Racing up the stairs behind him, a fucked-up ball of emotions rolled around in my head. In the span of less than an hour, I’d covered such a wide range of emotions I wondered if there was anything upon which I hadn’t touched.
Humiliated?Check.It was fairly difficult to sprint into the bumper of a car drivingawayfrom you without feeling humiliated.
Hopeful? In so many more ways thanI ever thought I’d be capable of. And no matter how deeply I dug to find the root sources of my hope, the seed upon which I constantly landed was Quinn.
Aroused? Too many fucking times. From the simple gesture of helping me into his car, to the apprehension over my well-being etched into his knotted brows, to the thought of entering his bedroom, I’d been turned on far more times than was normalfor a teenage boy on any given afternoon.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, the last emotion on that list was the one accompanying me as I walked over the threshold of his room. Plush, soft beige carpeting greeted my feet and because every physical sense I had was in overdrive, I could feel the energy transferring through me as my feet walked across the fibers.
Quinn sat at the computer chair,opening window after window, rambling on about some piece of information or another. As much as I wanted his help, my focus had evaporated the moment I’d stepped foot into his room. “Here, take a look.” I caught the last of Quinn’s words as I worked myself back into reality. He stood from the chair and held it out, gesturing for me to sit.
Without hesitating, I lowered myself into the seat. Almostmindlessly, I scrolled through the article he had pulled up. “Stop,” Quinn said, his mouth no more than a few inches from the shell of my ear. “Right there. That paragraph.” He reached over my shoulder, his forearm grazing my shirt. “Isn’t that exactly what you were looking for?” he asked, and if I didn’t get my shit together in approximately two point five seconds, I was going to look likeeven more of an idiot than I had when I ran into his car.
Magically, my eyes focused and my brain woke up at the same time. As the words registered in my head, I made the connection that he was right. “Yeah,” I said tentatively, as I kept reading. “Yeah,” this time more certain. “This is perfect, actually.”
“Great,” Quinn said, with a touch of victory in his voice. “Print out whatever you need.I have a few other ones up there, too,” he said, indicating the bar of tabs lining the top of his web browser. “I’m gonna go grab something from my bag downstairs,” he said before leaving the room.
With a few clicks of the mouse, I was sending it to the printer and then attempting to open another tab where he had an article lined up for me. While waiting for another tab to open, I leaned underthe desk to pull the article from the printer. As the electronic pings of the printer faded, another extremely distinguishable sound came to life. I gave it one more second to register before I moved abruptly to sit up. “What the?” I lost the ability to finish my question when my eyes landed on the very explicit scene of one guy fucking another guy bent over the footboard as if their lives dependedon it. “Oh shit,” I cursed.
With time standing still, I had no clue what to do. I’d just somehow managed to open up porn on Quinn’s computer. And then to find out that it was gay porn. I knew I needed to close the tab. I needed to shut it off. Fuck, at this point the computer needed to self-detonate.
But as my eyes focused on what was happening on the screen, I couldn’t look away. My dick throbbedpainfully. The heavy truth of my deepest secret came to life as the blood flowed to the tip of my dick. “Fuck,” I cursed to myself, letting the waves of arousal course through my body.
The world around me ceased to exist and my needy cock begged for attention. In the silence of my need, I failed to hear Quinn walking up the stairs. I didn’t notice him walking into the room and I certainly didn’tfeel him standing behind me, eyes glued to the same screen that was turning me on more than I ever had been.
“What? How?” Quinn’s softly muttered questions barely registered above the moaning and groaning coming from the computer.
He startled me, making me spin in my chair as if the world had just fallen off its axis. Glued to my seat, I looked up at him, my eyes frozen in fear. “I didn’t meanto,” I managed to say, despite the Sahara-like dryness in my mouth and throat.
“But you did,” he answered, his voice remarkably steady and calm considering what was playing out between us. “And you still are,” he added, tipping his head to the porn playing to our side. He brushed past me to mute the sound but left the images playing.
Caught in his trance, I could do nothing more than nod, lettingthe sinful tension sizzle in the air between us. Words formed in my mouth and tumbled forward on their own. “You like it? Gay porn?” I added as if it needed clarification.
