Pleasure Meeting You

"Something not-so-good happened and I wanted to hear your voice."

Jack listened to the answering silence on his cell phone before pulling it away from his ear and checking that he still had some battery and a signal. After confirming that he had both, he checked for the person on the other end. "You there, Simon?"

"Yeah."

The one word answer forced by a direct question pleasantly reminded Jack that his conversational partner wasn't the chattiest of guys. Even so, just hearing that yeah soothed Jack's nerves a bit and he found his pace slowing, no longer so frantic as he strode down the sidewalk. "Where are you?"

"My room."

Jack couldn't help remembering the previous weekend, when he'd introduced Simon to his friends in that very same dorm room. Flushing slightly, he smiled and asked, "Yeah? Doing what?"

"Reading."

"An assignment?"

"Yeah."

The heartbreak of Jack's morning faded just a little bit more when, as expected, Simon offered no further information after the yeah. Jack grinned wider and found himself deviating from the path to history class. Surely Miles could give him the notes.

After getting his directional bearing and heading away from the lecture hall, Jack focused on smoothly transitioning to a topic capable of coaxing more than a yeah from Simon. "Okay. Without thinking about it, list five people who have impacted your life and the lives of others in a positive way."

"Uh... What?"

Jack repeated himself, reiterating, "Quickly. Without thinking about it. The first five names that pop into your head."

"Mmm...Okay. All right. Let's see... Siddhartha Gautama, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela..."

As Simon paused, presumably to think of the final name for his list, Jack reflected on the danger of immersing yourself too deeply in historical studies. He tried to think of a non-offensive way to explain that now, in this new age of mass communication and instant information, people were no longer limited to acts of spirituality, saintliness, and shit in order to initiate positive change.

Suddenly he realized Simon still hadn't listed the fifth name, and there was no way he was struggling to come up with somebody. Intrigued, Jack prompted, "Who's the fifth person? No thinking up someone new. The whole point is to tell me who originally popped into your head."

After a brief silence Simon gave an inaudible answer.

Jack moved the phone to his other hand and stretched his neck muscles for a few seconds before asking, "Who?"

"It's not like the five people are in any kind of order or anything...I mean there are hundreds of people...Oh, whatever. The fifth person who jumped into my head as having a positive impact on my life was you."

Jack's raised his eyebrows, incredulous. "Me? Why?" He kept walking, not bothered at all as a new silence lasted for half a block.

Simon finally cracked and answered the question with a trace of defiant irritation in his tone. "Well, if I had to narrow it down to one thing, I'd have to say because you showed me that public dick touching is okay, although I guess the impact that will have on the lives of others is yet to be determined."

The lecture on old-school versus new-school methods of impacting global society flew out of Jack's mind at the close of that surprisingly long and spirited speech. Not only had Simon put him in the exalted company of Buddha, Gandhi, MLK Jr. and Nelson Mandela, he'd also said "public dick touching".

Jack's euphoria was cut short when Simon deflected the conversational spotlight by asking a question of his own. "What not-so-good-thing happened?"

Exhaling heavily, Jack stepped around a group of girls huddled conversationally in the middle of the sidewalk. He wished he hadn't brought up the not-so-good thing, but since he had there was no graceful way around telling the story. Maybe the telling would somehow purge the negativity of the experience...or something.

He picked a point to serve as the beginning and started, reluctantly, to answer Simon's question. "I did another plate, for my ceramics class. A big one, you know? Like that you'd serve sliced up turkey or something on?"

"Like a platter?"

"Yeah. A platter. So...Are you sure you can talk? You need to be anywhere, or keep reading?" Hearing Simon's voice was one thing. Hearing his own, recounting events recent enough to still be a bit raw, was a different matter.

"I'm good. What happened with the turkey plate?"

"Ahhh...Okay. All right. So...I tried really hard with this one. I mean, I always try hard, but this one was the best piece yet, you know?"

"Yeah?"

Jack's stopped walking and lifted his gaze, watching for the traffic light to grant permission for his restless legs to continue moving. "Yeah. Man, I spent so much time on it, and--not to brag--but it was perfect. For real. The perfect colors, the perfect size, the perfect shape, the perfect lettering...just perfect. The whole quote fit, and would have been totally covered by the roast beef or whatever until you got down to the bottom. Then, all the holiday dinner guests would've been all stuffed, sleepy, and happy, with that brain chemical thing going on...you know...that thing?"

