Date: Mon, 22 May 2017 21:34:34 -0700
From: Alex P <alexp336@gmail.com>
Subject: A Closer Shave - Part 5

It's been, roughly speaking, two and a half years since part four of
"A Closer Shave". Since then I've released two ebooks with Loose Id,
"Jock Auction" and "The Hitchhiker", gone through writer's block,
started a couple of other stories both on here and on tumblr, and
generally struggled to figure out what the hell was going on with me.
I'm still not 100-percent sure, but I do know that people regularly
ask me if I'm going to write more of Tommy and Andrews' adventures.

I also got some push-back about the scene with Tommy's swim coach in
part three. Some readers felt like it stepped over the line from
playful experimentation and into something altogether darker and, for
some, more uncomfortable. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but on
re-reading it I can't say I disagree with that feedback. So when I
decided to pick up where I'd left off, I figured it would be an
opportunity to start looking at how to right old wrongs against Tommy
in the process.

If you like it, let me know. alexp336@gmail.com or through
http://dirtyanon.tumblr.com/ (where you'll also find other stories and
such). If you're interested in "Jock Auction" or "The Hitchhiker",
there are details at www.AlexPendragon.com/

Otherwise, play safe, donate to Nifty if you can, and enjoy...

-A


=========

A Closer Shave - Part 5



"Listen, Andrews, we need to talk."

And then there was silence. Tommy knew that he was meant to be filling
it - knew that the very fact of the silence was his doing - but none
of the vague feelings and fears that were spiraling through his head
were proving especially eager to formulate themselves into sentences.

Eventually, Andrews' quizzical expression faded into what Tommy could
only see as confusion.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually when someone says they need to
talk, they... y'know, talk."

It was all Tommy could do not to kick himself with frustration. For a
minute - no, for a few seconds maybe - he had felt like he knew what
he wanted. Or, if not that, then that he'd at least find out what he
wanted. Yet somehow after that spike of determination he was actually
saying less than normal!

He clenched his fists, nails jabbing into his palms around the handles
of the bags.

"Not here," he blurted out, finally. Looked around at the entrance of
the mall, where people were filing in and out around them like water
flowing past rocks in a stream. There. A bench. "Over there."

He nodded with his head, and Andrews seemed content to follow. Tommy
dropped the bags at his feet and slumped down onto the seat, then
glanced up to see the older youth still standing, watching him.

"Will you sit down, you're confusing me."

Andrews sighed, but sat down all the same. "I'm confusing you? Dude..."

Tommy rubbed a hand over his face. Why was this so difficult? He'd
just had his dick in Andrews' mouth, for heaven's sake - the guy just
swallowed when he blew in his mouth! Talking shouldn't be the tough
part, and yet he felt more tongue-tied than ever before.

The words bubbled up, out of order and hardly elegant, but words all
the same. "How many, Andrews?"

Another expression of uncertainty. Tommy shook his head, exasperated at himself.

"I mean, how many have there been? Am I swim team conquest number ten?
Number twenty? Are you hooking up with Carl, or Ben, or the others
while you're hooking up with me?"

Andrews wrinkled his nose. "Who've you been talking to?"

Ugh, this was not going in the direction he'd wanted it to. "Nobody. I
mean, I just want to know... I mean..."

He saw a brief roll of Andrews' eyes before the swimmer turned away.
"Well clearly it's been Carl or Ben or someone like that," he
muttered, voice dripping with scorn. "Tell me, Tommy, what did Carl or
Ben or any one of these Good Samaritans on the team warn you about,
eh?"

"They didn't warn me," Tommy replied, feeling the conversation spiral
out of his control. He made a valiant effort to drag things back on
track, even if he wasn't entirely sure what that track was, exactly.
"Look, it wasn't like that, okay? They just... implied that I hadn't
been the first guy."

