer and lose Connor in my dust. I wouldn’t dare.
“This is the pace I go when I wanna fall asleep,” I tease.
“Stop a sec.” Connor’s legs sputter to a halt, and so do mine. He steps behind me and jerks my shoulders back. “When you run, you need to lead with your clavicle.”
“My clavicle? Do I look like an anthropologist to you?”
“Your collarbone,” he clarifies, “and try to keep your hips open.”
“What, like I’m giving birth?”
He slaps my back. “Might help if you count your strides too.”
“Do I look like a mathematician?”
“Counting isn’t math.”
“Close enough,” I whine.
“Are you always this dramatic? C’mon. And keep your posture right, or we’ll have to keep stopping.”
Springing my spine straight and squaring my jaw, I shout, “Yes, Coach!”
Connor shakes his head, calls me a clown, then tells me to move my ass.
We trot along the path side by side. No music.
No chit-chat. Just the sounds of the waves beating the shore, the nuisances of others treating the path like a hangout, and the clomps of mine and Connor’s shoes against the cement, perfectly in time.
It’s somehow boring and exhilarating all at once, and when Connor veers closer to my side to let another runner pass, his arm grazes mine with enough friction to make my heart skip.
At the two-mile marker, Connor’s hand hooks onto my shoulder, slowing me down, and we veer off the path.
Body slick and dogs barking, I drop my ass on the soft sand to catch my breath.
Despite the easy pace, two miles of nonstop running will always leave me fatigued.
I’m much better in short bursts of high-octane energy.
I’m a rocket, not a school bus. I can’t hump down a highway for hours on end, but I can run an opponent down on the soccer pitch if he’s treading too close to my goal.
“Five minutes,” Connor says, plopping himself beside me. He stares off at the horizon again, his brows puckered ponderously.