Timmead88@yahoo.com
Chapter 2
The following fictional narrative involves sexually-explicit erotic events between men. If you shouldn't be reading this, please move on.
In the world of this story, the characters don't always use condoms. In the real world, you should care enough about yourself and others to always practice safe sex.
The author retains all rights. No reproductions or links to other sites are allowed without the author's consent.
Thanks and love to Tom for always patiently and carefully doing the editing chores, and to the rest of my Nifty Six colleagues.
SHERRY:
When I applied for a job with B & G two years earlier, I don't think the director, Frank Hudak, wanted to hire me. I had two strikes against me. First, I'm only 5'4" and 110 pounds dripping wet, so he probably wondered whether I could do the work. Besides, who ever heard of a woman electrician anyway? I'm pretty sure it was Gabe Sutton who talked Hudak into giving me a chance. Well, I proved I could fish a wall and pull wire with the best of them. Now everybody treats me like one of the guys. At first sometimes one of them would swear in front of me and then apologize with a snarky grin. I'd just tell him to shut the fuck up and get back to work.
You can imagine that I was grateful to my new supervisor, Gabe. I also thought he was really hunky. I was always getting distracted looking at him. So after I'd been there about a month, I asked him after work if he'd like to go someplace for a beer. He surprised me when he grinned and said, "Why not?" A week or so later he asked me to go for a beer, and we sort of got into the habit of doing that occasionally.
We talked about work mostly, sometimes sports, "guy stuff." He never made me feel uncomfortable, but I thought he knew about a lot of things he didn't talk about. Somehow he was different from the others, though they all liked and respected him. For example, he was the only guy at B & G that went to the concerts and plays on campus, and I had the impression he read a lot.
Gabe came across as a good guy, all man, but not like any of the others I worked with. Like I said, he was really nice, fun to be with, but holding something back.
I suppose I should also admit that he was about the sexiest stud I'd ever seen. I dreamed of him asking me on a real date, but who was I kidding? He could get any woman he wanted, except maybe for some of those my-shit-smells-good women professors. It seemed funny, though, that he didn't seem to be dating anybody.
BRENT:
One morning about the middle of the fall semester I was sitting on the front edge of my desk, talking to my class about Brahms, I think it was, when a terrible racket commenced in the hallway outside the classroom. It was obviously some sort of electronic warning, a kind of klaxon. One of the guys grinned and said, "It's the smoke alarms. That happens sometimes."
"So," I asked, "what do we do?"
"Well, it's too noisy to take a nap," he said, still grinning. "It'll be about ten minutes before they can get `em turned off."
I certainly couldn't go on with our discussion, so I just sat there, swinging my feet back and forth. Some of the students tried to chat with one another, but most just relaxed and waited. After a while I went over, opened the door of the classroom, and stepped into the hall. Coming toward me at a pretty good clip was Gabe Sutton, followed by a small woman dressed as he was in khaki work uniform and work boots. She was practically trotting in her effort to keep up with him. I hadn't seen her before, but I read on her khaki shirt, "Sherry Narbone, Electrician."
Gabe grinned at me and said, without slowing down, "Sorry, professor. We'll have this taken care of in a couple of minutes." Sure enough, in a minute or two, there was silence. I looked at my watch. The period was almost over, so I let the class go, reminding them we'd have mid-term review the next time.
Just as I had gathered up my notes, class roster, and textbook, Gabe and his diminutive assistant were coming back down the hall. He paused a moment by my door. "Whoever chose that brand of alarm made a big mistake. Those things are hard-wired, and when one goes off, they all do. They're super-sensitive, so they go off over nothing sometimes." He grinned. "Oh, Dr. Collins, this is Sherry Narbone, a member of our staff."
She shook hands, and her grip was enough to make me wince. "Nice to meet you, professor."
"Same here, Ms. Narbone."
"Oh, by the way," she said, grinning up at us, "I hear it was Gabe that picked out those smoke alarms."
He winked at me and then turned to her. "Narbone, your mouth is going to get you in trouble one of these days." With that, they were off. Even from that brief encounter I was pretty sure Ms. Narbone had a case for Gabe. I hoped desperately he didn't have one for her.
University professors, I discovered, had busy lives, but not as busy as those of teaching fellows. At Columbia I'd had to worry about the courses I was taking and the ones I was teaching. At least now that I was a full-time professor, I could relax a little. I had more time to practice my horn, for one thing. And more time to think about my monk-like existence.