"Serotonin?"

Jack's long strides carried him past the tangle of students moving into the intersection as he continued his explanation. "Yeah, they'd have that going on, and then one person would be just alert enough to be like, 'Hey, check out that cool platter. Wait...are those words? What does that say?' Then the host or hostess would answer, 'Oh, this? This is one of Jack Lundgren's pieces. You know...the ones with the profanely altered Nietzsche quotes?' Then, with the whole table sort of half-listening, the host or hostess would hold it up and read, 'Is man one of God's blunders, or is God one of man's fucked-up blunders.' Then, everybody would be snapped out of their gorged stupor and try to talk that shit out, especially if it were Christmas or Easter or something like that, you know?"

Jack paused his story to take a breath, but his walking pace had sped to what men shorter than six-foot-four may have thought of as a steady jog. He waited for Simon's response.

"Mmmmmm... Yeah. That would be....Yeah."

"In the original design it said, 'you bloated fucks' at the end, but I shortened it, Not only to make it fit, but so it wouldn't actually offend anybody. I mean, I want to people to wake up and think, but I'm not trying to be deliberately offensive or anything."

Jack took Simon's answering silence as assent. He slowed again as he neared his impromptu destination. For the first time since the conversation had started he looked around at the milling groups of students as they laughed, talked, studied, and rushed to class. Despite the vast differences in attitude and appearance, all of the students Jack saw had one thing in common: They were all maddeningly oblivious to the Jackcentric tragedy that had rocked the worlds of art and dinnerware that very morning. Glaring as he passed a particularly joyful looking group, he forced himself to continue telling the most difficult part.

"Okay. So. Anyone who'd finished a piece on Monday was going to have their stuff fired in the kiln last night. I could not wait. I ran all the way over to the ceramics studio this morning to see it. I went to the shelves with the finished pieces, and it...I saw it...it was..." Jack fell silent as the words stuck in his throat.

"Oh, man... What happened, Jack? Did something bad happen to the man/God/roast beef dish?"

Jack stopped abruptly and looked up at the building directly in front of him. He pointedly changed the subject. "Actually, I'm right outside your dorm ."

"Yeah?"

Jack, who at this point was becoming fluent in yeah-speak, correctly interpreted that as in invitation to come up. He followed a group of students into the dorm and headed for the first staircase. "You know what? Some girl tore into me in class on Monday. Everyone was just quietly working on their pieces...painting, glazing, whatever...and out of nowhere this shitty-coil-pot making stranger just came completely unglued. She started raving in some rake-up-the-ass way about how Nietzsche's an over-rated, illogical lunatic. I mean, I know the guy was all over the place and he died nuts--maybe even from syphilis or something, but...fuck. Can't illogical, crazy, syphilis-having people come up with life altering shit sometimes? You don't have to be a saint, or an ascetic, or a freaking genius to send positive ripples out into the world...you know?"

Jack was halfway up the second flight of stairs leading to Simon's room before Simon figured out a response was both expected of him and needed from him.

"I have my dad's old copy of Human, All Too Human, and it's all marked up. Some from him, some from me."

Jack's frustration towards stranger-girl gave way to a feeling of warm affection at the first mention Simon had ever made of his father, and the fact that the painful subject had been broached for the purposes of calming Jack and expressing a sympathetic interest. Not wanting to show ingratitude by pushing, Jack blurted out the thought foremost in his mind at that moment. "God, I love your voice."

He lengthened his stride to take the final staircase two steps at a time. "Oh, hey... Is your roommate home? Not that it matters or anything. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes."

A strangled noise travelled through the phone, followed by the sound of Simon's clearing his throat before he could finally deliver his answer.

"No. He pretty much lives at the frat. Just comes here to get a different set of clothes every now and again."

Jack could hear his knock both right in front of him and through the phone receiver. "That's me. I'm hanging up."

He clicked his phone off seconds before Simon swung the door open, disheveled as always in a faded t-shirt, wrinkled pants, and socks half hanging off of his feet.

Jack entered the room, taking a quick visual inventory: clothes on chairs, one desk immaculate and one desk strewn with papers and books, top bunk pristinely made and bottom bunk a tousled mess of striped sheets and navy comforter...and then Jack found his attention unwilling to stray from the bottom bunk.

