Author’s note: this is the sixth installment in a ten-part series.
~
It is more than a mile to the little strip with a handful of fast food restaurants. A Taco Bell, a KFC, a McDonald’s. I hate all of these places, and especially hate physically being inside them, but I am desperately hungry. One of the campus shuttles makes a stop out there, but it runs so infrequently on weekends that it is usually faster to walk. It is a hot and uncomfortable slog, made more uncomfortable by the disorganized clamor in my head.
To calm myself, I focus on what I’ll say to order my food. “Twenty-piece chicken nuggets, large fries, apple pie, Dr. Pepper. Twenty-piece chicken nuggets, large fries, apple pie, Dr. Pepper.” I repeat this over and over to myself in a whisper. Alongside the regular rhythm of my steps, the chant starts to calm me down a little. Endorphins start to circulate in my body and I come back to myself slowly, step by step. Eventually, I have some quiet space — enough clarity to hold the events of the last few days in my head, get some perspective.
The stumbling block is obvious. Clearly, there is something going on between me and a guy. With Jamie. I force myself to think his name. I mean, we had… we had been…
“You fucked a dude, Amir,” I say, out loud, angrily. A fact. An element, indissoluble, an incontrovertible peak on an analytical trace. So what does it mean? Does it mean that I’m gay? I let the word shoot out over my tongue a few times, pressing the beginning of it hard against the roof of my mouth.
“Gay,” I say, quietly, between breaths. I am puffing a bit from walking so fast. The word feels irregular in my mouth, saying it, out loud. Certainly, it would apply to what had happened last night, in the dorm. The details are still fuzzy, my memory is not working right. Had I really sucked his cock? And he sucked mine, his hand on the base of it, squeezing my shaft as the tip disappeared into his mouth. Had I really pushed my cock into him, his ass? It all seems so improbable.
But there is no getting around that whatever happened, it had happened with Jamie, a biologically male human. Two men fucking. That is the definition of gay. Textbook. I think this, and slowly, I accept the fact on its face. But. But what? There is something off about it, about the word gay, at least as it pertains to me. Something wrong with the feeling behind it.
I try to hold on to the strands of my thoughts, which attempt to scatter and flee to other, safer realms. I force myself to stay with this, to proceed, tell myself to stay calm.
There is something… synthetic… about all of this. That’s the word I am looking for. For the feelings I have been having, the sexual response. Synthetic, artificial. Incredible… as in, not believable. How is it possible that I could suddenly be gay? How is it possible that I would know what to do, with a guy? Without ever having done anything like that before?
I remember the feeling of pressing my face into Jamie’s crotch, the arc of his hard cock against my cheek, the soft pliancy of his ass, my tongue pushing into him. My cock starts to get hard; it’s bending awkwardly in my underwear and pushing against my thigh as I walk. I reach down into my pants to adjust myself. All at once I am consumed with the idea of finding Jamie again, somehow, right now, pushing him down, tonguing his ass into compliance and then penetrating him roughly, unloading my cum into him.
I let the thought run through my head but I’m able to keep just enough to the side of it to sense its oddness, its irregular shape and texture. Its violence. No, there is something wrong about this, for sure. Despite my hard, leaking cock and my seemingly uncontrollable urge to find Jamie, find my way back inside him, I sense danger, and I am afraid.
Why is this happening to me?
I find myself at the strip, presently, having been lost in these thoughts, walking on autopilot. In the bright sun, the garish colors of the building and signs, flashing of car metal and windows is jarring, angular, almost menacing. It’s just a fucking McDonalds, Amir. Relax.
And then, suddenly, there he is, walking out of the McDonald’s just as I am walking up to the door. I stop dead at the sight of him. Jamie. He is wearing a short-sleeved, button-down shirt, light blue. Light-pink shorts that partially expose his thighs. Black and white chucks with no socks. My fingers and lips tingle with the feel of him, his skin and hair. He holds the door open and a girl walks out behind him, a blonde girl, wearing black sunglasses.
“Yo, Amir!” he says when he sees me. “What’s up, dude?”
