Like Dust in the Wind
by Jack Lynch
Chapter 23
Beginnings and Endings.
November.
He climbed on the bus and sat down. Excited for sure. Sad, in a way. Things were changing, probably forever. Leaving the proverbial womb. I guess it's time to grow up, he thought with a sigh.
At first, the idea of it was so exciting he could hardly stand it. Out of the blue one day, a phone call.
"Thees eez Miguel Sanchez," he said in a pronounced Hispanic accent. "Eez thees Antoine?"
At first, he thought he was getting pranked. Once his mind caught up to what Mr. Sanchez was saying, his heart beat so fast he felt faint.
An advance scout and regional director for USA Baseball's Team Identification Series, he called to invite Antoine, or "Ann-Juan," as Mr. Sanchez pronounced his name, to try-out for the 16U/17U team.
Meeting with Antoine and his parents the next day, Mr. Sanchez laid out the program for the four day clinic and try-out at the National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina. It was going to be expensive but filled with lots of potential. Not only would the skills Antoine gain leverage his pitching ability, but pro scouts and agents would be there, swarming around the kids. A gateway to a future playing professional baseball. He watched his parents nod solemnly and sneak glances at each other.
After Mr. Sanchez left, he and his parents had the talk. He was fully prepared to be let down.
"Son, we could be spending the same amount of money and more putting you into drug rehab and hiring lawyers to keep you out of prison," his dad said. "This seems like a much better investment."
So, here he was. On the bus. He nudged over in his seat, took Mo's hand, and snuggled into his side. Gratefully, Mo wound his other arm around Antoine's shoulder. Mo had been invited, too.
"No matter what. We're staying together, right?"
Antoine looked up at Mo, a hopeful look in his eyes.
Mo sighed, "You can bet on it."
Passing under the huge sign, "Where The Nation's Best Talent Meets," the massive complex of seven baseball diamonds, including a large stadium field, was dizzying. There were kids everywhere, wearing uniforms of teams from all over the eastern seaboard.
Pitchers were assigned to an oversized bull pen with at least a dozen pitching mounds.
The baseball coach, a retired major league assistant manager, watched Antoine rifle ball after ball at the catcher. After one particularly blistering fast ball, the kid actually had to pull his catcher's mitt off and shake the sting out of his hand.
"Ok. I've seen enough." Pretty much without expression, the coach held up his hand.
Looking down at his clipboard, he found Antoine's name. A variety of boxes pertaining to various pitching metrics next to each kid had to be filled in. Ignoring the boxes, he just wrote #1 next to Antoine's name and drew a thick arrow across the entire page.
Antoine sat down on the bench, letting out a long breath, satisfied that he'd done the best he could. He looked on as a thin, willowy kid took the mound. Blond hair dyed pink, long, falling in light curls around his head and neck. He lobbed a couple of pitches in. Rather weak, only around half speed. Antoine smirked.
"Hold it!" The coach said. He walked over to the kid. Giving him some quiet instructions, he took the ball out of the kid's hand, demonstrating how he wanted him to grasp it around his fingers.
Stepping back off the mound, he just nodded. The kid threw a couple of more pitches. Better, but not great.
"Ok, sidewinder now."
He held his arm off to the side, lifted a leg, and threw an impressive pitch, throwing arm low to the ground, his wrist flicking the ball. It clipped the top of the catcher's mitt, hitting the back stop with a thud.
"That's dope!" Antoine yelled, without thinking. The other boys looked on, mouths open, half of them turned to Antoine.
The ball had sort of done curly queues on the way to the plate. Antoine had never seen anything like it. Several more pitches, mostly variations of the first one. Hard, fast, and unhittable.
The coach just stood there, clipboard under his arm, his hand on his chin, supported by his other arm.
Finally, he smirked and said, "Ok, we're good here. Let's see how ya do with some live hitting." Turning to the other boys, "Next!"
