Jack Edwards
jnuanced@gmail.com

The Activist , Pt 2

They hadn’t introduced me, but somehow I knew that the happy boy in drag must have been Nathan. I didn’t want to see the other guys back at that house again, but I did want to see Nathan. I knew I wanted a gay friend, and I had a good feeling about him.

Around Tuesday of that next week, it dawned on me that they said Nathan worked in the men’s department at JC Penny. Wednesday, I wore my best shirt and slacks, and after classes, I made my way over to the mall. I wasn’t sure what I had in mind, other than to see if Nathan was working that day, and if he was friendly to me, and if so, to see if he wanted to go somewhere to talk sometime.

It took a while to find Penny’s and then to find the men’s department. I stood at one end, looking for Nathan. There were two young men working in different areas. One had dark blond hair and a thick body. The other, with his back to me, was the right height for Nathan. He had short black hair, but the skin on the back of his neck was light brown. Except for the coloring, I wouldn’t have looked because the boy I thought was Nathan had long hair.

Then the young guy I was watching turned slightly my way, and I saw his profile. I had to study him a moment, but I was convinced; he was my happy boy. It dawned on me that Nathan was probably wearing a wig the first time I saw him. I made my way over.

“May I help you,” he said, looking up. And then his eyes went wide and he grinned. “It’s you!”

He remembered me! And he was happy to see me! I grinned back.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he said, offering his hand. He had a young, rich voice – not deep, but rich in timbre, like a reed instrument, happily played. He had dark, happy eyes and a delicately handsome face.

I took his hand. His hand was warm and he had a good grip.

“I need clothes,” I said with a smile.

His smile slipped slightly, as if disappointed that I might have only stumbled in. “What kind?”

“Any kind,” I said, and then I went out on a limb. “I came because I heard you worked here.”

Nathan’s grin lit up again; that happy smile that first attracted me to him. “Really?” he asked.

I nodded. “I thought… maybe I could get to know you.”

He smiled and leaned close, conspiratorially. “I thought about going through every boys’ dorm at UT, one by one, to find you,” he said.

“Really?” I asked, feeling a silly, almost girlish thrill that he’d come looking for me.

He nodded, smiling, squeezing my hand.

“Look,” he said, “I’m off in… ” he glanced at his watch, “forty-five minutes. We can meet at the food court for a soda, okay?”

“Sure,” I said, happily. “Sounds great.” I didn’t let go of his hand, though. I didn’t want to leave. I glanced around the department. The other worker was now helping an older guy.

My mom had bought me new clothes for college only weeks before, but… “I could shop here first. I suppose I could use some new… ”

“Underwear?” Nathan asked with a grin.

I laughed. “Yeah.”

Happily, he motioned for me to follow. “I’ll show you our special stock.”

I followed him to the back corner of the department, where the underwear was displayed. I glanced around at pictures of models in various types of underwear, mostly white. Nathan, stopping at a display of boxers, caught me looking at the pictures, and grinned again. He nodded toward a picture of a great-looking guy in boxers.

“You ever wear boxers?” he asked. “Guys are starting to do that more.”

I shook my head.

His grin widened. “You might like the way things hang loose.” Nathan slipped his palm up the leg of a pair of boxers, lifting it toward me. “This is one hundred percent cotton. Feel how soft it is.”

I felt the material and his palm beneath it. I pressed my fingers to the cloth and ran them up and down his palm, and felt my cock instantly thicken. We leaned closer together.

Nathan cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “That feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked softly.

“It does to me,” I said, just as softly. “Does it to you?”

“Yes,” he answered.

I felt my cock thicken even more and roll inside my briefs. It wasn’t possible to tell if I was having the same effect on him because of his sports coat.

Nathan looked around, cleared his throat again, then shifted his hand up another pair of boxers on the next rack.

“These are silk,” he said, lifting the material on his palm.

I laid my palm on his, pressing the cool silk between our hands. I moved my hand over his hand.

“This is nice, too,” I murmured.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes rising to mine.

For a moment, he gazed into my eyes. Nathan smiled slightly. Then his eyes dropped, and I followed him to a bin display of briefs. He slipped his hand under the pouch of one, pressing up the underside of two fingers… like a dick.

“These are very soft cotton,” he said, quietly. “They’re Italian and have a T-crotch that lifts your equipment up and out.”

I laid my fingers on his through the fabric. The fabric was very soft. I ran my fingers over his, up and back. I felt over the waistband of the briefs with my fingertips, and onto his bare wrist. Again, we leaned closer together.