Quinn nodded so fucking slowly I felt as if the entire exchange was playing in slow motion. His eyes remained glued to mine, leaving no room for laughter or playful banter. “A lot actually.” He was standing so close to me asI sat in the chair that I feared if he took another step forward something would happen, something from which I was certain there’d be no return. “But I’m gay, so I guess it’s just regular porn for me.” An awkward stillness followed the end of his statement and I had a feeling I knew what he was trying to ask, but he needed to say the words. I didn’t have the courage to say them on my own.
Ialso didn’t have the courage to stop staring into his blue eyes. Drowning in that heated sea of desire was the only thing I was capable of right now. And as if he could read my mind, as if he could see the inner turmoil spinning itself such a complicated web from which I’d never be free, he spoke the words I both feared and longed for. “What about you, Ryan? Are you gay?” he asked as if he alreadyknew the answer.
Despite the weakness shaking my legs and the rush of adrenalin racing in my heart, I stood up. Quinn had been so close I figured he would take a step back to give me some space, but he did the exact opposite, moving infinitesimally closer to me. Aside from the few seconds we’d shared looking at the erotic images on the screen, standing so close to Quinn. with his body againstmine, was the most heated moment of my life. He wasn’t touching me, but I felt his fingers dancing on my skin, his lips tentatively moving across mine, our bodies coming together like they’d been designed for one another. As my eyes roamed over his body, I caught the hard outline of his dick pressing against his fly. I saw him rubbing his fingertips along his thumbs as if the gentle motion of hisown touch would somehow stave off the need to feel my skin against his own. And then it clicked. He was waiting for me to make the first move, or at least waiting for me to let him know that his move would be accepted.
My fingers itched to touch his jawline so much so that without even thinking about it, I reached out for him. My breath hitched in my throat at the perfect mixture of soft skinand itchy scruff. “I don’t know,” I muttered a whisper of a response. “But,” I said, moving my lips to within a hair’s breadth from his. “I need to know.”
Before that moment, everything had been in black and white, shades of gray, dull and bland. But once our lips touched, color sprang to life behind my closed eyes. I was no expert in kissing, this being my first one, and all. Yet there was stillno doubt that this moment, this wet and gentle glide of our lips over one another’s, the tentative and small strokes of our tongues dancing together, the oh so soft touches of our fingers combing through each others’ hair, yes, without a question, this moment was the most alive I’d ever been.
Breathless and permanently altered in some significant way on which I simply couldn’t put my finger,I pulled away from Quinn. With my hand still in his hair, I opened my eyes only to meet his impossibly vibrant blue ones. “Well?” he asked, his lower lip quivering in wait of my response.
Empowered by my own need, I rested my other hand on his hip, letting my fingers dig into the small sliver of skin exposed between his shirt and his shorts. I pulled him up against my body. We both let out aragged exhale as my thighs met his, as my dick pressed against his own hardened length. “I might have to try again.” It was a lie through and through because the second our mouths came together, there was no denying it.
Not only was I certainly gay, but in my bones, I knew that I’d never be the same after today.
Not after Quinn.
This time when our lips met, there was something far needier drivingour actions. Frantic and frenzied, we pulled at each other as if the other person held the last breath of air we both needed to survive. Somehow, our feet twisted together and we fell back on the bed. Springs creaked and floorboards moaned in protest, but the only sounds coming from us were those of greedy desire mixed with unbridled need. “Ryan, wait.” He was incapable of catching his breathas he pulled away from me. Our legs knotted together like the thick roots of some ancient tree. With his hand on my cheek, he searched my eyes for the answers to all the unspeakable questions that had to be floating through his head right now. “What? I don’t… I mean, it’s all so confusing. What…?” His nonsense ramblings faded as he closed his eyes and tried to regain some of his composure.
“Whatdoes this mean?” I finished what I assumed the rest of his question would be.
Silently, he nodded before letting his forehead meet mine so gently I wondered if he was even real.
It most certainly felt like a dream.
