OH. My. Fuck.
Jack was gonna strip. He was seriously gonna strip and go
skinny-dipping, right there, right then. I knew that look on his face.
“Ah… Jack? What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re about to get naked.”
“Finish your beer and grab another,” he told me. “I’m in the mood
to feel young and daring again. Like the old days at the quarry. I wanna feel
free again, Hux. Don’t you?”
I chugged down the rest of another bottle in one gulp, watching as
his shirt came off, revealing that toned, smooth torso of his.
“You seriously wanna go skinny-dipping?”
He unraveled the bandage around his hand. He unbuttoned his
shorts, then unzipped them. “Why not?”
He dropped his shorts to the jetty boards and stepped out of them.
Then, sliding his thumbs under the waistband of his briefs at the hips, he
pushed his underwear down the length of his strong legs, kicked them out from
under his feet, and stood upright in all his naked glory.
I stared up at him, trying to keep my mouth shut, my eyes close to
watering as I marveled at his perfect form, his handsome face smiling somewhat
nervously back down at me. His muscles were white in the bright sunlight. His
nipples were hard even though the air was hot and still. His cock, the one I
had tried so many times not to stare at, was flaccid and thick, but I could see
it was gaining length with each passing moment that I stared at it.
I wondered whether I was allowed to stare at it, now that I had
come out.
Or whether it was completely off limits forever.
As if to answer my question, Jack said, “It’s okay, you can look
at it. I don’t mind. In fact, I think I kinda like it. I’m a single man now. So
are you. We’re already stripped bare. What do clothes matter now?”
God, he shrugged so casually I could have kissed him.
Before I had a chance, Jack launched himself off the jetty and
dived into the lake.
My heart was a thunderstorm of excitement.
Of terror.
Of panic when he didn’t surface after a few moments.
Suddenly he broke through the water and flicked his black hair out
of his eyes, and with that enticing grin of his he said, “Well? Are you coming
in?”
I sucked in a breath. “I would, but I’m kinda… you know.”
Jack just laughed. “Hard again?”
I nodded almost guiltily, but Jack just responded with, “I’d be
insulted if you weren’t, knowing what I know now. So, are you coming in or
what?”
He splashed me with water and drenched my shirt and shorts. He
seemed determined to get me wet, either in or out of clothes.
“Okay, okay. Calm down, Flipper.”
He made a dolphin noise then turned and dipped under the water,
the moons of his bare ass briefly breaking the surface before he submerged.
“You fucking tease,” I muttered to myself as I watched his air
bubbles leave a trail through the water, heading away from me. “You have no
idea what you’re doing to me.”
Or did he?
He surfaced again and called out once more, “Come on!” before
breast-stroking his way to the middle of the lake.
I took a deep breath and stood from the edge of the jetty. I
hesitated a moment longer, enough to make me try and imagine what would happen
next. Naturally one of the many fantasies I’d kept buried deep my entire life
began playing in my head.
The cool, shimmering water.
The movement of our feet treading water to keep us afloat.
The kiss I would suddenly steal, wet and tender.
And his reaction?
“Just keep your shit together,” I warned myself quietly. “He’s
trying to prove that things are still normal between us. Don’t fuck it up.”
With another breath I peeled my T-shirt off and began to unzip my
shorts. The bulge in my crotch was impossible to hide so there was no point
trying. All I could do was act like it was no big deal. Like everything was
still normal between us, right?
Anxiously I pushed my shorts down to my ankles and stepped out of
them.
As I did, my enormous hard-on slapped up against my hairy belly.
“Woah,” called Jack from the lake. “You really do need to keep a
leash on that thing, don’t ya.”
I felt myself blush, but I knew there was no malice in his remark.
Hell, he was just using humor to deal with the situation, to make it feel like
this was no biggie, excuse the pun. After all, he would have made the same joke
before he knew I was gay, so why hold back from using it now?
“Jealous much,” I joked back. “Envy won’t make yours any bigger,
you know.”
Yes, everything was just as it had always been.
At least that was the line we were both trying to walk. We sounded
like teenagers unable to face the situation with any amount of seriousness. We
relied on wisecracks to avoid my coming out turning our friendship into a train
wreck. We chose levity over gravity, as men often do. Was I truly expecting
anything else?
