Dreaming of Dax Ch. 02

Answers and More Questions- A Search For Sexual Identity


The next morning, Saturday, I awoke early to find myself naked in Michael’s bed and nestled into his strong body. I could feel his hairy scrotum against my own ass and, with my face blushing crimson, it all came back to me. I didn’t want to wake him up and was careful to hold perfectly still, although, to be honest, I really had to piss.

Damn, that had been some fucked-up night! Remembering everything that my morbid fear of the storm set off, I needed time to think about the details—being kissed by Michael’s perfect mouth, how grinding against him had proven so satisfying and getting jacked off by this boy who wanted to make me his lover.

Oh my god, that really happened!

Physically, the sex had been mind-blowing. I had never done anything close to this with another boy before... or with a girl either, for that matter. I was a virgin, at least the spirit of the word… okay I had sex when I was younger, but it was non-consensual and nasty. This wasn’t. Even being inexperienced, I knew what felt good, and Michael made me feel fantastic. Desired, connected, loved. He was a lot more knowledgeable, but he had proven to be gentle and patient with me. Even remembering last night brought half a smile to my face and a forceful stir to my cock.

Emotionally, I was hitting the panic button because I didn’t know what to do. Yes, I had accepted Michael’s advances, but I wasn’t honestly sure if he seduced me or I had come on to him. I knew the difference between right and wrong, but I’d never been much on thinking about morals. My mother, when she wasn’t high as a kite or drinking herself to death, had bitterly expounded on how homosexuality was wrong, the work of the devil. Hey, maybe that’s why she didn’t like me. Not that I’d ever indicated any kind of sexual preference when I was younger, but who knows?

What had transpired between Michael and me should mean I’m gay and that he was too, but I felt so uncertain. He was my best friend; actually he was my only friend. Was the sex what I wanted because I was in love with him? Or did my mother’s neglect and selfishness and the way she let her boyfriends hurt me make me so lonely that I was vulnerable to the first sign of affection from anyone? Searching for anything I could find to fill the deep hole inside? I felt gratitude for all Michael had done, and I wanted to please him, but it seemed more like we were using each other to get off. Like experimenting because I was so hopeless.

I knew I didn’t have a lot going for me. No family for one thing. My father abandoned me when I was little, and my abusive mother had died two months before. Since then I had been staying with my friend, Michael Capshaw and his parents. In September, he rescued me from the bullies who have been targeting me since forever because of my size and effeminate looks. When the woman who gave birth to me passed, his mom and dad took me in because I had no other place to go. They treated me like their own and I was grateful to all of them. I was just that now, with sex entering the picture, I wasn’t sure what to do.

I slipped quietly out of bed to use the bathroom. Gazing into the mirror I noticed a dark bruise on my throat just above my right collarbone. “Damn it,” I swore quietly, remembering exactly how I got it but feeling none of the joy of being possessed by someone who marked me in love. Unless I could locate a shirt with a high enough collar, I was going to have to find a way to explain the hickey- to Michael’s parents whom I didn’t want to disappoint, and to the kids at school where total strangers would make obscene comments. Fan-fucking-tastic!

I went back to my own room to dress and located a long-sleeved polo shirt that barely covered the mark. Even though it was the weekend, the house was silent. I knew Michael’s parents weren’t home. Robert was on a distant business trip, expanding sales districts for his pharmaceutical company. Donna was occupied with her usual Saturday activity, organizing and supervising real estate Open Houses and hopefully making a sale. I wandered down to the kitchen for breakfast and brought a mug of coffee back upstairs.

I was in my bedroom working on my economics class term project when Michael wandered in nude, yawning and stretching. I forced myself not to look at him and pretended to be engrossed in my schoolwork, although I was fully aware of his beautiful burnished form striding across the floor, his hair like the sun and his balls and dick swinging freely. He was definitely not shy. I swallowed with difficulty, determined to be aloof, but I was glad that the lower half of my body was hidden under my computer stand. My cock was beginning to swell in my jeans, and I didn’t want Michael to see me with a hard-on.

“Hi, beautiful,” he greeted me, walking up behind me to wrap his arms around my shoulders and kiss my ear.

“Hey,” I said, forcing myself to act casual and not look up. “There’s coffee in the pot, and your mom texted me to say she made scrambled eggs and left them in the microwave.” I reached up and laid my hand against his wrist to acknowledge the affection. “Put some clothes on, okay?”

Michael sighed and released me, seeming to understand my reticence. “We need to talk about last night, Dax.”

“I know.” I looked up into his tawny eyes staring at me in doubt. I wished there was some way to avoid any kind of discussion about last night for the near future. “And we will. But if I don’t finish this assignment today I’m in deep shit.”

“Later then.” He ruffled my long hair, and I discreetly watched his perfect tanned ass moving towards the door. Oh god, his whole body was perfect, and the way he knew how to use it with my own…

Pushing my economy book to the side, I dropped my head in my hands and groaned. Despite the grinding and handjob from the night before, I had been trying to convince myself it really didn’t mean anything. My fully erect seven inch cock was throbbing, and I knew this wasn’t a typical reaction of a non-gay boy to another male. Growing up, I’d been in enough P.E. classes in school, with their enforced shower rules in the locker room, to know that most dicks stayed flaccid and anyone with an erection was automatically labeled as gay. Luckily I was never in that last category, so why was this happening to me now? Was it Michael? Was I attracted to him?

Getting up to silently lock my bedroom doors, I grabbed a box of tissues and unzipped my jeans. Believe it or not, I don’t masturbate, at least not until now. Call it delayed development or the trauma of being molested when I was fourteen or even being forced by my stupid mother to lose my virginity to a drug-addicted prostitute almost two years ago. But I couldn't get Michael off my mind, and I was hurting with no other outlet to relieve the pressure.

I shoved my pants and underwear down to my ankles and knelt next to my bed. With memories of Michael’s soft, pink lips gently kissing mine and his tongue in my mouth, of vividly imagining his hand stroking up and down my rigid flesh, I pulled and fisted with one hand while I cupped my balls and squeezed with the other. I moaned ever so quietly so Michael wouldn’t hear from the next room. The head of my cock was glistening with precum that coated my fingers and made sliding around the mushroom-shaped head easy and oh so pleasurable. My shaft grew warm with the slippery friction as I thrust into my hand.

In only a few minutes I brought myself to a shuddering climax that would’ve landed me on the floor if I hadn’t fallen against my bed. Convulsing, I spurted four strong ropes of pearly cum into my fingers with carefully suppressed grunts of intense ecstasy.

But that happiness was soon replaced by choking doubt and mistrust, and I began to cry. Oh god, I was gay, and I was hot for Michael, the boy who was like a brother to me.

**

Michael:

I knew Dax was going to have second thoughts about last night. Despite his age and the ugly way he was forced to grow up, Dax was innocent and pure which was one of the things I’ve always loved about him. He was acting like a skittish colt, scared to death over sexual labels and compromising his morals, and it was up to me to ensure he didn’t think I was holding our time together over his head or expecting anything from him he wasn’t willing to give. I loved him, but I had no intention of forcing myself on him.

But let me tell you about last night. It was amazing. Who would’ve known Dax would be so scared by thunder and lightning, although if anyone deserved excuses for being afraid of a storm, it’s him. After surviving the trauma from his past? I just wanted to shout to the gods in thanksgiving that he ended up in bed with me. That ingenuous little ‘should I or shouldn’t I’ look on his face when he was trying to make up his mind whether to initiate a kiss was so cute! Dax was responsive in a way that took my breath away. I couldn’t believe he let me touch him or leave a hickey. Much less, that he allowed me to grind into him and then made him cum a second time when I jacked him off. I wasn’t trying to take advantage, but he made seducing him easy. And the peaceful yet elated look on his face at the end… oh my god! It satisfied my own needs just to see him enjoy it so much.

Dax has always been absolute perfection in my eyes. I recognized his quality the second I saw him as the shy, new student in my U.S. history class a year ago when we were juniors. It was the start of the second semester so of course everyone’s social structure was already in place in school, and here came Dax, registering late because he’d just moved to Santa Bella. It’s tough to start over in a new high school like that. His small stature and timid, quiet demeanor didn’t do him any favors either, and I didn’t envy him one bit. I could tell he had already figured out his disadvantages. The dread just rolled off him.

Maybe it was the scruffy clothes that were too big for him. He just happened to be my favorite body type, and shit, the way his jeans rode on those thin hips and his toned butt were two things I could’ve stared at all day. He couldn’t have been much more than five and a half feet tall and was very slender, which meant that, unfortunately, Dax was headed for jock gay-baiting whether it was true or not. I got the distinct impression his life wasn’t a happy one either, and he always kept his eyes down like he didn’t want to be noticed.

His complexion was very fair and translucent which was odd for southern California, even in the winter, leading me to assume he was from out of the area. He didn’t talk much… right, he didn’t talk at all except to answer questions from the teacher… so trying to pick up an accent and find out where he was from was hard. I just wanted a neutral starting point in case I ever had a chance to speak with him. I wanted a chance to say something nice, like giving him a compliment to make him blush, because he was even more adorable when his cheeks turned red.

While I did sympathize with him, my initial impressions of Dax were more typical of my age, and I’m sure you could have scraped me off the floor that first day. Damn, he was fucking stunning. Dax was probably the prettiest boy I had ever seen. I know ‘pretty’ isn’t a description most people apply to males, but certainly it fit him. His hair was a very straight dark blond, cut unevenly to his shoulders and pushed behind his ears. You could tell it was a natural because of the way it caught the sunlight and how soft and shiny it was. His eyes were his best feature, a beautiful melting-chocolate brown, and those lashes were long and thick, the kind that girls go for. The only thing spoiling the whole effect was the pair of square eyeglasses he wore that obscured those pretty peepers with frames so chunky they seemed to weigh him down.

That’s why when he moved in I immediately suggested he get contact lenses. Ditching the glasses changed his whole face. That face was slightly effeminate and young but gave evidence of what would turn into sharper angles in his future. He wasn’t even seventeen back then and was still growing through that teen transition between boy and man. Dax had the barest stubble on his jaw like he hadn’t been shaving for long and smooth skin. There was a slight bump in the middle of his nose that gave his delicate face character and pouty pink lips I instantly wanted to kiss. When he smiled, which wasn’t often, he had very white, straight teeth and his smile would light him up from the inside.

Given his bashfulness, I don’t even think he noticed me once last year in school even though I only sat two seats away from him in history and I said ‘hi’ every day. It wasn’t just me either. He ignored everyone who tried to be friends with him, and since he acted like a whipped puppy most of the time, I’m positive he wasn’t just being a snob. Once he got over the ‘new kid’ status and the other students noticed what a cutie he was, girls and guys were hitting on him. But he seemed to exist in his own little world that shut everyone else out.

There was something so sweet about Dax that tripped me up and made me feel over-protective, and I knew from past experiences that adolescence can be cruel. This was a boy my heart immediately did flip-flops over from that very first second, and I wanted to show him that he was worth loving. But his insecurities were so front and center, and not only did they blind him from the friendship people would have shared with him, they invited torment from the bullies like Lamont Shores and his homophobic gang.

Meeting Dax face-to-face was an unexpected encounter but lucky. This year, our last in high school, was a distinct disadvantage in that he wasn’t in a single one of my classes, but I kept tabs on him. I was friendly when I’d meet him in the halls. He bravely took a lot of teasing and jokes about his sexual orientation from the rest of the student body, but the assholes on the football team were downright vicious. I was just fortunate enough to be on my way out to the student parking lot the afternoon Lamont decided to flip Dax into a mud puddle. I helped him up, gratified to touch him for the first time and feeling his muscles tense under his wet t-shirt to push me away before he realized I wasn’t going to hurt him.

From that point on, although unplanned, it all came together as if by design. Dax plainly needed my help. He was a muddy mess, freaking out in my car over how mad his mother would be when she found out he’d been roughed up again by the group of thugs. I volunteered to bring him home so he could wash up and get his clothes laundered, hoping she’d be none the wiser.

But oh shit, talk about butterflies! I got to see Dax in a pair of boxers and my robe, and he has the most fantastic body for a skinny kid I’ve ever seen. Bony, fragile shoulders with a hint of muscle underneath, very pink nipples on a nice, well-formed chest and an almost concave torso. His legs were straight with sturdy thighs and well-muscled calves, and his pale, soft skin was creamy. A beautiful, flawless ass. I so wanted to wrap my arms around him and kiss his blushing cheeks and nuzzle his ears.

Okay, I know how jocks can be, that sometimes they just make assumptions because they’re the top of the food chain and can get away with it. Dax had been called gay since his arrival at Santa Bella High, and it’s unfair that guys like him get labeled as twinks. I had no idea in the beginning whether it was true or simply cruel name-calling, but I sort of suspected it in Dax’s case.

So in September I purposely put on those sweatpants commando-style to gauge his reaction, and it worked. Dax did his best to hide it, but he was sporting a hard-on under those shorts and I nearly came unglued. But I will adamantly challenge anyone who says I only became friends with him because of the seduction possibilities. I’m not that callous; I’ve truthfully been in love with the little guy for almost a year. I mean, who would’ve ever foretold that his mother would get hit by a car? Dax is well-rid of her, and as meanly as she treated him all his life, she deserved to die.

My parents are great, and they spoil me rotten. They are successful business people, and I have two older sisters who are away at college. That’s what happens when you’re the baby of the family and the only boy. Since they had already met Dax and saw his quality too, it was no trouble at all to talk them into letting Dax move in with us. No relatives to claim him meant the temporary soon became permanent, and they successfully applied for guardianship. So now I have a little brother that I love with all my heart, and he is so adorable.

It’s been two months since Dax moved in, and he’s settling in well. He volunteers to help my parents with chores and sometimes I’d like to tell him to give it a rest because he makes me look lazy. No, just kidding, he’s cool. You would think growing up as rough as he has that he’d be this selfish, condescending prick out to make people take pity on him and using it to his advantage to con them. Surprisingly, he’s very respectful, quiet and polite. He is shy and self-conscious, but he’s also fun to hang with. We have a lot of the same interests, and he’s a whiz a video games. Dax doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs. He’s careful about using foul language, especially around adults. He studies diligently to get good grades, and he's really good at math and science.

Linnie and Jana like him, making them fairly observant for older sisters. My parents would have to be idiots not to love him too. He never makes a fuss. He isn’t picky about food. He learned manners from someone- not his mother, that’s for sure. He’s finally starting to sprout up which is good because he could stand to gain about twenty-five pounds and four or five inches. He’ll probably always be skinny, but he’s up to my ears in height now that he’s getting three solid meals a day from Mom. I mean, I like being bigger than him, but I’m not so selfish that I want Dax to be unhealthy.

I’ve always known I was gay. Since my early teens I’ve pursued boys, but you get to around that age and you sometimes wonder if maybe you’re full-on gay or you might be bisexual. Not that I ever had any feelings for girls, but I owed it to myself to discover the truth. I was just enough of a rebel and in denial that I had to find out. So yeah, I fooled around when I was fifteen to see if the other half of the population did anything special for me, and nada. Being with girls gave me the creepy-crawlies.