Andrews slumped back, still staring away from Tommy, across the
mostly-empty expanse of the parking lot. "Let me guess," he sniped,
sarcastically. "You're just another conquest, a notch on my bedpost,
right?" Tommy winced at the phrasing, words that had indeed run
through his own brain when thinking about... whatever it was he and
Andrews were to each other. "So am I getting the blame for everything
now, yeah? I'm the slut, and you're the what, the confused little
freshman who daren't say no?"

"I could've said no," Tommy replied, more force in his voice than he
had expected. "Yes I got hard, and yeah, I didn't stop you, but I
could've. I know I could've."

Andrews turned to stare at him. "So what, then, Tommy? How come I'm
the manipulative fag and you're the... god, I dunno. I just want to
know why you're suddenly so pissed at me, okay?"

"I'm not!" Tommy fired back, almost shouting it, and as surprised
himself at that as Andrews looked to be. He closed his eyes, took a
deep breath. "I liked it. I really, really liked it. Sure, it was a
head-fuck at times but that was only because, well, I never guessed
that I might like it. But I did. And I like you! Only..."

"Only what?" Was there something in Andrews' expression there,
something to go along with the softness of his tone?

Tommy shook his head. "Only I worry that I like you but you see me as
this freshman kid who's new game, and everything is going so fast. I
like what we're doing, I totally, absolutely like it. Fuck, I mean, I
haven't cum so hard, like, ever! Compared to when I'm doing stuff with
you. But this week... it's been so much."

"I sense a "but" coming," Andrews predicted. Now it was Tommy's turn to sigh.

"There's no "but"... well, not about you, about what we've been doing.
And if there was, I guess it'd only be about me wondering how many
other guys you're doing this stuff with, and that's..." Deep breaths,
don't wimp out now. "That's just because I probably like the idea of
being someone special. Y'know, not just some dumb kid whose dick you
shaved, even if I guess that's what I actually am."

The expression on Andrews' face was edging a little too close to
inscrutable for Tommy's liking, as he examined it for any possible
hint of what the older guy might be thinking. He couldn't really blame
him for being confused; after all, Tommy himself was even more
uncertain about whatever was going on in his head. The week had been a
whirlwind, just like your first week at college was probably supposed
to be, only Tommy had junk shaving and cock sucking and some very
unexpected eagerness in the whole "ass department" that he wasn't
quite in a position to understand just yet.

On the one hand he wanted Andrews to understand exactly what he was
saying, even though he was saying it so badly. On the other, he was
hoping Andrews could just plain explain the whole damn thing back to
him, and put him out of his misery.

"Look," Andrews started, then paused. "Have you ever done anything
with a guy before? I mean, before this week?" Tommy shook his head.
"Ever even thought about doing something with a guy?" Tommy shrugged,
not even really knowing the answer himself.

"Did you go through all this? I mean, when you were a freshman?"

Andrews smiled, but the expression was tight, almost bitter. Only for
a moment, and then he was half-grinning at Tommy. "I was an early
bloomer, I suppose. I knew what I wanted - what I liked - when I was
still in high school. Always knew, maybe. I'm not sure, exactly. But
anyway, no, it wasn't the same for me. I already knew I was gay when I
got here."

He didn't mean to, but Tommy couldn't quite control his wince. Could
he really be... gay?

Andrews must've seen it, because for a moment that half-grin looked
brittle. Just around the edges. Just briefly. And then his eyes were
the same, kind eyes that Tommy remembered from the depths of his
embarrassment - no, his complete, and utter mortification - when he
first approached him in the library, and rather than laugh him out of
the building Andrews understood.

"I'm not going to say I haven't been with a lot of men in the past two
years. I really like sex, and guys get horny, and there are upsides to
being out and "visible", you understand?" Tommy nodded, mutely. "But
if you're asking whether I've been with anybody else this week, since
we were playing around, then no. I haven't."

"Was that because..." Tommy started, voice trailing off. Andrews chuckled.