I wondered if he had detected the overcompensation in my words. I
wondered if he knew he was trying too hard to overcompensate too. Or whether he
was convinced by his own denial that me being gay changed nothing.
I honestly didn’t know what he was thinking.
I wasn’t sure he even knew himself.
All I knew was, I couldn’t stand there a moment longer thinking
about it.
Quickly I dived into the lake, swimming as far as I could under
the water before breaking the surface and freestyling toward him. I stopped
swimming and started treading water a short distance from him. I wouldn’t allow
myself to get any closer.
“Okay, so you win. I’m wet. I’m naked. We’re skinny-dipping. Happy
now?” I asked.
It was Jack who paddled closer to me, stopping within a few feet
of me. Our arms swished the water and my fingers accidentally brushed his
forearm. I felt my hard dick flinch. I tried to glance down, to see if my cock
was noticeable through the water. The lake was crisp and clear and the shape of
my dick rippled under the waves, unmistakeably hard.
But then again, so was Jack’s.
Water splashed into my mouth. I swallowed some of it and coughed
up the rest, quickly looking up before I got caught eyeing Jack’s hard-on.
It was too late.
“Yes, I’m happy now,” he said, answering my question. “See? Not
threatened. Nothing’s changed. Just like the old days.”
Playfully he lunged at me in the water and pushed me under. I got
a breath of air just before disappearing under the surface, then wrestled my
way out of his grip. For a moment I was there, submerged and directly facing
his distinctly erect penis.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I broke the surface with a splash, sucked in a lungful of air and
said, “Okay, wait. Stop. I have to say something.”
Jack was about to splash me again but he saw the troubled look on
my face and stopped. “Hux? What’s the matter?”
“This,” I said, gesturing to the two of us. “This is the matter.
Us pretending that nothing’s changed when in fact a lot has changed. Jack, I
just told you I’m gay. I know it’s still the same old me, but that doesn’t mean
I want to shrug off that fact that the two of us should maybe try to deal with
who I am now. I can finally be myself around you. I don’t want to keep
pretending to be someone when you’re only seeing half the man I am. I want you
to know all of me.”
For a moment I almost kept going. I almost blurted out how much I
loved him, how I had been in love with him since the day we met. But I slammed
the door on that fast. Coming out to him was already a big deal and he was
trying to deal with it as best he could. He didn’t need me to bury him in an
avalanche of secrets and revelations.
And so I held it in.
We treaded water for a few moments longer, just looking at one
another.
Then quietly Jack said, “I do wanna know all of you, Hux.” He
paused and added, “But that’s not all I want. There’s something else.”
“What is it?”
“I want you to kiss me.”
I creased my brow and squinted my eyes at him, as though the words
I’d heard couldn’t possibly be the same words he just said. “What did you say?”
It took him a while to repeat it, as though he was considering
backing out and changing his words to something else. But he didn’t. “I said I
want you to kiss me. Will you kiss me?”
I kinda gave a half-smile of disbelief. My face didn’t know what
it wanted to do. “What are you saying? Are you saying now that I’m out you’re
feeling all… I dunno… gay curious? I think you’ve had one too many beers. Are
you drunk?”
Jack shrugged and his arms made angel-wing movements through the
water. He looked more beautiful to me in that confused moment than ever before.
I had no idea why I insisted on asking questions and delaying something I’d
dreamt of almost my entire life. Maybe I was having trouble accepting that what
was happening was indeed real and not another fantasy. Maybe now that my wish
might finally come true, I was petrified of what consequences it might hold. Or
maybe I was holding back, terrified he was about to burst out laughing at any
second and tell me he was just joking. My heart couldn’t have survived that
kind of taunting and rejection.
But Jack didn’t laugh.
His gaze didn’t flinch, and neither did the earnest expression on
his face. “I’m not drunk. Well, not that drunk. But maybe I am a little…
I dunno… gay curious, maybe? I don’t really know. I don’t know what I want
anymore. I don’t really know who I am. I’ve been with Sophie for so long, I’m
not sure who I’ve grown into. Part of me doesn’t even want to find out.” He
swam closer to me then and added, “But part of me does.”
My heart was a drummer with delusions of grandeur. My stomach was
a sheet in a washing machine, twisting itself into knots. I didn’t know what to
say other than, “You want a kiss?”
Jack paused. Then nodded. “I do. But not here. Take me inside.
Take me to your bed.”
