Chapter Six #2
"I'm saying you should learn on me. What to do. How it works up close, with nothing to lose." He sets the wine down. "I'd show you. You'd do it. You'd finally have some idea what a real one of these is instead of the general idea."
It takes me a second. Then it takes me all the way, and I'm up off the couch.
"No," I say. "No. Graham, that's—no. That's not, I'm not doing that."
"Sit down."
"I'm not gay. I'm not, that's the whole thing I'm trying to fix, is the woman part, and now you're—"
"I'm not gay either." He hasn't moved. His voice is exactly where it was, no heat in it, and that's what keeps me in the room.
"Neither of us is. This isn't that. You know it isn't that, because you know me.
" He waits until I actually look at him.
"This is the same thing as Thursday on the couch.
It's the same thing as the cage. It's me helping you do the one thing you can't do alone.
Nobody's calling anybody anything. It's practice.
It's a favor. It's the least complicated thing in the world and you're the one making it a thing. "
"It's a completely different thing than the couch."
"How."
"Because it's, because that's a whole—" I can't finish it. I'm standing in the middle of the room with my hands out like I'm trying to hold the sentence up. "Why would I ever do that. Why would that ever be a thing I'd do."
"Because you've never had anyone do it to you.
Not really. When a woman finally goes down on you, you're going to be up in your head the whole time, not knowing what to do with your hands, not knowing what sounds you're supposed to make, worrying if it's taking too long.
I'm going to show you what it actually feels like.
What your body does. How to stay in it instead of floating up to the ceiling.
So when it happens with her, you'll already know.
" He says it soft. Not a single edge on it.
"You want to be with a woman. This is the most direct way I know to get you ready.
No woman to disappoint. No lamp. Nothing on the line. Just me."
"You make me feel small all the time," I say. It's supposed to be a joke. It doesn't come out like one.
"I tell you the truth. That's different.
" A small thing at the corner of his mouth, almost a smile.
"And I'm telling you the truth now. You freeze because everything about sex is theoretical and terrifying and all about you.
Every second of it, you're the one being tested.
So here's the fix. For once you're not the one being tested.
You don't have to get hard. You don't have to perform.
You couldn't perform if you wanted to. You're locked.
There's nothing riding on your body at all.
All you have to do is be useful. And I think if you ever once got to just be useful, with none of the pressure, you'd find out the pressure was the whole problem the entire time. "
I stand there. The horrible thing, the thing I can't say, is that I can feel it working.
The same way the wine worked and the cage worked.
He's taken the most no of a no I've ever had in me and turned it slowly in his hands until the light hits it differently, until it's not a line I'd never cross but a lesson I've been too scared to take, and I hate how much I want to be the guy who takes the lesson instead of the guy frozen in the middle of the room.
"Say no and I pick the book back up," he says. "Same as always. No hard feelings. We never talk about it again."
And there it is. The door out. Which he built so that walking through it is the freeze, is Meg's bed, is every night I've ever run. He's made saying no into the cowardly thing again, and being brave and doing what he wants into the same act, and I can't find the seam. I can never find the seam.
"This doesn't mean anything," I say. My voice isn't steady.
"It doesn't mean anything," he agrees. "It's practice. Come here."
* * *
I get down on the floor in front of the couch. My knees on the rug. The waistband of the smooth underwear sits low on my hips under my clothes. I don't fully decide to. It's more that I stop deciding not to.
He undoes his belt without any hurry, lifts up enough to push everything down, and settles back. Then it's just there, right in front of my face.
I've never been this close to another man's cock before.
It's soft, but it's still bigger than mine has ever been hard.
It rests heavy against his thigh, thick from base to head.
Even completely soft it's easily five inches long, maybe a little more, and thick enough that I can already tell my fingers wouldn't touch if I tried to wrap my hand around it.
The head is wider than the shaft, darker than the rest, with a slight flare at the tip.
There are a couple of thick veins running along the top that I can see even now.
