Singletrack Mind
by Jesse D
Houston, We Have Lip Lock
The shower stall was not big enough for both of us. Major frustration! We were crammed into the tiny space, still with our shorts on, unable to bend or even move very much, let alone get naked and do any of the things I'd dreamed of doing if I ever got lucky enough to shower with someone else. Dave and I kinda fumbled around for a few minutes, pressed together in the confined space, but the awkwardness of the situation was quickly cooling down my lust. Or maybe it was just that the warm spray only reached Dave, and I was starting to shiver in my wet clothes. I slid open the door, stepped out and sat down on the tile floor, water dripping from my shirt and tears of disappointment welling up in my eyes. This wasn't like it was supposed to be, not at all.
"Dude, you need a bigger shower," Dave said behind me, leaning out of the stall. Looking up, I could see my disappointment mirrored on his face. "We'll have to take turns, I guess," he added, stepping out of his shorts and holding them up to the water. "I'll be quick," he said, as he slid the door shut, but that brief glimpse of his crotch right at eye level burned the image of his still semi-hard cock into my brain. So close! Yet after all the months of wishing for this to happen, after all the detailed fantasies, after all those jerkoff sessions in front of the laptop, I was terrified.
I sat there on the floor, hunched up with my chin on my knees, not sure what to think. I mean, everything had changed this afternoon - my private, lonely little world had opened up and suddenly there was someone else in it. Someone who wanted to be with me, which was astonishing in itself. Not only that, we'd hugged and kissed and both had the most incredible orgasms, still wearing our shorts, not 10 minutes ago! That was awesome. But jeez, if anyone at school found out, that would be a total disaster! And crap, I didn't even know if Dave might tell his buddies about today or not. Come to that, I didn't really know if I could trust Dave at all! I thought I could; if he was just setting me up, he sure had me fooled.
The water stopped, the door slid open part way and Dave stood there, lower half hidden behind the frosted glass. "Um, is there a towel I can use?" He looked very unsure of himself, for a change. I got up, pulled a towel off the rack and handed it to him. He wrapped it around his waist before stepping out of the shower stall. "Thanks. Uh, heh, we got a little crazy there, huh. Ummm. I hope, um, I mean, uhh, you won't tell anyone about this, will you?"
"Jeez, no! I won't tell anyone!"
"I mean, I'm glad it happened. Really glad," a lower wattage version of the Dave smile appeared, "But they'd kill me if they knew... and... oh crap! What time is it?! I've gotta phone Mom!" He ran over and pulled his phone from his backpack, checking the screen for messages. "Hey, is it okay if I stay for a while? I think it's too late for me to get home in time to go eat with Mom and Dad anyway."
"Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure. There's usually a gang here on Friday anyway... let me call Dad though. Could you pass me my phone? It's in the side pocket of my pack. Thanks." I was still kinda wet, but I wasn't shivering any more. "Hey Dad. Can Dave stay for supper? Uh, yeah... yeah... I told you he was coming over. Right. Cool. Thanks, Dad. Uh huh. Okay, see you then," I nodded at Dave. "Yeah, it's cool."
I reached into the shower and started the water going. As I got in and closed the door I could hear Dave calling his mother, but the words were drowned out by the shower noise. I just stood there for a minute, letting the warm water run down my body, a zillion thoughts running through my mind, wondering if this was going to turn out okay, or was I heading for disaster again. At least it seemed clear that Dave was as anxious as I was to keep this between ourselves. And I got the feeling that he really wanted to be with me. Which wasn't scary at all! In fact, It felt better the more I thought about it. I peeled the clothes off my skin and rinsed out my shorts, dropping them in the corner next to Dave's. After a short wash and rinse I shut it off, opened the door and reached out for a towel.
"Wow." Dave was staring at my crotch. "It's..."
"It's what?" I asked, drying my hair. I pointed to the towel he was still wearing. "What are you so shy about, anyway? It's not like you don't shower with guys every day, on the soccer team and everything."
"Yeah, but that's different! Besides, I have to stop myself from looking, so I don't bone up in the locker room. Shit, Andy would never let up if he even suspected that I was gay." He clapped his hand over his mouth. "Whoa. I've never said that out loud before," he added, biting his knuckle. He turned and stared at me for a minute, or rather, it seemed he was looking right through me. He suddenly returned from wherever his mind had wandered off to. "Um, could I borrow some shorts? I didn't think I'd need a change of clothes."