"Don't flatter yourself too much, kid." He gently gripped Tommy's
thigh. "You're hot, but some weeks I just have other stuff to distract
me. We're meant to be getting a degree, you know?"

If Tommy had been proud of keeping his face blush-free for the past
few minutes, all that achievement went up in smoke in a half-second or
so. Andrews chuckled.

"What I will say is that, if you did turn out to actually like guys
and not just... well... be unable to keep from getting hard when
anybody so much as brushes against you... I'd be interested."

It should've been a compliment. Hell, it seemed like it was what Tommy
had been hoping to hear, even if he wasn't quite sure whether he
reciprocated or not. But something Andrews said had struck a nerve.

"I can't help it," Tommy admitted, his voice almost a whimper. Leaning
forward, he covered his face in his hands. "It just happens, y'know?
Even when I really don't want it to."

He could hear the frown in Andrews' reply. "Let me guess... Coach Collins."

Tommy nodded, still unable to look up and meet the older youth's eye.
"I didn't want it," he whispered, voice muffled by his palms. "But
my... I got hard. And I didn't..."

He could feel Andrews' hand slip up, from his leg and up his arm,
gently snaking around his shoulders. Before he realized what was
happening, the taller guy was pulling Tommy in, hugging him against
his side.

"Look, Coach Collins is a bastard. And your dick is basically an
animal, okay? Something gives it some attention and it's going to get
excited. It doesn't mean the rest of you wanted it to happen."

Tommy turned to stare at Andrews, a mixture of fear and frustration
clear across his face. "But what is it about me that makes me so easy?
How did he know? How did you know, or Carl, or Ben? Is it like some
fucked up pheromone or something? Like, is "this guy is weak and you
can use him" written all over my face?"

He held his gaze for a moment, then Andrews turned away. "I didn't set
out to "use you", okay? You got hard, it happens. We played around.
That happens too. I thought you liked it - just like I thought you
liked it when I sucked your cock twenty minutes ago. You didn't tell
me to stop."

Tommy squeezed his eyes shut. His voice was so quiet, Andrews could
hardly make it out. "I told him to stop."

The silence spooled out, long second after long second.

"Then he's even more of a bastard than I thought."

---

Andrews had insisted on putting Tommy in an Uber and, even though he'd
protested that he could catch a bus, when he checked the time on his
phone he realized there wasn't going to be much time to dump the
shopping bags at his room and then make it to his afternoon classes.
The expression on Andrews' face as he'd paused at the car door was
something that Tommy felt like he'd need at least five more years to
unpack properly, and even then he wouldn't be 100-percent confident
about what the older swimmer was thinking. In the end, the driver's
impatience to get going beginning to show, he muttered something along
the lines of "thanks for taking me shopping" and Andrews left unspoken
whatever it was that had been on his mind.

He had the best of intentions, certainly. Drop the shopping, grab his
rucksack, and head out to his physics class. Yet when the door swung
shut behind him, the lethargy flooding his limbs felt nigh-on
impossible to resist. Tommy stumbled into bed, heedless of the bags
toppling and spilling their contents in an unruly heap.

When he woke, head foggy and sluggish, a little more than an hour had
passed. Lifting his hips, Tommy pushed his jeans down - thankful that
they weren't the muscle-clinging pair that Andrews had made him buy,
which he suspected would require some sort of industrial grease to
slide off with any degree of grace - and kicked off his socks, then
shucked his t-shirt.

There were some questions outstanding. Big questions. Like,
life-changing, self-image imploding questions. Tommy had never really
given a huge amount of thought to things like sexuality; the
assumption that he was straight wasn't so much based on his
experiences with girls - few, he conceded, and far-between - but more
because that was the default.

Was that naive? Maybe. Was he not, actually, into girls at all? That
wasn't so clear cut. There were certainly some very attractive female
students he'd noticed while he was moving in, though he'd hardly given
university life much of a chance to demonstrate the intrigues of the
opposite sex.