Almost without any volition of my own, I found myself spending a fair amount of time with Rae Menzies. She was always the one who suggested doing things, but I usually agreed. She was intelligent, talented, good company, and wonderful to look at. Even though I had no sexual interest in her, I did enjoy her beauty. We usually got together after concerts or recitals at the con. Occasionally on weekends we'd see a film. Sometimes we'd go to her place, sometimes to a bar, and occasionally, when the place was picked up, I'd ask her back to my apartment. Her quaff of choice was scotch, of course. Single malt. Of course. I'd begun to keep Laphroaig on hand.
I began to worry about our relationship, if, indeed, that's what it was. I wondered whether I was using her to hide my homosexuality and decided not, since I really did enjoy her company, as she seemed to enjoy mine.
At night, in my bed, it was Gabe Sutton whose face and body were in my mind's eye as I masturbated. My sex urges had come back from wherever I had banished them, strong, hungry, demanding to be satisfied, always asking for more, more. I got online and ordered dildos in a variety of sizes.
After never having had any kind of sex except with my hand, I became a hungry slut to my new toys. Several times a week I'd lube my dick, my ass, and an ersatz penis, get on the bed, and fuck myself while I pumped my swollen rod. This was better than anything I had ever experienced before. I moved from the smallest through each one in turn to the largest dildo, as my anus stretched to accommodate the increasingly larger substitutes for the cock I wanted there, the cock of Gabe Sutton. Whenever I had these dildo sessions, I was thinking, always, about the beautiful, hot, sexy man I lusted after but couldn't have.
`Gabe, why can't you be gay? Why can't you tell me you want me? Please, come to me, fuck me, let me fuck you! Pull me out of this quagmire of lust and longing. I need you!'
But Gabe and I continued to have a glass or two of wine after some of the recitals and concerts, at least when Rae hadn't hauled me off somewhere. I got to the point where I wished Gabe would get to me first. Yet I never quite realized that I had any say in the matter. My will apparently paralyzed, I seemed to go with whichever one of them got to me first. But I wanted Gabe to be the one who asked me out. I wanted Gabe to tell me he wanted me, wanted my body, wanted us to have passionate sex together. But he didn't.
In other matters, however, I was enjoying life that fall. The students in my music appreciation classes were a mixed group, some there because they wanted to be and some merely to satisfy a liberal arts requirement. Those in my section of music history, however, were all music majors, nearly all of them interested in the matter of the course. They read their assignments, listened to the music required, and wanted to talk about all of it.
Another pleasure was the rehearsals for the Konzertstuck. I was given the fourth horn part, but that was fine with me. Obviously Roger, the professor of French horn, wanted to spotlight his students. The better of the two, in my judgment, was a cute redheaded guy named Ian O'Malley. The other one, Gretchen Bliss, was certainly no slouch, either. It would be easy to dismiss her because she looked like the actress who starred in "Legally Blonde," but she played very well, especially for a university junior.
There were the usual discussions of tempi, dynamics, and phrasing, of course. Sometimes Roger and Colin, the conductor of the orchestra, had fairly intense "discussions" of those matters. Like Gretchen and Ian, I didn't participate in these contretemps. I had my own ideas, of course, about how things should go, but, like the students, I didn't think it was my place to say anything. I was the new guy. Being asked to be a part of the quartet was a kind of recognition, and I wasn't going to make waves. The disagreements seemed to be that Burton was primarily concerned with making the horns prominent, and Fiske was more concerned with the total effect, the ensemble of horns and orchestra. Even though I was one of the quartet, I was inclined to agree with Fiske. As I said, however, I kept my mouth shut.
Miraculously, it all came together. The orchestra was better than I had expected. I think I might have picked up a little NYC snobbery at Columbia. You know, the idea that everyone west of the Hudson is brain dead, or nearly so? At any rate, the orchestra was more than adequate to support the quartet in the Konzertstuck.
One evening I dropped by to listen to a rehearsal of the Symphony. Romantic that I am, I had always loved the second symphony, the C major. My favorite recording was a cd made from an old Szell/Cleveland Orchestra lp. I sat in the darkened auditorium, watching and listening as the students on the brightly-lit stage played under Fiske's direction and was mesmerized. There weren't as many strings, and they weren't as lush as in a major symphony orchestra, but the brass and woodwinds were fine, and the strings sounded lovely, if a little thin.