I had been just standing there like a statue, with the towel hanging from my hand. Suddenly clothes seemed important! I opened a drawer and pulled out two pairs of shorts, tossing one in Dave's direction, followed by a t-shirt. "You'll have to go commando," I told him, suppressing a giggle, "And everyone will know what you're thinking!" I pulled on my own shorts and shirt, found my Tevas and went to the sink to try to untangle my hair a bit. Dave was tying up his shoes. "We'd better head over to the house soon, or the guys will have eaten all the good stuff." I realized that I was starving.
We walked over to the house without talking much. I think we were both more than a little stunned by the afternoon's events, and the implications were just beginning to sink in. As we got closer to the house I could tell that the patio was already full of Dad's crew, their girlfriends and wives and a few other regular Friday-night-partyers. Dave hung back a bit as we rounded the last corner.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing. I wasn't expecting this many people!"
"It's just the work crew and a few others," which added up to maybe two dozen. The usual Friday crowd on Dad's patio. I was used to it, but I could see how it might be intimidating to normal people. "C'mon, we'll just grab some of those hors d'oeuvres over there to keep us going until the real food is ready." I made a beeline to where the girlfriends were setting out platters, grabbed an empty plate and started loading it up, Dave following my lead. Our escape route led us past the grill and Dad, so I stopped long enough to introduce Dave and get a time estimate for when the burgers would be ready. Then we headed around the pool to the furthest corner where it was a lot quieter.
Dave was looking all around while I pulled over some chairs. "This is some place you have here, man; it's incredible! Big house, big patio, pool with a waterfall and everything. It's like some movie star's place or something.'
"My grandfather just couldn't stop adding stuff, or ripping stuff out and making it better. He was always fixing the place up and adding to it. It's what he loved to do most, Dad says. And Dad has done a lot of the landscaping over again, too, trying new stuff. He brings people out to show them what he can do, sometimes."
We sat side by side on the chairs, feet up on a low stone wall, plates on our laps, shoveling in the little hors d'oeuvres at a good clip. We were hungry, and the smell wafting across the pool from the grill wasn't helping any, either.
Dave moved his chair a little closer to mine, and checked to make sure nobody was listening. "So, do you check out the guys at school?" he wanted to know.
"Well yeah, but I try to be real discreet about it. How about you?"
"Yeah, I do too. Heh. I even checked you out a couple of times last year."
"Me! No way! We didn't have gym together last year, either."
"I know, but I managed to go through the locker room when you were changing, just by coincidence, of course! And then I got my locker moved closer to yours. I even moved closer to you in English class last year."
"You were stalking me!" I grinned and gave him a little push. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I did, last year, but you didn't seem interested in hanging around with anyone in our school. We always thought you believed you were too smart to hang out with us," he looked at me and shrugged. "I mean, you never spoke to anyone, you never joined any teams or anything, and you always took off after the last class. And we couldn't figure out why you blew off questions on the exams on purpose. Seemed kinda dumb, actually."
That threw me for a loop. And I'd thought I was being so clever. I sat there thinking and didn't say anything for a minute. "I didn't know anyone, then," a lame excuse. "And I guess I didn't want to know anyone, either. I learned at my last school that being invisible was the safest."
"Why, what happened?"
"Um. I don't really want to talk about that right now, okay? Sometime I'll tell you all about it. But not now."
Hunger pangs interrupted our thoughts and we headed back around to the grill, where Dad was dispensing his incredibly awesome special recipe hamburgers. I don't know what he did to them, but everyone swooned over them. I told Dave to get two of 'em right away, because once the special ones were gone Dad reverted to regular old hamburgers. We worked our way down the table loaded with platters of food, piling it onto our plates until there was no more space. I found a tray in the cupboard under the counter, added forks and napkins and asked Dave to grab me a Coke and get whatever he wanted to drink. There was nowhere to sit at any of the tables, so we returned to our previous spot where I set the tray down on the low stone wall, and we sat on either side of it.
"So, what's the occasion?" Dave asked.
"Huh?"
"What is the big party in aid of?"
"This?" I asked, motioning to the action on the other side of the pool. "This happens spontaneously pretty much every Friday night during the summer. Dad lives to feed and entertain people. He isn't happy if he isn't in the middle of a bunch of people, preferably eating food. My grandparents were the same. I take more after Mom, I guess. She hated these things."
We dug into the food. Dave's eyebrows shot up as he took the first bite of his 'burger. "Mmmmfff. That's sooo good," was what I think he said, but he was busy stuffing more into his mouth at the time. We ate steadily for a few minutes, then came up for air.
"Your dad seems pretty cool. And he makes awesome 'burgers! My dad never does anything but work and watch TV. And my mom is out selling houses pretty much all the time. Or else she's on the phone selling houses. I mean, it's not like they don't give me lots of stuff, but I just wish they were a little more interested in what I'm doing, y'know? They never come to any of my soccer games, even when we were in the state championships last year. When I'm over at Andy's, his dad is always doing stuff with us, or taking us places or showing us how to fix cars. He's a car nut."
