More Than the Ball (15 page)

When it came back, Dev and I were still clinging to each other, still panting, still lying in a sweaty, sticky mess on the floor of his living room, in a pile of blankets.

Neither of us spoke for a long time. We just lay and caught our breath, fingers stroking idly over sweat-sheened skin.

Eventually, Dev pushed himself up to look at me. “So,” he said. “I’ll be in London in a couple weeks.”

He gave me a beaming grin, and I leaned up to kiss it. “What a coincidence,” I said. “So will I.”

C
olin made
a few last-minute adjustments on the lights as Elliot settled into his chair after a break in the interview. I’d known from the moment I moved to London that I would be making this film. It still gave me goosebumps thinking about it. Elliot had been so brave over the last couple years. He’d had a rough time to start, but he hadn’t once backed down. Now, three years after his announcement, a handful of other footballers had come out. They were something like celebrities, and I knew Elliot followed all their games, hoping they’d do well.

He adjusted the tie Kelly had bought for him as his ‘coming out tie’ when he’d made his official announcement. Elliot had insisted on wearing it, even when I’d offered to let him do the interview in his workout gear.

Despite the name, the tie was a subtle purple color that brought out the green in Elliot’s eyes. It was perfect.

“Picking up on the last question, boss?” Colin asked, and I nodded, straightening in my chair.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

Colin brought out the clapboard and dropped the clapper. “Gates Interview, take two.”

“Elliot,” I said, turning my focus onto him, smiling soft as he fiddled with his shirt sleeves. “You’ve talked a little bit about how hard it was to come out, but you are getting to be a little famous for encouraging other players to come out as well. What have you found that has made the pain and fear you went through worth it.”

Elliot smiled. It was a slow smile that gradually spread across his whole face, warming it from within. “My team for starters. I’d always thought, if I came out, I’d lose all my friends. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The guys have been amazingly supportive.

“There’s the other guys it’s helped too. Young kids who won’t have to hide who they are so they can play the game. Every time I see somebody else come out, I know it was more than worth it.”

He pauses, and his smile softens. He looks down, then up directly at the camera. “But mostly? My boyfriend. He’s been by my side through all of it. He’s never once backed away when things got rough. We went through something similar when we were in college. We had each other’s backs then, too. I definitely wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for him, and nothing makes it more worthwhile than being able to kiss him on the pitch after a championship win.”

There’s a moment’s silence while I clear my throat and dab at my eyes.

“Well... I bet he’s glad for that too.”

A
s mentioned
, I got my start writing erotic short stories and have only recently moved to writing novels – this being my first. However, the inspiration for this story was based on my Brojob shorts – both of which were among my best sellers at the time.

As you’ll probably notice, the inspiration was fairly loose, and my style has changed a bit since writing them, but you’ll probably see the similarities if you choose to read on.

Please note, however, that the following two short stories were more erotica than romance, so you may find them more explicit than the novel, and more based on sex than story.

Enjoy!

I
’m not gay
.

Despite what happened a little while ago between Andre and me, I’m not gay. We’re just friends, and we were helping each other out, it’s not a big deal. The reason I’m still thinking about it so much is that it was strange, that’s all. Neither of us expected it, but we’re young and single and friends, so we helped each other out. That’s it. I’m sure I’ll stop obsessing about it after a while. I’m sure the taste that is still lingering on my tongue will fade from memory. In time. Assuming we don’t do it again. I mean, we might. We haven’t talked about it. I wonder if
he
thinks it should happen again. I wonder if he
wants
it to happen again?

The door to his bedroom is shut, but I hear him moving around so I know he’s still awake even though it’s after midnight. Maybe I should ask him what he thinks. He’s my best friend, after all. What we did won’t change that. I’ll just knock and see if he wants to talk about it at all. Or maybe see if he wants to hang out, or… whatever.

I lick my lips just thinking about the alternatives as my knuckles rap lightly against the wood, but my cock is so hard I could almost have knocked with that instead…

“
T
yler
? You’re home early,” Andre says said as I came through the door at around 10 PM. My date with Danica didn’t last as long as I’d hoped it would.

I shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here at all.”

“Veronica cancelled. That’s the third time she’s done that to me at the last minute. I think I’m done with her.”

I flopped down onto the couch next to my roommate. “Well it’s only been a couple months, right?”

“Yeah, it’s no biggie. I don’t think we were that into each other anyway.” The way my blond roommate turns to avoid my eyes as he says that confirms my suspicion that he’s more upset about it than he lets on. Andre’s always trying to act tougher than he is. He thinks because he’s on the football team he has to be some macho douche most of the time, but I’ve known him long enough to know that he’s hurting. He actually liked Veronica. Apparently more than she liked him.