As I listened to Fiske rehearsing the Manfred Overture, I thought what a good selection it was for the middle piece in the program. It was darker, more somber. It fit perfectly between the ebullient Konzertstuck and the sometimes dramatic, sometimes lyrical, and always romantic symphony.
I left the concert hall happy to be a part of the forthcoming concert, happy to be at this university, doing what I was doing. If only I weren't so lonely. And so fucking horny!
GABE:
Sexy Brent not only performed in the Schumann concert, but he also wrote the program notes. As I've said, his notes were succinct, clearly designed to help us understand and appreciate the music, whereas those of his predecessor seemed meant to show off the writer's vast knowledge. Brent mentioned that the year 1849 was one of deteriorating health for the composer, but one in which he composed something like thirty new works. As Schumann himself described it, it was a "fruitful year." Brent went on to describe the three movements of the concerto:
"The first, marked Lebhaft (lively, vivacious), has a vaulting, fanfare-like theme that is developed by the soloists in passages that are technically very demanding. The second movement, marked Romanze, is much more intimate and subdued. It contains, however, a theme that is changed slightly and used in the finale, marked Sehr Lebhaft, where the efforts of the winds and strings contrast with the flights of the horns. A lovely dialogue between soloists and orchestra ensues, and then everyone gets back together in the coda." Perhaps out of modesty, Brent devoted a good deal more space in his notes to "Manfred" and the "Symphony in C Major."
As I finished reading, the orchestra completed its tuning up, and the four hornists came onstage followed by the conductor. They all looked great, but I couldn't help but think how stunning Brent was in his tails. Yes, stunning! He was a beautiful man. I thought again that he had a perfect model's body. He wore his clothes well. With his pale gray eyes sparkling in anticipation of the performance and his light brown, wavy hair shining from the stage lights, he was incredibly good to look at. Gretchen Bliss was wearing a floor-length taffeta gown in a sort of cranberry color. She looked spectacular with her three black-clad male colleagues, but my eyes were on Brent. I couldn't help wondering what he looked like naked. I visualized him there, naked, playing his horn. As I imagined him, he had some light swirls of hair around his nipples, and some between the pects. Then there was the nice trail from his navel to his full bush. I forced myself to open my eyes and watch as well as listen to the performance.
The piece was brilliant and to my untrained though experienced ears, it went off flawlessly. Again, I was distracted from time to time by Brent's hair falling over his forehead as he played. He had to push it back during periods when he wasn't playing. I found that boyish but very endearing.
The audience, comprised largely of conservatory students, loved what they had just heard and gave everyone a standing ovation. The Manfred concluded the first half of the program and, perhaps because it is a more somber piece, it met with much more restrained applause.
I wish now that I had gone to the Green Room at intermission, but I wanted to hear the symphony. I knew that Brent loved it, and I had heard it only on cd, so I didn't want to miss it. It's, as he described it, "lush, emotional, romantic, and affirmative." Again, the audience was on its feet as Colin Fiske and the orchestra brought the work to its magnificent conclusion. I slipped out as quickly as I could to get to the Green Room so I could congratulate Brent and, I hoped, whisk him off to my place for a drink. I thought I might even tell him a little more about myself. In fact, if things had gone right, I was planning to come out to him.
When I got to the Green Room, however, Ian O'Malley and Roger Burton were there, along with a crowd of well-wishers. Gretchen was gone, as was Brent. I asked a student I knew if he had seen Dr. Collins. He told me that Collins had slipped into the back of the hall with Prof. Menzies to listen to the symphony. I looked around the lobby for them, but they were gone. Assuming they had gone off together, I went home furious. I didn't know whether my anger was directed at Brent, at Prof. Menzies, or at myself for being such a fool. Obviously Collins was straight, and I'd be smart just to forget about him and look elsewhere.
RAE:
I left my seat in the hall and rushed to the Green Room as soon as the Konzertstuck was over. Several others had done the same, but I was able to give Brent a big hug and a kiss on the cheek as I told him how wonderful it had been. He was glowing with pleasure, and I knew the feeling when one has been part of a nearly-flawless performance. We don't do it all the time, but when we do, there's nothing quite like it. He had to accept the congratulations of several others before I could really get his full attention. By then we had missed the Manfred, but I suggested we go look for seats in the back of the auditorium to listen to the symphony. We lucked out and found two together, though the hall was still almost completely full.