“Hi,” I manage to say, despite feeling like I’ve been doused with ice water.
“How’s your weekend, bro?” he says. He and the girl come to stand by me, next to a bike rack on the sidewalk by the entrance. They’re both sipping on straws extending up from large plastic cups.
I stare at him, not understanding. How is my weekend? What does he mean? I look back and forth between him and the girl. Who the fuck is she? Is he trying to pretend that we hadn’t…
“Yeah, good,” I say, after an awkward pause, then continue, “I, um… I mean. We…”
Jamie cocks his eyebrow at me. The girl turns to look at him and I see discomfort spread over his expression. He interrupts me.
“Hey, cool. You know, we gotta run, but I’ll see you Tuesday at soccer, right?” he says, moving off with the girl toward the parking lot.
“Sure,” I say, dumbstruck.
“See you then, buddy,” he says, grinning at me. He slaps my upper arm, playfully. Then he walks away.
I watch their backs as they leave. He reaches out to stop the girl from walking out in front of a car speeding toward the drive through, and then they cross the parking lot to opposite sides of a blindingly bright white SUV. He puts his drink on the roof of the car and digs for keys in his pocket.
I am still standing there, like an idiot, but realize I am staring at them like a creep so I walk into the McDonald’s. The smell of the grease and the cold of the air conditioning hit me at the same time. It’s packed. The people and the lights and the noises are overwhelming; I stumble around to the back of the restaurant and into the bathroom. It is quieter in there, darker. I run water in the sink and wipe my face.
What the fuck was that?
I stare at my haggard reflection. I remember lying next to him in the bed, just hours ago, covered in sweat, our cocks pressing into each other, our arms around each other. Then a thought comes to me with a terrible clarity.
He is doing this to me.
Somehow, and I don’t know how, but Jamie is doing something terrible to me, fucking with my mind, twisting my thoughts. Manipulating me. The realization is like ice in my veins. In the mirror, my eyes steel over.
~
I chew my food in silence, slowly, not tasting it, churning with thoughts, sitting alone in a grimy, molded plastic booth. Children are screaming all around me but I barely notice. I am putting together a puzzle in my mind. Around a central organizing principle, facts begin to fall into place. I am being targeted, controlled by Jamie somehow… that is my conjecture.
I probably had met Jamie at a party last year, and at that party he had… infected me. Or perhaps implanted something inside my head. Some sort of program, or a virus… or maybe even a physical chip. Something that had stayed dormant until being reactivated when I saw him again this year, in the locker room. Through this… conduit… he has been manipulating me, controlling my dreams, maybe even my thoughts. Stupidly, I fell for it, I had played right into his hands.
I think about his smug grin just now in the parking lot. Of course. He knew I would be here, he is probably tracking my location. He showed up here just to mess with me. To throw me off, pretending like last night had never happened.
But why?
The thought is as uncomfortable as a splinter under my skin. I don’t understand his objective. Does he want some sort of programmable sex robot that he can turn on and off? That seems too simplistic. There has to be a deeper meaning to what he’s doing. Amid the bright colors and noise of the restaurant, I sense the tendrils of some immense and sinister truth lurking just beneath the surface.
I sit, sipping my soda, thinking, thinking. My thoughts keep jumping to memories of Jamie’s body against mine, his mouth on mine, the feeling of pressing my hips against him. In the light of my new perspective, I recognize now that these are forced thoughts — intrusions — Jamie’s attempts to distract me, stop me from figuring out what is happening. The food and caffeine from the soda are helping me concentrate, though, so I am better able to compartmentalize my thoughts as I contemplate my next move. How am I going to undo this knot?
I have to find the house.
The thought is clear. It feels real. Authentic. I have to find it, the place of that party. The origin.
I get up, toss my trash in the bin, and go back out into the bright, hot day.
~
I am not sure how long I walk, but the sun is low when I eventually find the house. I stare up at it, the looming Victorian with the wrap-around porch. I look around. Where am I? What street is this? I can’t place myself, but it doesn’t matter. I’m here.
There is nobody around. The whine from the insects in the trees is incredibly loud. I walk up the concrete steps from the sidewalk into the front yard and then around to the side of the house.