The kid plopped down next to him. It gave Antoine a chance to look him over more closely. Hard to describe. Kind of androgynous. Light blue eyes, tiny eyelashes and narrow light blond eyebrows, a fine spray of freckles across his nose, thin lips, a narrow neck. Rope necklace that made him look hot.
"I'm Antoine."
"Cornyn."
"Where ya from?"
"Coast."
"Coast?"
"Oh, ah…Carolina coast."
"That's a crazy ass pitch, ya got." Awkward.
Cornyn smirked, "It got me here, AT."
"AT?"
Cornyn giggled, "I just thought that might be your nickname when I saw it on the roster."
"It's not. But, I kinda like it!" Antoine laughed. "You got a nickname, too?"
"Corn Dog."
Antoine laughed again.
For the remainder of the day, they hung out together. They were quite a pair; Antoine so dark, Cornyn so white.
Mo had been impressive, too. But there were a lot of great hitters and almost as many good fielders in his group.
That night, they lay together, sharing a single bed in Antoine's dorm room. His hand wound lightly around Mo's dick, cupping his balls. Still damp and delightfully gooey. Antoine raised up just enough to first lick, and then bite, one of Mo's nipples.
"Uhh," he winced once, allowing Antoine to continue suckling his nip.
"I've got a feeling," he said quietly.
"Wanna go again?" Antoine whispered.
"No. I'm not talking about that. I don't think I'm gonna make it."
"If you don't make it, I'm not going either."
In the end, Mo didn't make it. Antoine did.
Antoine accepted the nomination to the next level of try-outs. Making the team wasn't a sure bet. The pitching coach had been realistic about his chances. A long shot.
But, confiding to Antoine in a low voice, he said, "Son, you've got the best arm I've seen on a kid your age in a long time."
They were both quiet for most of the bus ride home. The little conversation they did have broke Antoine's heart. He stared down at the business card a scout from the LA Dodgers had given him.
"We'll still be close."
"You've gotta do it, man. I got your back."
Somehow, Antoine knew it was going to be over between the two of them. He felt really sad. Just then, a text.
"Wanna hang out at the next try-outs?"
It was Cornyn. He'd advanced, too.
"Def."
A warm feeling came over Antoine. The future looked bright.
"I'm moving up there for another guy! So, get over it!"
After his third parental interrogation, Toby had enough. He just blurted it out. His mother's expression, so shocked, she looked as if she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket. His dad, a stunned look on his face, his mouth hanging open.
A few days later, his car packed with his entire world, he turned to his tearful mom to give her a hug. His dad took his hand and shook it, a disgusted look on his face.
"Good luck with all that."
Everything had fallen in place like magic.
Surprised and disappointed, Mr. Thinkwell was so mad his first inclination was to not lift a finger to help the boy. After he thought it over, he shrugged his shoulders. Who knows what the future might bring? A well placed call to an old friend, currently general manager of the Four Seasons in Toby's new home city.
After some vetting and a zoom call, he was hired on to join the concierge staff. Toby could not believe his good fortune. A new city, a new job, credits transferred to the hospitality program at a local community college. Small apartment, some minimal furnishings picked up at a used furniture store. Didn't matter that much. Hopefully, he'd be spending most of his time, especially nights, in Bell's dorm room.
Unbeknownst to Toby, Mr. Thinkwell and his new boss, Oskar Hirsch, shared some common interests. When they first met, Mr. Hirsch tried to conceal the urge to reach out and run his hand along Toby's jaw bone. Clearing his throat, he handed Toby a freshly pressed charcoal gray suit coat and pants.
"A trim would be recommended, Mr. Gallivan," Hirsch said, looking at Toby's long flowing black hair, now fully down on his shoulders and well over his ears.
Bell was so cute about it, Toby thought he might cream in his pants right in the chair. They were at the Varsity Barber Shop on campus. Bell was closely supervising every snip of the scissors.
"Will you step back, guy?" The hair stylist said, an exasperated look on his face.
"Not too short!" Bell yelled.