Three Jack-sized steps brought him next to the bed where he took his messenger bag from his shoulder and lowered it to the floor. He felt a reflexive flash of interest as he lowered his body onto Simon's bunk, remembering what had happened there six short days ago. His body stirred at the memory, but this visit had a tamer purpose.

He waited patiently through a couple of conversational false starts until Simon, shifting from foot to foot in the center of the room, had successfully offered him a cold drink.

Looking exceedingly pleased with himself, Simon managed a few seconds of eye contact and an almost-smile as he handed Jack a frosty cold bottle of overpriced vitamin water from the absent roommate's fridge.

Jack took a moment to press the cool condensation against his forehead before opening the bottle and drinking half of it down. His adrenaline rush had just about settled, but the close proximity of Simon stirred him up in a considerably more enjoyable way. He took pleasure not only in having Simon several feet away on the bed, but also in the guardedly shy way he perched on the very edge, arms gripping the wooden frame of the bunk.

He didn't notice the silence that had stretched comfortably between them until he'd finished his last swallow and placed the empty bottle on the floor by his bag. Not wanting to relay the ending to his story in the middle of such a cozy moment, Jack decided to stall for time once more with some light small talk...something Simon would be interested in discussing. He resisted the temptation to steer the conversation back to Simon's changed views on public dick touching and came up with a more neutral topic. "Which do you fear more, death or obscurity?"

Simon looked at him, blinked, then shrugged and looked back down at the floor.

Charmed by Simon's reluctance to engage in light chit-chat, Jack pushed forward. "No, really...Think about it. If you had to pick, right this second, to be obscure forever but live a long life... or have an immediate, positive impact on the world that would last countless generations but your physical being would die tomorrow... Which would you pick?"

Simon plucked little tents up on his bed-sheet until he accepted that Jack was going to wait as long as it took for him to reply. "Ummm...I'm obscure and alive right now, and that seems to be working okay, so....I guess I'd say I'm more afraid of death."

Simon's low, steady voice speaking of his fear of death struck Jack as so freaking cute he felt even more soothed. He let his own answer to the question melt into the new silence wrapping around them, suddenly reluctant to hint at wishes of death over the terror of obscurity.

The concern that crept into Simon's expression hinted at his ability to pluck Jack's answer out of the quiet. The tilt of Simon's head as he turned to look at Jack mutely whispered the question that Jack kept avoiding. What happened this morning? What not-so-good thing happened to the turkey platter that's shaken you up so badly?

Jack knew it was time to stop stalling, but still couldn't bring himself to soil their companionable visit by speaking the obvious-by-now answer out loud. He pulled a bundle out of his bag and placed it carefully on the bed between them. His shoulders slumped forward as he carefully opened up the old towel that had been wrapped around what now could be seen as countless broken pieces of ceramic. The prized platter.

Jack handed a rectangular scrap of paper from inside of the bundle to Simon who silently read the printed words: "But God will smash the heads of his enemies, crushing the skulls of those who love their guilty ways. The Lord says, "I will bring my enemies down from Bashan; I will bring them up from the depths of the sea. You, my people, will wash your feet in their blood, and even your dogs will get their share!" (Psalms 68:21-23 NLT)

"That freaky shit was on top of the pieces when I went in today."

"Ahhh, Jack... I can't... I don't know what... I'm..." Simon reached for Jack, then froze, unsure. He began to withdraw.

Before he could pull his hand away Jack reached and pulled it up towards his face, pressing a soft kiss into the palm before releasing it and gently taking the scrap of paper from Simon's other hand.

"Stuff breaks all the time in the kiln. Well, mine doesn't usually, but there's always the chance of it getting bumped or dropped or something. If it were an honest accident I'd have dealt with it, you know? It's the destruction that gets me. I mean...what the fuck? Love thy neighbor unless he pisses you off? If your neighbor does that then find a way to shatter the fucker and freak him out with a spooky-assed quote, so sayeth the Lord? Crush the skulls of those who love their guilty ways? What...in...the...fuck. I've had Christian friends that were tolerant intellectuals, non-Christian friends who were intolerant dumb-fucks, and the reverse in both groups. You know what I've never bumped into in my real, day-to-day life, though?"

Simon waited expectantly while Jack sadly and carefully gathered up the pieces of ceramic and replaced them in the towel, then back in his bag.

