Foolish Fire (21 page)

I leaned in again, a little harder and firmer this time, and closed my eyes to savor the feel of the soft, delicious sink, concentrating on the tight ring-like pinch descending my shaft. His butthole, like a tiny mouth, gripped me the entire way in, in, all the way in, and I thought how perfectly nature had fitted that part of a boy for this wonderful game.

Mark lay quietly beneath me, his head turned to one side, exposing his cheek. For a fleeting moment I wondered how it would feel to put my lips there. My nose was inches away from the back of his head and I could smell his shampoo like an enticing perfume. My breaths ruffled his hair, tickling and pinking his ear. I wished I could stay like this forever.

But the feeling of being inside a boy, all this wealth of bare skin on skin, its sweaty rub, its delicious perversion—was just too much for me.

Leaning low over his back I placed my hands on either side of his shoulders and gave myself up to a steady humping—just as I’d humped my pillow. Listening to the slapping sound of skin on skin, I felt a delicious sensation run from the base of my balls to my own butthole.

To my surprise I soon began to feel a responsive heaving beneath me. The undulations of his hips were producing an unmistakable counter-thrust to meet mine. Again, I thought of all the other boys he’d fucked. He knew how to get the most pleasure out of it.

From my own anal masturbations, I could easily imagine what he was feeling now. I stopped thrusting for a moment and turned both our bodies aside a little so I could see his penis.

It was erect and straining.

A drunken lightheadedness came over me at the sight, a volitionless freedom, as though I were being carried upon the crest of a wave.

Keeping our bodies half-turned like that so I could continue gazing at his dick, I picked up my speed, shifting into a faster trot, goaded and stung into fury by the saucy upwards bumps of his butt, by his greedy desire to be filled and filled and filled again. In and in, harder and harder—I wanted to go all the way in, up to where the shit came from, shoved in so deep I couldn’t go any farther.

The steady creaking of the bedsprings seemed distant and unrelated to what we were doing.

I knew the coming orgasm would be the climax of my life…nothing in the world would ever feel as good.

Mark began giving out little feminine grunts as I felt his butthole tighten even more around my dick. Gasping, I threw my head back and bit my lower lip hard as I pumped my pelvis in, deeply, again, again, again, and weak-kneed, felt myself begin to give.

I was coming….

“Oh!”

I came, ejaculating deep into his body, my insides wracked by successive waves of pleasure which reached outward to the farthest corners of my being.

Drained and almost sobbing, I sank exhausted onto his back, wishing I could sink down forever and ever and disappear. My heart was pounding, and my open mouth gasping for air.

I was still hard inside him, and could feel his sphincter pinching me spasmodically. I remembered the times I’d masturbated myself anally with a banana, a wine bottle, a brush handle, and knew exactly what he was feeling. And I knew how to make it good for him.

Slowly, as slowly as I could, I inched myself out of him, making the good feeling last for him. I could almost feel his pleasure at the withdrawal, the best part after what he’d just been through. I felt his sphincter pinch me in acknowledgement.

And then I was almost all the way out…Mark made a funny strangling noise in his throat just as my dick was squeezed out with a peristaltic push. I heard him gasp and leaned over to watch tiny white droplets spraying out from his dick all over the mattress. I thought it would never end.

Finally he sank down onto the sheet, on top of his cum.

I too, sank down again, rolling off and away from his back, feeling the sticky sheet at my back. We both lay breathing heavily like runners after a race. The sound of our breathing seemed to fill the entire world.

I thought of Jack telling me long ago in the hallway, in junior high: “They like to take it up the ass.” It seemed so long ago. And now I had done it. Actually done it.

And then it hit me: I wasn’t a virgin anymore. I’d just fucked Mark Warren in the ass, and I was a man now. Somehow it didn’t seem real. I didn’t feel any different.

Next to me Mark stirred, and when I turned my head, found I was gazing straight into his eyes.

He let out a long sigh, then gave a low throaty giggle. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.

“Tell you what?” A chill crept down my spine.

“You knew exactly what you were doing, didn’t you? You knew how to make it good for me. You can’t tell me that’s the first time you did it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“But that
was
the first time I did it. I swear it!”

“Oh, Guy….”

I hated the insinuating, almost derisive tone of his voice, and knew now that I shouldn’t have given in to a moment of weakness, shouldn’t have allowed my momentary lapse, shouldn’t, in fact, have come to his house at all. But it was too late to regret it now. Much too late.