The barber just glared at him.
Who should they run into when they left the barber shop but Professor Hathaway. First nodding curtly at Bell, then realizing he was walking with Toby. Seeing him, she brightened up quickly.
A quick hello after which Bell introduced Toby to the professor.
A half smile on her face, "I think we might have met previously."
"Oh, ya?" Toby looked at her quizzically.
"Mmmm, yes," she murmured.
The color drained out of Toby's face. Her hair, the shape of her head, her slender body. A vision of a masked woman kneeling before his open thighs, her tongue plunging into his ass.
Toby looked at her, then at Bell.
"I wonder if you might be interested in coming 'round for some photos."
Briefly, she explained her new project to the two boys. Toby looked to Bell for some help.
Bell smirked. "We'll get back to you."
He wrapped his arm around Toby's neck, turned him away from Miranda, and together they walked away. Toby's arm snaked around Bell's waist.
Nearby at the University Hospital.
They stared at each other. What was there to say?
Gee gazed at Marti, a look of despair on his face. She lay there, covers pulled up across her chest, her arms laying flat on the bed. A tear snaked down the side of her face.
"Honey, it's going to be ok."
The second the words came out, he knew they were the wrong words. There were no right words.
"Gee, would you mind if I tell you to just fuck off?"
A double mastectomy. Chemo to follow after recovery. When she was strong enough, they were going to perform a hysterectomy. "Perform." Such an inappropriate word. There would be no rousing applause for that performance.
It had happened so fast. She'd found the lump in her breast just a couple of weeks ago. Their good friend, John Little, was her OB-GYN. John and Susan had two girls at Smythe Friends. When they found out, Gee had dared make a crack that this year's tuition was now taken care of. She told him to fuck off when he said that, too.
"Ok, Martha. We're going to take you down now."
A nurse and an orderly bustled in and started rearranging the IV and disconnecting the monitor next to her bed.
As they were rolling her out, Gee leaned down and gave her a kiss on the lips.
"Buh-bye," they said to each other simultaneously.
Another hospital. This one, the VA.
Even though he could hardly feel a thing or move a muscle, he used all his strength to push the button on the morphine pump. Everything was a nice blurry haze.
Rocky knew he was in trouble a few weeks ago. Just after that naked party for the teenagers down in Georgia, he started coughing up blood.
Stage IV cancer, the doc told him. Put your affairs in order, he suggested. Affairs, Rocky huffed. That amounted to nothing more than a hill of beans.
No family to speak of. He turned his head to look at Tweet. Sitting there, smiling at him weakly. Loyal friend, he'd come up to be with him.
Rocky had tried to think of a fitting epitaph for his headstone. For some reason, the phrase, "Just Keep on Fucking Along," kept rolling around in his head. He doubted they would allow that, especially in a military cemetery. Maybe, change it slightly. "Just Keep on Trucking Along" might pass muster. It would be his own private joke, one he could carry into eternity.
Tweet thought it was funny. He liked making him laugh.
They say your strongest memory comes through your olfactory nerve. Rocky easily believed that. As he lay there, the acrid smell emanating from burned up equipment, burning oil fields, burning everything filled his memory. Kuwait. What a holy Hell hole that was. He remembered looking at Tweet, their noses filled with that poison. Unsaid, but he knew they were both in trouble.
Then, a much more pleasant memory. The smell wafting up from the inner thighs of that Carey guy, the one he'd given a blow job to at one of those naked parties. Musty and sweet, a hint of piss, the bitter aroma of his nuts. That kid was fuckin' cute! His light beige skin and his wicked cute dick, the way he clutched his stomach when he came.
Rocky sighed a bit even though there was no air left in his lungs. Eyes to the ceiling. Everything started to turn white. Not just white. No color at all.
His final thought: Oh, well.
"Do me just one favor. Don't get fat!"
After three protracted telephone conversations, Day's father finally gave in.
