Colin #3
Silence followed, and that was okay. It had probably surprised him the first time I’d lapsed into silence with him, but it had happened enough lately that maybe he was growing used to it.
I didn’t need to fill the silence with talking, not when I knew words weren’t always the best answer.
I thought he was the sort of person who needed to relax with someone who could appreciate a shared, comfortable silence.
It wasn’t completely comfortable because I wasn’t an idiot; I knew he was still struggling with everything going on between us.
I didn’t blame him. I didn’t know at what age he’d first noticed girls as something you could be attracted to, but I knew from that point forward he had only ever shown an interest in the fairer sex.
Then, in his early forties, he randomly found himself attracted to a guy?
And it wasn’t like I was an ‘easy’ choice for a formerly straight man to get initiated into being gay.
I wasn’t androgynous or feminine; there was no appeal to cross-dressing for me personally, and to be fair, he hadn’t suggested it either.
So, really, he was a former heterosexual dealing with the reality that he was unequivocally attracted to a male presenting…man.
“Weird,” he grunted, and set his hand over mine with a squeeze.
“The part where you’re enjoying a guy squeezing your leg talking about wanting his face between your thighs, or the part where you’re not trying to rip my head off despite the fact that your divorce continues to get on your last nerve?
” I asked, knowing that bringing up the reason he was so pissed off was a dangerous gambit.
He went rigid, and I pretended not to notice him glaring at me. “Just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
“I’m horny, what can I say?” I asked, knowingly avoiding why he asked that question. I’d let him know I knew what was bothering him, even when he hated other people knowing his business, but also gave him the chance to back away if he really didn’t want to talk about it.
“Both,” he grunted. “You do shit like this, and it’s great, it’s nice. Feels good. Feels…horny, I guess. And it feels like—”
I waited because he needed to say it on his own, but I knew he didn’t like to be pushed when he was already struggling.
“Like you want me,” he said. And then quickly added. “Sexually.”
It was a pointless addition, but I understood the need to slap down that disclaimer, that extra bit of…protection. “I do want you.”
“I mean, people say it all the time,” he said, and if he was bothered that I wasn’t as specific as he’d been, he let it pass. “I’ve heard it said. But you don’t say it, you…show it.”
I laughed. “I’m a guy who sleeps exclusively with guys, so it’s safe to say I speak guy as a first language. Why tell a guy you want him when you can deep throat him and swallow when he comes like a fire hose?”
“Jesus,” he muttered, because while he hated the way I talked, I knew damn well his dick had probably twitched.
“They yell that a lot. I should write to the church since a lot of guys seem to have religious experiences around me,” I said, laughing when he shoved me away.
Bastard was a lot stronger than he looked, which was saying something because he looked like someone who could bench-press a bear.
I flopped onto the ground and looked up at him. “Damn, get rough with me already.”
He ground the cigar out on the tree and then stood over me. “You like it when I’m rough.”
“I do,” I admitted, holding up a hand.
He took it, yanking me up and surprising me by making me bounce off, then press against his chest. “Is that just who you are? Or are you like that because of how much of a grumpy dick I am?”
“Your self-awareness does you great credit,” I said, pressing my face into his chest and kissing it. “But what are you asking about? My love of rough stuff?”
“Just…being so direct, never leaving me to question if you want me, being so free.”
“Both,” I said, turning my head to meet his eyes as I rested my chin against his chest. “That’s who I am. But I can only be that way with someone I feel comfortable with.”
He gave me a doubtful look. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”
“And when have I ever done that?”
“Please, Colin. If I was any fucking good at making people feel comfortable, these guys wouldn’t be terrified of me and every relationship I had wouldn’t have exploded.”
I snorted, stepping back from him. “Don’t get me wrong, you haven’t earned the right to get to know me fully.
I haven’t told you about the time an older cousin taught me about sex and I still don’t know how I feel about it because it isn’t like he did anything, just told me things I shouldn’t have known and saw a couple of things I probably shouldn’t have and I dunno if it counts as abuse when it didn’t actually do harm.
Or about the time a group of guys my freshman year held me down and beat my ass because they thought I was a fag.