I happily went back to my real world, and I enjoy a varied sex life, top or bottom I don’t care. At the end of my sophomore year, before I even met Dax, I entered a long-term sexual relationship with another boy named Isaac Cramer. He’s the one I gave my virginity to, a year older than us and in college now. He was a player and kind of domineering, and out of nowhere he just dumped me after nine months. That was about three weeks before Dax entered the picture, and for the longest time I had to ask myself if he was just a rebound love interest. Isaac’s rejection hurt a lot, but he goes to school seven hundred miles away, and I’m okay with how it worked out. I have Dax, or I hope I do.

Like I told my new best friend, I’m out and proud, but here’s the thing. I’m only out at school; my parents don’t know I’m gay. It’s something I have never discussed with them because they would be so disappointed, me being the only boy in the family and all. I’ve always been super-discreet with my friends, especially my boyfriends, so I know how to be careful with Dax whether he says yes or no. I suppose thinking about that now is getting ahead of the game.

I have to wait for him to make a decision on his own, and I can’t influence him either way. It’s killing me because I want him to say yes so much. Unrequited love sucks, and I’m going to be crushed if he isn’t interested in more than friendship. He is all I’ve dreamed about for almost a year, and I can’t bear to live without him. And if he turns me down, it’s going to be damned awkward living in the same house with him. But I’ll have to manage because that, as they say, is life.

**

Dax:

Knowing we would be alone all day and having the place to ourselves, I was afraid Michael would use the time and privacy to make excuses to bug me, and we’d end up kissing and hugging, eventually leading right back into his bed. The solitude placed a tremendous strain on me to come up with fast solutions which I wasn’t comfortable doing; I recognized I had a certain obligation to him because I was living in his house with nothing to give back. This caused no small quandary in the self-esteem area. I was pretty sure, when it came right down to it, that if he insisted I wouldn’t be able to tell him ‘no’, even if it was out of a sense of duty.

But Michael was true to his word; he left me completely alone and let me finish my school project. At 5:30 we decided to go get something to eat because one of Donna’s Open Houses lasted until eight and we were hungry. We had fast food hamburgers but it was a silent meal. At least Michael wasn’t pestering me for a decision, and I think my liking and respect for him went up a couple of notches just because he was being so patient.

I went back to my room once we got home, lost in thought, trying to make sense of the past two days. I came to one rapid decision. There could be no denying that my feelings for Michael went beyond friendship. I recalled my very physical reaction to him the day I met him, and even then I knew it wasn’t normal if I was straight. I had all these jealous emotions that came out of nowhere whenever the gay boys at school invaded what I’d come to think of as our personal space. I felt like I might be in love with Michael. I think I fell in love the second he pulled me out of that mud puddle in what felt like a lifetime ago. I knew from his vows last night that he was crazy about me and had loved me for a long time. It would only turn into a problem if I let it.

Beyond that, I was in a fog. There was a part of me that was afraid to acknowledge what most of the school population already suspects me of. I get enough teasing because I look gay; how much worse would it be once I admitted that I am? I was tired of the names and being used as a punching bag by the homophobic bastards at Santa Bella High. Michael might be out, but it didn’t seem to carry the same risks for him, probably because of his size and a certain amount of charisma he held. If I was gay, and I almost certainly believed I was, would I have to come out too?

And then there was a part that was afraid of what Michael had said about wanting to teach me everything about making love. I wasn’t so backwards that I didn’t know how men fucked each other, and I was scared. Some of it sounded embarrassing. I knew it could be painful, especially for the bottom, at least at first, and Michael would almost definitely want me to bottom. I could probably count on him to be as gentle in this area as he had so far, but I felt I at least had the right to be worried.

Michael was pacing the family room when I went downstairs for something to drink. He’d lit a fire because it was going to be another cold, rainy night, and I could see anxiety all over his face. In a perverse way it made me feel good, knowing that somebody was in love with me, waiting for me to make up my mind whether I could love back. I smiled at him.

“So?” he asked nervously, arching an eyebrow. “Anything yet?”

He was so beautiful, his red hair glowing in the firelight, and the fact that I held his happiness in my hands was kind of heady. And then, shit, it occurred to me that if I was thinking along these lines, my mind was already made up. He had never misled me, never pressed me to give more than I was able. Michael and I must be in love, and we were so lucky in comparison to almost everyone else in the world. How many boys our age actually get to live with the person they care about? We could be together all the time, and it didn’t mean I had to be out until I was ready for it. I think my defenses were finally breaking down. Michael was my hero, my best friend and offering to be my boyfriend. How could I resist?

“I’m good,” I grinned, and Michael looked like he wanted to do cartwheels.

Instead, he walked over to me and very formally asked if he had my permission to kiss me. “Can I?” He looked hopeful, but if his face wasn’t so dead serious I might have thought he was playing a prank.

I nodded, suddenly shy, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Michael took my chin and lifted it. I held very still while his mouth hovered over mine and with one heartbeat we blended. With another, my lips parted and we were tasting each others’ tongues, and with the third we locked into an embrace.

Michael didn’t let it go on for too long and released me. “That was nice,” I whispered shyly.

He was gazing down at me, his tawny eyes shining in affection. “Dax,” he said sincerely, “I will never force you to do one single thing that makes you uncomfortable. If you don’t want to, tell me. If it’s something new, I will ask permission first, and we will go slowly. Do you understand?”

For an answer I melted into him to rest my forehead against his shoulder. His strong, sturdy arms went around my back to pull me closer, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“Just hold me,” I said. I was afraid I was going to cry over how sweet Michael was treating me. Nobody in my life had ever cared about me like he did, not even my own mother.

He turned off the lights. We sat on the couch to watch a tv program on the flat screen, and Michael let me cuddle into him with his arm around my shoulder, holding my hand. It was affectionate and cozy, and we talked about school and other general topics. Every once in awhile he’d give me a small peck on the cheek, and I started to relax. I hunkered down on the couch so I could lay my head against him, and his thumb gently stroked my knuckles on the hand he was holding. It occurred to me that this was exactly the private environment I’d worried about earlier, but without the discomfort. I shifted slightly in his embrace to throw my leg over his lap, and I pushed my face up into his neck.

I began to kiss Michael’s throat, and except for the stubble on his face, he skin was quite soft. He started to moan, scaring me a little, and I pulled away to look into his dark, sexy eyes. “You are seriously giving me a hard-on, babe,” he said, panting. I liked my new nickname- babe. He took my hand and placed it over the bulge in his jeans, and he was like a rock.

To be honest, it was turning me on too, but I was embarrassed because that wasn’t my intention. I was simply trying to show Michael that I wasn’t afraid to be physical with him, and I blushed and pulled away.

“Hey,” he said in a playful voice that was, nevertheless, husky with need. “I didn’t mean stop. But if this is heading any place intimate, maybe we should move it upstairs.”

I froze in indecision, but wanting him was all over my face. He rolled his eyes at me and jumped up with a grin. “Come on, Dax,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the stairs.

I guess I was as needy as he was. By the time we reached his bedroom I was hopping up and down untying my Converses and yanking my jeans off my legs. Michael was bare-chested and I almost licked my lips at the sight of his beautiful body. His skin was so golden which was different than most redheads with their light skin tones and his tawny eyes stared at me in such caring possessiveness. I wanted to run my fingers over his flattened brown nipples and play with the crinkly little hairs around them that thickened as it drifted towards his navel.

Michael locked the doors into both of our bedroom while I finished undressing down to my briefs. He got equally naked and pulled me down on his bed with him to lie in his arms. We curled into each other, and I felt a puff of air play across lower face just before my lips took over his in a luscious, wet kiss. I let his tongue in to play and suck at mine, and his hand went up into my hair to massage my scalp. It felt so good, and I moaned into his mouth wantonly.

Losing our breath over and over we would come apart to gasp for air and resume our embrace, making out until our lips felt bruised. My cock stiffened like a bar of iron between my legs, and I felt Michael’s dick tenting his trunks into my thigh. Rolling around the bed, our hands roamed moist skin and stroked hard muscle. He trailed his fingers up my side, and I pulled at his nipples while he whimpered his approval. We were hyper-aroused, horny teenagers, and I felt like I was going to explode.

“Michael,” I begged. “I need to touch you.”

His eyes were fever-bright when he smiled and nodded at me, and I stuck my hand inside the skimpy cotton and pushed them down, palming his ass to drag him closer to me. At the same time he hooked his thumbs in my underwear to pull it down to my knees, and I toed it off the rest of the way. We were falling into another soul-scorching kiss when I reached between our bodies and began to jack him off. With a grunt, his fingers found my erection, and our hands were sliding in precum and he rocked his hips into my grasp.

“Faster,” he husked, his lips trailing across my jaw to my earlobe. He bit it gently and I took his lobe carefully with my lips before nibbling under his ear.

Minutes went by and all you could hear was the squelching sound of slippery hands and our groans. A throbbing began under my skin in my thighs and abdomen that I was starting to associate with my orgasm, and it built and swelled. We’d given up trying to kiss, both of us rasping in our efforts to just breathe, and every one of my exhales was a sound of need. My testicles were pulling into my body and I was there.

“So close, Michael, I’m so... oh fuck…”

I felt like I was shattering in a million pieces as my hips bucked crazily under their own power, and I spurt cum all over both our hands. Michael was watching me lose control with a look of ecstasy on his own face as my head dropped back on the sheets and I closed my eyes tightly.

“Oh god, Dax, that’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Throughout my release I never stopped pumping Michael and I was probably squeezing the life out of his dick. Not that he was complaining. His whole body was twisting in the grips of his own bliss, and he was chanting my name as sweat dripped off his shoulders. Then his entire body went rigid and he cried out his own orgasm while he coated our abdomens with semen.

Tired, we fell limply into each other and kissed softly. “Are you okay, babe?” he asked me in concern, sweeping my hair off my face.

Surprisingly, I was. I felt nothing negative about what we had done. In fact, I felt like Michael was a part of me that had been missing and I didn’t even know it.

“I’m good,” I laughed. “Better than good.”

We got up to pee and brush our teeth, and Michael had me check the lock on my bedroom door while he did the same with his, leaving our rooms linked by the shared bath. “I want you to share my bed at night from now on,” he announced. “I want to wake up every morning to beautiful you next to me.”

I shivered in excitement and blushed, and he laughed at me in a pleasant way that didn’t hurt my feelings. I knew he enjoyed making me turn red, and it made me feel so wanted and loved.

“Why the locks, then?” I asked. I didn’t like misleading the only people who had ever shown me kindness.

“Partly for privacy so nobody walks in on us,” he laughed. “Like how embarrassing, right?” I giggled.

Michael looked down at his feet in sadness. “I said last night that I’m out, but my parents have no fucking clue I’m gay. I don’t want them learning of our relationship because it might hurt them. I’m not sure what they would do or whether they’d accept us as a couple. It’s better to lock the doors than have to explain. I can’t lose you, babe.”

Despite a small quiver of apprehension, I felt the love and immediately saw he was trying to look after me. Okay, he was protecting himself too, and we were deceiving his parents. But I knew how he felt, my very own big brother whom I was in love with. Who was I to argue with him in his house?

**

Michael:

Dax awoke in my arms the next morning, and I couldn’t help but stare at my sexy new boy. His beautiful full lips were the first part to move, smacking over his dry mouth to get the saliva flowing again. His thick, blonde hair was spread out all over the pillow and hanging in his eyes, half-covering his face. These amazing squeaks and moans accompanied his stretching, and shoulders shrugged above the edge of the sheets, revealing his chest when his arms popped out above his head and he arched his back. The bruised mark I’d left on him Friday night stood out prominently on his throat, making me feel protective of my smaller boyfriend.

My boyfriend, my lover, my bro!

It was the most wonderful feeling in the world to have Dax accept himself and what we meant to each other. We celebrated with a long make-out session and a round of playful thrusting that had us sweaty and coated with cum before getting up to shower together. Then I got to wash Dax and shampoo his long hair, and he washed me. We used our hands to mutually get off teasing and touching each other into another orgasm in the shower. I knew our desire and attraction for each other were strong and would change a lot of things between us now; we were trying to keep to a normal routine similar to what we had before Friday night, but being lovers now superseded all else.

There were some minor details to get out of the way, and we spent Sunday talking.

I love Dax. I was proud to be his boyfriend, and I wanted to shout it to the world that he belonged to me. That meant I was eager to walk into school on Monday and openly show affection by kissing him, holding his hand, running my fingers through his hair and a thousand familiar gestures.

Dax shut that down immediately and said flaunting him and our new relationship in front of the student body was out of the question.

“I love you, Michael,” he acknowledged in a frightened voice, “but you know what will happen.”

I suppose he was right. I have been the butt of gay jokes at Santa Bella High since I came out as a sophomore, but I’m bigger and outwardly braver than Dax. Not that he’s a coward; the shit he’s lived through with his cruel mother and her men should’ve turned him into a drug-addicted psycho, and he tolerates gay jokes and verbal abuse every day at school without complaint. But face it, bashers like Lamont Shores beat up people like Dax.

“I’ll be there right by your side all the way, babe,” I tried to persuade him.

He shook his head. “You can’t be there 24/7 for me. If I come out, I will be targeted more than I already am.”

“I guess if I were you, Dax, I’d feel the same way,” I murmured, trying not to show my disappointment. I drew him to me for a deep kiss and fluffed his hair with my fingers. “But damn, I want to show your sexy little body off and make them see how lucky I am to have you.”

“There will be time later,” he encouraged, looking up at me with tears in his eyes. “Please don’t think I’m not proud to be with you. This was so new and different, it scares the shit out of me.” Or maybe it was just the fact that someone actually cared about Dax enough for a change to put his feelings first.

“Okay, beautiful,” I replied, kissing his wet cheek. “We’ll work on it.”

In the same vein, it was Dax who brought up the hickey on his collar bone which was barely covered by his shirt collar. “I don’t mind that you want to mark me,” he smiled shyly, flirting with his eyes and making me want to throw him down on the bed to kiss him until he begged for mercy. “But don’t you think they’re going to be difficult to explain?”

I knew what he meant, but seeing as how I’d just given in over the outward displays of affection at school, I wanted him to compromise. “That’s not fair,” I pouted. But he was having none of it.

He screwed up his face trying to be brave, and I realized the deep the effort it took for Dax to stand up for himself. He was also working hard not to hurt my feelings. “How about if you… um… leave them on my shoulder or… my chest? Somewhere nobody will see.” We didn’t have P.E. for our senior year, so there was no chance of Dax taking his clothes off at school and exposing himself to ridicule.

“Well, I don’t know…”

“If I show up in class with bruises all over my neck, we might as well walk through the halls making out. It will mean endless questions about who I’ve been with, and then everyone will figure it out.