Thumbing his phone unlocked, Tommy punched in the school name and
"gay", then hit the search button. The results weren't really
surprising. An LGBTQ group. A gay-straight alliance. Gay-themed movies
at the campus theater. No flashing warnings about keeping your
innocent sons from the temptations of the locker room.

But there, at the top of page three, a familiar face. Andrews,
grinning a little self-consciously, under a headline proudly boasting
of the new star of the swim team who just so happened to be breaking
new ground in his anthropology class with his same-sex study. Tommy's
eyes skated over the text, the usual filler quotes and "we're so proud
and impressed" from the dean, until he found the gallery at the bottom
of the article.

Whoever had taken the photos for the school paper had clearly figured
out from an early stage that the pickings were a lot richer if the
pool was the setting, not the anthropology classroom. Dripping water,
Andrews stood in a Superman pose with the float-scored lanes a
twinkling backdrop, hands on hips. The colors of the team swimsuit
bright against his tanned skin.

Tommy had seen Andrews in his suit, of course. Had seen him out of it,
too. But the pool, or the locker room, were public places; it wasn't
like he could stare. Everything he'd seen of the older youth in that
scrap of stretchy fabric had been the fruit of hurried glances, sly
and cautious.

Now, though, he could stare.

Andrews was clearly a prize specimen, that went without saying. Broad
chest, exaggeratedly tapering down to a narrow waist. Thighs that
stopped just short of being ungainly.

Tommy felt himself starting to stiffen as he examined the healthy
bulge in the front of Andrews' swim suit. The brief cut did nothing to
disguise it, but he pinch-zoomed in anyway, magnifying until Andrews'
junk filled the screen.

It was weird. He'd seen the real thing up-close. Had held it in his
hand, sucked it, felt it nudge against his ass. But even with all that
intimate knowledge, there was still something about it being barely
covered that got his heart racing. The tease of it, or the
expectation, maybe. The fact that what the older guy was wearing was
right on the boundary of what you could go out in public in; just one
step back from obscene.

He zoomed back out, until Andrews' body was fully visible, then
slipped his hand around his cock. Mind bouncing between the sportsman
on-screen and the memory of that same man on his knees, Tommy's cock
buried in his throat as his hips bucked and twitched.

Now Tommy's attention was split three-ways. The screen clutched in his
left hand, the mental picture of Andrews' lips stretched around his
shaft, and the sight of his shaved dick filling his gently moving
fist. Pushing it down with his thumb, he marveled again at how much
bigger it looked than before. There was a faint buzz of hair beginning
to emerge across his abdomen, but his balls were still smooth as he
played with them in his palm.

A thick bead of precum, glistening and sticky, slid across the head of
his cock and trickled slowly down to his fingers. Instinctively, he
pulled them to his lips, lapping the clear goo from his hand. Another
long, languid stroke from base to tip was enough to coax out more,
gradually lubricating his strokes.

Without realizing he was doing it, Tommy's legs were spreading. Knees
pulling back until, reaching down between his legs, he could slide a
greasy fingertip down the crack of his ass. Circling tentatively at
the tightness of his hole - somehow torn between wanting to slip the
digit in and nudge up against his prostate, and the reticence of
someone who still half-thought that playing with your ass is wrong, or
dirty somehow.

No matter; the tingling sensations radiating out from his sensitive
muscle were enough to make his cock bob and jerk in his lap.
Reluctantly, but with the picture of the speedo-clad Andrews firmly
lodged in his brain, Tommy dropped the phone on the bed beside him and
grabbed his erection instead.

One hand strumming his dick, the other gently teasing his ass, he felt
the surge of feelings build. Eyes squeezed shut, he gripped his cock
with both hands, bucking his hips up through the makeshift hole they
formed. When his fingers roamed back to his hole, precum-slick and
eager, this time Tommy didn't hold back, sliding one in to the
knuckle.