He smirked as he glanced over at Liam. He looked frighteningly beautiful and sexy. Laying there naked, one leg twisted under the covers, his other leg spread on top. His beautiful set just out there, his dick still half hard. Velvety tan skin stretched across his hip bone. His perfectly sculpted chest, light brown nipples, smooth shoulders. Even after a night of torrid sex, Liam looked so put together. One swipe of his hand and his hair just fell into place.
They had decided together to leave the AHA program behind in Italy. There were only a couple of weeks left anyway. Day blamed it all on Andy, their intrepid leader.
"Wouldn't it be grand to go to college in Italy?" He'd said as they toured the Duomo in Florence.
Seed planted. Plans made. Visas applied for. The economics program at the University of Milan for Day. Now that he was eighteen, he controlled most of the trust fund that his grandparents had set up for him, so the decision was his. In spite of what his father said.
A couple of interviews with agents for Liam. One of them was a real grease ball. He'd seen one of Liam's pornos. Leering at him, he promised non-stop work. But, another one, a legit agent, gobbled him up. A wild haired vivacious Italian woman with a gorgeous accent, she enthusiastically told him he would be perfect for an upcoming catalog shoot. A hot, fresh designer was just completing his spring collection.
The sex was inevitable. Day couldn't wait to get off the plane when they first landed at Heathrow. Liam, so sweetly snuggled into his arms, just before they landed. After a bit of finagling he got Andy to assign them to the same room. Showers, teeth brushed, and they were on the bed in their underwear, making out like horny teenagers. Wait! They WERE horny teenagers!
The evening program was torture. Day was so worked up, he hardly heard a word.
"Will you just cut it out?" Liam whispered furiously through clenched teeth.
He didn't mean it, though. Liam giggled softly as Day repeatedly pinched his side.
Love was definitely not part of Day's life plan right now. College first, then law school, pay his dues at a New York law firm, get a nice place on the east side, find the perfect guy, adopt a couple of kids, and settle down. But, here he was, in love, with this beautiful creature.
For Liam, either he let it happen or, more likely, he wanted it to happen. The specter of returning to a world controlled by his father caused him a lot of trepidation. It had been bad enough getting pimped out but knowing he was also getting off on watching Liam have sex was a whole other set of crazy.
That first night, Liam pulled himself away from Day's embrace long enough to gasp, "Wait a minute! I wanna get ready."
Closing the bathroom door, he peed first. It was hard, though. Liam's cock was so engorged he had trouble squeezing anything out. After flushing the toilet and washing his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror. Swiping his fingers through his hair, he let it fall neatly over his forehead. He gave his eyelashes a pull to make them stand out a little more so they fluttered against his bangs. In spite of the lack of sleep, his brown eyes were nice and clear. Scrunching his lips once to make them look a little pinker, he wondered what some lip gloss might do for them.
Pants, socks, and underwear off, thrown on the floor. He unbuttoned his shirt but just before he pulled it off, Liam decided to keep it on. A nice way to frame his body. In a way, it made him look a little shy, a bit reluctant, even though he was neither.
He opened the bathroom door, trying to look sultry. Liam couldn't help smiling, though. He knew what must have looked like. Day lay there on his back, completely naked, gazing wide-eyed at him.
"Fuck, man! Are you kidding me?"
It was more than sex, though. Well, the sex was off the charts. They bonded. Laughing together at secret jokes, playing verbal volley ball. Winding their way through Western Europe and finally to Italy, enriching their minds and their souls with art, culture, and history.
They both knew it somehow when they found the apartment, just a stone's throw from la Statale, the University of Milan. Looking at each other, flushed with excitement, it was the beginning of an extraordinary ride.
"I don't give a fat fuck what you think."
His eyes narrowed, the muscles in his forearms tightening as he clenched his fists.
The color drained out of BJ's face. It was meant to be a friendly tease. That didn't go so well, he thought sardonically.
"How's ya doin' there, Dr. Evil?" He'd asked. "You and Mini-Me?"
