Why should I escape this weekend without my own heart getting broken? After all, I think I broke Li Pong's heart last night, so there is a certain irony there. She had wanted to know why I didn't want to come upstairs when I dropped her off at her place after the banquet was over, to become closer acquainted.."Don't you want to?" she asked.
"I am a man, of course, I... I always want to," I replied. Just not always with the right person, I thought. "Madam, amongst my many misdeeds, taking advantage of a woman has never been one of them."
"You are a good man." Li Pong smiled, with a dreamy look in her eyes. The kind of look that says 'I see husband potential.'
"Oh...don't be fooled by a few good manners," I responded. This had to be nipped in the bud.
"I know about bad men, but you are different. I know you are different."
"Different? Well, that is hard to deny," I said with a laugh. If she only knew! But of course she could not know, no one is allowed to know.
"Perhaps next time?" she asked with her last ounce of hope.
"About that... I don't think we should see each other again." I saw her eyes darken in despair. "As a gentleman, I can't..."
She knew now that I was making excuses instead of reasons. The light seemed to die in her eyes as she turned to go to her little apartment. "I am very tired now. You go now please."
The memory of this very emotionally draining encounter had kept me unusually silent on the trip out to the cabin, no doubt an early sign of the mental meltdown that would commence from my spending the weekend in a wilderness cabin, with Vin, all by ourselves. I couldn't even tell you what sights we might have passed on our way out there, it was all a blur.
7777777
I couldn't believe my eyes. I am suffering the torments as such would have broken Tantalus. I hardly had time to unpack my own things upon arriving at the cabin when Vin announces his intention to indulge in a late afternoon swim.
The problem lay in his choice of swim attire. When the entire team is together for an outing on the water, Vin has usually chosen large baggy style briefs, like you see the surfers wear. Instead the normally shy sharpshooter had chosen this day to wear a new Speedo. A new Speedo that was a cacophony of color, a near riot of cherry and tangerine flames streaming up over his firm ass to a tiny field of aqua concentric circles. Such a design could be considered hypnotic, though it might be the hidden treasures of undulating ass flesh below that I found hypnotic.
Vin wore only that brief swimsuit and a smile, a smile born of the freedom to be so free out in his beloved outdoors. I watched him and in particular that multicolored ass as it shifted to and fro with cat-like grace as he sauntered to the dock on the lake shore, and dove in. Where did he acquire such garment, if something that minuscule could be called a garment? Perhaps from that Speedo store at the Denver Mall where Rick works?
I could think of no finer pastime right now than to sit on this surprisingly comfortable Adirondack chair with a ice cold libation and admire the scenery. Cool breezes wafted through the verdant pines. Late summer wildflowers sprang up almost every direction one turned. The soft grass was the lush green of emeralds. Most importantly, I had a front row seat to watch the object of my numerous eroticized hallucinations swim back and forth in the cool jet blue waters of Lake Granby. My mind's eye remembered the last time we had all been swimming together, and JD and Vin having several swimming races until they had both burned off so much energy that they practically had to be rescued from the water. Once again my fevered imagination was picturing another scene in the water between JD and Vin, this one featuring much less swimming but even greater levels of energy expenditure. Perhaps more libations were called for.
Several libations later, I was still fantasizing about the object of my dreams, however I was finally making an appearance in my own fantasies. The actual Vin had risen from the lake but I had not risen to my chair in pursuit. The erotic visions that were filling my head were making it almost as uncomfortable to remain seated in my chair, as it would be embarrassing to get up. "Maybe this wasn't such a good plan after all," I supposed.
"Plan? What's this about a plan?", queried Vin with a suspicious tone. “Did Josiah set this up? Is Chris in on it too??” I hadn't heard my barefoot and still mostly bare friend as he had come up behind me after retrieving a large cerulean blue beach towel from the cabin.
"Vin, let me assure you..." but my insincere assurances feel away, when I saw the lonely and betrayed look in Vin's eyes.
“Ya don't know what it's like, Ezra. To be diff’rent. Sure, I know, the team is like a family, but I’m the odd one out. Even when we're all together, sometimes I feel like I….I’m all alone.” Vin flung the towel over his tanned shoulders and sat down on the grass in front of me, bringing his knees to his chest in a move that seemed both defensive and vulnerable. “Everyone has somebody. Chris has Mary. JD has Casey. Josiah has Suzanna. Nathan has Rain. Buck seems to have all the rest of the women. That's kinda why I felt a kinship with ya, Ez. Yer a lone wolf like me. Now I hear you and Li Pong are getting engaged. Honestly, Ezra, as a friend, don't you think yer going a little fast? She seems like a real nice girl an’ all, but ya hardly know her.”