"I've never before been the target of an anonymous attack from someone unwilling to state their opinion and and stand behind it. Quoting creepy passages from the most contradictory book ever written does not count as stating an opinion. This makes the Nietzsche hater look like a goddess of reason and kindness. I don't care if people disagree with me. Hell, I love it when people disagree with me. Wake yourself up, wake me up, talk to me, discuss shit with me. Think and make me think, you know? I live for that. But someone who silently hides behind the threatening words of a so-called holy book, and just deliberately destroys beautiful things? That I don't understand. Because you know what, Simon? It was beautiful. It was beautiful."

Sighing heavily, Jack slumped down on Simon's bed and stretched his legs to their full length.

Simon turned to face Jack a little more while still leaving a safe distance between them on the bed. "Well, I guess you made someone think, and whatever they were thinking made them so uncomfortable that they felt like something had to break."

Jack kicked listlessly out of his sandals, then began half-heartedly trying to capture the trailing ends of Simon's socks with his bare feet.

The smile Simon was too shy to allow on his lips shone in his eyes as the first sock was successfully pulled off. He forgot to be self-conscious for a moment as he pushed forwards with Plan Cheer Up Jack.

"Actually, the plate thing could end up even better this way--like--you could glue as many pieces as possible back together, and...and something. Like maybe you could attach the spooky quote to the the plate somewhere, maybe with that shiny, finishing stuff..."

"Glaze?" Jack raised his eyebrows to indicate a polite level of interest as he slid his body ridiculously low on the bunk and stretched his long legs in a continued effort to trap and remove Simon's other sock.

"Yeah. You could attach it with that, or however you attach stuff to ceramic, and then on the bottom of it you could write....I don't know. You could write something like...."

Simon moved his leg closer to Jack to facilitate the sock removal project, as though he couldn't bear to see Jack struggling to achieve any goal right now, regardless of the goal's silliness factor. The last of his partially formed idea slipped from his tongue as the second sock began slipping from his foot. "Maybe you could write a wake-up-and-think kind of thing about being broken, and faith, and...and God...and the Nietzsche quote. You could even say 'fuck' again if you wanted."

Jack let the sock he held monkey-style between his feet fall to the floor. He sat up and looked directly at Simon, now with unfeigned interest in what he was saying. "You really couldn't wash the platter, or use it for dinner or anything..."

"Nah. The point wouldn't be to use it like you'd use your other dishes. It wouldn't be a platter, or a plate or whatever anymore. It would be like a...what do you call those things? A plaque. It would be a plaque, like when you win an award? Because it's tangible proof that you got inside of someone's head. You woke them up and got them thinking so much that they actually planned this, you know? They came up with the idea, searched out a Bible quote, wrote it down, figured out when and how to sneak in to break it, and--right now--is thinking about it even more, waiting for your reaction. And after you fix it, make it even better, and turn it in without giving the reaction that person expects, they'll really be thinking about it."

And just like that, by the sheer force of the longest series of words Jack had ever heard Simon string together, the shattered man/God/roast beef plate wrapped in an ancient towel returned to its rightful place as Jack's favorite piece.

Forgetting Simon's endearing awkwardness, Jack leaned over and wrapped both arms around him. In response to Simon's reflexive stiffening, Jack merely tightened his hold, as if embracing the awkwardness itself until it melted away in the face of such honest affection. As Simon's body relaxed into Jack's, going so far as to place a tentative hand on the small of Jack's back, Jack nuzzled into Simon's neck, murmuring, "Have I mentioned lately how much I love your voice?"

Simon's responsive, "I love yours, too" had just enough husky hesitation to communicate the context he was remembering Jack's voice speaking in, and the sorts of things he could remember Jack saying.

Taking care not to push Simon too far, too fast, Jack tested the waters by moving his lips slightly closer to Simon's ear and speaking softly. "Yeah? You mean this voice right here?"

Simon's other hand found its way to Jack's back and he took a deep breath before answering, "Yeah..." in a voice that had dropped another half octave.

Gently pulling back, Jack glanced sidelong at Simon and tried to gauge his comfort level. Simon's posture suggested uncertainty and hesitation, but the fingers absently hovering at the button to his pants told Jack enough to embolden him to take one more step.

"Then maybe you won't mind my telling you it's a little too warm in here for me, and I'll need to take my shirt off. Just my shirt. Just because I'm uncomfortably warm."