Fuck, that was it. That was the feeling he'd been looking for. What
could have made him wait so long! Legs spreading wider still, he
fucked himself with the digit, pausing only to force a second one in
alongside the first.

"Yeah, Andrews, fuck my ass," Tommy muttered through clenched teeth,
"fuck me." Imagining the older youth above him, body long and lean
between his thighs, his erection jutting out over the waistband of his
speedo as he guided its thickness into Tommy's desperate hole.

He could feel the tingling of his orgasm beginning to mount, toes
curling as the climax built. Somehow his cock felt even thicker, even
harder than usual. Tommy stared down at it, where his hand was a blur
as he stroked himself.

"Oh god... oh... oh fuck..."

That moment on the precipice, the feeling of toppling over and then
the momentum uncontrollable, and Tommy was cumming, hard and strong,
thick wet splashes reaching his face and then soaking his chest, and
in almost that exact moment - just, in fact, as his screaming lungs
dragged in their first breath, all protest and fury - the horrific
sound of his door opening and, still knocking as he stormed in, Darren
asking "dude, where the fuck have you been?"

And then, a heartbeat later. "Oh. Oh shit."

Little known fact: when you blush, while you're nude, your whole body
goes red and not just your face. Tommy felt like he could've lit up a
city, he was glowing so brightly.

Cock still rock hard in one hand, the fingers of the other jammed in
his ass, Tommy looked up and back over his shoulder at Darren in
shock. He could feel the cum dangling from his chin, sliding down his
cheeks. His best friend's expression would be comical, his mouth an
almost perfect "O" to match his gaping eyes, if the situation wasn't
so mortifying.

"Dude," Darren spluttered, the first of the pair to find his voice
again, "what the hell happened to your junk?"

Tommy glanced down, to where his hairless dick was on full display,
and winced. Okay. Deep breath. Try to ignore the fact that you can
taste your own spunk right now. Priorities!

"Can you shut the fucking door!" he demanded. Darren half-jumped on
his heels, then turned and slammed the bedroom door. Tommy rolled his
eyes in frustration. "You were supposed to be on the other side of
it."

"Jeez Tommy, you were meant to be in calculus class, what the fuck?"

Tommy gingerly eased his fingers out of his hole, trying in the
process not to make it look entirely obvious what he'd been doing in
the first place. "Darren, do I look like I give a shit about calculus
right this second?"

"No," Darren pointed out, "you look like you just got done waxing your
cock and then decided to have a wank. Which, incidentally, you got all
over your face."

Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Tommy succeeded mainly
in smearing the mess even further. "Can you pass me a towel or
something?"

Wrinkling his nose, the freshman grabbed a bath towel from the hook on
the back of the door and tossed it at Tommy, who promptly used it to
rub down his face and chest. Standing up, with the towel wrapped
around his waist, he felt a little less exposed.

"Have you never heard of knocking?"

Darren shrugged. "I did knock." Tommy's scowl seemed to go unnoticed.

"Yeah, and then you're meant to wait, not knock and just walk in."

"Well maybe, if you're cutting class to jerk off, you should remember
to lock the door."

Tommy glanced around to see if he could find where his boxers had
landed. "I didn't cut just to jerk off. I fell asleep is all."

"And then woke up and thought you'd play with your dick, I get it,"
Darren observed, laughing. Tommy flipped him the finger, though made
sure to keep a tight grip on his towel with the other hand.

"Like you don't do it," he fired back. Darren smirked.

"Well sure," he nodded, "I just don't wax my dick beforehand."

Tommy rolled his eyes. "I didn't wax it. Just, y'know, shaved it. I
told you about that already."

"Nuh-uh," Darren pointed out, "you told me you were going to trim the
wild bush back, you didn't say anything about going prepubescent down
there."

If looks could kill, Darren would've been on the floor already.
"Whatever. It makes it look bigger so who's complaining?"