“What about you?” he queried. “How will you explain the mark I left on your neck?”

I laughed. “That’s easy. Everyone at school think I’m a slut who will sleep with anyone.”

Oh man, that was the wrong thing to say. Dax suddenly got this hurt, wounded look in his eyes like he thought I meant him. I scooted over to him on the bed and took his trembling body in my arms. “They’re just words, babe.” I kissed him gently on the cheek. “It’s what others think of me, not what I am. You are my first boyfriend since last year.” At last he was appeased and pulled away from me.

“Okay, back to the subject.”

“You could lie about the marks,” I offered lightly, but I couldn’t hide the disappointment and feeling of dread. “You could make up some girlfriend.”

Dax shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Michael. Just because I’m not out at school doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend to be straight and say some girl did this.” He pointed to the hickeys. “Besides, I don’t want your parents asking questions either.”

Ah-ha, he had a good point. It was the best argument, and I agreed to go along with his suggestion of marking him in less conspicuous places.

This led to our next topic of discussion, the arrangement we were forced to come up with over how to keep my parents oblivious to our relationship. I mean, they would go ballistic over my orientation, and super freak if they discovered what Dax and I did in my room when they weren’t home.

But he doesn’t have a 3.98 GPA for nothing. “I don’t understand,” he pressed. “You say you’re out and proud, but your parents don’t know?”

“Just like you’re scared of what would happen at school, I’m afraid of my father’s reaction,” I acknowledged. “For now, we keep it a secret. Maybe by the time you’re ready to come out at school, I’ll be ready to tell Mom and Dad.”

“So Michael, if I sleep in your bed all the time,” he insisted, “they’re going to be suspicious when my sheets are always clean while yours look…”

“Sexed in?” I grinned wickedly. “We could do our own bedding, Dax, and say you’re rubbing off on me to be more responsible around the house. I like the rubbing off part.”

So, we decided to put on a show for my folks. The biggest problem was that Dax felt so guilty for lying, but he was cute in his embarrassment. We began timing the departures from our bedrooms so we rarely left at the same point in the morning. I’d let him yell for me from downstairs and pop through the kitchen grabbing a piece of toast for breakfast. Or I emerged first and called Dax as if we hadn’t just been together kissing and fumbling with each other seconds before.

At night it was easier since we stuck to a bedtime, but if we planned to get into some passionate loving and didn’t want to be overtired the next day at school, it meant both of us retiring a little early. Luckily, my parents were so successful and busy in their careers and we were such good kids in every other way, they barely paid attention to what time we went to bed. But it made Dax feel bad anyways. He was such a goody-goody in a lot of ways. No, that sounds mean. He just hated lying because he knew he was abusing my parents’ trust.

He kept urging me that I needed to tell Mom and Dad that I was gay, and they probably already knew but were waiting for me to acknowledge it. I don’t know what was so frightening about it because they were cool about a lot of other stuff that made most parents angry. Even when I was twelve and got hit by a car on my skateboard, running home with my wrist twisted around at this weird angle that definitely hinted at a fracture, they didn’t wig out.

I finally got Dax to leave it alone by announcing that I’d tell them I was gay as soon as he was willing to walk down the halls at Santa Bella High with his hand in mine and not care who knew we were sleeping together. That shut him up.

**

Dax:

I settled in to my relationship with Michael. He was a peaceful influence on me not that I especially needed quieting down, but he made it easy for me to enjoy sex with him. I felt wanted like nobody ever had done to me before. Even though I wasn’t even eighteen yet, I got the impression that we could honestly stay together for the rest of our lives. He’d loved me for over a year, and I had secretly loved him for three months. Except for the concealment issues, it was a perfect arrangement.

We were celebrating our two-week anniversary. When Michael said he’d take things at my pace he meant it. All we had done up until now was jack each other off or grind into each other. Michael says it’s call frot. I didn’t need to know the real name, just that it felt good. We had sex every night, but I thought I was ready for the next step.

It was another weekend. Donna and Robert had gone out to dinner and left us home with take-out pizza. It was raining and we were bored with video games. There was nothing on television, so Michael and I just snuggled on the couch together.

He began planting little kisses all over my face and neck. Then he reached under my shirt to play with my chest and belly button, and it was turning me on. “Are you seriously just going to maul me like this or will it turn into something better?” I asked playfully.

He laughed. “Something better?” he asked back.

“Good answer,” I said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

By the time we reached Michael’s room I was breathing heavy with anticipation. He closed the bedroom door behind us and pushed me up against it. His eyes were glowing with barely concealed excitement and he licked his lips. “Just remember, any time you don’t like what I’m doing, say so and I’ll stop.”

He placed his forearms against the door on either side of my head and stood toe to toe with me. “I love you so much, Dax,” he whispered and leaned in for a passionate kiss. “Trust me.” He smelled like a shaded forest, the woodsy Santal cologne which I loved. His lips were warm and full, and his tongue licked across mine. Little tingles jumped between us.

“I love you too, Michael.” The locking of our lips was a connection of more than just mouths. It was like our souls colliding, an electric bonding that my body needed to feel whole. He slipped his tongue inside, and it took my breath away. There was a pull at my groin as my cock thickened and began to rise inside my pants. Moaning, I responded by wrapping my arms around his upper back and pushing back with my own tongue. The contact left me dizzy and my knees feeling as if they’d go out from under me.

Michael pulled my shirt up, twisting it around my wrists which he held over my head, literally trapping them inside. When it came off to reveal my body he looked at my shoulder with a deep bruise he’d put there two nights before and smirked at me, his eyes dark with lust. Kissing it gently, he murmured, “This says you’re mine. Mine forever, Dax.” I shivered.

With his other hand he began to feel down my body with splayed fingers, playing with the sparse, pale hair of my pits, working my shoulder and chest muscles, rolling and drawing at my nipples until they were red and puffy. Swooping in with his mouth, he sucked them rigid and had me gasping and whimpering. His tawny eyes were full of possession and need, and they raked my body as forcefully as any physical touch. I wriggled in excitement at how sensual it made me feel. My cock flared into full erection, straining against my shorts.

“Should I go lower?” he teased playfully, placing his hand against my stomach and swirling his finger gently into my belly button. His lips nuzzled behind my ear, and I arched my back in anticipation. I nodded in answer to his question, too overcome with the pleasurable sensations to speak. His lips and tongue worked my nipples until my head dropped backwards against the door in quiet submission, exposing my throat. I loved how Michael knew exactly what to do to make me beg and push me into higher plateaus of delight. His dominant nature did not frighten me at all; it turned me on like a light switch.

Michael gripped the front of my jeans and tugged outwards, his fingers brushing inside my shorts to straighten my hard dick so an inch of the head stood up stiffly above the waistband. He cupped the tip firmly, tracing the ridge with practiced fingers, and precum appeared at the slit. I couldn’t help but groan at his touch.

“Mouth or hand, Dax?” he asked, staring at me, his dark eyes glowing with desire. His hand slid down my pole from top to bottom. My need to be satisfied was playing on his emotions too, and my heart melted.

“M-m-mouth,” I pleaded in a whisper, breathing heavy.

He released my hands with an encouraging smile and pulled the t-shirt off my wrists. Tenderly he kissed me, lengthening and deepening it until our tongues wrestled with each other in a delicious tug-of-war. His lips left my mouth, teeth nipping at my earlobe and neck until it came to the hollow under my chin. He kissed it gently, mindful of our need for caution, and then moved to an area right above my armpit, sucking and marking the spot possessively. I moaned loudly. “Oh Michael, that feels so good.”

From there he slowly kissed his way down my chest and torso, hands moving ahead to clear the way and sliding against my skin seductively. I was whimpering and didn’t think my cock was going to last long enough for Michael to put it in his mouth; already it was throbbing and straining against the fabric, and I could barely resist jerking myself off.

“Hurry,” I begged, and his kiss turned into a smile that grazed teeth against navel.

When Michael mouth’s finally reached my lower abdomen and hovered mere inches above my cock all he did was blow on me with his warm breath. It forced a cry from my throat, and I felt as if I could no longer support my own weight and was going to fall over. I heard him chuckle, and he grabbed me up in his strong arms and carried me to the bed. He gave me a hungry look as he quickly undressed, and I couldn’t break the contact with his eyes until his plum-colored, seven and a half inch cock swung free and snapped back, erect against his torso. Then I stared at that. It was gorgeous and all for me.

Quickly, Michael crawled up the bed towards me. He leaned over and unzipped my jeans, sweeping his hands behind me and down my ass. Hooking his thumbs into the two waistbands, he pulled pants and shorts down my thighs in one bundle and threw them aside. Spreading my legs, he grabbed my engorged tool with both hands as he licked it from bottom to top. There was precum on the tip and he licked it off with a smile. My hips stuttered, and I whimpered openly. “Hurry,” I panted again.

“Delicious,” he laughed, knowing how aroused I was and making me cry out in needy impatience. It turned me on so much to feel his firm fingers stroking my pole. His mouth lowered again to suck on the slit and lave his tongue around the head, and it took all of my willpower not to cum right then. I shuddered, and Michael seemed to know I was struggling with control. He ringed the base tightly in his fingers, squeezing to buy me time.

With a tempting grin, Michael took my entire cock in his mouth and began to slurp on it. It was like my eyes forgot how to see, and my mouth went slack with pleasure, having never felt anything so heavenly in my life. His tongue roamed freely over the crown and against the ridge, and whimpers erupted from my throat. Using his saliva mixed with my precum, one hand slid down the shaft in a growing rhythm while the other stroked my sac and rolled my balls with practiced fingers. Oh shit, this was turning into the best night of my life.

My mind fused on his mouth and hands as my hips began to thrust towards him in desperate need. My gasping respirations didn’t do nearly enough to force air into my lungs, and I went hot as sweat popped out all over my body. Michael moaned his own desire for me, sending vibrations down my cock, and I could feel my climax building. I was caught in the eddies of warmth and wet as his lips and tongue worked me over, building higher until my balls pulled up tight, and then I just curled in on myself.

“Fuck… fuck… I’m… fuck.”

My cum ejected into Michael’s mouth as I slammed my head back against the pillows. I shuddered over and over as my hands wove into the quilt to fist and flex the fabric madly, hips pistoning impossibly high. I was unaware that he was swallowing every drop of me, but I felt his lips pulling on my slackening tool and milking me dry. Soon it reached a point where I had to push him off as my dick was too sensitive for movement, and he gathered me into a warm, loving embrace and held me tightly. “I love you, Dax,” he told me sincerely, and I believed him. He touched my face, kissing me hard and snuggling into my body.

After I calmed, I wanted to learn how to reciprocate, to show him love with my mouth, and I began to stroke him. His cock waved in an arched curve against my hip, clearly in need of attention. He was still rock hard, and my fingers flitted over the soft skin of his shaft and dipped into his dripping precum, making Michael groan. Licking my fingers I reveled in the saltiness. I lifted my head to stare him straight in his golden eyes. “Tell me what to do,” I begged hoarsely. “I want to make you cum.”

Michael’s eyes dilated in pleasure and goose bumps erupted across his torso. “You can start by kissing me,” he instructed, and I straddled his waist as his cock poked my spine. I lowered my mouth to his plush, pink lips and thrust my tongue inside, sucking hard. For several moments we lost ourselves in the heat of the kiss. I had never known that parts of a mouth could feel so good or cause so much exhilaration.

Next, I attacked his jaw and chin, taking little pecks of him and slid my face down to his throat. “Mark me,” he said. “Bite and suck here.” He pointed to a place on his neck near his shoulder, and I fastened my teeth and lips there. “Oh yeah,” he sighed, running his hands up my back into my hair. “Make me yours too.”

Under Michael’s guidance I slowly licked and sucked my way down to his chest, swiping my hands ahead of me over his muscular body. “So good,” he moaned, and I stroked his nipples, turning them into erect, reddened peaks. He began to writhe and gasp, telling me how great I was and how excited I was making him. I teased the rift where his pectorals met over his sternum with my finger and followed it down to his navel, as I fastened my mouth on one nipple and then the other, using lips and teeth to tease him. His cock was bobbing madly until I captured it under my thigh, and then I began to play with him, rocking on it. He groaned and rolled beneath me, urgently deciding I had prepared him enough, and I climbed off to draw my head level to his hips.

I was uncoordinated at first when I tried to suck Michael’s cock. He said to treat it like an icecream cone and lick it first, and from my own experiences I knew what parts felt best to stimulate. I used my tongue on the head and sucked him like a straw, and it set him to moaning so I must have been doing something right. I then switched to the back where the nerves came together, liking the way he jumped and cried out. My gag reflex was strong, but he taught me to breathe through my nose and relax my throat, and it slowly got better. I could take more of him into my mouth, and he whimpered his bliss.

Michael also liked having my hand squeezing his balls, and when my fingernail accidentally dragged across the skin behind them, he thrashed against it. I soon got a cadence going where I licked on the downstroke, sucked on the way up and slid my wrapped hand up and down his pole to cover what my mouth wouldn’t. Encouraging me with rapidly forceful moans and twitches, his hand gripped the back of my neck.

“Gotta fuck your mouth, Dax,” he hissed. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

Pace quickening, he held on to my head and his hips began to thrust at me, pushing his cock all the way inside. It took some concentrating and breath control, but I was accepting it without gagging. By the way his body locked, I sensed when he was near climaxing, and I rolled his balls in the palm of my hand. He threw his head back and his cock swelled and jerked in my mouth. As he came, he cried out my name and hosed my throat with thick blasts of hot cum. I wasn’t sure what to do so I swallowed. I took the whole load which didn’t taste bad and lost myself to running my fingers over his shrinking cock, feeling like I was in paradise.

Later, as he slipped back into the present, he pulled me up tiredly next to him and kissed me soundly.

“Not bad for a rookie,” he teased me, smiling into my hair, and I returned the smile feeling proud. I rolled over to kiss him deeply in appreciation, and he could taste himself on my lips. I could get used to this, I thought with serenity surrounding us. When it was just us two, life felt perfect.

**

Michael:

I awoke the next morning in a great mood because Dax had been willing to take this new step without acting nervous afterwards. He was so easy to please. His responses were sexy and needy and it never got old. We were getting past the early commitment mysteries to a place where we were comfortable just being with each other.

I woke him up with kisses along his spine that made him giggle, and he retaliated with tickling me. This, of course, led us to sexy talk and staying in bed for an additional fifteen minutes of passionate 69-ing each other. Even after the one night he was getting good at blowjobs. My cock spewed cum in thick ropes on his tongue as I moaned his name like a chant. He says he likes the sound of his name on my lips. I like him on my lips, in my mouth, rocking off in my hands. I can’t get enough of making love to him in any way possible. Together forever, as I reminded him. It was becoming our motto.

Except for lunch, Dax and I didn’t spend much time together at school, seeing as how we didn’t share any classes. We communicated by ways of notes passed in the hall or stuck through locker doors and, if we were especially daring, a text message. Dax was a hopeless romantic.