I mean, I am, but that’s not the point.”
“You’re not…” he began and flinched when I spun around.
“I am,” I said, turning my head up to stare him in the eyes.
“I’m a fag, alright? You don’t need to defend me from that word.
Or what people mean when they use it. Because they can’t hurt me with it anymore.
I am everything they were afraid I was, and greater than anything they could ever dream of understanding. ”
His expression softened. “I’m…sorry, I wasn’t trying to piss you off.”
“I’m not mad at you,” I told him immediately, sighing and resting a hand on his chest. “I’m not even mad at them. Or at my life. I just…sometimes I remember shit, and it makes me sad. But then I get mad. Like I don’t know how to be sad, so I just default to mad.”
He blinked. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Were you trying to make a point?”
“About you?”
“Yeah.”
“No, but,” I began, and then stopped. “Huh. So, uh—”
“No,” he said, narrowing his eyes, and I laughed.
“One step at a time,” I said, ignoring his growl. “If it makes you feel any better. I don’t blame you for struggling with this.”
“Really?” he asked doubtfully.
“Really,” I said, giving him a curious look.
“I mean…you went through some shit…obviously, to be comfortable like you are,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d be all that patient with me…not being that comfortable.”
I laughed. “From the moment you were aware of being attracted to people, you were attracted to women and like that your whole life. And then you meet me and suddenly you have to deal with the fact that you’re into, maybe not guys overall, but at least one guy.
I can’t say I would be jumping on the ‘I’m okay with this’ train immediately after being strictly dickly my whole life. ”
“Strictly…” he began, and shook his head with a sigh. “You’d probably deal with it better than me.”
“I mean, probably,” I had to admit. “You’re a lot more…
rigid than me. But it’s one of those things where, as a gay man, I’ve had to face issues with my sexuality in a way a straight person never has to.
So if I were suddenly attracted to a woman, it would be weird, but I already had to face down how weird my sexuality is to the rest of the world. So it makes it a little easier.”
“Huh, never thought about it like that,” he admitted thoughtfully.
We were standing close, and I couldn’t resist the urge to wrap an arm around his waist and breathe deeply of his scent: soap, wet earth, and the thick smoke of his cigar.
He grunted in what was probably supposed to be annoyance, but I couldn’t help smiling as I felt the rumble of the sound against my face.
“Rottweiler,” I blurted, and laughed when he gave me a puzzled expression.
“I just remembered a dog I had as a kid. He was a Rottie, and he used to scare the shit out of people. Even when they’d pet him, he’d make these low noises in his throat that sounded like the angriest snarls, except they were happy boy noises. And you just did the same thing.”
“Fuck off,” he growled and scowled harder when I laughed.
“Shut up,” I told him softly, pulling him down to kiss me. There was a moment of resistance as I felt his attention shift everywhere, and I fought the urge to be offended. He didn’t want to get caught, that was all, but…he kissed me back.
It was gentle, gentler than any kiss we’d shared before, and a flash of warmth that was neither heated nor urgent passed through me when I heard him give a soft sigh.
We were pushing against one another and I could feel his dick stiffening against my waist, but eh, I knew how it went.
My dick still got hard if I held a guy’s hand sometimes.
Plus, if a gentle kiss was enough to turn him on, that was fine by me.
I wasn’t going to be annoyed, maybe because I was just a horny person, but I understood you could enjoy tenderness with someone while still being turned on by it.
He sighed, bowing his head and pulling away from the kiss.
It stung a little to see his regret, but Rome wasn’t built overnight.
I couldn’t expect him to transition into being comfortable with another guy just because he’d discovered the joys of gay sex.
If anything, it was easier to be into someone sexually than it was to be tender or affectionate with them.
Xander eyed me. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said with a shrug. “I am having a random thought, though.”
“I probably don’t wanna know,” he grumbled as he plopped back down on the tree, tilting his face up into the sunlight and taking a deep breath. “Fine, what was your thought?”
“More like a hypothetical question,” I said, grinning as I plopped down onto his lap without warning.
He grunted, snapping his head to glare at me. “Seriously?”