"I dunno," Darren teased, "who's been looking?"

Now that was the question. On the one hand, Tommy felt like talking
through the events of the past week - with someone whose dick he
hadn't sucked, or jerked off, or generally perved at in the showers -
could only be a good thing. At the same time, though, he wasn't sure
Darren could necessarily be counted on to keep an open-mind, and it
was a can of worms that, once spilled, would be pretty much impossible
to tidy away again.

"Oh, you know," he hedged, "just the usual locker room shower bullshit."

Darren narrowed his eyes, suddenly suspicious. "I'm not sure I do,
dude, no. Who exactly has been checking out your dick?"

"Come on, gimme a break," Tommy attempted, turning away to dig through
the shopping bags in search of the discarded boxer-briefs Andrews had
refused to let him put back on. It proved to be tricky when you were
also trying to hold a towel together and avoid exposing yourself
again.

"Was it that gay guy?" Darren clearly wasn't going to leave the topic
alone. "The one who was going to help you?"

Ugh. The boxers were there, but they weren't in much of a state to
actually wear. Andrews had used them to wipe his hands down, and they
were at that unpleasant state partway between wet and dry where the
last thing you want to do is pull them up your legs and feel a damp
patch rubbing against you. Tommy tossed them into the pile of clothes
that was as close to a neatly-sorted laundry basket as he'd managed to
get, and reconsidered his options.

"It is, isn't it, it's him. He's been checking you out, hasn't he!"
Darren clearly felt he'd got to the bottom of a major mystery, and
Tommy's silence in response was doing nothing to dissuade his
certainty. "I told you that you should be careful!"

Tommy glared at his friend. "There's nothing to be careful about. If
Andrews wants to look at me, why should I give a damn about that?
Newsflash, Darren, maybe he thinks I'm attractive. Why do you have to
be so homophobic about it?"

Now it was Darren's turn to look embarrassed. "Look, I'm not...
y'know, homophobic. I don't have a problem with... any of that stuff,
okay. You know I don't judge people like that. I just worry about
what's going on with you."

And there was the reminder why Darren was his best friend. Even with
all the bluster and the appalling timing. Tommy sighed.

"I know you're not. I just wish you didn't say all that bullshit.
We're supposed to be adults now; we can't spend the rest of our lives
going "eww, gross" every time something or someone different comes
along. And anyway, Andrews is a really great guy. I like him."

Darren's eyes were narrowing again. "You "like him", okay. Just how
much do you like him, Tommy?"

"Fuck, Darren, give it a rest."

But Darren showed no inclination to do that. "No, come on dude, spill.
How much do you like this guy?"

Tommy gave up on looking for clean underwear and stood up,
exasperated. "Fuck, I don't know, I like him a lot, okay?"

"A lot... how much is "a lot"?"

"Jesus, Darren," Tommy had to fight the urge to grind his teeth. "Like
I said, I like him plenty. And if you're asking whether he did
something to me then yeah, he did. He sucked my dick, okay? Happy,
now?"

If Darren was happy, then the emotion was having trouble finding room
to express itself what with all the shock on his face. He looked,
Tommy decided as the silence lengthened, like he'd just been slapped
and told a very offensive joke at the same time.

"He sucked..." Darren eventually managed, voice trailing out. Tommy nodded.

"Yeah, he did. And I sucked him too, for what it's worth. And y'know
what, I liked it. All of it."

Darren gulped, then blinked a couple of times. "Um, dude... are
you..." Another gulp, his Adam's apple twitching nervously. "Y'know,
are you... gay?"

Tommy took a deep breath, as much to give himself time to think than
for anything else. There was that question again. He still didn't have
much of an answer.

"Honestly, I don't really know. I mean, I did stuff with guys and it
didn't freak me out like I thought it would've. But I still think
about girls some. So... maybe I'm bi? I don't know, okay."

Silence again. And then...