“It’s not what you think,” I managed to say.

“Oh? Then welcome to the club.”

“What club?”

“Those of us who are unsure of our sexual orientation,” he said, as if reciting from a text. He lay on his side curled up, his head pillowed on his hand in regal languor, and he regarded me with a curious and thoughtful expression.

A buzzing sound came to my ears.

I shot up to my feet. “What are you trying to imply?” I felt nothing but a cold, hatchet-like hatred for him now.

“Nothing.”

“Yes you are, too! You’re calling me a faggot.”

We regarded each other with hard, blank faces. Then I reached for my briefs and thrust my legs through the leg-holes, pulled them on.

He suddenly sat up and became placating. “Where are you going, Guy? Please don’t leave just yet. Why do they all want to leave as soon as it’s over? Don’t make me feel like shit.”

“Listen. I only did it ’cause you asked me to. I’m not like you.”

He caught at his breath as if he’d been stabbed. “You wanna know something, Willard? You’re all the same. All of you. You want it so bad, and when you get it, you just throw me away. Then you slander my name around. It makes you feel so tough, doesn’t it?”

“Fuck you, Mark.”

“You just did, remember?” He grimaced and turned his face away in angry shame as I pulled on my jeans. And then he whispered again: “You just did.”

I didn’t know what to say.

There was only one thing for me to do: leave. As quickly as possible. I somehow got my socks and sneakers on, and wriggled into my T-shirt, wishing I could do it faster. He sat on the bed, still looking down at the sheets.

Without looking back, I walked to the door, unlocked it, and stepped out into the hallway, feeling as if I were fleeing the scene of a crime.

Only when I was back in my car did I feel safe again. The world outside looked as it always did, no changes, no danger. As I started up the engine, I thought again about what I’d just done with Mark and felt another erection coming on.

Paper Balls

It really should have been Wendy all along, from the start. I’d wasted my time with the other girls. I really had.

“You like it?” I said.

“Mm.”

We were in the living room of Wendy’s house and there was no one else home. All the lights were turned out and the television was on without any sound. We were on the sofa and my hands were up under her sweater. Her face looked flushed.

I’d finally decided that a quiet girl like Wendy was the best thing for me. With her, there was no pressure. I felt comfortable being with her. And everyone else seemed to think we were meant for each other. We were one of the school’s more prominent couples.

Though in fact we’d only been going steady for a month, most people had the impression that we’d been going together for much longer.

I’d made it clear to her from the start that there was to be no sex until we were more seriously committed. I warned her of the dangers of teenage pregnancy, backing it up with what Jack had experienced. Not even a condom ensured safety. The best thing was abstinence. And I emerged as a gentleman, a responsible and caring boy, unlike most of the others.

But she said kissing was enough for her. Some of her girlfriends who were sexually active had confessed to her that they preferred kissing to sex. It was much more romantic and arousing than the brutal thrusting which only gave them pain or a feeling of being used.

Wendy herself was a virgin and had no intention of using sex as a substitute for tenderness. Not that she wanted to save it till marriage. But her values were traditional. I was happy with that. I suspected she might even be afraid of sex….

If so, that made two of us. Ever since that afternoon in Mark’s bedroom, I was afraid I might have been “branded,” that I could never enjoy normal sex with a girl. And I was afraid to find out.

Sometimes I couldn’t believe I’d actually done it. The more time passed, the more like a dream it became. It seemed like some dirty fantasy I’d invented. I knew all the details of that afternoon by heart now…there were times when I couldn’t get the scene out of my mind. It played and re-played like a movie I couldn’t tear my eyes away from.

Certain memories of that afternoon would return sometimes, often at the most unexpected moments. Even as I was kissing Wendy now, I could feel his body, the ghost of his body, and my kisses became more inflamed.

I pulled away from the kiss.

“Look what you’re doing to me.” I indicated the hard bulge at my groin.

“What a bad boy you are.”

“But it’s all your fault,” I said. “You’re doing this to me.”

She giggled. “And everyone thinks you’re such a gentleman.”

“No boy’s a gentleman when he’s with his girlfriend. Come on, touch me.”

“Well….”

Seeing her hesitate, I took her hand and brought it down onto the hardness.

We played games like this without losing control of ourselves, proud of our maturity. And I was secretly glad it didn’t have to go beyond this. I should never have tried to force myself to lose my virginity.