“Her loss, right bud?” I say, watching him intently. He nods and then pulls his face up to look at mine, stretching a forced grin across it.

“Of course. Think of all the D she’ll be missing out on.”

I laugh, although it’s more at his attempt to act tough than the joke. I kind of feel like that attitude is what pushed Veronica away in the first place. Some girls like that macho bullshit but I got the feeling she wasn’t one of them. Poor Andre has trouble telling the difference some time. But I know it’s all for show. Most of the time he doesn’t act like that around me. We’ve known each other long enough that we can be ourselves without worrying too much what the other guy is going to think.

“Anyway, what happened with your date? Thought you’d spend the night there, or at least not be home for a few more hours.”

“Yeah, so did I. But then we ended up getting into a stupid fight about what movie we were going to see, if you can believe it. She seems to think that we always see guy movies and wanted to drag me to some ridiculous Twlight type bullshit love story. I think she still thinks she’s 15 or something instead of in college. Anyway, after that it sort of killed the mood so I just took her home.”

Andre laughed. “I’m sure it’ll blow over. You wanted to see the new Marvel movie, didn’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Umm, women… that would be my guess. Not so into the comic book superheroes, for some reason.”

“All of a sudden you’re an expert on girls, eh? We’re both dateless tonight.”

“True enough,” Andre agreed. “But we have Netflix on the TV and beer in the fridge. So I think we can have a much better night staying in anyway, don’t you think?”

“That’s true my friend. That’s a very good point. So why don’t you find a movie and I’ll go get the beer.” I launched myself from the sofa, already in a better mood at the thought of a night of drinking beers and watching a movie with my best pal.

By the time I got back, Andre had fired up the original Avengers movie and I had opened the beers. Within ten minutes I was already in the kitchen getting two more.

“Who the hell needs chicks anyway, right?” I said, handing a fresh beer to my roommate. Andre nodded as he took his.

“Well, there are a few advantages they have I suppose,” he grinned. “Like blow jobs.”

“Ahh, blow jobs…” I agreed, easing myself back down onto the couch carefully so as not to spill my drink. “I do like a good blow job. I was actually thinking that Danica might go down on me in the theatre tonight.”

“Has she ever done that before?” Andre turned to me with a raised eyebrow and a curious look on his face. I could totally tell why women find him attractive. He has that sort of Norse God look, a lot like Thor. Broad shoulders, square jaw, and well defined biceps. I’ve known him long enough to know that a lot of that is natural, too. He’s had it even before he started playing football.

“No, actually. I’ve suggested it before, but she’s never gone for it. What is it with girls and their apprehension towards giving blow jobs in semi-public places?” I laugh, but I’m sort of serious as well. “I mean, it’s dark in there, no one would see. And fuck, she was complaining that we always see movies she isn’t interested in anyway, so it’s not like she’d be upset at missing part of it.”

Andre throws his head back in laughter and agrees before taking a big gulp of beer. “I once suggested getting road head from Veronica when we were taking a long drive out in the country. There was no one around for miles, we hadn’t passed a car in like 20 minutes. Yet she acted like I had just whipped it out at Sunday dinner with her parents and asked her to suck on it while they cheered us on or something.”

“I haven’t met a girl yet that wasn’t uptight about sex in some way. It’s weird how different they are than men. Can you imagine what it would be like if your girlfriend had the same attitude and openness about sex that you did? How fucking great would that be?”

Andre nodded enthusiastically. “As long as she also shared my libido, yes. That would be fucking amazing. If I haven’t had sex in a week, I feel like my balls are gonna explode. Most women can go a month and you mention how long it’s been and they’ll be like ‘
wait, didn’t we just have sex a few days ago?
’ It’s like they have no conception of sex-time.”

“Sex-time?” I haven’t heard Andre use that term before.

“Yeah, you know. It’s like space-time, where two people might have a different view of how much time has passed depending on how fast they’re moving or whatever. Well sex-time is the difference in views about how much time has passed since you last had sex between men and women. It usually varies greatly.”

“That…” I pause for a minute as what he just said sinks in, “…almost seems to make some sense,” I finally admit.

“Of course it does. Sex-time. We’ve all experienced it.”

Andre is always coming up with weird shit like that, which is one of the reasons I like him. He’s fun to be around. Never too serious. I drain my beer and look over at his. He still has half left.

“Hurry it up, I’m going to get another.” When I stand up I already feel a bit light headed because of how quickly I put back the first two and the fact that I finished dinner a few hours ago.

“Okay, okay, I’ll keep up, don’t worry.” Andre is draining his beer as I head to the kitchen for refills.