"Guys," Darren repeated. "You said you'd done stuff with "guys"... plural."

Well, shit. Nice going, big mouth.

"Um, just a couple."

"All this week?"

Tommy nodded. "All this week."

"Fuck." Darren looked as though he was lost for words, which was a
rarity. "You've been... busy."

"It wasn't, like, loads. Andrews, and then a couple of the other guys
from the team, just fooling around." He stared down at his bare feet,
suddenly struggling to meet Darren's eyes. "I'm not a slut or
anything."

The cogs were almost visibly processing in his friend's head. "And
that's it, three people?" Darren asked, eventually. Tommy grimaced.

"Yes. Well, almost. But I don't want to talk about it."

"So four, then. Who was the last one?"

Tommy could feel the flush rising across his chest, the redness
flooding up to his face. "Like I said, it doesn't matter."

But Darren wasn't going to let it lie, it seemed.

"Who was it? Someone else from the team?" Tommy shook his head,
minutely. "Then who?"

When Darren got something in-between his teeth, he was like one of
those annoying little dogs who won't let go. It was funny, Tommy
thought, up until you were the thing between the teeth. Then it was
just plain annoying.

"One of the coaches," he admitted, quietly.

A sharp intake of breath. "Dude, what the hell?" Darren sounded
legitimately shocked. "Aren't they all, like, old men or something?"

Another sigh. "Coach Collins isn't even thirty."

"So you got with Coach Collins? Dude, that's fucked up."

Tommy shrugged. "It wasn't my idea, okay?"

Darren chuckled. "Oh right, because he forced you into it, I'm sure."
Silence for a beat, for two. "Shit... he didn't, did he?"

Sitting down on the edge of his bed, Tommy put his head in his hands.
Two emotional breakdowns in one day, he pointed out to himself, now
that was quite the achievement. His eyes were itchy, but he refused to
let himself cry, even in front of his best friend.

"I didn't want it, but... he didn't give me much choice. And then
my... my dick got hard, and I couldn't exactly say that I wasn't
enjoying it somehow, and I didn't want him to throw me off the team or
tell my parents. So I just..."

Silence again. He expected Darren to make a joke, or say that he
thought it was all disgusting. Instead, he felt the bed flex as his
friend sat down next to him, and the next moment there was an arm
around his shoulders, pulling him in against Darren's t-shirt clad
chest.

"That's fucked up," Darren said, voice suddenly serious. "He shouldn't
have done that to you. I'm really sorry, dude."

It was too much. He could've sat through laughter, or rolled his eyes
through disgust, or basically ignored 99-percent of Darren's possible
reactions, but there was something in his friend's quiet earnestness
that set the floodgates open. Before he knew it, Tommy was sobbing,
his face pressed against Darren's shoulder.

"It's okay, Tommy, it's not your fault."

Eventually, the sobs trickled down to sniffles, and then - with only
an embarrassing hiccup or two - he was able to dry his eyes on the
back of his hand and sit up again. When he glanced across, Darren was
looking at him with an uncharacteristically sober expression.

"Look," Darren told him, "I don't care whose dick you suck, or whether
you even suck a dick in the first place, or if you like girls and
guys, or whatever. But I'm not gonna let some asshole make you feel
shit about yourself and... and blackmail you into doing stuff you
don't want to do."

Tommy tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. It took a couple of tries.

"That's great, okay, but I'm not exactly sure what you think we can
actually do about it."

Darren narrowed his eyes, and suddenly Tommy was reminded of the one
time in high school when his best friend got into a fight with a much
bigger, older guy who'd said something deeply offensive about Darren's
sister. Back then he'd had the same icy, seething anger in his eyes
too. It'd taken two teachers to pry his teeth out of the older guy's
arm.

"We catch the fucker in the act, and then we get his ass canned."

===========

We all need good friends, right? Let me know what you thought...
alexp336@gmail.com

-A