He endeared himself by using the lyrics from songs we both knew. The day after our first hook up, he had written, ‘I’m nothing without you’ that I recognized from Three Days Grace.

Last week, he texted the last line of a 3 Doors Down chorus, ‘Your arms feel like home’.

He claimed that Coldplay’s Hurts Like Heaven, about the strength of love in the face of adversity, was our theme song. ‘You use your heart like a weapon and it hurts like heaven’. Over the course of the semester, he did this constantly, and it turned me on. My sweet, sexy little Dax.

The biggest sticking point between Dax and me concerned his future after high school. I could tell he was starting to worry, knowing graduation was only months away. Besides me and my parents, school was his second anchor. I was slated to attend collegee at CSU Humboldt, far to the north of us. Dax had excellent grades. It’s just that nobody ever took the time to sit him down with a guidance counselor to determine any definite goals for further schooling or see about getting scholarships or financial aid, and it was too late to enroll him for the fall term. His plans centered on the community college nearby, and that was a damned shame, as smart as he was. We ended up arguing about it off and on for several months.

Dax said he didn’t want to be a burden. “Once you leave for college, Michael, your parents will be done raising kids. They don’t need me around. I’ll get a job and find a place of my own to live. I’m not leaving you. I just need to learn to be responsible for myself, and I’ll be okay.”

“My mom and dad won’t mind,” I said, exasperated. “You don’t need to find somewhere else. Or you could move up to Eureka with me.”

Moving up north didn’t seem like an enviable idea to him either. He shook his head as if he knew I would never understand. “Come on,” he said. “What would I do in Eureka, Michael? You’ll be living on campus, busy with school and we’d hardly see each other.”

I tried to reason with him, but my arguments fell on deaf ears. He knew his own mother wasn’t a paragon of parenthood, but she had a point when she’d bemoan how she couldn’t wait for him to become an adult so she could off-load him. And no matter what Mom and Dad said, he was sure they probably felt the same way.

The way he was learning to take charge of himself was kind of scaring me. He seemed to be growing up before my eyes, and the sense of him leaving me behind, of losing him worried me. Except for the issue of coming out at school, he no longer acted the part of the scared little kid in need of protection. He was becoming a man, and I guess I wanted to keep him a child so he would depend on me alone. Right now, with Dax in my bed at night and having a lot of mostly-unsupervised time together, it felt so perfect.

Oh, I guess there was one other thing that bothered me. Dax was still terrified about the one bastion left to make him completely mine- letting me fuck him.

**

Dax:

I grew to care about the Capshaws almost more than my own parents. They were the type of people who rarely raised their voices even when they were angry, and it took a lot to make them mad. Under their guidance and care I began to slowly expand away from my abused past. Once they realized just how badly my mother had treated me, they set me up for weekly therapy to discuss my so-called issues and deal with my feelings and give me someone objective to talk to. That was okay by me as long as I didn’t delve into my personal relationship with their son, and I learned a lot about myself that assuaged my guilty hang-ups and lessened my pent up anger at her. I guess I’m very fortunate that her neglect didn’t result in more-permanent scars, although it would take a long time to fully extinguish them. But mostly, I’m lucky that I met Michael and he loved me through it.

Michael resembled both his mom and dad; he had his father’s height and body shape, and facially looked most like him. From his mother he received his stunning golden-hazel eyes, skin color and high cheekbones. She claimed his auburn hair came from her side of the family and was a throwback to an older generation. I think he got the best of both worlds.

His sisters, Jana and Linnie, were also a mix of parents with Jana being a fair-skinned brunette and Linnie more blonde. Jana was in Arizona working in an elementary school internship on her way to a teaching credential, and Linnie attended UCSD, third year pre-law. They all had a very harmonious rapport with each other that I envied but felt fortunate to be part of, even if they weren’t my real family.

Michael’s parents hired an attorney for me to obtain money from my mother’s accident. This didn’t exactly thrill me; after all, it wasn’t the fault of the driver of the car that some woman had been drunk and walked out in front of him. But I guess that’s the way the insurance is supposed to work. I received a settlement which let me start paying Robert and Donna for room and board, despite how much they protested, and I banked the rest for future needs. I’m responsible with money, even with never having any of my own before, and I only bought a few items like a decent laptop for school. There was something that kept whispering in my head that I needed to save for the future and shouldn’t go crazy with it.

Everyone in the family seemed to be on a mission to truly integrate me into the nest. Michael’s two older sisters liked me because I gave off a shy vibe they could mother and I didn’t tread on their turf. I think Jana, the older one, the one whom Michael believed was the most open to his lifestyle, was suspicious but never mentioned it to either of us. The Capshaws fed and clothed me well and, combined with a nicely-timed growth spurt, I put on twenty pounds and gained two inches by late March. I was starting to feel like a normal teenager. Thank God I was finally growing out of my androgynous body.

Michael put no pressure on me at all to expand our relationship, and I was grateful. He was true to his word in January about not forcing me into something I wasn’t ready for. He made me feel so adored in bed, kissing and cuddling and talking sexy, and we indulged in satisfying each other’s needs many times a week. At school we were platonic friends, but the charade dropped as soon as we walked through the front door. He couldn’t keep his hands off me most of the time, and I would have to beg or negotiate for the time to do homework. He drove a hard bargain too.

It was a Friday in mid-March, and I was depressed because it was my mother’s birthday. It was the first one since her death and don’t ask me why, but it kind of hit me unexpectedly hard. I was feeling stressed out because Michael refused to drop the conversation over my plans for next year and why, if I’m paying room and board to his parents, I can’t live with them while he’s up at school and I attend college here. He doesn’t get that I need to find out what it means to be an adult by learning to stand on my own two feet. While they have done everything possible to make me feel at home, it isn’t my home. I am not a Capshaw.

Both Donna and Robert planned to work late, and we stopped at the local Subway shop to pick up sandwiches for dinner. He snagged up two beers from the refrigerator; we seldom drink, even with the loose supervision we get at home, but this was a different kind of day, and Michael thought I needed something extra to help me relax. We ate our early dinner and sipped the beer, and I began to calm down.

We were watching an old nineties movie, Dazed and Confused, on the huge flat screen in the family room and it was funny as hell. I was giggling at all the best parts, and Michael was throwing out lines ahead of the film which made me laugh even harder. I definitely identified with the characters of Mitch Kramer and his friends, trying to avoid being hazed after the baseball game since it was the story of my high school life. But all of a sudden Michael and I came together, kissing like mad and running our hands over each other in a frenzy. I guess that’s the best thing about the little disagreements I have with him, the make-up sex is great.

Movie forgotten, Michael yanked me to my feet and we flew to our bedroom. He threw off his clothes and then stripped me like he was demented before pushing me down on the bed. His tongue pried my lips open and swept in to invade my mouth as his hands pulled on my nipples and made them red and firm. I was breathing heavy, completely turned on. He was being far more forceful than usual, but I like how he dominated me.

He had me down on the bed, sliding his hand up and down my hard erection that was trapped under his hip, and I was leaking precum into a pool on my abdomen. “Beg me for it, Dax,” he said in his husky voice. His touch felt heavenly, and I was frantic with arousal. Tying to buck into him, I needed the quick release of thrusting, but he held me off. “Beg me for it like the little slut you are.”

Damn! I liked the way the beer had brought out this other, forceful part of Michael’s personality. “B-b-beg you for what?” I was playing along with the bitch role, pretending to be scared.

Michael tried to sneer, but he knew my fear was all an act so there was a hint of a smirk behind it. “Beg me to take you and make you all mine.”

He was sexy as hell, with his sleek body and brooding eyes, and all I could feel was his hand sliding down my pole to massage my nuts, tantalizing me. I would cum soon just from the touch, and all of a sudden I wanted him inside me more than anything. “Yes, Michael,” I whimpered. “Take all of me and do anything you want.”

He seemed surprised. “Anything?”

My eyes stared straight into his. “Anything. I need you inside me, Michael.”

My tender, sweet lover-brother stared back at me in delight. “Really, you want to?”

I nodded, and a huge smile lit him up. He leaned over to kiss me deeply in loving affection. “I promise I’ll be gentle. I’ll get you stretched and ready, but I can’t say…”

I lowered my eyes. “Yeah, I know it’s gonna hurt.”

“Oh, babe, I’ll do my best not to. I love you so much.” His heart was all over his face.

Michael arranged me on the bed and told me to lie on my back. Tucking a pillow under my hips, he got the KY and a condom out of his nightstand. He stared at the foil package for a long time.

“Dax, I want to go bareback so bad. But I don’t know if I should, not that there’s a risk. You’re the virgin.” I blushed, talking about my virginity. I knew all about Michael’s ex-lovers and how he’d always used protection and gotten himself routinely tested before meeting me. Before me, he hadn’t been with anyone for almost a year. He was clean. I was too; after I told Michael about my forced sex with the ‘ho, he made me go to the clinic to be on the safe side. We could do this without a condom since we were monogamous with each other. I had absolutely nothing to make me doubt that. And skin on skin without the latex in between…

“Okay, Michael,” I rasped. “Don’t use the condom.” He whooped in joy.

Settling both of us, Michael looked me in the eye and asked if I was ready. As much as I’d ever be, I told him, and he gave me a long, passionate kiss. “I’m going to relax you, babe. It will hurt less.”

Michael settled himself on the bed facing my ass. He looped his arms underneath my thighs to lift and separate them, and I felt him kiss and nibble on the tender cleft on my left where leg met groin. He licked and sucked, teething the small, sweaty tendon under my pubic hair before switching to the other side. I threw back my head in a long moan when his mouth opened to take in my testicles, first one and then the other to rotate and suck on them gently. My arousal kicked into high gear, and I began to whimper. My dick was hard as a rock and shiny with drops of precum, and I desperately needed to be stroked.

But Michael wasn’t focusing on that part of my body. From sucking on my balls his tongue moved down my perineum, and he began lapping at my back passage between the globes of my ass. Soft, wet and warm, his talented tongue painted my rosebud with saliva, and I about jumped off the bed. “Oh god, Michael, what are you doing?” I cried.

At that point, I think I lost all ability to think, much less speak, when he zeroed in and his tongue began to work its way slowly inside. He was fucking me with his tongue. In and out, the most incredible sensations charging through me as he opened my hole. His tongue just drilled me, going as far up inside as it could reach and it was like heaven. I writhed beneath him and tried not to scream in pleasure. The pressure was building in my groin, and I was dripping sweat, near delirious. Michael had to hold me down because I was bucking so hard. His hand reached up to find my cock and he squeezed it twice. That was all it took.

“Oh shit, oh fuck… I’m… oh fucking… I’m… for god sakes, don’t stop!”

I spasmed out of control, and my eyes rolled back in my head. Dizzying surges of satisfaction just burst through out of nowhere. I couldn’t breathe, and my hips thrust wildly. I was spurting in gushes, sticky ropes of cum flying up to land on my chin and nipples and stomach. I felt Michael’s mouth on my torso, lapping up the evidence.

After the sanity returned, Michael pulled himself back up next to me, and I rolled over and attacked his lips. Moaning and thrusting my tongue in his mouth, I tasted a musky flavor on his and realized that was me. I ran my fingers over his chest to pull his nipples, so caught up in the pleasure he’d given me.

“I thought you were going to fuck me,” I whispered, nibbling on his shoulder and teasing the head of his stiff, dark plum tool, flowing in precum. Michael’s eyes were golden-bright with lust, and my other hand swept down to knead his ass cheek.

“I am,” he groaned. His hand was gently pumping my cock and trying to restore it to life. “But I wanted you to be more relaxed, and I thought… I couldn’t help myself. You like?”

“Oh yeah,” I breathed as Michael’s slow masturbation stirred desire in me for round two. “Yeah, I really like.”

“Lie back down, Dax.”

He reached over for the cool lube and squirted some on his fingers and gently began rubbing my now-fluttering pucker in circles. I jumped at the first touch, surprised by the chill, and he apologized. Around and round, across my rosebud he touched me until one finger easily worked its way inside with no trouble.

Michael added more lube and doubled the digits to double the fun. Two fingers had a greater circumference than his tongue, and I knew not to tighten up and let it happen. It burned a little, and I felt a fullness inside that was at first uncomfortable. He leaned over to kiss me.

“Are you okay, Dax?” Michael asked sincerely, staring down at me. I nodded, and he began sawing his fingers in and out of my ass, scissoring me inside. The heat was beginning to build, and he reached a little higher until his fingers were sunk up to the top knuckle. I soon forgot the pain because there was pleasure there too.

He withdrew and, a push of his hand, there were three fingers inside me. It was the same as before, discomfort and a tight feeling, followed by warmth and a sense of being opened up. My erection flagged a little. I moaned, wanting to beg him to stop and just fuck me. Soon Michael was smiling and encouraging my progress. “You’re doing great, babe.”

He withdrew his fingers and knelt over me. “You should be nice and prepared,” he said, brushing my thick hair out of my sweaty face. “I’m relying on you to guide me, okay?” I nodded. “Don’t tighten up and stay focused.”

Michael dripped more KY on my crack and then on his thick, seven and a half inch cock to slick it up. Pushing my knees up and into my shoulders, he exposed my pucker and pushed a pillow under me to lift my hips. As he pressed the head of his penis against my hole, I stared directly into his eyes, seeing his love for me in them. He held my gaze as he leaned forward and pushed. The head was fighting to breach my ass, and I groaned, feeling resistance and intense pain. His cock was bigger than his tongue, wider than his fingers. Just at the edge of my portal and already I was beginning to regret this.

“Bear down,” he instructed.

I did as told and gasped as I felt the head pop through a ring of muscle. But it barely helped; tears flooded my eyes, and I threw my arm over my face to cover them. It was like I was being split in half. I couldn’t help my cries. “Ow-ow,” I gasped, my hips rising off the pillow and trying to dislodge him. “It hurts, Michael.”

Michael shushed me with a kiss and began to babble to calm me. “I love you. It will be okay, I promise. You’re doing fine for your first time, Dax. I’ll rest a few minutes before we go on. It gets better.”

I lay there without protest as I adjusted to his cock inside me and let the burning work its way out. Lying still and listening to Michael’s soothing words, the throbbing diminished slightly. Arching my back helped too, and he was as good as his promise. The pain faded into a dull ache that I could handle. A short time later, Michael began gently thrusting into me with short strokes that opened me up far more than his tongue had. An inch at a time, I felt the warmth fill me and spread out. Deeper and deeper, and my ass stretched for him.

At last there was a tingle in my balls as Michael sunk himself fully inside me. My own cock began to harden and grow again. The realization that I was no longer a virgin was almost overwhelming. I looked up at Michael with a smile, and he brought his mouth down on mine for a deep, tonguing kiss. He played with my nipples and nipped at my shoulder. I was getting fucked by my lover, and it wasn’t nearly as painful as I expected.