As soon as the symphony concluded, I asked him to come back to my house for champagne to celebrate the evening. He seemed reluctant for a moment, looked around, and then, smiling, said he'd love to.
When we got to my apartment, I invited him to take off his tail coat, and he did. Leaving the white pique waistcoat on, he took off his white bow tie and unfastened the collar. Then he unfastened his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves. The links and the matching studs were garnets. I'd never seen garnets in a man's formal outfit before, and I commented on it.
"Yes, I looked for years for those. I don't know what ever gave me the idea, but I had wanted them ever since I got my first tux. One day last spring I saw them in a pawn shop in New York and grabbed them."
"Well, Dr. Collins, you not only played splendidly tonight, but you looked mighty fine, too."
"You're too kind, ma'am," he said, grinning at me.
I took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen. "I have a job for you." I took the champagne from the fridge, gave him a linen dish towel, and asked him to pop the cork. As he worked on it, I got out caviar and crackers. Then I set the flutes on the bar. The cork came out with a satisfying pop, and he poured some for each of us. He took the glasses, and I brought the caviar and crackers back to the living room. I kicked off my shoes and sat next to him on the sofa.
We sipped, munched, and chatted for a while. Then he set his glass on the coffee table and leaned back in the sofa.
"This is nice, Rae. I was more nervous about this concert than I've been in a long time."
"That's understandable. You felt as if you were on display for the first time, being new and all."
"Uh huh. That's it exactly."
"Well, ya done good, you and the others. You can relax now and just accept the accolades as they come in."
"I was only horn #4, remember. The others, and all those kids in the orchestra, are the ones who deserve the accolades."
"Yes, they deserve lots of praise. It was a lovely concert. But you deserve your share, too. So just relax, would you? Enjoy the moment!"
Without looking at me, he took my hand and squeezed it. "You're a good friend, Rae."
He sat up, looked at our glasses, and went to the kitchen. He came back with the bottle and topped up our glasses. Lifting his to me, he said, "This little party was above and beyond. Thank you."
I lifted my glass to him and just nodded.
He sat down again, having had another cracker with a dollop of caviar on it. "I know about your string quartet, but you must have a recital of your own coming up some time this year. When is it?"
"Not until February."
"Who will accompany you?"
"Maria Sanchez."
"I've heard her name, but I don't remember meeting her. Was she at the reception for us new people?"
"No, she's pretty reclusive. But she's a fantastic pianist, and we enjoy working together. I'm grateful she's willing to do it."
"Know what you're going to play yet?"
"I'm mulling some things over, but haven't decided yet."
"Some Bach, I hope."
"Definitely!"
"I'll be eager to see what you come up with." He rolled down his sleeves and refastened the cuff links. Then he stood up.
"Rae, this has been great, just what I needed. Now, though, if you don't mind, I'll run along. I think the adrenalin has subsided, and suddenly I'm wiped." He took his coat from the closet inside the door and put it on. Then he came over and hugged me. He gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks, love."
Love? I was hoping maybe we'd have a little more physical contact than that. He'd never so much as kissed me before, and I thought this might be just the occasion for a little more physical intimacy. I'd hoped for at least some heavy-duty groping.
Deciding to at least give him some encouragement, I put a hand on either side of his face and pulled it down toward mine. I gave him a real kiss, with more than a hint of tongue. His eyes widened for a moment, and then they closed. He returned the kiss, but it was hesitant, almost awkward, as if he hadn't done that much before.
When we pulled away, he looked down at me and smiled. "Thanks for that, too. See you soon." And he left.
I was beginning to have some serious doubts about Dr. Brent Collins. At least about him as a potential lover, which is what I'd been after ever since I first saw him. Maybe he was just shy and inexperienced. I decided that the next time he and I were alone together, I was going to get to the bottom of things, so to speak.
BRENT:
No matter how often I perform, I always have butterflies in the stomach before I go on. I even get them before I walk into a new class at the beginning of each term. When I got onstage at the concert, I was aware of them as we waited for the initial applause to die down, but as soon as the music began, they went away.