I’m still chuckling to myself at the idea of sex-time when I return. It’s funny because it’s true. I think back to the other night when I had been urging Danica to have sex and she said I shouldn’t be so horny because we had just done it a couple of nights before. It was actually the first time I’d seen her all week.

As I returned to the living room, Andre was just polishing off the last of his beer. He took the new one from me and immediately swallowed about half of it.

“You know, you’re right,” he said as I sat back down on the couch. I looked over at him, unsure what I was right about. Andre shifted, turning his body slightly to face me and pulling his bare knee up onto the couch. He was wearing sweat shorts since he was just lazing around the apartment.

“About…?”

“It would be amazing to be with someone that wanted sex as much as you did. Especially if it didn’t come with all the baggage and expectations that women usually bring to the table.”

“Oh that. Yeah, for sure.”

“Do you think that’s what it’s like for gay guys?”

“What?” I was confused again.

“Like, do you think that gay men just have sex as much as they want because they’re both guys and super horny all the time, and then just walk away with no strings?”

I took a small sip of my beer as I contemplated the thought. I didn’t have any gay friends, so I couldn’t speak from experience, but I could guess. “Maybe partially. I mean, there is always that whole idea of guys going to bath houses or whatever the fuck, and getting their freak on with strangers. But I don’t know how typical that is… maybe more stereotypical. I mean, I’m sure a lot of them want relationships and love, too. After all, look how important it is for them to get married.”

Andre nods, his lips pursed as he seemed to think about what I said. In the background there’s a big explosion on the TV as the Avengers blow up something big. I turned to watch, but I can see Andre still looking at me out of the corner of my eye. He hasn’t shifted back to face the television yet.

“Have you ever thought about it?”

I turn my attention back to my friend. “Thought about what?”

“I don’t know, like, how much easier it would be if you were just with a guy.”

I laugh. “Have I thought about that? No, of course not. I’m not gay.”

“No, I don’t mean like it like that, I’m not gay either. But what I mean is, like you said, it would be so much easier if everyone had the same sort of horniness level as everyone else. So like, haven’t you ever thought about how much easier it would be if you were gay. I mean, I know you aren’t. But I just mean hypothetically, from the perspective of always getting laid whenever you want. Like you just have to turn to your partner and raise an eyebrow and they’d be like, okay, sure, why not…”

This time I laugh even louder. Andre can be hilarious sometimes, especially after a few beers. “I don’t know that I’ve thought about that specifically,” I finally reply. “But yeah, I guess I’ve thought about the fact that life would be easier if the girl I was dating wanted to suck my dick as much and as often as I wanted her to suck it.” I took another drink of my beer and eyed Andre’s. His third is half way done but I wonder if he had any before I got home. He was acting weirder than normal from only two and half beers.

“Right?” he said, his voice raised in pitch as he nodded excitedly. “That’s what I’m saying. That would be great.” He was still staring at me, and it was beginning to make me feel a bit uncomfortable. Like he had something on his mind and won’t get to the point.

“What are you getting at?” I finally asked.

Andre paused for a moment as he regarded me, like he was sizing me up and down to decide how I would react to what he was about to say. “Well, I was thinking, it doesn’t have to be just a fantasy. We could make that whole idea into a reality.”

“Huh? How do you propose we do that? Don’t you think I’ve had conversations with my girlfriends in the past about us doing it more often? Trust me, if there was an argument out there that would convince them, I’d have found it by now. I’ve tried them all.”

Andre shook his head as I spoke. “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, that would be ideal, sure, but since that’s not possible… what I’m saying is, what if you and I were to, I dunno, help each other out.”

I almost dropped my beer at the suggestion. As it was, I barely caught it and set it down on the table next to me to give myself time to process what he just said. The look on his face was serious, but I still wasn’t sure whether he was pulling my leg or not. Maybe trying to get me to say yes and then he’d laugh and call me a fag or something. Not that Andre was homophobic, but he might say it as a joke.

So I said nothing and just looked at him until he spoke again.

“I’m not talking about fucking each other here, we’re not gay. I’m just talking about, you know, giving each other a brojob.”

“What the fuck is a brojob?” From the name I had an idea but I wanted to be sure before I freaked out at the suggestion.

“It’s like… a blow job between friends. But different, cuz you’re not gay, you’re just doing it to help each other out. Relieve the pressure. Like neither of us got any today, so we’re both horny, so instead of us going off into our rooms and jerking off alone and pretending like we didn’t, we just… you know, do each other.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said, staring at him with eyes I’m sure were as wide as saucers. “Where do you come up with this stuff? First sex-time, now brojobs?”

“Dude, sex-time is my idea, but brojobs are a real thing. I didn’t invent them.”