There is the door from the kitchen, the porch railing, and the stand of pine trees, just like in my memory, with the almost imperceptible gap running through them. I stand still, just off the porch by the kitchen door, listening into the house to hear if there is anyone there. There is no noise that I can discern, no movement in the windows. The place looks completely deserted.
I walk up onto the porch and try the kitchen door. Locked. I look in one of the windows and see a generic kitchen and part way into the living room, but it doesn’t look particularly familiar. I can see the edge of a couch, a lamp, a rug. All the lights appear to be off.
I hop off the porch and find the path through the trees. I move along it, furtively, half-expecting to encounter Jamie in the backyard, and then, what? I would have to explain myself. But there is nobody there. The back yard is empty. The grass is neatly trimmed, just as it was in the front, and the lot backs onto a tall wooden fence. Beyond the fence is another house — another row of houses. There are no towering trees. No trail leading to a creek bed.
There is, however, against the rear wall of the house, a set of rickety-looking stairs leading up to a cream-colored door on the third story. I feel a shiver across my back.
I know this place.
I am not sure if it is a real or synthetic thought. I approach the stairs and step onto the bottom step. The wood is old and spongy and I feel it creak under me. I begin to walk up the stairs and try to keep my weight close to the house, as the staircase seems very poorly supported. The wood strains under me and I am half way up when I realize there is a good chance that the whole set of stairs will collapse. But I am compelled to keep walking up, up, until I am standing at the top. In the long-angle light of the late afternoon sun, I see that the beige paint is flaking off the door. The door doesn’t fit evenly in its frame, and it’s small, like a door for a three-quarter size person. I try the handle. It turns. I give the door a push and it gives a little, then pops open when I push again. I stoop to pass through the doorway, and then I am standing in the hallway.
Inside, it’s dark, and my eyes take a moment to adjust. The only light is coming from the open door behind me. The hallway dead-ends at what looks like another set of stairs leading down to the floor below. There are four doors evenly spaced along the hall, all closed.
I see a switch on the wall and I flick it. A bare, exposed bulb hanging from a fixture on the ceiling comes on, dim and red, like the light in a photography dark room. It casts an eerie glow onto everything. I look at my hands in the light and see the greenish tint of the dark skin on the back of my hands. The lighter skin on my palms is brighter, almost glowing.
I walk down the hallway to the last door on the right, the one my memory tells me to approach. There is a deadbolt as well as a knob on the door, and I remember watching his back — Jamie’s back — and hearing him laugh as he drunkenly fumbles with his keys. How I pushed him against the wall to kiss him, right here in the hallway, felt his hard cock pushing against me as we made out. The liquor and cigarette taste of him. I reach for the knob, twist it, and push. The door opens.
I jump with surprise when I see a huge face leering at me. My heart pounds hard, but I take a deep breath — it’s just a poster on the wall opposite the door. David Bowie, a close up of his face. I push the door open further and step inside.
There’s nobody in the room. It’s large and extremely cluttered. Books and magazines and papers and clothes are all over the floor. Several thirsty-looking potted plants sit on a desk facing the only window, which is propped open slightly. There are strings of holiday lights — unplugged — strung around the rim of the room where the walls meet the ceiling. There’s a bed with a mattress, dirty-looking sheets. In the corner, I see a terrarium with a heat lamp inverted over it. The lamp is on and casts a warm-looking, reddish-orange light down onto a twisted wooden stump, where some sort of lizard — a pair of lizards — are basking.
Is this Jamie’s room? I bend to look at the papers on the ground. They look like ripped pages from some sort of technical manual; tiny, packed printed words in French, German, and Spanish. There are other papers with random-looking doodles on them.
I move over to the desk and see that there isn’t really anything on it aside from the plants, just a mechanical pencil and some stray pieces of graphite lead. I sit down in the chair, a ratty office chair on wheels, and place my hands on top of the desk. For a moment, I sit motionless, sensing the immense mass of the old house around me. It’s completely quiet in here.