I still couldn’t believe that I’d fucked a boy and it had left no mark upon me. I would have expected the whole world to know. This face of mine which everyone looked at—didn’t it give me away every time I thought about what I’d done? Eating dinner with my family, talking with my teachers and friends in school as if nothing were different…wasn’t I a spy carrying a deadly secret? But on the surface, I looked as I’d always looked. It was only inside where I’d been touched with a magic wand—where I’d stepped into the ring of fire and stepped back out again unscathed, unsinged.

It had been a fluke, a slip. A part of me had always been curious: what would it be like to do it—if not with Mark, then with another boy. A lot of boys wondered.

But it was all behind me now, safely behind. Mark and I could no longer be friends. I hadn’t gone back to his house since then. In fact, I was avoiding him at school. But he seemed to be used to it. Maybe all the other boys he mentioned did the same thing, out of guilt or fear of discovery—or perhaps to kill the temptation of wanting a repeat performance.

Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed hurt by my neglect, and sometimes made biting remarks about me behind my back. But I didn’t worry too much about his telling anyone about what had happened. I knew I could always deny it, and claim it was another one of his lies. After all, there was no proof that it had even happened.

And my high profile with Wendy made any such rumors about me unlikely. People had such a strong image of me as Wendy’s steady boyfriend that no one would have believed that I’d done anything with Mark. And the more time I spent with her, the more I felt I could rub out the memory of that afternoon.

If I put that one mistake behind me, it would be as if it had never happened. Unlike Mark, I was just a normal boy with normal desires, no different from any other boy. The straight and narrow path would be much better for me in the long run. After all, I had my whole life ahead of me. It wasn’t determined by fifteen minutes in a friend’s bedroom.

Yes, no one knew. And no one would ever know.

Wendy giggled again. Smiling wickedly, she whispered, “Shall I give you a hand?”

“I think I’d like that,” I said, my voice almost breaking. “I’d like that very much….”

She smilingly reached for my zipper, but froze at the sound of a car coming up the driveway.

“Oh God. It’s my brother.”

“Your brother? I didn’t know he was in town.”

“He’s home on leave right now. He was out drinking with some friends.”

We pulled apart and I reached for the television’s remote control and turned up the volume as Wendy straightened herself up.

The front door opened and we both turned to look.

There in the doorway, standing with the careless languor of a powerful jungle animal was a young man in his early twenties. He wore faded blue jeans frayed at the cuffs, and his slender, sockless feet seemed to flow into his clean white tennis shoes. His T-shirt fit him so tightly that his muscular chest seemed to swell it out, expanding and stretching it with each breath he took, threatening to burst his upper torso free of its confinement. A sleeve was rolled up on one side, showing the solid bulging of his upper arm, and tucked into the fold of the sleeve was a crumpled pack of cigarettes. His hair was cut very short, showing to advantage his well-shaped head and finely-formed ears.

Just as he turned his head toward us (a cigarette hanging loosely from the corner of his mouth), I caught a certain look in his eyes, a dreamy, far-off gaze as if he were peering at a distant horizon, his lips pursed pensively, his eyelids half-shut in a seductive droop.

He paused in the doorway to stare at us.

Wendy stirred. “Sean, this is my boyfriend, Guy Willard.”

I got to my feet. Sean strolled over to us, his hand already extended in a handshake. I grasped it, surprised and thrilled at the firmness of his grip. I gazed into eyes whose deep azure formed a stunning contrast with his dark, almost black hair.

“Hi,” I whispered.

“Hello, Guy. I’ve heard a lot about you.” His grip was powerful.

Dimly, I heard Wendy say, “This is my brother Sean. He’s in the Navy.”

“Oh?”

I would have guessed as much even without something which caught and riveted my attention: a sinister-looking tattoo on his upper arm of a deadly, rainbow-hued scorpion.

Noticing my appraisal of it, his brow twitched as though he were repressing a shy grin. With embarrassed pride, he jerked his head down toward it, muttering, “I got that in Hong Kong.”

“Wow.”

“Listen, I just stopped in for a pack of cigarettes. I’m on my way out now.”

“Don’t leave on my account,” I said.

“I’m not.” He got a new pack of cigarettes from the counter and tapped it against the wall, then came over to me and punched my shoulder lightly. “Why should I wanna stick around here on a Saturday night, right?” He winked at me and turned to go.