I nodded. "Yeah, I know. Before my parents got divorced, well, it was pretty much the same thing. Mom was working for one company while trying to start up another one, so we didn't see much of her. And Dad was pretty much the same as now, only the parties and girlfriends were at an apartment Mom didn't know about. My sister and I were mostly brought up by babysitters, and I spent a lot of time with my cousins' house."
"That was out in California?"
"Nope. We lived in Boston then. So we used to come up here for vacation and holidays and stuff, when my grandparents lived here. Then, after Mom and Dad got divorced, it turned out Mom had already planned to move out to San Diego. When we got there, this guy moved in about two days later and boy, was he surprised to see my sister and me!"
We ate some more, watching the action in the pool. I noticed Dave was tracking each guy's crotch as he came up the steps out of the water, wet shorts plastered tight to his body. I nudged him with my elbow. "I thought it was me, but you'd go with any guy in wet shorts!'
Dave looked like a deer trapped in the headlights for a few seconds! Then he relaxed and looked me in the eyes as the Dave smile appeared. "Speaking of which, we'd better go finish dealing with those bikes! Or wait, I feel like going for a ride. Wanna?" He was already up and putting plates onto the tray. We circled the pool, leaving the tray for someone else to deal with. Dave detoured over to Dad and told him how much he had enjoyed the food. Dad beamed and clapped him on the shoulder, telling him he was welcome anytime. I mentioned that we were going for a bike ride and we headed out, grabbing a couple of pastries on the way.
The bikes were mostly dry except for the chains. I got a couple of cloths and some chain lube out of the shed and we set to work. After a minute Dave asked, out of the blue, "So, do you think any of the guys at school might be gay?"
"I dunno. But I can never tell, anyway. I mean, I would never have guessed about you, for one thing. There are a few I wish were gay. Like the Logans, for instance."
"Oh man, yeah! They're so hot! I really have to watch myself when they're in the shower too. Or how about Paul Miller? Or Richard Miller?"
"I don't know Richard."
"Paul's older brother. He was a senior last year. I'm pretty certain that he might be gay. I've only ever seen him hanging around with guys even though girls were always making goo goo eyes at him. I've jerked off thinking about him a few times."
"Whoa. Really? Who else do you jerk off to?"
"The Logan twins, guys on the internet," I could see Dave blushing in the summer evening light. "And, uh, you, sometimes," he added, quietly.
"No way!" I dropped the cloth, surprised. Stunned, was more like it! "Really?" I looked over and his eyes were staring at the chain. He slowly looked up at me, nodded and shrugged.
"C'mon, let's ride up to that lookout place!" he gave a last wipe to his chain then hopped on and proceeded to do wheelies around the yard. This guy was hard to pin down, for sure.
I put the hose and stuff away in the shed then got on my bike too. "Hey, I can't ride in sandals," I yelled to Dave as he sped past. He circled back and we headed over to the motorhome and put on bike shoes, then I led him out to where we could take the logging road up the hill, instead of having to go up the technical singletrack. The borrowed shorts were a little tight on Dave's butt and it was a pleasure to let him ride ahead so I could watch it as he pedalled. The road circled around to the east side of the hill where it was suddenly cooler, out of the late evening sun. Soon it would be the summer solstice, and the days would be getting shorter, which didn't bear thinking about. I preferred to remember the seemingly endless summer days spent with my grandfather. Those were happy times.
We had to take a short trail through the woods to get to my 'secret' clearing, and I was leading the way. "Nice buns!" Dave called out from behind. I guess we had been thinking along the same lines.
"Your butt looks pretty good in those shorts, too!" I answered.
"Hehe. And I thought I'd never get into your shorts!"
We rolled out into the clearing. The view from up there always made me stop and look for a moment. Dave pulled up beside me. The sun was in our eyes, getting low now, almost behind the hills on the far side of town, the golden light and long shadows giving a warm texture to the valley below. We could just hear the party at Dad's, laughter floating up over the muffled traffic sounds from the highway. We got off the bikes, propping them against a tree, walked over to the granite ledge and sat down. This was my private spot, my personal refuge from the world, but it felt good to have Dave sitting beside me. Just a couple of days ago I never would have believed this could happen. I was glad he had made the first move, because I never, ever would have had the courage to approach anyone like that. Especially someone I considered one of the cool kids at school, like Dave. But he did. And here we were.