“Engaged? Where did you hear that lie?” I spluttered. I hadn't used that one, had I? “Let me assure you, Vin, Li Pong and I have no plans for engagement. To be honest, I don't think she and I will be seeing each other again.” My heart did a little leap to see the smile cross Vin’s face at that statement, but it was fleeting at best. Sorrow filled his eyes again as he sat down with a sigh.
“Ya’ll will find somebody, somebody ya love. Don't know as I’ll ever find somebody. Seems like all the fellers I could go for, their either as conceited as a barber's cat, or straight. Ya don't know what it's like to be gay. Sometimes I feel like a short dog in the high grass,” confessed Vin with a soul deep sigh.
“Now don't get me wrong, the sex is great! No complaints there. Just getting’ tired of havin’ men I don't love, and loving a man I can't have.” Vin hid his eyes from me then. “Ya jes don't know what it's like, Ez.”
“What is it like, Vin?” He just made a chuffing sound, as if to laugh but changing his mind.
“I don't wanna burden ya with my pile of bricks, Ez. Don't listen to me, I just gotta a cloud on me lately.”
“No, Vin, I meant …..” Dear Lord, am I really going to do this? “I meant… what's it like…. with a man. Just out of curiosity, what's it like to kiss a man?”
Vin’s brow furrowed. “Ain't much different. I mean, well...men are diff'rent a’course but…. I don't know. I can't explain it,” he said with a shake of his head, tossing his gorgeous dark mane of hair. That decided it for me. Please let this not be another dream.
“If not, than perhaps you could give me a demonstration. Just out of curiosity, of course.” Dear God, I really have gone insane.
A delighted little smile came and went on Vin’s face again, and my heart skipped another little beat to see it. Then he cocked his head, no doubt “ponderin” as he puts it. Finally he said, “You want me to kiss you, Ezra? I…. I don't know.” A blush crept up to his face as he almost whispered, “Mite get carried away 'r something.” “I really want to know Vin,” I begged. “Please.” Did my desperation show, or was I a convincing mask of curiosity?
Vin turned away from me then. “You don't know what yer askin’, Ez.”
"Is it so much to ask?" Could I have come this close, only to have a simple kiss denied me?
"I dunno Ezra. I... I kinda got .... feelings fer..." Vin tried valiantly to stammer out his objections and excuses, but I wouldn't hear any part of it.
"Hush, Vin. Let's not talk now. Let's just...." My own vocabulary had deserted me, as I struggled with the idea of Vin's feelings. I didn't want to know what other man had captured my beloved's heart. I had gone too far now to back off or back down. I leaned down and grasped the two ends of his towel, pulling him towards me. His head turned slightly left and up, his lips parting slightly and I moved towards our first ever kiss.
Part 8
This was it. I was kissing Vin. All the fevered hallucinations that I had had flew from my mind. In all those imaginings, there had been rocket ships, fireworks and spectral light. In my imagination, the taste of Vin was beyond description. Now the reality of kissing him would have seemed almost mundane, a bit of peppermint chewing gum and slight salty taste like fresh popcorn. Except that it was better than the dream. It was less than I expected, and yet more than I could ask for. Still, I wanted more.My arms clutched him, trying to pull him in closer and I could feel gooseflesh erupt all over his exposed body. Whether he shivered from the cold or the kiss, I could not tell, as I felt quite shivery myself.
“You’re cold,” I said, taking the towel and wrapping around his slim form.
“Am I?” he replied in a hesitant voice.
“Why don’t we go inside and warm you up?” I was elated at the kiss with the man, and thus committed this error, allowing my feelings of desire to show.
Vin was smiling at me as we strode towards the cabin. We were almost inside, so close to the goal, when Vin cocked his head to the side, and a cloud seemed to cover Vin's countenance. "Mary ain't writing an article 'bout nightclubs, is she?"
"Uh, no," I replied, feeling some trepidation at the change of tone.
"Ain't in love with Li Pong, are ya?"
"No." I knew I wasn't my usual eloquent self, but I could see no point in further conversation. Here it was, time to pay the piper. Now would come the dismissal I was expecting. I was right all along.