His balls are heavy underneath, pulled tight against him from the warmth of his body.
It's just... more. More than I know what to do with, this close.
And here's the part I don't expect: I'm not stacking it against what's locked in the cage, not doing the math.
I'm looking at it and some part of me is already leaning in, already wanting to be useful to it, already reaching for the thing I came down here to do.
On my knees, cage locked, nothing riding on my body at all, and the one thing in me is wanting to do it right.
"You can look at it," he says, calm, watching me. "That's part of it. You've never really seen one that isn't yours. Go ahead."
I keep staring. My voice comes out quiet.
"It's big."
"It's average, up a little." He says it like the weather.
Not bragging. He doesn't have to brag, it's right there.
"Feels big to you because yours isn't. That's not a knock.
It's just the two facts sitting next to each other.
" He nods down at himself. "This is what most of it is like, out there.
This is closer to what a woman's expecting than what you've got.
Which is one more reason it's good you're learning the rest of it well, so you've got something to bring. "
It should gut me. He's telling me, kindly, a foot from my face, that the thing between my legs isn't in the running, that he's what the world means when it says the word and I'm not.
And it lands the way all of it lands with him, not as a wound but as the ruler again, plain and undeniable, a fact I've suspected my whole life set down in front of me where I can't argue with it.
There's almost relief in how obvious it is.
No more wondering. Here it is, hard proof, and I'm the smaller of two facts in the room.
"Use your mouth," he says. "You don't have to be good. Just start."
And I do.
I lean forward and open my mouth.
The head is hot and smooth against my tongue.
It tastes like skin and salt. I have to open wider than I thought I would just to get it past my teeth.
Even soft at first, it's thick enough that my jaw starts to ache almost immediately.
I try to take more and it hits the back of my tongue.
I pull back a little, breathing through my nose, and try again.
He gets hard in my mouth.
It happens, the slow thickening, the swell and lengthen of it against my tongue until it's pushing at the roof of my mouth and the back of my throat.
It grows until I can't take more than half of it without gagging.
My lips are stretched tight around the shaft.
My jaw hurts. Spit runs down my chin. I keep trying anyway.
He rests a hand in my hair, not pushing, just holding it there.
"Slower," he says, calm. "Use your tongue more. Less teeth."
I do what he says. I slide my tongue along the underside like he tells me to.
I try to relax my throat. It doesn't really work.
Every time I push deeper I choke a little and have to pull back.
My eyes are watering. My jaw is starting to shake.
And the whole time I'm doing this, on my knees with another man's cock in my mouth, the cage between my legs is getting tighter.
My cock is trying to get hard.
It pushes against the smooth plastic from the inside, swelling as much as it can before the shell stops it completely.
It strains and pulses and leaks against the plastic.
Every time I taste him on my tongue or feel him throb in my mouth, the cage gets tighter.
The wanting builds up fast and has nowhere to go.
I'm getting hard from sucking cock and the only thing that happens is a dull, frustrated ache and a wet spot forming inside the cage where I'm leaking.
He doesn't say anything about it. He just keeps his hand in my hair and talks me through it in that same steady voice.
"Use your hand on the rest of it," he says. "That's good. Just like that."
I keep going. My jaw is burning. My throat feels raw. Spit is everywhere. And the whole time the cage keeps me locked down, straining uselessly while I service him. Every time I swallow around him, another pulse of denied need beats between my legs.
He finishes with a low sound and his hand tightening in my hair.
It's there the second it starts, hot and thick, pulsing against my tongue.
It hits the back of my throat in thick spurts.
I don't pull away. I just stay there with my mouth open around him while he fills it.
Some of it goes straight down my throat.
The rest pools on my tongue, warm and bitter and heavy. It keeps coming.
I swallow without thinking.
I don't wait for him to tell me. I just do it. My throat works around him while he's still in my mouth. I swallow again when he finally stops. Some of it runs out the corner of my mouth and down my chin anyway.