I pull open a desk drawer. Random detritus, paper clips, a few coins, matches, a pack of post-it notes, a marker. I pull open another drawer and see a battered shoe box. I lift it out slowly and remove the lid. Inside is a stack of pictures bound with a rubber band. I freeze when I see him — Jamie — grinning up at me from the top picture in the stack.
My hands tremble as I pull the pictures out of the box and slide the rubber band off. I hold the top picture up to get a better look. The light is dim, so I angle the photograph toward the window, into the waning daylight.
It’s definitely Jamie, maybe a bit younger and skinnier than he is now, but the smile is unmistakable. In the picture, it looks like he is standing on some sort of mechanical apparatus in a large building, maybe a factory, or a warehouse? He’s standing on what looks like a set of huge interlocking pipes. His smile and his body ignite something in me, an echo of sexual desire, the memory of his body under mine. I shake my head, not wanting to be distracted, sensing the attempt to deter me, stop me from looking at these pictures. I put the picture down and look at the next one.
Jamie is grinning and sitting next to someone, a guy. His arm is draped casually around the guy’s shoulder. It looks like they are sitting on a bench in a park. Or maybe they are at some sort of carnival — there are bright lights in the background. I can’t see the other guy’s face — it’s blurred — but he has dark skin and big furry arms. He seems kind of big and bulky all over. Like me. In spite of myself I feel a pang of jealousy. Is this one of Jamie’s boyfriends?
The next picture is Jamie with a different guy, a skinny white guy. Again, I can’t see his face, the guy is leaning out of the frame of the picture. They are on a pier overlooking a pond. Jamie is grinning. I flip through the next two pictures — Jamie with two other guys. Jamie is grinning in each of them.
Hold on.
I look back at the pictures I have already seen and feel goosebumps rise on my neck and arms. None of the guys’ faces are visible. And Jamie’s grin in each photo is almost identical. Not almost. Exactly identical.
I flick through the rest of the stack quickly. Picture after picture shows Jamie, grinning, in some sort of bucolic scene, each time with a different guy. White guys, black guys, brown guys. None of their faces are visible. I feel panic rise in my stomach. I squeeze my eyes shut. I feel the urge to put the pictures away, stop looking. But I force myself to open my eyes and continue. I uncover the next photgraph.
It’s different — a picture of a small figure, standing far away from the camera at the end of what looks to be a long, dark hallway. I flip to the next one. The figure, a person, is a bit closer. I flip again and now I can see that it is a skinny-looking guy standing in the hallway. He stands perfectly straight and the harsh light of the flash is reflected off his ghostly white body. It looks like he is naked. In the next picture he’s closer. My heart begins to thud. It’s Jamie. I recognize the color of his eyes and his general features, but his body is sickly thin, emaciated, emptied out.
In the next picture, he’s maybe ten feet from the camera. His arms are hidden behind his back. The grin from the earlier pictures is gone. His expression is completely flat. The change in him is jarring, there is a dead, sunken look in his eyes that terrifies me.
There are only a few pictures left. Trembling, I look at the next picture. Jamie is a few feet from the camera, now, and he’s holding out two objects, a hammer in one hand and a long, thick nail in the other. His head is cocked and he’s looking straight into the camera, his mouth is part-way open, as though he is about to say something.
Suddenly, I hear a loud slam that shakes the house. I drop the stack of pictures on the floor. I whirl around. There is nobody there, but I hear muffled voices from somewhere in the house. Fuck. I stoop to pick up the pictures and get them back into the box, but they have scattered everywhere and I hear footsteps now, pounding up stairs.
I leave the pictures and move as fast and as quietly as I can out of the room, down the hallway to the cream-colored door, which is still open. The voices are close now. I exit the door and pull it shut behind me, hoping that they haven’t seen me. I hustle down the stairs, which make a cacophonous noise, and then I run through the back yard, back through the pines, around the house, and down the steps to sidewalk. I run as fast as I can for several blocks.