"But you are straight, right?" Vin asked in a rough tone, obviously knowing the answer but expecting me to say it.
I only shook my head, pained beyond speech at how everything had gone wrong.
"That's a lot of lying, Ezra. Why?"
"Why does anyone lie? The reasons are myriad." It seemed that the power of speech was returned to me as Vin delivered the coup de grace. Everyone always wants to know about my motives, as if they had a right to know. "Guilt, fear, ignorance, escapism, apathy. Who knows, take your pick."
Vin shook his head, and exasperation raised his voice. "No, you pick. Tell me Ezra. Why the lies? Why lie to me?"
“Since I seem to be stuck in confessional mode, my reason is fear. I was afraid of what people would think of me, of what you would think. I can’t be like you! If I told you I lo…“ Come on, Ezra keep it together, “How I felt about you, you would dismiss me. I was right, too."
"When did I say that?"
I was once again rendered speechless for a moment, but I recovered quickly, lashing out with a dose of anger to fortify me. "You want the truth?! The truth is that being "out" has caused you nothing but grief. You are castigated by the ignorant, even within our own agency. Your friends are not much better. Chris and Josiah sent me here to try to turn you to the 'straight and narrow.' Then there is the issue of the person 'you have feelings' for, someone who evidently isn't available. All these things are true. Now tell me, what good does truth do you?"
The last reaction I expected was that little quirk of Vin's mouth, almost as if he was trying to hold back laughter. Did he find this whole disaster funny?
"The truth? The truth is, I am glad that I am 'out', it ain’t grief. It's brought me freedom. Now I can be myself with my friends and my family, the people that matter. The ignorant folks, like Harold, who try to give grief, they don't matter! They don’t matter at all. I don't care what they think! I am proud of who I am!"
Skepticism crossed my face at his pronouncement, but it could not be helped. "Your family? I thought your family had... passed on."
"You and the rest of the fellas are my family. Look Ez, I ain't trying to push ya. If'n you ain't ready to be out, ya ain't ready. Fine. But don’t lie to me, Ezra, not to me. Anyhow, the fellers would be alright with it. Seems a shame to wait, miss out on that freedom n' all."
I raised my eyebrow at that. Had he forgotten why we were here? Vin seemed to know just what I was thinking, and actually chuckled at my cynicism.
"I ain't sure 'bout Josiah, he can be hard to read, but Chris... I know that Chris wasn't thinking that it would be me that was changing on this little getaway. Chris thinks I am fine jes the way I am. Hell, all the fellers do. I think Josiah might be doing the 'reverse psychology' thing. Whose idea was this again?" Vin asked, as he revealed his beautiful white teeth in a smirk. I tried to recall. I had thought that I had convinced Chris and Josiah that they had asked me to do something that was really my idea, but as I thought back, I wondered. Who had conned whom?
"And while we are on the subject of truth, the truth is... the guy on the team I got feelin's fer... is you."
This time the power of speech truly deserted me and I feared it would never return. I was also afraid that my jaw was hanging down in the most undignified manner, but it refused my command to close.
"You’re the one that Chris warned me about gettin' involved with," Vin announced, without a shred of shame.
"I knew it! I was right! I am not held in the same regard as you. I would not be afforded the same latitude you receive," I spat out, knowing that I was ranting but beyond care.
"Oh, Ezra, it ain't like that a'tall. Chris was just wanting to warn me about being with someone on the team, not that it was you. Chris likes you just fine, Ez! You wouldn't on the team if'n he didn't." Vin gave me a look like I had said I still believed in the tooth fairy.
"So team cohesion was Mr. Larabee's concern, not that the object of your affections was unacceptable?" Could I still be harboring a hope in this regard?
Vin snorted. He actually snorted. It was the rudest, most uncouth reaction he could have perpetrated, but... I was strangely heartened by it. "Hell, Ez. You know how jealousy can make folks act like they ain't got the sense God gave a goat."
"Jealousy?" I wondered aloud, frankly dumbstruck by this turn of the conversation.
"Ya must know that Bucklin's been trying to git in my drawers ever since I came out. Hell, for a week afterward he was practically chasing me around the desk." I was unaware Buck's amourous advances towards Vin had progressed beyond flirtation, but then I was rather in a fog myself in those days after Vin's announcement about his sexuality.
"I'se mighty tempted, if the truth be known," Vin stated with a half-dreamy look in his eye, as if half of his mind was talking to me and the other half was picturing erotic acrobatics with Mr. Wilmington.
