11. No More Massages
I keep checking the clock all day—something I never usually do. It’s a busy day at work, but thoughts of Oliver keep resurfacing regardless, distracting me whenever I have a second to myself.
He looked so dejected yesterday at breakfast, hanging his head, like he thought I was done with him or something.
I don’t know how to reassure him with more than words or actions.
Touch is what grounds him, but touch is complicated between us.
It’s up to me to keep our touches strictly non-sexual, and I’m not sure if I can trust myself with that responsibility anymore.
Monday night was too close. He can’t go anywhere near my dick again, and I sure as hell can’t put my thumb in his mouth. A damn hypocrite is what I am—insisting we stay platonic but failing to stick to my own conviction.
It’s so hard to keep him out of my head. So hard to keep our lines from blurring.
When I get off work, I text Oliver straight away.
He’s waiting outside his apartment building when I arrive, and we go to a bigger grocery store away from the city center.
We used to go here sometimes when he was younger.
The exterior hasn’t changed much, but there’s a café by the entrance that wasn’t there back then.
I give Oliver my shopping list, and he roams around the shelves without hesitation, helping me find the items I need. By the beverage aisle, he stops, looking at a pack of sodas. I lift them into the cart, and he stares at me in shock.
“You don’t drink those.”
“Yeah, but you do.” I wave toward the breakfast aisle. “Go on, pick what you want.”
He comes back with a box of cereal I’ve never tried before, and I tell him to take two. He stares at me again, eyes wide in awe. It’s just some cereal, but to him, it means everything. It means I want him around, not just for dinner but for breakfast, too. It means I won’t push him away.
“What are we making for dinner?” he asks, smiling as he trots through the aisles. God, how I love to see him smile.
“Burgers.”
The rest of the shopping trip passes in record speed as Oliver impatiently helps me with whatever I ask him to do.
He loads the items into the back of my car, returns the cart, and all but runs back and jumps into the seat.
His enthusiasm is contagious, and I admit I drive a little faster than usual to get home.
The burgers turn out perfect. Oliver puts so many toppings on his that he can barely get it into his mouth.
Cheese, lettuce, red onion, tomato, and crispy bacon.
I’m so busy watching him that I almost forget to eat, which is a rarity.
He gets sauce all over his chin and nose, and he looks so ridiculous trying to eat his giant burger that I have to laugh.
He laughs with me, and his eyes dance with joy.
God, I’ve missed having these moments with him. How the hell did I make it so many years without him in my life?
When we’ve polished off our plates, he wipes his hands and leans back with a sigh. “That was amazing.”
You’re amazing, I want to tell him, but the words get stuck in my throat. It’s not the right time to bring up how much I’ve been missing him or how much I crave having him in my life. I hope that some day, I can show him.
He tilts his head and brings a hand up to squeeze his neck, and his expression twists with discomfort. I mentioned giving him a massage yesterday, and unlike that morning, I don’t have anywhere to be but with him.
“Sit there.” I point at the bar stool, and he stands up and sits without hesitation. I stand behind him and put my hands on his shoulders, testing the give of his muscles. “You’re on your computer too much.”
“I know.” He hunches his back.
“Sit up straight.” I squeeze his shoulders, and he sucks in a breath and straightens up. “Tell me if it’s too much, okay?”
“Okay,” he gasps.
I ease into it, kneading his neck and shoulders. I always need to be aware of my own strength when doing this. Oliver lets out a few whining noises but otherwise sounds like he’s enjoying it. He relaxes bit by bit into my touch, and eventually, I have him melting into my hands.
“That feels so good,” he mumbles. “Can you do my back too?”
I reach down, but it’s hard to do his back properly at this angle.
“I can lie on the couch,” he suggests, and alarm bells start ringing in my mind, but I ignore them.
I’m just giving him a massage. That’s all.
Oliver drapes himself over the couch, and I kneel on the floor, putting my hands on his back. This angle is not the best either, and my knees start aching pretty fast.
“You can sit on top of me,” Oliver says after I adjust my position one too many times. “It’s okay.”
For him, maybe it is, but for me, I’m not so sure.
Hesitating, I straddle his hips, highly aware of our proximity.
He looks so small underneath me, so fragile.
My hands appear massive on his body. If I splay my fingers and put my palms by his spine, I can reach my fingertips all the way to the tops of his shoulders.
After a while, I manage to find a tender spot that has him tensing up and whimpering into the couch.
I pull back. “Too hard?”