When I finally stop, I lean on a large oak tree, breathing hard and feeling the adrenaline releasing its grip on my body. It doesn’t seem like anyone has followed me from the house. It is dusk now, the sun is down. I try to orient myself but I don’t recognize where I am. When my breath comes back to me I walk down the street until I come to an intersection, but it isn’t marked with any signs. I arbitrarily go left, then backtrack when it looks like I am going down a mostly dark street with no houses. After a while and a few more intersections, I finally find myself on a street I recognize, which I follow until it leads back to campus. It’s completely dark by the time I get back to my dorm.
~
When I enter my room, Pete is sitting at his desk. I had forgotten about Pete. Then I remember that it’s Sunday, and here he is, of course, back from his weekend at home.
“Hey,” I say. Fuck. I remember Pete’s sheets. I look at his bed and see his sheets and comforter are clean and in place on his neatly made bed. My bed is still stripped bare to the mattress.
Pete turns to look at me, but doesn’t say anything. He turns back to his computer.
I begin to sputter. “H-hey, Pete. I… um, I’m really sorry about your sheets and stuff.”
I look around and see that all the mess has been pushed to my side of the room, by my desk and bed. Pete must have cleaned up, but just his side of the room.
“Look, dude, just don’t touch my shit, OK?” Pete says, staring at his computer. “And try to keep the room clean, like we talked about.”
“Yeah, totally,” I say, bending to pick up a few books from the ground. “Sorry, I had, um… a friend over and we made a mess.” I continued picking up papers.
“Whatever,” Pete says. He stands up and grabs his bag. “I’m going to the library.”
“OK. Hey listen, I’m sorry, Pete.”
The door slams. I put the papers I have collected down on my desk. One of them catches my eye, it is full of bizarre-looking structures. Chemical structures. I look closer. No, not chemical structures, intricate drawings of some sort of… mechanical device. It must be something of Pete’s. I put the paper on his desk by his keyboard.
My dirty sheets are still in my laundry hamper. There are clothes scattered everywhere in the room. I am not sure what is clean and what is dirty so I load all the clothes I can find — almost all the clothes I have, pretty much — into the rank-smelling hamper, grab my detergent and head down to the laundry room. Every machine is being used, as usual for a Sunday night. I leave my laundry there and go back upstairs.
I sit at my computer and sigh. On top of everything going on I have another week of classes ahead. I move my mouse to deactivate my screen saver. There are a couple of notifications on AIM. One from Mahan.
MahanForPresident2020: You and Nadiyah?!?!!?!?!!??!?!
Sent yesterday afternoon.
And one from Nadiyah.
BrasilieraCarioca: Hey
Sent today, just fifteen minutes ago.
I scroll through the rest of my contacts, looking for Jamie. I don’t find him. I scroll again, slower. I don’t see his handle in my contacts or in my recent chats. With a chill, I realize he must have deleted the evidence of our chat. Maybe he did it before he left the room last night. Or maybe he did it remotely.
A sick realization descends on me. He is in control. He is manipulating me. Does he know that I know? It probably doesn’t matter, as long as his hands are on the strings. Can he read my thoughts?
He can probably track my location, and it is obvious that he can put thoughts into my head, but for some reason, I don’t believe he is listening to my thoughts, at least not yet. I have to act quickly.
Who can I trust? I rule out all of my friends on campus — Jamie could get to them too easily. I think about my parents, my sister, but decide not to bring them or anyone else in my family into this, for their safety. Who else do I even know? The list of people in my life suddenly seems very small.
My thoughts land on a friend from high school, Carl, from the soccer team. We weren’t super close, but he had hung out with me a few times the summer after Zahra broke up with me. He is in college, too, closer to home. I haven’t been in touch with him for a long time, but it wouldn’t matter. Carl is solid. I picture him in my mind, remember his easy-going smile and laid-back attitude. Thinking about him, I realize that I miss him. He is a really great guy, and was a friend to me when I needed one.
I open my email. There are a bunch of unread messages, mostly spam, but there’s one from my analytical chem TA. I click it.
Amir, I need to meet with you about the problem set you turned in. Do you have time before class Monday? Let me know.