He began to move faster inside me. “You are so tight inside, Dax,” he said, panting and grimacing in effort.

His strokes lengthened and slowed. I felt full and warm, and the sensations built towards a sweet upsurge. Michael leaned forward on my belly to trap my erect cock between us and lay across my body. He was moaning, fucking my ass with deep, measured strokes. Then he twisted a bit, and his cock scraped over something inside that made me jump and whimper in delight. “That’s your prostate, Dax.” He grinned at me, teasing. “Maybe I should do that again.”

Oh god, I could almost imagine sparks inside me, like when you set a match ablaze or you light a sparkler firework. That one little area made all the difference in the world to my pleasure. I was in ecstasy, begging for more. Michael began to fuck me faster as he pushed his cock across that magic bundle, and my thoughts went away for awhile to center on my rapidly rising orgasm. I concentrated on that one pulse inside me as Michael began to thrust harder into me. I felt the change in my balls, the tightening.

“Shit… cumming now,” I groaned.

Michel grabbed my cock with his hand and fluttered his fingers up and down the shaft while palming the head. It was all I needed, and I exploded in the hardest, most exquisite and perfect orgasm of my life. I screamed and shuddered in uncontrollable ecstasy as it took over every inch of my body. My cum volleyed all over my stomach and chest, on Michael’s body and even the bedcovers.

In the meantime, witnessing my orgasm sent Michael flying into the chasm too, and my puckered hole gripped his cock and contracted rhythmically. He slammed into me, and I felt him cum inside my ass. Hot semen ejected inside me to fill my bowels, and presently he collapsed on top of me. Never had I felt so perfectly used and totally free. Never had I felt so sensual. I kissed him fiercely, my bro, whom I adored with all my heart.

We fell asleep together, clutching each other’s bodies tightly in a loving embrace. In what seemed hours later but was only eleven p.m., we woke up and 69-ed each other to another amazing orgasm. Then Michael made love to me again as dawn broke and the sky lightened. I lay there afterwards holding him in my arms and feeling so peaceful, thinking that life couldn’t get much better than this. So close, Michael and me, like two halves of a perfect whole. I loved him so much. Together forever, that was us.

(To be continued...)

Dreaming of Dax Ch. 01

OVER A YEAR AGO I began posting this story on Literotica. It was the first m/m story I ever wrote, and that I did so was kind of a fluke.

It wasn't that I had any issues with writing m/m, but I had never done it before, although I liked reading the genre. Then I started a new story in the "First Time" category about a female college freshman who meets this guy who is a couple years older than her and most of the time he acts like an ass. My original plan was that he was going to change for her and turn into her knight in shining armor. But…

One of my readers left the following comment: "I assume your protagonist will be deflowered - it is going to be a test of your writing skill to make it substantially different from her dream. Different guy? Dax really is a closeted gay, but ... It is quite a challenge you've set for yourself."

I noticed that he believed Dax was gay, and I thought, "Hmmmm". I'd never really considered it but it sounded intriguing. I felt I was up to the task, a new m/m writer was born and I've never looked back. Good or bad, this is what I do now.

In any case, this is my Dreaming of Dax story, but because I can start completely over, it's isn't the same as the first version. It has been updated which means that a chapter might look the same but I can assure you it isn't exactly. I haven't completely removed my female protagonist, Emily, but she plays a much smaller role in this rendition. Some names have been changed. There is no hint that Dax is bisexual which I considered a weak link in the original but was necessary to tie Dax to Emily since it began as her tale.

Just so you're aware, the changes I made mean that the chapter numbers don't line up with the original Literotica version either. I hope you enjoy it.


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Does Loving Your Best Friend Make You Gay?


My name is Darrell Alan Xavier Stephenson. In this day and age of boys named Josh or Sean or Chris, I got stuck with Darrell. My mother told me a story once that she and my dad sat around drunk one night before I was born and pulled names out of a hat, and that’s how I ended up with my moniker. At least the initials looked good together, so most of my life I’ve called myself Dax. Anyone who doesn’t go along with it isn’t my friend.

I was six when my dad split. He couldn’t handle my mother’s self-absorbed bullshit any more. One day I came home from kindergarten to find her crying in the kitchen of the apartment and him gone, never for us to lay eyes on him again. That was two thirds of my lifetime ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

And what the hell, he didn’t even take me with him! He left me here for my mother to raise, knowing full well what kind of basket case she was. Even at that young age where my main goal in life should’ve been learning to play soccer and how to add 2+2, I could have cared less if we ended up on the street somewhere with my dad out of work just like he was most of my early life. Starving, no roof over my head, wearing cast off clothes from some shelter- believe me when I say I much rather this had been my fate. Except for meeting Mi… well, I’m getting ahead of the story if I go there.

My mother was one of those tragic females who didn’t know how to be happy unless some man was fawning over her and telling her she was the most beautiful creature in the world. I guess now they use terms like co-dependent and narcissistic, but I was just a kid back then. All I knew was that she had her head so far up her ass she didn’t see me at all, especially when it came to the long parade of men she’d bring back to the apartment. And notice, I call her ‘my mother’. She was never Mom or Mommy after Dad left. She didn’t have a heart big enough to earn the right.

I remember my impressionable years as a succession of step-fathers and my mother’s lovers. When she was younger and kept herself slim and pretty, some of the men were very nice, showing an interest and trying to be a true daddy to me. When they were in our lives, I felt at least accepted if not actually loved. We would go places as a family, and I could make believe that they wanted the best for me, if only to make her happy. These guys were decent human beings, many of them smart and wanting a real relationship with her, and it didn’t take long for them to realize they were getting suckered by a woman looking for a meal ticket with nothing of herself to give. Then, it was ‘adios amigos’ to her and me.

Some ignored me and pretended I wasn’t there, and they were okay too. I fended for myself and learned to love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I faded into the background of the apartment and, with each new strange man, learned the rules of how far I could push the boyfriend before his apathy turned into anger. They probably had low self-esteem and put up with my mother longer than the nice ones, but eventually they disappeared too.

Some of the men tried to get my mother to leave with them and abandon me. This seemed to come with the territory, the kind of guy who wanted a sex object who wasn’t tied down to someone else’s brat. Once they found out she wouldn’t budge, they were gone. It was a mystery why, with as little attention as she paid me, she wanted to keep me around, and in hindsight, I wish she had dumped me and vamoosed. I don’t exactly know what I expected to happen to me, but maybe (fingers crossed) I might have ended up with a foster family or new adoptive parents who would’ve actually cared about me.

Then, there were the abusive ones. I don’t know if it’s just faulty memory, but they seemed to stick around for the longest time. The mean ones who gave my mom black eyes and bruises, they would scream obscenities at her or force her to have sex with them when she didn’t want it.

I think I was nine the first time I knew what sex was because one of her drugged-up boyfriends dragged her by her neck out of the kitchen during dinner and forced her into the bedroom. Through the wide open door I saw him rip her clothes off and push her down on the bed. I had to listen to the noises their fucking made. It was disgusting how she went from crying over being raped into loud moans of arousal where she just took it, and I finally went outside and sat on the front porch in the dark and cold, trying to block the sights and sounds out of my head. Who wants to be a nine year old boy and see his mother and her boyfriend nude and going at it?

I sometimes got abused too. If my mother couldn’t defend herself, she sure as hell wasn’t going to put herself out there to defend me. But honestly, what kind of woman lets her son be hurt like that and then tries to turn around and persuade him that it’s for the good of us both, and I should just keep my mouth shut and let them do it?

I stayed out of the apartment as much as I dared, hid in my bedroom as quietly as a mouse and stopped breathing if a boyfriend looked at me funny. I got slapped, punched, kicked and shoved on a regular basis. It was nothing to have my hand clasped in a vice-like grip and shoved under scalding hot water for eating a sandwich I didn’t request beforehand. Or to be dragged by the hair and told to stand completely still in a doorway for an hour for not bringing ‘The Man’ a cold beer fast enough.

I remember one night I didn’t get dinner and tried to sneak apple juice into my bedroom, spilt it on the sheets and was accused of wetting the bed. I was twelve at the time, and the boyfriend gave my naked rear end several hard spankings with a belt for that stunt. Although embarrassed as hell, I refused to cry which made him even more brutal. I was just old enough to begin understanding the differences between childhood and adolescence- the paddling actually felt good in a perverse way and gave me an erection. But I never forgot the pain or mortification.

My mother was a hairdresser and worked long hours at the salon, styling and coloring, and for awhile she knew how to take care of herself. When she wasn’t working, she began drinking a lot. She didn’t seem to have any time for me, and I learned very early to do for myself because she wouldn’t. I became a self-reliant little twerp who generally kept to myself because I didn’t want anybody to know how bad things were at home.

You read about kids who were mistreated who accepted their lot in life as normal? Not me. It wasn’t difficult to notice that the other children wore clothes that fit and didn’t have ripped out seams or holes in the knee. They brought a lunch to school that actually filled them up and even had enough pocket change to buy icecream from the musically-tinkling van who set up shop on the corner a block from school every day.

I was the kid whose mother never showed up for parent-teacher conferences or attended the class recitals, and I’d watch my classmates with envious eyes, wanting her approval and to enjoy spending time with me like other parents did. Early on, my big mouth got me into trouble, but my mother provided enough non-verbal clues to prove that, while complaining to her only brought on more of the same, it would be disastrous if I told another adult and wasn’t believed. Mostly through trial and error as I got older, I learned to keep my eyes open and muzzle my thoughts so I wouldn’t get hit… or worse. There is more than one level of hell.

In the looks department, meh! I was pretty much nondescript as a kid, even into my late teens. My father’s descendents came from Scotland and England, and my mother claimed to be French and Native American, but in me it was all a thrown- together mishmash. Brown-eyed and blond, I wore my hair longer than most kids because my mother didn’t want to cut it. She said it was handsome and I reminded her of Dad. I think she was just lazy. I didn’t learn to swim until I was much older, never went to a pool or the beach after Dad left, so I was kind of pasty looking. Everyone commented that I had a pretty face. Yeah, for some weird reason my mug was mostly spared when I got beaten up. My nose was only broken once and I never lost any teeth.

I guess I was kind of a wimpy thing. When you don’t have decent food to eat it leaves you without the nutrients necessary for normal growth. I’m almost six foot now, but I developed really late and didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was nearly twenty after I learned how to take better care of myself. I had eyesight problems that weren't diagnosed until 4th grade when the school nurse lined us all up in her office to read the eye charts. I failed the test miserably, but once I got glasses it opened a whole new world to me. I also suffered from nightmares and slept restlessly, but then you would too if you lived in such a chaotic world. I was this skinny, pale boy with no body hair past the age most kids go through puberty. I went through my early teen years looking like a scrawny, pre-pubescent girl. Five foot- six and 125 pounds soaking wet. I was just a nobody runt who slipped under the radar.

When I was fourteen, my mother had a boyfriend who seemed kinder than most of the others. I was in the eighth grade and his name was Howard. She was trying to clean up her act a little and wasn’t as drunk so she worked more hours. She was at the salon from noon until almost nine pm, and Howard returned from his job at three in the afternoon, right after I got out of school. We would go places together like the mall or the park. He bought me a video game I’d been asking my mother for but she didn’t have the money to buy.

You know, despite all the shit my mother had put me through I was a naïve kid. I had no idea this was how guys like him softened up their prey… by buying them things and spending time with them to make them feel special. It began so innocently. He was just always there in the afternoon, more like a parent than my own mother was. Except that he did things to me that no parent should ever do to a child.

Backrubs became touching, and Howard told me that he loved me and this was the way adults showed it. My humiliation knew no bounds when touching was no longer enough and he was asking for me to do things to him with my mouth. I wish I didn’t have to admit that he did the same thing back to me. I wish I could say it didn’t feel good. He disgraced me by calling me a ‘natural’, but with nobody in my corner who would take me seriously, I was trapped.

So yeah, the man ended up molesting me. It only happened over the course of a couple weeks, but to be on the receiving end of it made it feel as if it went on forever, and I was so ashamed. I guess I was fairly lucky because my mother and him weren’t getting along, and she dumped Howard’s ass very quickly after that. I never told her about it. Don’t ask me; I don’t like to dwell on the unpleasant details, and I don’t care to discuss it. It’s hard enough that I have to relive it in my head sometimes. I moved on.

Yeah, I learned the difficult way that families had secrets, lots of them. I was never a trouble-maker by any stretch of the imagination, but with my past I should’ve been. I was too invisible to be invited into a gang. It was only by cosmic grace that I never veered into any sort of crime, got arrested or developed a problem with alcohol or drugs myself. I think I was paying close attention to my mother’s dysfunction and felt the devastation done to me all too real. No thanks.

Oh, here’s a good story to illustrate how much my mother cared about me. The day I turned sixteen she hired a hooker to take my virginity, and she couldn’t even manage to do this right. She didn’t get me someone young and fairly attractive to make it even remotely enjoyable. The woman was a drug addict acquaintance and had to be in her early thirties, wrinkled with no boobs, a saggy ass and a pot belly. She even had teeth missing and smelled really bad. Of course, my mother didn’t know what Howard had done to me two years years before, but that’s no excuse for letting a diseased hooker even get near me like that. She said I was turning into a pansy and needed to learn to be a man.

The sex act was a cold, clinical business transaction that crushed me. In less than ten minutes the bitch felt me up to a hard-on, slapped a condom on my dick and squatted over me. Physically, yeah I got laid and had my first orgasm ever from intercourse. I was still so innocent, even after the molest, that I didn’t even jack off. But I was unable to feel any emotions except guilt and humiliation. It hurt more than a little and completely lacked in emotional intimacy. I was very bitter towards my mother and out-of-my-depth confused sexually. In reality, it helped me realize what an uncaring bitch she truly was so I could stop needing her love and approval without feeling guilty. But the rape, or whatever you want to call it, became another memory I stored in my brain without discussion, rarely to bring up in my future. It happened, and I got over it.

I knew nothing about sex other than what Howard did and my one time with the hooker. Thinking about it was depressing, talking about it was worse. I guess you could say that technically I wasn’t a virgin but in every other sense of the word I was. I had no clue whether I was straight, gay or asexual. Mystified? Hell yeah! I never felt any tugging on my heart towards either gender. No attraction whatsoever. I’d never had a girlfriend. Only much later would I learn that I was in that tiniest percentage of molested adolescent males who didn’t trickle down my abuse to foul a younger generation. It stopped with me.

I think one of the things that saved me was school which opened a whole new world to me. While I didn’t trust any of my early teachers to tell them about my abuse, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn from them. I loved to read and dived voraciously into books which made me smarter, and in trying to escape the abuse at home, something of a daydreamer. I could get lost in stories and most of the time they drowned out the shouting between my mother and her latest fling. I loved the clinical logic of mathematics and the wonder of science.

