Page 43 of Muscle Cub

Right now, I mostly looked red. My shoulders and forehead were sunburned, my cheeks were flushed. The medication had surely worn off by this point, but my blood pressure was probably a little elevated from lack of sleep.

My lips looked like I’d been doing a lot of making out and sucking dick.

My dick was sore, nearly raw from overuse, but, at the thought of all that Austin and I had done to each other, it began to swell.

I spat on my fingertips and stroked myself off into the sink basin in record time. I couldn’t believe I’d manage to come again. It hurt a little, and the size of the ejaculation was minuscule. I was well and truly spent. This was beyond record-breaking for me, even taking into account my freshman year of college. Those first few months away from home, I’d been insatiable. Until I’d met Charles.

I stood under the spray for ten minutes until I almost fell asleep on my feet. I should have toweled off and gone straight to bed, but I hoped I might hear from Austin.

I checked my phone again, not really expecting a reply. It was still early. They wouldn’t even have served dinner yet. I put on some basketball shorts and a clean T-shirt, padded back downstairs to the living room, turned on the TV, and flung myself onto the sofa.

The last thing I remembered was the hypnotic murmur of talking heads on cable news.

I opened my eyes to a darkened room with window-shaped blocks of amber-colored streetlight on the walls.

I lunged for my phone.

It was quarter past midnight, and there were new text notifications.

I swung my feet to the floor and sat up straight, simultaneously overjoyed that Austin might have texted me back and shattered that I had missed it. I swiped open the screen and found messages from hours ago. One from my sister, Veronica, wanting to know if I’d made it home okay, and three from Eric that were only progressively growing strands of question marks.

Nothing from Austin.

Was I’ll message later another form of I’ll swing by?

I was disappointed, embarrassed, and annoyed that I’d hung my hopes on someone who was probably at a nighttime pool party or in a bathhouse full of naked men. There might’ve only been a small crowd left, but they’d still number in the dozens at least.

I trudged upstairs and flopped onto my bed. My real bed. I burrowed into my down pillows hoping their cool familiarity could drown out the images of Austin with the dozens of men who’d been biding their time all weekend, waiting for me to leave…

I awoke to full morning sunlight. Shocked I’d slept so long, so hard, so late, I tapped my phone to check the time.

There were five new messages.

One from Eric demanding I call him when I got up.

And four from Austin Fox.

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I stared at his name above the messages, afraid if I blinked Austin would resolve itself into another similar name.

Glad you made it home safe!

I’m really glad you came! Smiling devil emoji. Face with hearts emoji.

I love this pic!

The first three texts were time stamped twelve forty-five a.m., but the fourth had been sent at one twenty:

You probably crashed early. Sleep well!

The flush of joy—he’d texted me back!—was chilled by an immediate stab of regret. I’d missed the chance to respond in real time.

But he’d taken his phone and hiked all the way out the front gate to the main road not once but twice. He’d thought of me explicitly on at least two separate occasions, and it was entirely plausible he’d been thinking about me for an extended period of time.

Of course, there was no way I could know for sure how he might have spent the two intervening hours…

I shook my head. It was too early in the day—and too soon in my knowing him—for this much emotional whiplash.