Our part of the concert went well. I didn't hear the Manfred, but Rae and I listened to the symphony after intermission, and the 90 or so students in our orchestra acquitted themselves well on that. I though Fiske's tempi were a little too driving. Maybe he just wanted to show off how fast his students could play, maybe he just wanted to show he had balls, but I would have preferred a slower pace at times, to "let the music out," as one of my professors used to say.
I'd been hoping to see Gabe afterwards. I wanted nothing more than to have a drink and get his reactions to the concert. He didn't show up in the Green Room, however, so when Rae came along and suggested we listen to the second half of the concert together, I went along. Afterward, she practically shanghaied me.
I shouldn't put it that way, I suppose. She's a beautiful woman, talented, fun to be with. And she had made a special effort to have a celebration at her place afterward, with champagne and caviar.
As we sat, sipped, and talked, though, I was still thinking of Gabe. Here I had a sexy woman alone in her apartment, willing, I suspected, to indulge in some physical fun, and all I could think of was Gabe's smile, of the way I felt when I was with him. Why in hell couldn't I have been born straight?
Suddenly, I really was tired. I wasn't lying to Rae when I told her I was beat and needed to go home and crash.
Then there was the kiss. I wasn't expecting it. We'd never done anything like that before. I should have figured that we couldn't keep going out together without her eventually expecting some sort of physical intimacy. I think I just kept hoping she would be content with things as they were.
The kiss was a surprise, but it was nice. I hadn't frenched anybody since Billy Cooper back in eighth grade, so I was pretty clumsy at it. Maybe if I had planned it or initiated it, I'd have done a better job. As I said, she took me by surprise. She felt soft against my chest, and she smelled wonderful. Then I thought again of Gabe and felt guilty!
Driving back to my place, I tried to sort out all of those confused feelings. Why should I have felt guilty about kissing Rae? I didn't owe Gabe anything. I knew I had the hots for him. But he hadn't come to the Green Room. I assumed he was at the concert, but I hadn't seen him. He was probably straight and apparently less interested in me than I was in him. I had mistaken friendliness for interest, probably.
Again I had feelings of guilt for kissing Rae, fearing I had been using her for a beard. That would have been pretty low, if that's all our friendship was.
When I got home I stripped, did the bathroom things, and fell into bed. I'd have to tell Rae about being gay, I thought, just before falling asleep. It was the only decent thing to do. Then I'd not have either her or Gabe. But my life had always been shitty like that.
I dreamed.
I was lying naked across a Recamier sofa on the otherwise empty stage of the concert hall where we had just performed. The auditorium was dark, the stage softly lit. I was sipping champagne. Gabe, also naked, his magnificent cock pointing toward the heavens, knelt next to the sofa. He was holding a tray with Carr's crackers and caviar.
"I've had enough of this. What I want is you!" I set my empty champagne glass on the tray. Gabe stood and walked with the tray toward stage left. Sherry Narbone, wearing her usual khakis and work boots, came, took the tray, and disappeared into the wings.
Gabe turned, his cock still pointing up. A drop of precum at the tip sparkled in the light. "And just how do you want me, professor?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Any way I can get you, stud. How about letting me play that bassoon there in front of you?"
"If that's what you want, professor." He came and stood next to me. I swung my feet to the floor, leaned forward, and took his cock in my mouth. Gabe ruffled my hair gently as I sucked and tongued him. My own cock, now as hard as his, though not quite as big, was throbbing and beginning to ooze. I put my hand around it, but Gabe slapped it away.
"One thing at a time. Just suck me!"
I gave it everything I had. My inexperience didn't seem to show, for he kept telling me how good it felt, what a fine job I was doing, how much he'd wanted this. Having a cock in my mouth seemed pretty nice, too, something I'd wished for since I was an adolescent. All too soon, without any warning, he shot volley after volley of his cum into my mouth. Looking back, I can't remember having any sense of what it tasted like, but it was good. I licked my lips and looked up at him for approval.
He took my hands and pulled me up. As we kissed, his tongue probed my mouth, eliciting a response from mine. There was no hesitancy here. I seemed to know just what to do, or rather, my tongue did. He could obviously taste his cum in my mouth, and he hummed his pleasure.
The oral rapture was terminated abruptly, however, when we heard applause from the audience. We pulled apart. There, standing alone, was Rae Menzies in the outfit she had worn to the concert. She was applauding, very slowly.
"Bravo, gentlemen, bravo!"
To be continued.