I wonder for a second what that is about but I don’t have time to deal with that right now. I pull up a blank email draft and begin to write a message to Carl. I type slowly and keep my eyes glued to the screen as I write. If Jamie is watching, through me somehow, I want him to see the message, to know that I am on to him and that I am circumventing his machinations.
Hey Carl, do me a favor? I am being monitored so can’t explain fully. I might be in danger. If anything happens to me, tell the authorities to investigate the name below. DO NOT tell my family about this, they will freak out. I will write more later when safe to do so. Thanks — Amir.
I hit enter a few times and type Jamie’s first and last name, then hit send. I feel relief as soon as I’ve done so. I’m doing something, finally. I’m fighting back. I take a deep breath. I feel like I have achieved a small layer of security.
I lean back in my chair and rub my temples. I am sweaty and exhausted and I stink from walking around all day in the heat. I need a shower and rest. Ugh. I remember that my laundry is still downstairs. I strip to my underwear and grab my towel. I’ll go shower after putting my clothes in the wash.
I head for the stairs at the end of the hallway to get down to the basement. I hurry, since I am just wearing a towel over a pair of boxer briefs and I don’t really want to encounter anyone. Luckily there isn’t anyone in the hallway, and I am relieved to find the stairs empty, too.
It is an old building, one of the historic Gothic dorms on campus. The walls of the stairwell are ancient, concrete and stone, with mysterious exposed pipes that are constantly making ominous creaking noises. I feel a little dizzy when I finally get to the bottom of the stairwell. I steady myself on the handle of the door leading into the basement hallway. Why is it is always so hot down here? Sweat has broken out on my forehead, chest and shoulders. When my head stops spinning, I proceed through the door.
The long basement hallway stretches before me. There is a loud clanking sound, muffled through concrete as I walk. The sound is emanating from behind one of the many mysterious locked doors that line the hallway. I make a left, then a right, toward the laundry room, which is tucked away in a remote corner of the sprawling basement. There are signs with arrows pointing the way — at least there were when I moved in. I don’t see them now, but I know the way.
I walk for what seems like a long time down the third hallway and come to another intersection. Did I miss the laundry room? I turn around and walk back a bit, but there are no doors, no brightly lighted room with washers and dryers lined up against the far wall. I turn around again. Maybe I forgot a turn. Back at the intersection, I go right. I walk for another minute, but this also looks wrong. I’m sweating profusely now, it is really hot. Maybe if I go all the way back to the stairwell I can reorient myself.
I head back, make a left at the intersection, but then I am in a hallway that looks completely unfamiliar. Shit. I stop and close my eyes, try to focus on how I got to where I am. I build a map of the basement in my head, and place myself in it based on where I’ve walked. A path illuminates itself in the map, this is where I need to go.
I begin to walk back, confidently now, along the route in my mind. It doesn’t matter that I don’t recognize the hallways because I am just retracing my steps. I unwrap my towel from around my waist, it’s just too hot. I feel sweat dripping down my face and neck, tracking down my back and down my chest. After a while, I am back to where the stairs should be. But there are no stairs, just another intersection.
“Fuck!”, I say, loudly, slamming the wall in frustration. I slump down and sit on the floor, holding my head in my hands, leaning back against the warm wall. I berate myself. I can’t catch a goddamn break, everything is going to pieces. I sit for a long moment, feeling myself sweat in the oppressively hot and humid air.
I notice that the walls aren’t concrete here, but what looks like fine, mosaic tile that extends around the corner to the right. The whole hallway in that direction is laid with tile — intricate patterns the color of light sand. I haul myself up to my feet and begin to follow the tiled hallway.
There’s steam in the air. Darker patterns begin to appear in the tile, stylized swirls depicting waves and water across the floor and walls. After several twists and turns, the hallway opens up and I step into a enormous circular chamber. In the center of the chamber is a large pool. The water is steaming, filling the room with mist. Around the edge of the pool is a tiled rim, a few feet wide, covered in more intricate designs. Large, domed lights are spaced evenly around the walls of the room and put out warm, yellow light. What is this place? I’ve certainly never been here before. I’ve heard rumors of a network of secret passages hidden under the campus, but never anything like this. It looks like some sort of bathing pool out of The Great Gatsby.