'The truth be known.' There was the dreaded truth again. I wondered how far Vin would go with the truth, and tried to push the issue. "So, Buck had unleashed his 'animal magnetism' on you? And you haven't been with him?"
Vin fixed me with a disbelieving look again. "You think I bed every Joe that shows an in'erest? Don't answer that!" Vin grumped, as I fixed him with an amused smirk of my own, while we both remembered his dalliance with Justin, among others.
"Didn't want to mess up things with the team, just fer some fun in the sack with Bucklin. That kinda risk, the prize would have to be worth it. But now... if I git together with you after I put off Buck, might cause some hard feelings," Vin worried.
Once again my hopes for a life loving Vin were raised and dashed in the same sentence. "It's true." That dreaded word. “I guess it would be problematic for us to initiate a relationship,” I breathed out in a voice I scarcely recognized as my own.
“I reckon so,” agreed Vin with a nod. After pausing for a moment, he continued. “I reckon we’re takin’ on a whole passel of problems, some we ain’t even thought of yet and couldn’t if we tried. Then again I reckon most folks ’r like that and I’m willing to risk it. I think yer worth it. Can ya say the same ‘bout me?” Vin gently bit down on his full lower lip, as he concluded that loaded statement.
Vin’s face held both hope and resignation at the same time, and I wondered how my heart could be doing leaps at the sight. Could it be that I was finally ready, ready to accept the cards I had been dealt, ready to be the man that Vin wanted? Ready to have a man like Vin? Ready to see what the future held if I held onto Vin and didn’t let go and we faced the whole “passel of problems” together? Yes, I think I am ready. At long last.
I didn’t say a word. I don’t know what I would have said, but a smile I couldn’t control was threatening to split my face in two and that seemed to be all the answer that Vin needed. He leaned in for another long, slow kiss, a playful tongue teasing my lips and surpassing all my foolish fantasies again.
A smaller smile graced my lips as I thought about making some of my fantasies reality. Gliding my hands down Vin‘s smooth torso, I came to his Speedo and taking some of the rather flimsy spandex cloth in both hands ripped it off of him.
“Hey! That‘s m‘ new Speedo!” growled Vin, as he stepped back as if I would tear more from him. There was nothing left however, he was standing in the open air by the shore of Lake Granby as naked as the day he was born. It was a beautiful sight.
I laughed a laugh of pure joy as I turned and ran towards the cabin, clutching the tattered remains of his Speedo in triumph.
“I’ll get you fer that, Ezra!” Vin yelled, and I glanced back for a glimpse of him running in all his glory after me.
“I’m counting on it!” I shouted as loud as I could, feeling free for the first time since I can remember, and not caring who knew.
Part 9
A beautiful double wedding ring quilt covered the king bed in the simple rustic bedroom of the cabin. Not that I had much time to admire it before a naked Vin came barreling down the hallway and tackled me, letting out a war whoop as we fell onto the bedding.We landed in a tangle of arms and legs. We were both breathing hard already from the run to the cabin, and Vin’s body shone with a new layer of sweat. My hands grasped every inch of flesh in my reach, flushing the tanned skin red, as my hands would roam. I wanted to consume him, fill my senses with every part of him, but he had ideas of his own.
“Ezra, ya need to take off some a’ these here clothes!” he rasped, pulling my shirt from beneath my waistband. He eased back a bit so I could sit up and quickly lose the shirt, pants and underclothes. I tossed them aside, not caring where they landed.
Vin had wrestled the quilt out from under me and stretched out on the bed, writhing like a python and beckoning me to join him. Seeing him spread out before me like that, I had to have him. “I want you, Vin.” “Look in my bag over there,” Vin said, nodding towards the corner of the room. He blushed a little as he explained, “I’ve always got some lube with me.”
I found the lube quickly and rushed back the man I loved. He had placed a pillow under his ass, raising himself in the air and spreading his legs wantonly. I took full advantage of the feast laid before me, licking down along his inner thigh and nuzzling his hairy sac, while my fingers busily prepared his hole. Breathless moans accompanied the actions of my darting tongue as it danced over his balls and his questing hands carded through my hair.
I thrilled to be the one creating such ecstasy in him, but my own body craved ecstasy of its own. I was panting like a wild dog, and though I could have spoken my desires to Vin, I chose not to. Feeling that Vin was well prepared, I raised my head to lock eyes with my new lover. He nodded his head at my unspoken question, and I slid up along his torso, lapping at his taut abdominals as I went.