Jack slipped off his shirt and flung it to the floor, covering the bag that now held his path to an improved ceramics project rather than the heart-rending pieces of a destroyed one. Seeing Simon's breath quicken he urged, "Maybe you're feeling a little warm, too? Maybe you could take off your shirt. Just to feel a little more comfortable. If you want to..." He fell silent after that, not wanting to re-awaken the panic that he and his friends had stirred in Simon the last time they'd visited, and possibly moved just a little bit too quickly.

Simon fingered the hem of his own t-shirt for a moment before yanking it off and throwing it on the floor. He then quickly leaned forward a bit to rest his elbows on his knees, clasp his hands together, and stare at the floor as he sought to regain some equilibrium.

Fighting the urge to pin Simon to the bed and rub against him until he came right through his shorts, Jack scooted backwards a bit to rest against the wall. "Thanks, Simon. Thanks for listening, letting me come up and talk to you, and showing me a different way to look at what happened. I really appreciate it. Seriously."

Forgetting himself for a moment, Simon's body relaxed a bit and he turned to smile at Jack. "No problem."

As soon as Simon made eye contact with Jack his body tensed again, gaze sliding down to safer territory, yet he instinctively scooted back to sit closer, fingers once again fluttering uncertainly at the now-too-tight front of his pants.

Jack kept his voice low. "We don't have to do anything, Simon. We can just...you know...take the rest of this stuff off so it's not so damned tight and uncomfortable. And maybe, if we both feel like it, we could look. Would it be all right with you if we just looked? Even just for a minute?"

Simon swallowed hard at the idea, but his trembling fingers began unfastening his pants.

When they both had scrambled out of their remaining clothes they lay down on their sides, facing each other, in a comfortable habit born of their one evening together.

And they looked, pulses quickening and hands too unsure to do more than restlessly flex and remain at their own sides as they breathed each other in and ached to move, taste, and to touch.

Surprisingly, it was Simon who broke the silence with a shaky voice betraying both arousal and paralyzing self-consciousness. "I know I'm supposed to...actually, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do."

"There is no 'supposed to,'" Jack assured him as he eased forward just the slightest bit. "We don't need to follow some paint-by-numbers, I'm Gay for You path towards buttsex or anything. The only thing we're 'supposed to' do is stuff that feels comfortable and good to both of us."

He could think of a long list of stuff that would feel comfortable and good, but he had to admit the discomfort was feeling surprisingly good...the mind-altering frustration of Simon's erection less than an inch from his own, jerking forward with need...

Jack wet his bottom lip and tested to see if maybe, just maybe, Simon might be eased into doing just a little bit more. It was easy to keep his focus below the waist and avoid making discomfort-causing eye contact as he spoke. "Don't worry about 'supposed to', Simon. Just close your eyes for a minute. Trust me. I'm not going to do anything. Okay, now take where we are right now--naked, on your bed, second experience together--and see that in your head. Just trust me. Do it. Please?"

Simon's nervousness eased as he did exactly as Jack instructed. After half a minute his breathing became slightly ragged, and without seeming to realize it he wrapped his free hand around his erection and began giving himself slow, steady strokes as he watched the scene in his mind.

Jack moaned low in his throat and forced himself to keep his own hands where they were. "Tell me, Simon... What do you see us doing? We don't have to do any of it. There's no pressure. But what do you see, that you'd be comfortable actually doing? In theory, that is..."

"Okay." Simon took a deep breath and left his eyes closed, still slowly stroking. "We're... I see us..." Simon suddenly opened his eyes and withdrew his hand. He couldn't find a safe place to look until he'd rolled onto his back and could stare straight up at the top bunk. "I feel so stupid. I can't."

Jack rushed to reassure him. "I'll close my eyes. There...See? They're closed. I'm not looking at you. Hell, I'll even cover my closed eyes with my hands. Okay. Now...Trust me. Tell me."

After a few moments to gain courage from Jack's closed, covered eyes Simon began to speak. "I see you, keeping your eyes closed, and just letting me touch your...uh...touch you. Not to get you off or anything, but just...I don't know...touching. Without you looking at me, or expecting anything. I'm sorry- I know that's stupid."

Jack kept covering his eyes with his hands as he rolled onto his back. "You touching my cock has to be my favorite kind of stupid. You do whatever you want to do, when you feel comfortable enough to do it. If you don't want to do anything, that's okay, too...but I'll leave my eyes closed for a little bit, just in case."