And as quickly as he’d come over to greet me, he gave a curt nod and left the house, leaving a sudden gaping hole in my universe.

“It was great of your brother to leave us alone.”

“Yes. He’s really understanding.”

We listened to the car start up again and pull out of the driveway.

“In a way I feel bad about it….”

“Don’t. He likes nothing better than to go out drinking with his old high school buddies. They were always getting into trouble with their parents and the police. A real rebel.”

Even after he was gone, the whole house for me became filled with the essence of Sean. I pictured him riding through the dark like a moody, romantic hero. Nothing could touch the solitary inner core which lay at the heart of his being.

“Is he on a ship?”

“Yeah. But it’s in port now in San Diego, and he’s on a two-week leave. Come on, I’ll show you a picture of his ship.”

I followed her upstairs and she opened the door of the room at the far end of the hallway.

“This is his room. What a mess.”

“Is it okay to go inside?”

“Of course.”

It was a small room, furnished with a cot and a dresser. There was a seabag in the corner and some dirty laundry lying about.

Wendy led me over to the dresser. She opened a drawer and picked out a stack of photographs, then began leafing through them.

“Look. This is his ship.”

She handed me one of the photos and I looked at it. It showed a gray ship in a dock somewhere, among a lot of other gray ships. Some sailors were walking around but I couldn’t pick out Sean.

She was still flipping through the stack as she handed me another one.

“And this is the kind of thing he does on shore leave.”

Sean and some other friends were in civilian clothes, in a bar someplace with a lot of Oriental women. They all looked drunk. Sean was sitting at a counter with his arm around a woman’s waist. His eyes looked a little bleary.

“And look at this one. This is a British girl he met in Greece, a student, I think. She was hiking around Europe when she ran into my brother in Athens. She keeps sending him letters. I think he promised to marry her or something. He’s terrible.”

But another photo in the stack had caught my eye. I pulled it out. “What’s this?”

It showed Sean, shirtless, leaning jauntily back against something, a bench or a rope. With his thumbs hooked loosely in his belt-loops, he was squinting in the glare of the sun…or perhaps he was expressing his contempt for the photographer, for his face wore a hint of a sneer, tinged with mockery or even cruelty. It was impossible to tell where the picture had been taken, whether it was on some beach or on the deck of a ship. Behind him was the sea, of a particular shade of blue I had never seen before in my life. It was impossible to pinpoint where sky and sea met. The whole background was blurred into a formless, creamy texture, making Sean’s bare torso seem suspended, like an angel’s, against a backdrop of azure. The light from the setting sun caused his skin to glow and shimmer eerily.

Physically, Sean was perfect. He had all of Jack’s aggressive masculinity, but without the adolescent bravado; he had Mark’s androgynous sensuality without the vindictive spite. As I studied the photograph, my insides seemed to reverberate with a mellow tone as though a bell had just been rung, a bell whose achingly beautiful resonance proclaimed a message for my ears only.

I felt as if I were gazing into a place where reality intersected with my dreams and fantasies. An exotic feeling of adventure had keened through me as a little boy whenever I dreamed of life on the high seas with an ideal boyhood friend, soaked in the hiss of sea spray and the smell of brine. Sean reminded me of the long-lost ideal partner of my boyhood daydreams. It felt like a reunion….

“That was taken by one of his friends in the Navy.” She snatched it lightly from my fingers, and after glancing at it momentarily, replaced it in the stack. “Come on. We’ve got better things to do than talk about my brother.”

“Yeah.”

“How about if we go to my bedroom? That way, no one can bother us again.”

“All right.”

In the privacy of her bedroom, with the door closed, we tried to return to where we’d left off. But it felt too contrived, too mechanical. Something was missing; I was only going through the motions. And she knew it.

She pulled away from the kiss. “How come you’re so quiet all of a sudden?” she said.

“I don’t know. I guess I just lost my concentration.”

“Damn my brother for coming in just then.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” I murmured.

“It was. It was.” She looked ready to cry.

“Come on, let’s try it again.”

I gazed at the closed door and thought of the short distance down the hallway to his room. I thought of the scorpion tattoo. Its tail had been raised, poised to strike, and the tiny sting, by dint of the tattooer’s art, had actually appeared to twinkle. Maybe it was the light glinting off a drop of poison on its tip.