High school was a disaster. My mother’s sleeping partner a couple of boyfriends after Howard introduced her to the joys of cocaine, and she eventually lost her job at the salon. One time in the middle of the night Mom woke me up, and we just packed up and left. We moved to a community north of San Diego called Santa Bella to get away from said boyfriend and her shitty reputation as a whore and bad mother, making me the new kid in a large, rough high school in the middle of my junior year.

That was fucking awesome! I took advantage of having no abusive men in the household for once to focus on my grades and was a reasonably good student, but I wasn’t interested in clubs or sports. That, plus my zero charisma, granted me geek status right from the start, and in time I out-nerded the nerds. I loved music and had a decent voice with no outlet except glee club, and absolutely no way would I invite that catastrophe. I was the typical teenage punching bag: short and waifish, quiet to the point of non-verbal with no social life and a nearly straight-A student who knew all the answers in class when a teacher would address the students. Popular? Absolutely not!

The bullies, mostly consisting of the muscle-bound jerks on the football team, came out of the woodwork to torment me unmercifully for my size and feminine appearance and call me faggot and cocksucker. Their leader was Lamont Shores, a hulking six-foot-four, 270 pound future NFL linebacker. He was a homophobic bigot but, somehow, one of the most charismatic and well-liked jocks in the senior class. Go figure! Him against me was a no-brainer; in terms of ass-stomping, it wasn’t whether I would get hurt but how badly. Avoiding him and his cohorts so I wouldn’t be beaten occupied a good part of my day and caused unbelievable stress.

So now that we have the background all settled, this is all about me at seventeen during my senior year at Santa Bella High School. By this time I had accepted my differences from other teenagers. I was never going to be the cool kid with the girls hanging all over him; in fact I really didn’t have any friends at all. My afternoons were spent at the city library down the street from the school where I could get online and meet people anonymously in teen chat rooms or listen to music for two hours before catching a bus home. I existed simply to attend school and learn, getting through it with the best grades possible so I could graduate. Go to college and get a job so I could finally- finally- leave my disgusting mother behind and move out to begin a better life on my own.

**

It was a Friday in late September and had been raining nonstop for a week. Don’t believe the hype; southern California does have a rainy season, and we were awash in mud. I normally left school by the back field gate because it not only took less time to get to the library it saved me the trouble of walking past the jocks who hung out by the main entrance and liked to target boys like me for the fun of it. The janitors had locked the rear gate because kids were tracking too much mud into the classrooms, so I had to go around through the front.

I didn’t see Lamont Shores and his gang until it was way too late to save myself, and they gave me a thorough hazing. Not much in the way of beating me up because there were too many witnesses, but the intimidation was bad enough. Punching me twice in the stomach doubled me over in pain and almost caused me to vomit, and they roughly ripped my backpack off to dump it out on the wet sidewalk and threw my glasses and most of my school supplies into the parking lot. Finally they tripped me over the bushes into a large mud puddle and ran off laughing.

I was picking myself up, bruised, scratched and humiliated, when I heard the voice. It was warm, friendly and honeyed, not like anything I expected to hear outside my high school. Definitely sexy. “Here, let me help.”

A hand reached out and firmly grabbed me by my upper arm, righting me on my feet. My eyes were streaming water, both muddy and the salty tears kind. I was filthy, bleeding and furious as hell, and I almost shook his assistance off before my brain registered alliance rather than harassment. I could hear the snobby bitch girls giggling somewhere close at hand and the outright guffaws of the male students, and I felt totally ashamed. I couldn’t even see the face of my savior through my dim, near-sightedness and the slimy gook covering my own features.

I was vaguely aware that this person was stuffing my spilled belongings in my pack. “Oh damn,” said the comforting boy’s voice again. “I think they broke your calculator.” It was an expensive scientific model I used for physics and pre-calculus, and I swore heatedly to myself, having no idea how I was going to replace it. But presently he had sorted out my satchel, retrieved my cheap plastic eyeglasses and ruined gear from the gutter and handed me his own sweatshirt to wipe myself down. In no time I had cleaned myself up well enough to see again.

I beheld my guardian angel. He was over six feet tall with wavy auburn hair, fringed longer in front, that even in the gloom of the overcast afternoon shone around his face like a burnished helmet. His large, dark-lashed eyes were hazel with flecks of gold in them, topped with equally dark, thick eyebrows. The boy had a rugged face with an aquiline nose, high cheekbones and a deep tan. Broad-shouldered with a strong muscular structure across his upper body and arms, he shivered in a Kings of Leon t-shirt that was getting wetter by the second in the rain and beginning to stick to his chest. I could see his nipples through it. Toned abdomen above well-fitting but not tight jeans and expensive kicks, he looked like a jock. But he didn’t act like one.

I felt a catch in my stomach like a gasp trying to escape as I stood there staring at him. A stranger to me and, yet, he was vaguely familiar. I fought down a sense of panic that told me I was dreaming as strongly as I fought not to lick my lips and act like a crushing fanboy. He was so very handsome, but it didn’t take any imagination for me to realize I shouldn’t be thinking of him like that.

“Michael Capshaw,” he said by way of introduction, his voice again deep and inviting, and offering his hand to shake. He towered over me. “Aren’t you Dax Stephenson?”

That anyone at school knew, much less remembered, my chosen nickname came as a complete shock, and I could barely nod. This boy was actually being nice to me, something unfamiliar but winning, and I enjoyed looking at him and having him look at me back. It made me feel warm inside, despite the weather.

Michael gazed skywards at the clouds and showers that were beginning to fall faster, wetting his hair and making his t-shirt stick to his skin. “Well Dax, don’t you think we should get out of this mess?” He laughed, a pleasant sound that wasn’t directed at my discomfort or teasing in any way, and it gently brushed up against my loneliness. “My car is in the parking lot and I have an old beach towel in the trunk so you can dry off. I’ll drive you home.”

“How do you know me?” I couldn’t help but blurt out as we crossed the asphalt, my shorter legs struggling to stay alongside. I think I was really asking why he had bothered to step up and offer assistance to a stranger rather than make fun of me like everyone else, but I didn’t want to look any geekier than I already was.

Michael laughed again. “I’ve seen you around campus. You were in my history class last year.”

Nothing more was added, although it barely answered my question. To be honest, I was far less interested in pushing for a complete explanation than in noticing how the rain made his shirt cling like plastic wrap to his skin and define the ridges of his muscles and his tight nipples. I didn’t remember anything about my junior year at Santa Bella High except the kids who hassled me. If Michael wasn’t in that category, he had been one of the nameless, faceless members of the school population.

Michael had a brand new black Nissan that he claimed, not in a boastful way, was an early graduation gift from his parents. He remotely unlocked the trunk to fetch the promised towel which he briefly wiped against the wetness his own face and hair before handing it over. I smelled his male scent, giving a hint of woodsy cologne, to towel myself clean if not dry. It was a nice smell, crisp but musky, that I wouldn’t mind having on myself. Michael suggested slinging the towel over the seat cushion for me to sit on, and he started the engine and pointed the car towards the parking lot entrance.

“I could take you directly home,” he offered. Home for me was twenty minutes away- down the main drag, several exits up the freeway to the bad side of town across the proverbial train tracks. “Or we could stop off at my house first so you can clean yourself up and maybe get your clothes dry. I don’t live far from here.”

No fellow student since seventh grade had asked me to his place and shown friendship like Michael’s, and he was offering me a wild taste of diversion. What was there for me to go home to except my mouthy, drugged up mother? She would demand to know why I was filthy and wet and chide me for not standing up for myself, then make a fool of both of us by calling the school and lashing out at the office staff for not protecting her son better from the jock baddies. She had no idea that adults let this happen to people like me. I was used to it.

“Sure,” I said shyly, looking at the way the outer corners of his golden eyes bowed upwards when he smiled. Michael gave me full grin showing very white, very straight teeth, and I noticed how ideal his mouth was: pouty, pink-lipped perfection. He really was very cute, and I wondered why I had never noticed him before at school, especially if he was a senior like me and had been in my class. Maybe I just was that oblivious or I didn’t want to recognize the attraction. And then I felt bad, chiding myself because I wasn’t supposed to notice him that way.

Michael parked his Nissan in front of a two-story, blue and gray faux-French provincial with a flagstone porch and walkway. The house wasn’t extravagant, but it was large, five bedrooms and four and a half baths actually, with definite curb appeal. Unlocking the front door, we stepped into a cool, dark foyer. It smelled of lemon furniture polish and, beyond the walls, I could see large formal and casual living areas. There was not a bit of clutter anywhere, no dust or grime on the furniture or fixtures and the sisal burgundy rug-covered hardwood floors glowed with wax. A beautifully curved staircase led up to the second floor, and that’s the direction I followed him.

As we had traveled from school to bedroom Michael had spoken of his family. His father made a good living as a pharmaceutical representative and traveled frequently. His mother was in real estate and doing well despite the housing slump. He had two older sisters away at college; Jana, age twenty-three and twenty year old Linnie; and the house pretty much to himself in the afternoons. As the only boy and youngest child, he was spoiled unmercifully. By the time we reached his large bedroom, which was more like a suite with a flat-screen TV, expensive sound system, Xbox 360 and a Playstation 3, I could see he was telling the truth.

“Do you need to call home and let your mom know where you are?” Michael asked, smiling deeply and showing off his dimples. In return for his sharing and to make polite conversation I had mentioned that my mother was a hairdresser who single-parented me and left it at that.

I didn’t have a cell phone of my own, so he let me borrow his. I called my mother and told her I was with a friend. She was so astonished she didn’t ask any questions, and I told her I’d be home by… Michael held up five fingers… five o’clock. No problem, my mother replied in an awed voice, and I’m sure she was relieved. The less she had to put up with me, the better, and happy on her that I finally found someone to hang out with after school. I was loath to give her any additional information on Michael because I suddenly made up my mind that this was none of her business. I was almost an adult now, more so than she had ever been, and she didn’t have to know my every move.

Michael went immediately to his walk-in closet and pulled a robe out of it and handed me clean boxers and a large, fluffy towel. He indicated the adjoining bathroom. “Go undress and take a shower while I put your clothes in the laundry.” He looked at my narrow hips. “You’re a lot smaller than me, but I think the shorts will fit you. After everything is dry I’ll take you home.”

I nodded, a little uncomfortable, not understanding why this boy was putting himself to such trouble for me. After all, he could’ve just driven me straight back to my apartment and let me wash up at home. But for some unknown reason Michael decided to be friendly and considerate and compassionate, and in that minute he introduced me to a world I had never known before- a person who cared, not because he was paid or it was his job, but out of unearned deliberation. Our being alone in his room together signaled a kind of camaraderie I didn’t truly understand but wanted.

The bathroom was as clean as the rest of the house. Michael gave me the privacy to take my wet, muddy clothes off and I quickly shoved them outside the door in an untidy pile of jeans, t-shirt and underwear. The shower was large and roomy, and when I turned on the warm water there was no annoying clanging in the pipes like at my apartment. I used his herbal shampoo and scented shower gel and felt like a million bucks. His old clothes fit me too, and I again took in Michael’s woody bouquet on the robe he lent me.

Stepping out of the steamy bath, I was shocked to find Michael lounging on his queen-size bed, reading one of his textbooks in just a pair of soft gray sweatpants. Sweeping my gaze higher, I stared at his naked upper body that gave shape to the muscles I’d guessed at earlier- sculpted pectorals on his brown chest with rosy brown nickel-sized areolas and flattened nipples. Golden red hairs sprinkled the chest area sparingly, light against the dark skin, becoming thick and wavy as they crossed his torso in a v-shape to disappear into the waistband of the fleece. His shoulders sported toned triceps and biceps I would die for, and his abs rippled when he hopped up. The tied fleece rode low on his hip bones, and I blinked and flushed warmly before looking away. I wasn’t creeped out but my mouth went dry.

“The wash load is almost finished,” he informed me kindly with a wide smile that stretched his pouty mouth in a way that was very attractive. He didn’t seem to notice my staring or the way my face turned red. “I think there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge, and we can play video games in the meantime.”

I wasn’t in charge at Michael’s house so all I could do was concur with everything, not that I disagreed with his plans. He darted downstairs, leaving me blessedly alone to take some deep breaths and clear my head. Daring to focus on the positive, I felt more in control. Video games were common ground I could handle and knew I would be able to acquit myself at well. When he brought up half a pepperoni pizza and two Cokes, I was prepared and we played Call of Duty until almost 4:30. The time flew by.

Michael disappeared again and returned with an armful of clothing, his and mine mixed together, and dumped it on the bed. I pulled out my jeans, t-shirt and underwear and started for the bathroom to change. “Keep the boxers,” he told me. “They’re too small for me.”

I turned around to thank him. His back to me, he was already shucking off his sweatpants in the middle of the room. Not only that, but he was naked underneath. He was naked all over. I had heard of guys going commando before but had never seen it, not up close like this. I tried not to gawk but it was hard to tear my eyes away.

He had a beautiful ass under his nipped waist; round, golden brown cheeks with smooth skin and good glutes. It was obvious he tanned in the nude because there was no change in skin color from calf to waist. From the rear I could see his egg-sized balls hanging between his legs and the occasional swing of his flaccid cock. I blushed and felt a stirring in my groin that both scared and fascinated me. My own cock stiffened and began to tent the shorts, and I ran for the bathroom before Michael saw it too. No, this wasn’t right, I argued in my head, I was not going to allow myself to be so desperate that I misconstrued his intentions.

It took almost ten minutes of calm breathing and thinking of anything but Michael- Mrs. Grover, my ugly-ass English teacher who smelled like stale cheese; the lyrics of my favorite Foo Fighters song, Learn To Fly; the Periodic Table of Elements- for my body to behave and my penis to soften enough to hide it inside my jeans. I stepped out of the bathroom defying myself for control, but he was oblivious to my dilemma and completely dressed, and we left the house. I thanked him profusely, embarrassingly so, as I climbed out of his car in my apartment parking lot.

“It was nothing,” Michael beamed with his quick smile. “I don’t have a lot in common with many of the other students, so it was nice having you over. We should do it again.”

I couldn’t believe his lack of popularity at all and threw him a confused glance he seemed to misunderstand.

“No Dax, I’m talking about hanging at my place for games, tv, music, homework, however you want to meet after school. I hear you’re smart in math and science, and that’s where I need help if I want to get better than a ‘C’ this semester, but I have the skills in Government. We can trade.”

I could see his point and shrugged, smiling. I speculated on whether there was a hidden agenda, but really, there was nothing in his eyes but honest goodwill. What had he done except be my friend? I seemed to be the one with the over-reaction. “Sure Michael, that’s solid.”

Throughout the weekend I struggled with my observations and anxiety. My responses to Michael, both corporal and emotional, strongly hinted that I might be gay, but on top of everything else that was ‘wrong’ with me, I didn’t want to wear this label either. I might look effeminate, but I wanted to be what was considered normal and made me less of a target. Michael’s behavior brought up the question- did he think of me as homosexual and was he coming on to me under some kind of misguided vibe I was unknowingly putting out? Actually, he had done nothing, and it looked as if any reactions were all one-sided by me. But hell, it was such a huge boost to my ego to be liked for a change, I stuffed down my worries.