It took twelve heartbeats of silence for Simon to work up the nerve to start shifting position, and each shift and creak of the mattress teased Jack to a state of unprecedented hardness. He wasn't looking at Simon, and he wasn't expecting anything, but the tantalizing tease of sightless, motionless waiting coaxed a several beads of precome from his impatiently twitching erection.

The trembling finger that traced through the wetness, then trailed softly down the shaft sent a jolt of primal pleasure straight through Jack's spine, reaching every nerve ending in his body. He was startled by the sound of his own voice growling, "Ahhh, fffuck yesss...."

Apparently emboldened by Jack's reaction, a thumb now formed a circle with the finger, and stroked all the way down, then slowly back up.

Maddened by his inability to see or reach for Simon, Jack spread his legs slightly and rocked his hips upward just a little...greedy for more.

The fingers' brief disappearance followed by the sound of Simon spitting inspired a barely whispered mantra of please, please, oh fuck yes...please from Jack until the sensual shock of returned touch eliminated his capability for speech. The hand gripped with surprising firmness and began stroking, balls to ridge, at a pace that increased with each of Jack's moans. Just as his body tensed with anticipation and he braced himself for the point of no return, the hand disappeared.

Dizzy from the denial, Jack opened his eyes and looked dazedly at Simon, who sat on the edge of the bed, morosely looking down at his feet.

"I'm sorry that was terrible. It's different when you're doing it to yourself...I mean, I know what I like, and on myself I can tell from how it feels when to speed up and everything. I'm really sorry."

Jack's need drove him past the point of hesitation. Without warning or apology he aggressively pulled and arranged until Simon lay directly on top of him. The aroused embarrassment and pleasure-tinged awkwardness playing across Simon's face and posture spurred Jack to spread his legs and raise his knees up on either side of Simon, bracing his feet flat against the mattress. He waited for Simon to brace his upper body, hands pressed against the mattress on either side of Jack's chest before refuting the apology.

"You're sorry?" He firmly held Simon's hips while pressing upward with his own, moaning into the silk-hard slide of cock on cock. "Fuck.. What you are is amazing. That felt sooo good. Your hand on my dick, stroking me off..."

Simon gave up trying to find a not-embarrassing place to look, choosing instead to close his eyes. Once the danger of accidental eye contact had been eliminated he surrendered to the sound and the feel of the naked body underneath him. His hips moved in subtle circles as he mouthed a word Jack felt certain was please.

"Please what? Just ask, Simon. Anything. Please what?"

"Please...Please talk. Talk...that way that you do, when you do things like this."

Jack stilled himself, trusting the current of his words to entice Simon to move. "Yeah? You want to hear me talk? Maybe tell you things like...when you move like that and make your dick rub up against mine it makes me want to stroke you off...suck you...flip you around so I can lick your never-touched asshole... Is that the kind of talk you like?"

Simon's gasp of shocked pleasure floated over the images still resonating in both of their minds. He began moving his hips with more purpose, first letting just the velvety-hard tips of their erections brush randomly against each other, then pressing his body down and making a concentrated effort to provide friction along their entire lengths.

"Mnh...Hell yeah, Simon. Like that. Fuck against my hard cock"

Jack could see his own desperation for completion mirrored in Simon's face, but the tug of too-dry skin against skin told him they'd have no choice but to break their rhythm for a moment. He wiggled his body against the mattress, shifting until his erection brushed against Simon's stomach. He quickly wet his palm then reached between them until he found Simon's erection. Careful not to spook him with eye contact or give him time to get nervous or self conscious, Jack continued to satisfy Simon's need to hear talk, as well as his own need to speak. "I'm glad to see you can keep it hard. You know why?"

Simon remained nervously braced over Jack's body as Jack spread his legs wider and tilted his hips, arranging himself until he could rub Simon's precome against his own entrance.

Jack's voice fell to a whisper. "Someday...and I hope that day is soon...this cock right here is going into my tight, loves-to-get-fucked, ass."

Simon momentarily forgot to be shy and self conscious. Face flushed red and hairline beaded with sweat he began fucking into Jack's hand, bumping against Jack's relaxed asshole with each downward thrust.

"Shit yesss....Just like that." The awkwardness of his arm's position, his dripping, untouched erection and his cock-teased ass heightened Jack's pleasure to the brink of pain.