“A little.”
“It’s good that you told me.” I make sure to be gentle the next time I go over that spot, and Oliver relaxes and sighs, surrendering to my touch.
Needing some relief for my thighs, I drop my hips, connecting my crotch with his ass. Big mistake.
The moment our bodies meet, my dick wakes up, and Oliver lets out a quiet moan.
I keep massaging his back and his shoulders, but he rolls his hips in a way he didn’t before.
I inhale a sharp breath, highly aware of the wrongness of the situation, wanting to stop but at the same time wanting to finish the massage and make him feel good.
I press my fingertips into his shoulder blades, and he moans and rolls his hips, his ass stimulating my cock and making it fully hard in no time.
I’m pretty sure it’s deliberate, and I know I should stop, but the heat of his body and the little noises he’s making call to me in a way that’s impossible to pull away from.
Acting on pure instinct, I press my crotch harder against his ass. God, I know I shouldn’t. But it feels too good to stop, and we’re still wearing clothes, and I’m just giving him a massage, damn it.
Oliver moans underneath me, rolling his hips to meet mine, and I squeeze his shoulders harder than before, losing control of my strength, of what I’m doing, and of what this means.
“Wait.” Oliver stiffens. “Stop.”
I pull back right away, as if he burned me. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s just… I almost…” His cheeks are bright red as he turns his head and gazes up at me.
My mind fills in the blanks, and fuck, does he mean what I think he means?
Was he really about to come? I didn’t even touch him.
God, the wrongness of what we did makes me want to crawl out of my own skin, but at the same time, I’m so hard it hurts, and I suppose Oliver is, too, given he was about to… Fuck.
I need to get away. Now. Escaping to the bathroom, I splash some cold water on my face, willing my dick to stop aching and my mind to stop imagining that massage going in a different direction. A direction not involving clothes. A direction so wrong I can barely stand to think about it.
Gripping the sink and squeezing my eyes shut, I force myself to go through all the reasons why I can’t go back out there and do what I want to do. I think about betrayal, about Kim, his mom. I think about the fact that he used to be my stepson, and I can’t just erase that from my mind.
Despite our history, though, it seems like touches between us can no longer be innocent, and what happens if I stop holding back? If my control snaps, what will I become?
A creep who fucks his own stepson… or a daddy who gives his boy what he needs?
I don’t know the answer, and until I do, I can’t allow this to escalate more than it already has. I can’t risk hurting him. Being with me… God, he shouldn’t be with me. I’m too old, and the memories we share are not memories that should be tainted.
I’m supposed to be his father figure; a friend he can lean on, that’s all, and if he loves me for that, it’s a blessing I hardly deserve. But that’s it. Why is it getting harder and harder to convince myself to stay away?
It’s because he wants you, says that voice in my head I’ve tried to ignore. He needs you. He needs a daddy.
That might be true, but he can’t want me. Anyone else who’d treat him well, but not me. Although… when I picture someone else rutting with him on the couch—another older man—my stomach turns. I don’t trust anyone else not to hurt him, but why does it have to be me he wants?
Eventually, I’ve cooled down enough that I allow myself to leave the bathroom. I expect Oliver to be on the couch where I left him, but he’s putting his shoes on in the hallway.
“Where are you going?” My voice comes out dry and rough.
“Home.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want me here, anyway.”
“Who told you that?”
He bites his lip. “Sorry about earlier. I know you don’t…” He frowns deeply, and his lip quivers. “I know you don’t want me.”
“It’s not that, Oliver. I just don’t want to hurt you.”
“You wouldn’t.” How can he sound so sure?
He’s young—that’s why. Too young, and you can’t have him.
I take a step forward, and he looks up at me with a mix of uncertainty and hope. I put a hand on his head, stroking his hair.
“Stay. Let’s watch a movie. But no more massages tonight. Okay?”
He shrugs, not meeting my gaze. “Okay.”
I’m not doing this to prove to myself I can keep my hands off him. I’m doing it because this is what our relationship is; what it should be. Dinner, a movie, hanging out on the couch. No lines are blurred, and no hands are where they shouldn’t be.
During the movie, Oliver leans into me. I wrap an arm around him, and after a while, his breathing grows deeper until he falls asleep against my shoulder.
The stirring of want in the pit of my stomach isn’t gone, but it can be there without me acting on it.
See? I tell the voice in my head. This is what he needs. A father, not a partner.
The voice replies with an amused, mocking tone. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.