Michael and I became fast friends and started spending almost all our spare time together. We didn’t share any classes but he’d drive to school early and wait for me at the bus stop to hang out until the bell rang. For lunch, we’d eat together or he would sometimes drive me off-campus to whatever fast food meal suited our fancy. I didn’t have the money for burgers and burritos, and I felt bad when he offered to pay for me.

“I know you can afford it,” I said a week later when, after eating at Burger King the previous day, he insisted on Subway the following afternoon. “It’s cool, but I feel like I’m leeching off your generosity.”

He shook his head and grinned wryly, pulling a package of Cheetos out of his backpack. He was brown-bagging it so we could sit together on the senior patio. “And I’d so rather eat these than buy a roast beef sandwich.”

“Better Cheetos than the shit the cafeteria tries to pass off as food,” I joked back, giggling.

In the afternoons I’d meet him near his locker and we’d go to his house to work on assignments, watch DVDs or play the latest video game. Michael enjoyed suspense films which were a little too much for me sometimes because I had little internal restraint for the building tension in them that made me want to hide my face in the pillows. We had the same tastes in music- indie, alternative rock and metal, and Michael was a huge 3 Doors Down and Avenged Sevenfold fan while I favored Nine Inch Nails and Tool. In games, I loved Halo 3 but always got killed in the middle of rescuing Cortana, and Michael was a bit further along in the game progress than me and showed me what I’d done wrong.

When we were together, the bullies left me alone. I started to relax and not worry as much about others and just enjoyed being myself… and Michael’s friend. My mother got real inquisitive about the new stranger who monopolized all my time, but I refused to so much as tell her his name, and for once I stuck up for myself and wouldn’t let her ground me. She was just sneaky enough to ruin things for me or find some way to turn this into an advantage for herself. He was the first and only person in my life she didn’t have a connection with and I didn’t have to worry about.

I met Michael’s parents. Donna and Robert Capshaw were honest-to-goodness nice people who enjoyed being involved in their children’s lives, and they acted like my hanging around all the time was not a burden. They asked me the normal questions about my parents and didn’t mind that I was from a broken home. They never judged me for being poor. All they cared about was making sure I wasn’t some drug abusing trouble-maker who was going to take their son into the dark side. Michael would always stick up for me and tell them how smart I was, that I wanted to attend college and had dreams and goals just like him.

As Michael and I got to know each other better I began sharing about my past, and Michael was fascinated by the life I’d led with my mother. I guess I could be fairly matter-of-fact over the abuse and neglect, but watching it reflected in his face sort of brought back the horror and made me appreciate how resilient I was. I could even laugh a little about losing my virginity with the fat old hooker, and Michael shivered in irony at all the right places in the story. He was the first person I ever mentioned the molestation to, and he didn’t condemn me at all or act like a spaz about it.

He seemed to be totally cool about our friendship. Whatever weirdness, for lack of a better word, I might have imagined that first day, disappeared, to be replaced by an easy company where we both thought on the same wavelength. Of course, there were no more mud puddle incidents requiring me to shower at his place, and I began to think it was the stress of Lamont Shores’ bullying or some other trick in my mind that made me think there could be any real affection between us or we liked each other in a different way than most other boys do. I admired him, envied the casual hotness he exuded in his jeans and t-shirts and tried to keep up.

Two weeks went by, and Michael asked me if I wanted to stay over on a Friday night. I literally told my mother I wouldn’t be home from school that night, and except for her morbid curiosity about him, she didn’t protest. It was a fun evening- we played football in the park until way past curfew with several of his neighbors- and I was accepted as Michael’s buddy. The evening seemed to solidify our friendship, and from that point on, weekends together were the norm.

I was naturally curious about the way the other half lived, seeing as how I had grown up in cramped, dingy apartments where two bedrooms were a luxury. The cubbyhole under the stairs on Privet Drive that the Dursleys made Harry Potter sleep in? Mine was a coat closet or the bottom shelf of the linen cupboard until I got too big to stretch out, and then I graduated to a ratty loveseat in the corner of the living room. I didn’t have a room of my own until we moved to Santa Bella. So when Michael led me around his house, I kept my eyes open and asked questions he was more than willing to explain. For instance, I found out that his intoxicating scent was entirely due to his cologne which he stored on the counter in his bathroom, a bottle labeled Creed Original Santal. No, I wasn’t exactly jealous, merely inquisitive.

The one downside of us becoming such close pals was a peculiar subtext I began to pick up as I moved through the halls at school. Gay jokes had always been loudly bandied about in my direction, but this seemed more direct and less like general bullshit. Faggot I could deal with but like, what the hell was a twink? I Googled it and learned it more or less described me physically; yes, I was slender, had very little body hair and relatively short, but damn it, I wasn’t gay. I liked Michael as a friend, but I wasn’t in love with him. He certainly wasn’t in love with me either.

The week before Thanksgiving a personal crisis completely changed my life forever. My mother died.

The stupid woman drunkenly stepped off a curb in front of a fast-moving car and- splat! It was all over for her. I was at school when it happened, and of course there was nothing on record in our new town about her next-of-kin. When a police car was sent around to the apartment building that afternoon to see if anyone else lived there, I was with Michael. At six I returned to the empty dark which was somewhat unusual but not completely out of the norm and waited. And waited. I started to feel nervous when it was time for bed and she still wasn’t back, and I stayed up watching tv because it was way too quiet. Get this! I found out about my mother’s death on the eleven o’clock news.

I still didn’t have a phone, and a neighbor let me call Michael. He and his parents showed up at the same time as the police and Children’s Services worker. Dry-eyed and emotionally unperturbed, I had this bitch-and-moan discussion with all these adults talking about what was best for me which was a hoot because they could care less. I was almost eighteen and, despite how much influence the Welfare woman tried to manipulate me with, the government legally couldn’t force me to live in foster care. But at the same time, I was in a bad situation. I hadn’t seen my father for nearly twelve years, so it was likely I had zero known relatives; no place to go either and how was I supposed to support myself and stay in school to graduate in seven months?

Michael and his folks took over. First of all, the Capshaws, awesome people in their own right, had been the go-to neighborhood parents for their children’s friends for many years. I guess they had made up their minds in the eight weeks I’d known him that I was polite and hard-working. He made it plain to them that I desperately needed a lucky break, and they agreed to move me into their home, at least temporarily, until the powers that be either found my bio dad or gave up trying. I guess being a successful real-estate saleswoman speaks loudly in small towns. The Welfare lady didn’t have much to say on the subject except wish me luck. I packed my very few belongings and walked away from my past forever. I wanted nothing of my mother’s because her shit was not any part of me, just like she’d had little to do with my life other than feeding her own self-pity.

Michael’s family went out of their way to make me feel welcomed. I started out sleeping in one of the sisters’ bedrooms, but this was a temporary solution. By the weekend Mrs. Capshaw, or Donna as she insisted I call her, moved her home-office out of the small bedroom next to their son’s and gave it to me. I had a single bed with sweet-smelling sheets, a dresser and nightstand of my own, decorated in shades of brown. These people who didn’t know me from Adam treated me more like their son than my own mother had.

Within a month, Donna and Robert were set up as my legal guardians, and they didn’t seem to mind clothing and feeding me. For the first time I wore clothes that fit me and weren’t second-hand. They even bought me a cell phone and took me to the doctor for a physical examination. My eyesight prescription had changed, and Robert, Michael’s father, offered me the option of wearing contact lenses. Michael urged me to get them, smirking over how the girls in school would love the ‘new me’. For the first time in my life I didn’t see myself as being completely dorky.

I settled in and bloomed under the Capshaws’ love and guidance, no longer feeling like someone’s unwelcome appendage. Every protest I raised about how I’d find a way to pay them back fell on deaf ears until Michael had to tell me to stop whining and taking their enjoyment away from them. As I relaxed, I began to put on weight and stopped looking so sickly and pale. I had suffered from nightmares for years about my physical and sexual abuse, but they dwindled to only two or three times a week. I didn’t think anyone even knew.

Michael and I were together all the time except for our different classes at school. All of a sudden it was as if we turned into instant brothers, but without the sibling rivalry. Even though we were the same age, it felt as if Michael was way older than me, probably due to size differences and his always seeming more mature. He had these great life experiences from a secure home and loving parents, and suddenly he was sharing it all in a way that made me feel appreciate and valued.

This naturally started long discussions about teenage boys’ favorite subject- sex. Ever the more knowledgeable one, Michael revealed how he started fucking girls when he was fifteen. I gave a tentative smile at this piece of unrequested information. “I don’t need to know the details. My one time was bad enough.”

He couldn’t help teasing me over it. “That wasn’t sex, Dax; that was a troll’s nightmare or something right out of Dante’s Inferno. But with a cute, willing girl at the right time…”

“I’ll pass.” I shuddered. I just didn’t want to imagine the whole scenario of what body parts fit into where and what you were supposed to do with them, especially when memories of the hooker intermingled with it. The prevalent image in my mind was Michael’s golden, naked rear end changing out of his fleece pants. I shivered.

“Or maybe it isn’t the girls that catch your eye?” Michael stared at me with a huge grin, gauging my reaction.

I was learning to roll with it. “Fag,” I teased, giggling.

“Who’s the fag?” he rejoined with a gleam in his eye and punched me in the shoulder. But it was all in fun and never did I suspect that he was aware of my September fantasy.

A couple weeks went by. I had my first enjoyable Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in memory where I met Michael’s sisters. Jana and Linnie were smart, pretty and flirty, but on a sexual meter, they did nothing for me. His family treated me like I belonged there and bought me gifts, and Michael helped me select presents for them too. In awe, I watched how most people lived their lives apart from abuse and looking back at my past I could finally admit how shabbily I had been treated by my parents. That was the point where I finally started to grow away of who I had been.

Michael’s bedroom connected to mine by an adjoining bathroom, meaning we could go into each others’ rooms without his parents being aware we were even up. Actually, it was more like I’d wander into his bedroom because he had the queen-size bed, and he’d move over so we could lie on it together and whisper. Like most brothers do, we wrestled and rough-housed, and he’d hold me down to tickle me until I begged to be let up. He was forever ruffling my long hair, and the ‘fag’ epithets and gay jokes flew fast and furious. We rarely shut the bathroom door, and it was nothing to see each other naked, pissing or getting out of the shower.

This led to the inevitable comparison of our junk. Both of us were circumcised. Flaccid, my cock is about three and a half inches long and the width of two thumbs, a rosy-pink shade. The head was a perfect mushroom shape and it nestled with my hairless balls into my dark blonde, silky pubic hair. Michael’s dick was maybe an inch longer, thin and tan-mauve, topped by a flared knob. His auburn carpet stood out prominently in small, tight coils, blending into the light, wavy hair extending from his navel in an upside-down V.

Michael was gorgeous in my eyes. Tall with the face that always smiled, ripped without having to work hard at it, and this brown skin tone that just glowed. I figured it would be difficult for anyone not to develop at least a tiny crush on him. He had many of the high school girls drooling but seemed impervious to their lust, and I never saw him so much as hold one of their hands. He was also followed around by two or three boys who were obviously gay and wanted to be included in his circle, and I felt myself burn with jealousy if he encouraged them. Having no experience with male bonding at all, wasn’t this just the normal feelings any boy would have for his best friend?

We had just arrived home from school the Wednesday after New Years, and I’d grabbed a bowl of pineapple on the way up to my room to settle down for some serious studying. It was nearing the end of the semester, and I had a big term project in my economics class. Michael was going through DVDs to watch a movie and called me into his room. I took the time to finish a short note and walked through the bathroom. He wasn’t there and I ruefully settled on his idea of a hide and seek game which was typical of him. To make a long story short, he tricked me into making this big circle searching for him to simply walk off with my snack, him being the brawny big brother who thought he could get away with it.

It had not been the best day in class, and I stared at him, with juice dripping down his chin, across his bedroom floor. I was mildly annoyed. “You couldn’t go down to the kitchen and get your own?”

“What’s it to ya, Cutie?” he smirked, popping the last piece of fruit in his mouth.

Frustrated, I launched myself into him and tackled him to the bed. I could never win these battles but that didn’t stop me from trying. I was on my back in minutes with him hovering over me, hands pinning my shoulders to the sheets and his mouth inches above mine. “Yield?” he asked, his tawny eyes sweeping up and down my body to come to rest on my face.

Anger gone but still squirming, my upper body trapped under his and blushing from his scrutiny, it was like a haze cleared in my head. I don’t know what caused it, but I quickly felt this slight nudge in my crotch and recognized it, going ever redder in embarrassment. Oh god, I was getting hard. I had to get off the bed. Now!

“I yield,” I shouted in horror as I continued to stiffen. If his eyes moved a fraction down he’d see it too.

Under normal circumstances I would never gave in. Michael gave me a surprised look at my change in tactics and laughed. He licked my chin, and I gasped at how erotic it felt. I was staring at his pink lips now, nearly wishing he would kiss me; in fact, my head moved upward just a tad, almost straining towards him. His eyes darkened with this unfathomable expression, and I thought he was moving in to kiss me back. But my cock flexed again into a raging boner between my legs, and with strength born from humiliation combined with catching him off guard I pushed him to the floor and ran out of the room.

I’m not gay, my brain screamed, I’m not. But I could feel tears behind my eyes that made my protests sound like a lie. I slammed the door between us, shutting myself into my room.

**

Ka-boom! My eyes flew wide open a couple nights later as a brief, brilliant light flooded my bedroom through the window, and the house seemed to shake off its foundation. I have been a total chicken-shit about thunder and lightning ever since I was eleven and got locked out the apartment by one of my mother’s live-ins during a bad storm. It scared the shit out of me. We don’t get many in southern California, but the ones we do… Ka-boom!

I was out of bed so fast I don’t think my feet touched the floor. Instinct took me sliding through the bathroom and wheeling around the doorframe into Michael’s room to hurl myself into the empty side of his large bed.

“What the fuck…?” Michael awoke with a start at the bouncing, and I could feel him rolling over towards the middle. I had my head under his extra pillow, crushing it against my ears, and his words were muffled. “Dax, what the hell are you doing?”

Vaguely, I heard another rumble of thunder and winced involuntarily. Seconds went by; my eyes smarted and I knew I was close to crying. “It’s just a thunderstorm,” he mumbled factually. “A lot of noise, it won’t hurt you.”

I was unconvinced and lay there trembling with my eyes squeezed shut. There was no way I was going back to bed by myself, and I didn’t care how much of a wimp it made me look. I heard him chuckling.

“Come here, you big baby.” He grabbed me by my shoulder and waist and easily dragged me backwards so that my shaking body was lying next to him and he was shushing me. Something about being in an awkward position fired into my brain but I ignored it. Except for our boxer shorts, both of us were naked in his bed, and I knew I was behaving like a child, but his comfort was quite effective. If this was a seduction scene packaged into an unarranged lucky break, I was too grateful to resist it.