Finding his large brownish-pink nipples, I eagerly set to biting and licking them into stiff peaks while my hands guided the head of my straining erection to his willing hole.
A short gasp of pain came from my lover’s throat at the breach and I stilled, just moving enough to plant little wet kisses along the line between his pecs. I waited until his breathing evened out and the tight sphincter became used to my presence. Then I slowly sank into the warm, pliant depths of Vin.
The tightness was incredible, bringing a shiver down my spine as I felt him squeeze me right down to the root. I wanted this moment to last forever, and started a long, slow rhythm, pulling almost all the way out before plunging back in. I stroked deep inside his tight, hot body, running my fingers along his lean torso, wanting to touch everywhere at once, squeezing my ass on the down stroke, desperate to sink one more inch inside his fantastic body.
My breath came in harsher pants, as Vin writhed and moaned below me, tossing his head back and forth. My teeth still nipped at the peaks of his chest, causing the deepest moans of all.
“More! Harder!” I didn’t know if Vin meant the biting or the thrusting so I went for both, eager to please.
The tempo increased, spinning my senses out of control, as my whole world seemed to narrow and center on an increasing sensation of slick thrusting heat. My balls seemed to heat to a thousand degrees and erupt volcanically, shooting deep inside of my lover‘s clenching ass. A hoarse animal cry was the only sound from my mouth as the orgasm washed over me.
Coming back from a near black out, I felt Vin still thrashing under my super heated skin, desperate for release. Pulling out of his tight heat brought a whimper from my lover’s throat, so I eased two fingers inside him again to ease the pain of loss. Sliding back down his torso, I wasted no time and eagerly sucked his cock into my mouth. I twirled my tongue around the head, lapping at the folds of his foreskin. I could feel his balls tightening up against his root, eager for release.
Then with a wolf-like howl and buck of his hips that almost choked me, Vin came and came into my sucking mouth. I eagerly gulped down the load he offered me, as his hips kept trying to impale my throat. I continued sucking even after his muscles relaxed, not wanting to lose a drop. Finally Vin pulled me off his sated sex, motioning me to come up and wrap my arms around him. I was only too eager to comply.
I came up behind Vin as he lay on his side, spooning up close behind him. As my arms wrapped around him, I trailed my fingers lightly across his firm chest and was surprised when he let out a small gasp of pain.
“Careful, Ez. My nipples feel like a Doberman’s chew toy,” laughed the Texan, and I had to laugh with him. What might have felt like a reprimand to the old me was merely playful banter to the new me. I hoped the feeling would last as we both slowly slid into an exhausted slumber.
7777777
Later that evening, I was reveling in the feeling of Vin’s warm muscled chest in my arms, his honey brown hair dusting my face, his round rump a sweet resting spot for my satisfied cock.
A small sigh escaped Vin’s lips and I felt a moment’s tension. The new me decided to face it head on, no deceptions, no recriminations.
“Everything all right, Vin?” I asked, and received only a warm rumbling sound that seemed to mean he was.
That wasn’t enough to satisfy me though. “We spoke of taking risks earlier. You might be taking an even greater risk than myself, you know. I have been holding in my feelings, presenting an acceptable face for the world to see, for my entire lifetime.” My heart felt a pang of doubt at all the hard lessons I would have to relearn. “Whether I may or may not decide to let others know the real me will still be a strain for me, and that may well be a difficult time for those close to me. It can be quite a struggle, trying to land a Standish.”
A sly grin split Vin's face, and he closed one eye as he looked up and down as if sizing me up. "Well now, my head says I got trouble on the line, but I sure went through a lot to reel ya in. An' my heart says - don't throw him back, he's a keeper." Then Vin hit me with those brilliant smile again, a real smile - not a grin or smirk, but a real genuine toothy smile that spoke of love. Love for me!
And so I, Ezra P. Standish, who abhors gambling - was willing to take a risk. All the fallout that would come from our coming together was surely on tomorrow’s horizon. But as Vin had said, the risk was worth it. That’s when I realized I hadn’t answered his question outside, taken that last risk that put all my bets in the center pot.
“It is worth it, Vin. I love you and you are worth…”
“We,” corrected my love.
“We are worth the risk,” I amended, glad to see that brilliant smile again, the smile that would forever mean acceptance and love. Especially love. Tomorrow would take care of itself.
THE END
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