"Whadda ya talkin' bout?"
"I was just thinkin', you know." BJ giggled.
Dirk just huffed. He got up off the couch, glared at BJ, and strutted out of the frat's living room.
Ya, ok. He was 6'2," Kaito was 5'2." I guess they probably looked ridiculous when they walked together, side by side.
That thought alone gave him a stiffy. He loved it. The size difference. Slow dancing with Kaito was extra special. His arms held up high to reach around Dirk's neck. They only dared do it in the privacy of his room, though. Sometimes, Kaito would leap up and wrap his legs around Dirk's waist. He would just carry him around, his hips swaying to the beat of the music.
The party last summer on Montauk. Dirk first saw him standing off to the side with one of the other catering managers. Long black hair covering his ears, bangs likewise over his forehead, falling partially into his eyes. Wide mouth, sensuous lips. Thin, boyish body. He noticed his long delicate fingers when he reached up to sweep the hair out of his eyes.
Dirk was dumbstruck. It was as if Cupid's arrow had pierced his heart.
After he got sick of the football banter, he broke away from some groupies and sauntered over.
"How ya doin'?"
He just bowed his head.
"Nice party."
The boy just stared blankly at him. It suddenly dawned on Dirk that the guy might not speak English. He pointed to his own chest.
"Dirk."
The Asian boy bowed his head again.
"Kaito."
"Nice ta meet ya."
Kaito bowed his head.
Dirk shrugged, feeling himself blush. This was really awkward.
A man standing next to Kaito, another Asian man, asked, "Can I help you, sir?"
Dirk shuffled from one foot to another as he looked alternately at the man and at Kaito.
"I was, ah, wondering, if I, umm, could get Kaito's number."
Kaito and the man exchanged several words. Japanese? Mandarin? Dirk couldn't tell. The man turned to Dirk, briefly bowing at the neck.
"Ok."
Kaito reached into his back pocket, bringing out a small notepad and a stub of a pencil. He quickly scribbled his number, tore the paper out of the pad, and presented it to Kirk, extending it forward with both hands, holding it between his fingers. He quickly bowed his head again.
Dirk had no clue what he should do next. He took the paper from Kaito, looked at it, turned his eyes back to Kaito…and bowed his head. With that, he burst into an uncontrollable bout of giggling as he tried to cover his mouth with the back of his hand.
Kaito knew what was going on. He understood English, having become pretty much fluent in the last year. He just chose not to speak it, depending on the situation. It was safer to play dumb than expose himself. And, he was pretty sure what this otoko, this Dirk guy, wanted.
Kaito had an innate ability to compartmentalize his feelings. And, at the moment, all of his feelings were being directed at Toby. He had a singular purpose: get him in bed. Dirk would have to wait.
He kept Dirk waiting for almost three months. To be honest, Kaito told himself, he was afraid of him. He was so big! His size both repelled and attracted him. But, an overwhelming urge to be taken, to be crushed, held down, manhandled, made him so excited it made him shiver.
A couple of awkward phone calls, a text here and there, connecting on WhatsApp, where Kaito continued the ruse, pretending not to understand Dirk's advances. Dirk trying to figure out what to say, heavily relying on Google Translate. All the while, Kaito fantasized about being totally wrapped up in this brute's arms.
Kaito considered himself one of the better quiet manipulators of all time. His scheming got him a job on the catering staff at the university where he, of course, got himself assigned to the reception following the first game of the conference playoffs.
Dirk didn't want to go. He was tired and sore. Except for his dick. The vision of Carey's cute butt, so nice and round, his crack falling open revealing his sweet hole, kept him going for most of the game. Especially that fourth quarter play where he zeroed in on the quarterback and took him out for a punishing sack and an eighteen yard loss. Too bad the guy couldn't finish the game. Haha!
Afterwards, he sat on the bench in the locker room, the sweat still pouring off of him. His cock, throbbing inside his jock. But, after sending four texts to Carey and getting crickets, he shrugged his shoulders. Maybe later. Now showered and dressed, he followed a couple of teammates out the locker room door.