Just when Simon appeared to be almost there, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked dangerously on the verge of finding his misplaced self-consciousness. He slowed his movements and had the look of pre-panic on his face.

Reluctantly letting go, Jack roughly flipped their positions. He quickly straddled Simon's legs, re-wet his palm, and resumed his grip on Simon...this time taking control of the stroking speed. "You're not slowing down. You're not stopping. You're fucking my hand until you come."

As the anxious look on Simon's face relaxed into surrender, Jack began simultaneously stroking himself with his left hand. He let his words flow, seducing and stroking with a suggestiveness as tangible as touch. "The first time we fuck I'll be on top, like this, doing all the work...'cause I fucking love doing all the work. Especially with a cock like this pushed up tight inside of me, staying hard while I ride."

Simon opened his mouth as though to speak, but remained silent, clutching the sheet.

"Is that the kind of talk you like? Talk about my ass tight around your hard dick? You like that?"

Jack felt his own release beginning to coil deep inside of him. His coordination became sloppy and his voice took on an edge of urgency. "Tell me, Simon. Tell me you'll fuck me, that you want to. Keep that dick hard and tell me you want to f..."

"I want to fuck you- god I want to fuck you...Ah, fuck--Jack I'm...I'm going to..."

Simon quickly replaced Jack's hand with his own as Jack's impending orgasm destroyed his ability to maintain a double-stroking rhythm.

Frantic with gratitude, Jack moved his right hand to furiously fist himself, pushed to the edge first by the words I want to fuck you, and then pushed over the edge by the tensing of Simon's body. Jack fell forward over him, bracing himself up with his left hand as Simon pulsed come onto both of their taut stomachs.

Jack grunted through his own completion as his muscles clenched and his hand stroked the last spurt of his own release to mix and cool with the wetness already covering both of them.

Jack dropped his right hand to the mattress and remained straddling Simon until the intensity had shuddered through him and he'd caught his breath. He opened his eyes to find Simon staring up at him with the pure fascination of the newly initiated...a fascination alive with the knowledge I was a part of that. His thoughts, when he was capable of thought, were of me. Raw emotion traveled between them as if on an electric current until Simon returned to himself enough to avert his eyes.

Even as he felt the loss of that moment ending, Jack was thankful for the chance to rest the trembling muscles in his legs. He eased himself between Simon and the wall, then watched as Simon did the best he could wiping himself up with the previously discarded socks before handing them to Jack. After a hasty clean-up of his own body, Jack tossed the socks into a pile that appeared to serve as a hamper.

For a full minute he sat, legs stretched in front of him, looking down where Simon lay fully sated relaxed to the borders of sleep. He strove to match his breaths with Simon's, working up the courage to ask the question that had been lurking in the corners of his mind since that morning.

When Simon sleepily opened his eyes and looked up towards Jack with a mix of curiosity and affection for several full seconds before shyly looking away, Jack found the rest of the courage he needed. "I do love my ways, just like that creepy Bible quote says...and I don't feel guilty about them. You think God's going to crush my skull, and feed me to dogs, or whatever?"

Startled, Simon looked directly into Jack's eyes. "No! No way. If there is a God, and I really hope there is, you're one of the things he did completely right. Like...like chameleons. And dragonflies. No old-testament-style skull smashing. Please don't ever even think anything like that."

This time it was Jack who withdrew from the eye contact's intimacy. For all of his sexual experience, he was utterly inexperienced at accepting the sort of sweet affection that came gift-wrapped in the suggestion that his merit eliminated the possibility of having his skull smashed by a vengeful, monotheistic deity. He closed his eyes and stretched out next to Simon. Leaning forward, he intended to brush a light kiss against Simon's cheek, but was surprised once more when Simon turned to softly capture the kiss with his lips.

As they lay completely naked, following the second time in one week that they'd masturbated together, the intensity of their first kiss overwhelmed them both simultaneously and they broke apart, hearts pounding.

Both Jack and Simon intuitively knew not to speak. Jack lightly stroked the tip of his middle finger along Simon's jawline, trusting the gesture to whisper, Trust me...Open up to me...I won't hurt you. The trembling of Simon's hand as it lightly cupped Jack's wrist answered, I'm scared, while the touch itself said, but I'm willing to take the risk.

Afternoon classes were forgotten that day as they lay, looking and touching, under the silent spell of feelings too intimate to be voiced.