Gradually I calmed and came out from under the pillow. I looked up over my shoulder at Michael and all joking died at the sight of his hazel eyes staring into my brown ones as if I was the most precious thing in the world. A sweep of longing and need burst out of my lonely heart that I didn’t understand and it suddenly enveloped me. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to kiss him. I pushed myself higher on the pillow and lifted into him to flatten myself on the bed, my gaze never leaving his face. His hand found my throat, warm fingers cupped my chin, and he leaned over me, gently placing his lips on mine.

You’ve heard of lovers seeing stars or feeling butterflies in their stomachs? That didn’t happen. When Michael’s mouth found my own, the noise in my head shut up. It was like being in a vacuum, quiet and peaceful, experiencing the gentle joy of being kissed for the very first time by someone who cared about me.

It was brief, questioning what my intentions were and whether I would accept him or not. Shock ripped through me and made me hesitant at first but a determination stole over me, knowing I wanted the embrace. I turned into him and gave the same kiss back, hanging on a fraction of a second longer. I felt his tongue dart towards my mouth and swirl against my lips, silently asking me to open and accept him. Just the barest of partings and his tongue made contact with mine, the instant connection of two wet surfaces gliding against each other in the friction of dancing taste buds and nerve endings. I savored toothpaste and felt wet, soft and warm push against my tongue while I readily slanted my jaw to lengthen the kiss.

Michael moved in above me, mashing his lips against mine, his tongue sweeping in to take everything I had to offer and more. His thumb pad stroked me under my chin, adding to the lovely stirrings waking me up, and I moaned. Hell yes! A million charged beats headed for my groin to stiffen my sleeping cock. I groaned again into Michael’s mouth and gave up fighting against my primal instincts that demanded me to acknowledge how much I desired him. This- this was where I belonged, in his arms, in his bed. I rolled closer, now facing him, my own hand reaching around behind his neck and stroking his fiery hair flowing against my fingers.

“Oh Dax,” Michael husked against my open mouth and slowly stroked his hand down my side. “I have dreamed about this for so long.”

My heart pounded inside my ribcage, and I ceased to be aware of the storm raging outside. There was a storm raging inside too, all by way of Michael’s mouth on mine as he kissed me and nipped at my bottom lip. He was up on his elbow to lean over me and gain more access to my upper body. Those same lips trailed a line of passion across my cheek to nibble on my earlobe and then south to the juncture of neck and shoulder, sucking gently on the tender skin there to leave a bruise. I writhed under him, eyes closed in bliss, moaning at the pleasure his embraces caused. My hand found Michael’s shoulder to draw him nearer to me.

My cock continued to harden and brushed up against my abdomen, leaking precum into my boxers. I could feel Michael’s own erection trailing against my hip. There was no denying that he wanted me as much as I needed him, and accepting this kernel of truth made my emotions go a little wild. I began to press my lips against every inch of Michael I could reach- forehead, eyes, cheeks and chin, like a delicious taste test searching to stimulate him to greater foreplay. He rewarded me by strumming his fingers against my chest and touching my instantly erect nipples, sending more instructions to my dick. Rearing against the cloth to tent my shorts, I felt gentle vibrations that made me focus on the wonderful sensations of my groin and how every other part of my body was tuned into arousal.

His head moved downwards on the bed, coming level with my chest, and he began to lick and suckle on my nipples. Fingernails and teeth worked both sides, building strong urges that dominoed through my body. The sensations in my cock screamed for release, and I threw back my head and gasped raggedly.

“Oh god, Michael.”

I wanted to beg him to touch me, to take my dick in his hand and stroke me, anything. I could feel my precum oozing from the head, the wet spot it was creating in my shorts getting bigger. Michael’s mouth loved on me in a way that was tantalizing, but it was adding to my need, not sating it.

Teasing in its indolence, Michael’s hand left my chest and slowly felt its way down my torso. He rubbed my abdomen softly, his fingers stretching downward to the elastic top of my boxers, hovering just above the band. His tongue continued to bite at my nubs, making them red and sensitive and driving me out of my mind. His fingers reached for my hip and settled on my bare thigh. Oh fuck, I could hardly stand it. I was whimpering continuously now, gripping him in a vice, forcing myself not to plead with him to touch me. Just a few inches over I wanted to beg him; I arched my back and strained my hips upwards.

Michael’s cock reared against my hip again, and I dropped my hand to feel the outline of it against the cotton of his shorts, gently sliding my fingers up and down its length. He was so firm and long, his own boxers wet with precum. Michael groaned, moving his fingers to touch me, skin to skin, tentatively. Taking my cues from him, I felt inside and curled my hand around his thickness, and we began to pump each other.

“Fuuuck,” I groaned, shuddering and rocking my pelvis into his fist. His was the first hand besides my own to ever touch me on purpose, at least with my permission, with my best interests in mind.

“Too many clothes,” he grunted back, yanking my shorts down to my knees. I helped him discard his, and he lifted his hips to assist. Soon we were both naked, and Michael shifted his lower body and threw a knee over my hips. He was astride me, his cock atop mine, and he rotated his groin into me. At last I had an object to hump against and satisfy my needs.

Slowly we began to grind against each others’ cocks and balls, hips rocking back and forth in relief. He was so soft above me, but also hard, like a pipe covered in velvet. The growing need to let go made us both cry out in pleasurable agony. I circled my hips, my balls bunching and pulling as the pressure built inside. Our precum flowed, lubricating the way as our cocks massaged each other. The mutual stimulation felt so damned good. I wanted to prolong it, but I knew I wouldn’t last because I was nearing the threshold of climaxing. I could feel my seed simmering inside, could feel the muscles of my abdomen tensing and the steepening pitch of ecstasy.

Michael clasped me in another long, frantic kiss, his arm thrown possessively over my shoulder. The friction was building up inside my cock as, sweating and grunting, I pushed desperately against him. Like balancing on the point of a knife lifting me ever higher, ever more aroused, I swiftly detected the change inside me, a vibration that began deep, rising and spreading out. My balls contracted almost in pain, and I gratefully pitched headfirst over the edge as my hot cum bubbled through my cock, burning at breakneck speed to spew in exit.

“Oh shit,” I only had time to moan, and I began to shudder uncontrollably. I was cumming forcefully between our stomachs in the most exquisite release that made me spurt four lines of lustrous sperm on Michael. It felt like warm sparks were shooting from my groin to find exit in my extremities, a beam of blazing light behind my eyes at the strength of our coupling.

Michael was cumming too. “Fuck… oh Dax, uuuhhh.” He convulsed tight against me, back arching, chest muscles rippling. “So good… Dax,” he cried. “So long since…” I felt warm jets of his cum shooting across our torsos upwards on to my chest, intermingling with my own, and he dug his fingers into my hip. His body crumpled on top of me, his soft hair tickling my chin and neck. I could smell his pungent sweat as he dripped on me, and our cum was sticky between our bellies.

Trying to catch our breaths, we lay together in the warmth of post-orgasmic glow. For Michael it sounded as if he had been celibate for awhile. For me, it was the first positive sexual experience I’d ever had. There was no pain, no humiliation, just the closeness of my body to Michael’s and wrapping our arms around each other. It made my heart turn over in warmth and appreciation.

And then the enormity of what had just taken place began to register and doubt pushed into my brain. Michael must, of course, be gay. Why hadn’t I seen it? I was that stupid to live with him for the past two months and not even realize. What clues had I missed- the fag jokes? All those times we were in the bathroom together he must have been checking out my ass. I didn’t totally begrudge him because I guess I’d done the same thing, but still...

I was silent for a long time, staring at the ceiling and wondering what kind of freak I was turning into. Enjoying sex with Michael meant I was gay, didn’t it? Oh god, I’d let another boy hold my cock and rub against me. All the taunts from the bullies at school, the ones calling me faggot and cocksucker, flooded over me. Did I really want to identify myself as gay? Was I even strong enough to withstand being what everyone at school suspected me of? Gay boys got beaten up that way.

A minute later I shoved Michael aside and pushed out from under him to roll away to stare into the dark, afraid and embarrassed. He dragged his body after me and put his hand on my arm. I shrugged it off.

“It’s okay, Dax. There’s nothing wrong with what we did. It’s normal.”

“Easy for you to say,” I muttered, furiously wiping at the tears that sprang into eyes and desperately hoping he didn’t know I was crying. “You’re not the one who looks like a little boy and has to listen to the queer jokes.”

He laughed, but not at me. Blessedly he didn’t try to touch me again or I might have punched him in the mouth.

“Dax, I discovered I was gay when I was thirteen. I’ve been out at Santa Bella High for the past two years, but maybe you haven’t been paying attention. The gay talk you hear is directed towards me as much as it is you, probably more. Those prejudiced assholes can say anything they want. I don’t care. I’m proud of who I am.”

“Really?” I rolled back over to stare into his decisive eyes. I could scarcely believe he was telling the truth, but there was no denying that he liked sex with boys. I grabbed on to his words like a lifeboat.

“Really,” he stated firmly. You shouldn’t let it bother you. Don’t be afraid to be who you are.”

“But why did you choose me.” I almost didn’t want to know the answer. “Am I that easy and pathetic?”

Michael chuckled and gave me a quick kiss on the ear. “There is nothing easy or pathetic about you. Did you know I fell in love with you the moment I saw you walk through the doors of my history class last February? It has been killing me to find a way to meet you where I wouldn’t scare you half to death. And then this year when you weren’t in any of my classes? I wanted to march into the office and demand to have my schedule changed, but how could I without arousing suspicion when I didn’t even know your schedule? I’ve wanted to ask if I could eat lunch with you all year, but I was afraid you wouldn’t accept my feelings. I didn’t know if you had the same… desire… for me. I didn’t want to push you.”

I shook my head, only partially convinced. “So what, you planned all this?”

I saw apprehension in his face for the first time but he tried to smile. He pulled my head to his shoulder, and I let him. “Well, no. Some of it was mere coincidence, like the day you got harassed by Lamont’s friends or… when your mom died. She treated you like shit, and you deserve to be happy. But I admit to taking advantage of your landing in the puddle to meet you and invite you home. I like you living here and having you for a brother, not just for sex. You’re my friend.”

Yeah, friends with benefits. But I was starting to wonder if that was so bad. Michael sounded as if he’d cared about me for a long time- almost a year- without ever making a move. And the sex was pretty good.

“Dax, look,” Michael continued. “If anything’s going to happen between us, I want you to be comfortable with it. You know, in your own skin. You need to want it too. Until then, I won’t rush you, I promise, no pressure.”

He trailed his index finger down my sternum and sighed. “Tonight we got each other off because the tension has been building for a long time. I don’t know if you felt it, but you had me so horny! And we can go slow and easy to see if it’s something you really want. But I love you, Dax. You have no idea how special you are, and I want you for my own. I want to be lovers in every sense of the word. Don’t you care about me even a little?”

Seconds went by and I didn’t answer. Did I care; was I willing to admit I wanted this? Was I really gay? Or was I pushing myself to make him happy? I didn’t like to think that my decision could crush my best friend who had been there for me for the last three months. Did I even know what I really felt? I liked what Michael and I had done together, and the way he was running his hand over my hip and ass made arousal build again inside me. Deep in my mind it almost felt as if I had been preparing myself to accept my homosexuality for a long time.

I rolled back into him, looping my arm over his neck and gave him a big kiss. Turning it back on me, Michael sweetly took my mouth, lengthening and deepening the embrace, sucking on my tongue in a way that made me hard again in minutes. He stroked my chest, grazing my nipples with his fingertips, and I gasped.

“My beautiful Dax,” he breathed into my ear. “I want to love you and teach you everything.”

Michael found a towel and we used it to clean the drying cum off our bodies and the sheets. The storm outside was dying away and he lay down and resumed the kiss. “Just this one thing tonight,” he whispered softly. “I want to relax you and help you sleep.”

I gave him a puzzled look and he explained. “I know about your nightmares, Dax. You talk in your sleep, and I can hear you through the door.” He raised his hand to my forehead. “Let me be the one to erase your fears.”

I arranged myself straight on the bed and, leaning into me, Michael began to play with my balls. Teasing me, he softly ran the back of his hand across them, his fingernails gently scratching the sac, and I moaned my pleasure. Gently he took his other hand and cupped my dick in his palm, wrapping the fingers around and began pulling at me. Sliding up and down, he used the precum that bubbled up from the slit to lubricate the head, and his other hand slid over my smooth cap and played with the mushroom-shaped ridge. Again using his fingernails, he stroked the very sensitive spot where the head met the shaft underneath, and my hips bucked.

“Oh… god… don’t stop… oh, Michael.”

My tipping pelvis began to catch on to his sliding rhythm. He worked his hand up and down on the shaft into powerful demi-spasms that flooded me with delight and I could feel myself swinging upwards into bliss. His fingers were magic- kneading, stroking, pulling, guiding me into hot desire and caressing me to the juncture of surrendering. I groaned, thrashing on the bed, wet with sweat, my hands fisting and fluttering against the sheets. I felt my balls pull up sharply inside. I cried out, and my dick violently erupted to expel my sperm.

“Fuck yes, oh, yes,” I hissed, rising up on my heels, corded tendons taut, as the contractions pumped in clotted, thick streams onto my stomach. A fiery mist wove behind my eyes, and I struggled to breathe. Michael’s hand continued to milk me, drawing every drop of cum from my cock. It had pooled in a sticky puddle in my navel, and my penis twitched. As I came back into full consciousness, somehow I began to breathe again.

His hand stilled against my over-sensitized member and I bathed in the deep contentment of two intense orgasms in one night, completely spent. My tense muscles relaxed and my cock began to shrink back into my pubic hair. I felt exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep.

“You okay, Dax?” Michael gave me a light kiss on my cheek as he got out of bed.

“Yeah, just tired.” He laughed and squeezed my shoulder. I started to doze off, and somewhere in my semi-conscious state I felt him return with a warm, wet washcloth to clean off my abdomen. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

“S’okay, bro,” he said as he slipped back beneath the covers. He put his mouth right up next to my ear.

“I love you if you drink; I love you if you smoke, I love you for the words you stuck inside my throat. I love you for the sin; and the way you turned away, and I'll heal you in the darkness and I'll hold you to the day,” * he recited. I knew he was smiling and I tried to smile back.

“What’s that?” I was having a very difficult time keeping my eyes open.

“Just some words from a song,” Michael soothed. “I know how much you appreciate indie music. It's what you mean to me, Dax. I love all of you.”

“Okay…,” I barely managed. My eyes were closing in peaceful slumber. Hardly aware that we were both still naked, I felt him take me into his arms and cuddle into me, and I snuggled back into his warmth. For the first time in my life I knew what it was like to fall asleep in the embrace of a lover.


*Just A Dream by Griffin House

(To be continued...)