All steel and glass, a two story ceiling, the reception hall of the alumni center echoed with the jubilant sounds of victory. Dirk wasn't exactly mobbed but he did enjoy more than his fair share of back slaps and fist bumps from wealthy alums.
CeeCee and her parents were there, she on the arm of her latest, a law student named Adam. Jewish kid. I wonder how that's gonna go down, he thought. Nat and Vonnie, her parents, were effusive in their praise of his performance. Vonnie, maybe a bit too effusive. That woman gave off a strange vibe. Sexy. Mentally, he shook it off. No way, Jose.
Some asshole, laughing his ass off, backed into Dirk just as he was picking a sauce laden shrimp off of his plate. Dirk stumbled, the plate airborne until it clattered to the floor, bouncing a couple more shrimp and a slider onto the carpet. Just as he crouched down to gather it up the strewn food, he was there. Dirk was so surprised, he actually let out a fart.
"What the…? Kaito?!?"
He just looked at him, staring, not saying anything. Dirk thought he was going to melt. Here he was, in all of his beauty, wearing a starched white double breasted server's jacket. Monstrously cute.
After they busied themselves picking up the food, Kaito pulled the plate away from Dirk. They looked at each other.
"Umm…ah…how are you?"
Kaito nodded silently.
Without a translator app in hand, Dirk's mouth just opened and closed. He tried to figure out what to say and how to say it.
For the first time, Kaito smiled.
"That's ok, koibito. I speak English," he said, in a heavily accented voice.
Later, in his frat room, laying naked on his back, on Dirk's bed, he beckoned him, his arms wide open.
"Please."
Dirk fairly leapt on him. If he could have, he would have gobbled him up whole. His taste, his smell, gasping and wincing at Dirk's desperate licking, sucking, and kissing. When Dirk climbed on top, thrusting his hips against Kaito's, his dreams were realized. That sense of being crushed, so loving, so beautiful. The beautiful pain he felt in his dick, his ass, his nipples. Frantic kissing. They dared not slow down or stop. Even when it was over and they'd both cum, Dirk held him tightly, almost vice like.
It had been an utterly fantastic couple of weeks. Whenever they could be together, they were. Loads of sex, but a lot of fun, too. Dirk's favorite thing to do was carry Kaito slung over his shoulder, like a sack of flour. Kaito loved it, too. After the next playoff game, which they won, by the way, Kaito lovingly submitted to a royal fucking. Wincing and gasping, grunting after every violent thrust.
Dirk gave up trying to hide the fact that he was gay. A couple of his teammates looked at him sideways. Most tried to play dumb.
The league championship game. Rumor had it that scouts from several NFL teams were in attendance. The score was tight but Dirk just had that good 'ol feeling. A win today would set him up for a huge senior year and then pro ball would beckon.
Third quarter. A snap of the ball and Dirk was off to the races. Pushing an opposing tackle to the ground, he ran around the end in hot pursuit of the quarterback. He never saw his own player, running alongside him, get tripped. When he fell across his leg, he felt and heard a pop in his knee. It was like a gun going off. Instantaneous, blinding pain. He barely heard the whistle blow.
"What happened? What happened? What happened?" He kept screaming, even as they were carting him off the field.
He lay on the training table, one arm over his face. He didn't want anyone to see him crying.
"We'll have to see what the MRI says, but I'm pretty sure it's a grade three ACL," he heard the team doc tell the trainer in a somber tone.
Dirk didn't need to ask what that meant. The ligament was completely torn away from the bone. Surgery, long rehab. His playing days were possibly, probably over with.
Someone nudged him. When he opened his eyes, Kaito was there, cradling his head and neck. He wasn't even supposed to be in here.
Looking up into Kaito's eyes, his own still filled with tears, he somehow felt better.
"I love you," Kaito whispered.
"I love you, too."
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