"Um, so why did you think I might be gay?" I asked him. His brain had been away off thinking about something else and he shook his head a couple of times before answering.
"I didn't know. I mean, I hoped you might be, but you never gave any sign, or anything," he paused and thought for a few seconds, "but when you smiled and waved at me from the tractor the other day, something clicked inside me and then I just had to find out," another pause. "But when I saw your bookmarks, then I was pretty sure!" He looked at me with the 1000 watt smile. "I have mostly the same ones, but well hidden where my parents won't find them. Although there were a couple on your list I don't remember seeing before."
We discussed websites for a while, comparing notes and giving them ratings. It turned out we both had landed on Comicality's site from a link on the same GLBT teen page. That led to a discussion of Randy and Ryan and Derrick and Tanner and, of course, Billy! I admitted that I had some pretty wild fantasies involving Lee, and he said that Bobby was much more fantasy-worthy than Lee, which I had to admit might be the case. We agreed to disagree about Sam, but we both thought that Travis could turn out to be the biggest hottie of any of 'em.
Our discussion worked its way around to various sites that were mostly photos and videos of guys, supposedly all over 18, jerking off and doing things with each other, the stuff of my daydreams. The thought of actually doing any of that with Dave both excited and scared me! Looking over at him, I think he felt the same way. Anyway, Dave changed the subject a little by mentioning a couple of websites he liked which were mainly gay sports-oriented, rugby and swimming and wrestling and stuff.
"I love watching pro mountain bike races, too. They look so hot in those tight Lycra shorts! But man, I'd never dare to wear those! Andy and Chuck would probably die laughing! But Andy's dad took us to some pro races last year, we even got to meet some of the racers, and Andy was definitely sneaking peeks at their bubble butts. That would be insane if he turned out to be secretly gay! No way, though. He and Jennifer are joined at the hip. Have been since 7th grade.
That brought us back to that story, "New Kid in School", and how we wished our school was even remotely like any of the fictional ones on Comicality's site.
"You know what affects me the most about those stories?" I asked Dave, "What really makes my stomach do flips and gets me going? It's his description of kissing. Whenever I read about Billy and Brandon kissing, or any of them, I really long to be kissed like that. More than anything else."
"Oh! I know exactly what you mean! And when I see Andy and Jennifer kissing, I'm always thinking that I could be a better kisser than she is. I mean, not that I've ever kissed anyone like that. Until this afternoon, that is," he trailed off.
I risked putting my hand on his knee and said, "Me either, but we could practice." Neither of us moved. Taking that big step, kissing a boy on purpose, was a big move into the unknown. Not like what happened this afternoon. Neither of us was in control, then. Our other brains had taken over entirely. But I knew that I wanted to kiss Dave. And I was very sure that he felt the same way. So, trembling slightly, I forced my hand to pull his shoulders towards me. I made myself lean in and I kissed Dave lightly on the lips. There!
That wasn't so bad! In fact, it was better than this afternoon, being in control and kissing him because I wanted to! I did it again, and this time Dave reached up and put his hand behind my neck and we kissed a little harder and longer. My eyes were closed, but when I opened them, I was looking into those beautiful pools of blue that melted any further resistance I might have had. We kissed again, this time with parted lips, our tongues tentatively daring to taste someone else for the first time. This was heaven. Dave shifted a little, moving closer and hugging me tight with both arms as we gradually relaxed into a long, wonderful kiss. I could tell from Dave's reaction when my tongue had wandered too far. He was mostly following my lead, and we were both learning very quickly that kissing was everything we had hoped for!
We had to come up for air! "Wow," said Dave, "that was incredible. Are you sure you've never kissed anyone before?"
"No! I swear! But now that I have, I don't want to stop."
We shifted positions and kissed some more, with slight variations each time. And each time it was better than before. Stopping to catch our breath, we sat side by side on the ledge, arms around each other, heads touching, watching the sunset spread over the hills, the brilliant colours reflected off the buildings downtown. The pool lights down at the house had been switched on, making a bright blue patch in the darkening valley below us. Everything seemed extra beautiful, extra special. "Wow," I thought. "This must be what falling in love is like."
Once the sun was down a little breeze started blowing down from the hill above us, and the air was suddenly cooler. There was still plenty of light to see our way back down the road, but it would be fully dark soon and we had no lights. "We'd better head back down," I said to Dave. Then I had another thought, "It'll be too dark for you to ride home. Anyway, you don't have reflectors on your bike. Maybe I could get Dad or someone to give you a lift."
"No problem. I already told Mom I'd be staying here tonight," Dave said, looking innocent.
"You told her.. "
Dave started to laugh. "Let's get going. I think it's time to move on to the next lesson!"
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