With a start, I realize there are other people in the chamber with me, two figures, male bodies, sitting on the far edge of the pool. The steam is almost completely obscuring them. I’m too shocked to say anything, and my feet are rooted in place. I can’t make out their faces.
One of them pushes himself down into the pool and begins to walk toward me. The water comes up to just above his waist, and as he walks, ripples V out to either side of him. When he approaches me, I see his face. The shock of recognition hits me, causing a sharp intake of breath.
Carl. The friend from home I just emailed, minutes ago. What the fuck? Despite the steam and heat in the room, I feel a cold wave of terror that raises every hair on my body. I want to run, but I am paralyzed with fear.
Carl stops a few feet from the rim of the pool where I’m standing. He smiles up at me.
“Hello Amir”, he says.
I am too stunned to reply. How is this possible? Is Carl part of this? How did he get here? Did Jamie get to him that fast?
It is definitely Carl. His strawberry blond hair is cropped close to the sides of his head, longer on top. His eyes are exactly how I remember them; clear blue, like the sky, offset by faint, golden-tinged eyebrows and a spray of tawny freckles across his nose and cheeks. The freckles extend to his shoulders and speckle his chest, but the rest of his body is pale, lean, compact, and muscular. Just as I remember it from when we were teammates, working out together every morning. Looking at him, I feel my anxiety begin to melt. It’s Carl. I feel a surge of blood to my dick, a pulse of desire in my belly.
“It’s good to see you again, buddy,” Carl says.
He gestures for me to enter the pool. I feel my body begin to comply, take a step forward, but I force myself to stop. My mind begins to fog, my vision blurs, and I feel a sharp pain along my spine. I grunt. I feel my body move forward again, against my resistance. The pain increases. I force my legs to stop, and I feel pain shoot down the sides of both my legs.
“Amir, hey — relax,” Carl says. “Don’t fight, just let it happen.”
I am breathing hard now. Sweat is pouring off of me. I keep fighting with my body, trying to assert control. Carl keeps talking to me in a soothing tone. After a moment, I can’t struggle any more, the pain is too much. I let myself focus on Carl’s voice. His words are like a balm on my mind. Here is Carl, my friend, someone familiar. He won’t hurt me, I should trust him.
I relax and feel my body move to the edge of the pool. I sit down and put my feet into the water. It is wonderfully hot. The heat radiates into my feet and calves. Carl moves toward me and puts his hands on my knees, then runs his hands up the outside of my thighs as he comes to stand between my legs.
Up close in the dim, yellow light, his eyes are beautiful. I see the lightest dusting of blond hair on his cheeks, chest and arms.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, quietly, and he leans into me. His hands come up to my chest and he turns his head up to kiss my mouth. I bend to kiss him. I feel the fullness of his lips against mine, the sweet, ripened taste of him. My whole body aches with lust.
He grabs the elastic of my underwear and gives a tug. I shift my weight to let him pull them down, down over my knees, off of me completely. He is naked, too, standing in the water. I push off the edge of the pool to stand next to him in the water, and I am momentarily surprised at how small he is. I had forgotten the huge difference in size between us. His head is level with my chest, and every feature of his body is finer, more diminutive than mine. We embrace, and I feel my erection press against his stomach.
He grabs my cock, just underneath the surface of the water and begins to stroke it. I feel my mind dissolve into the pleasure of being with him, his smooth, perfect body, the taste of his mouth lingering on my tongue. I grab him and push him up against the edge of the pool, overcome with desire.
My hands move to his ass; I feel the luxurious give of his rounded flesh. I pull him up and feel his legs wrap around me and the stiffness of his erection against my belly. I press my fingers between his ass cheeks, feeling for his hole. He moans when I find it and push against it, feeling its supple resilience.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he whispers in my ear as I grind my body against his. His hands are in my hair and beard as I grind against him, my tongue in his mouth and my fingers pushing up against his hole.
I feel a brief surge fear. This is not right. And then a flash of pain in my temple in reflex to my resistance. But then, Carl’s mouth is on mine again, and I release myself to the immediacy of what is happening.