“I like the feel of this, very much,” I murmured.

Nathan took a deep breath through his nostrils “So do I,” he said, his forehead almost close enough to rest on mine. We were virtually the same height.

It would have been so easy to kiss him in that moment. Instead, I caressed his fingers through the fabric, with mine; up, back, around. He had to see my erection. It lay like a thick tube out toward my hip and showed clearly inside my pants.

“I would love to see you in these,” he said, the corners of his mouth curling up in a grin as he glanced up at me.

“At the moment,” I said, with a smile of my own, our noses almost touching, “I don’t believe I could get them on… over things.”

His grin went wide and he moved his fingers under mine, caressing back. “If we keep this up,” he whispered, “I’ll need new underwear, myself.”

I squeezed his fingers through the underwear, moving the fabric up and down over them. “You aren’t by any chance, wearing a pair of these right now, are you?” I asked.

Nathan swallowed. “I’ll show you what I have on,” he said, leading me around to the display behind me. Our chests touched. I inhaled his scent; a clean, light scent. He handed me a tube of three extremely brief briefs. I could tell how brief they were from the picture on the package because about all that was covered on the model, was his package.

“Oh, shit!” I murmured. “I’d love to feel you in these… I mean,” I sputtered, “get a feel of these.”

Nathan grinned, but then his eyes moved to someone behind me.

“Could you tell me if you have Damian silk ties,” a middle-aged woman asked.

“Certainly, ma’am,” he told her. “I’ll show you.” He gave me an apologetic look and leaned close as he passed. “Commission,” he whispered and led the woman away.

I had a hard-on from hell, and I wondered if Nathan did, too, hidden by his sports coat. He walked a little stiffly, I thought, amused.

Handling underwear was no way for me to get rid of a hard-on. I’d had ogled my buddies and other guys in their underwear far too many times. Wall signs said that underwear could not be tried on, so I didn’t attempt it. More people came into the department, and Nathan grew busier.

I picked up a tube of the type of underwear he said he was wearing, along with a pair of the Italian briefs, and a pair of black silk boxers. It was crazy to spend the money, but I was turned on, and I wanted to please Nathan with a purchase. As he finished ringing up a customer, I stepped in before the next customer could distract him.

He ran his fingers over the silk boxers as he rang them up. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy these,” he said, smiling.

A guy in his thirties stepped behind me in line, but I said it anyway… “I hope I’m not the only one to enjoy them.”

Nathan smiled, keeping his eyes on the underwear as he bagged them.

“Where’s the food court?” I asked, glancing, pointedly, at my watch.

“Out the door and to the left,” he said with a final smile, handing me the bag. “Thank you, sir. I hope to serve you again soon.”

My dick throbbed.

Three high school girls picked a table close to the one where I had chosen to wait. When they made eyes at me, I smiled and got up, moving away. I made a pretense of looking over a couple of menus before sitting back down at a table at the opposite end of the food court from them.

Nathan glanced around the food court when he arrived. He saw me, grinned, and made his way over to me. I stood, sticking my hands in my back pockets, trying to not feel awkward.

He stopped, very close to me with that happy smile of his.

“Can I buy you a soda?” I asked. “Or something else?”

“I’ll buy you one,” he said. “I made a great sale of some underwear while ago… commission.”

I laughed. “A Coke is fine.”

We walked together to the Orange Julius, and stole glances at each other as the attendant got our sodas. When Nathan stepped up to pay, my eyes dropped down his back. The sports coat fitted his long torso as if it had been tailored for him.

He picked a table against the wall, and he took off his coat. His dress shirt was form-fitting; Nathan had a tight body. We sat together, shoulders touching, on a bench with our back to the wall. I liked the feel of his shoulder against mine. My eyes dropped to his hand around his soda cup. His skin had a silky patina, he had long fingers, veins showed on the back of his hand.

“What happened with Travis?” Nathan asked.

I glanced at him. He was watching my face.

I shrugged. “Travis didn’t tell you?” I asked.

Nathan shook his head. “I never believe what Travis says anyway.”

I could guess, then, what Travis must have said. “He bragged to everybody that he fucked me, right?”

Nathan nodded.

“That won’t happen again,” I said, frowning, looking away.

“What happened?”

I told him. I told Nathan what happened, and it seemed so easy, so natural to tell him everything, including the feelings I had. “I’ve been thinking,” I told him, “that it was like poetic justice because I’ve fucked girls that way; not really caring. In fact, with every girl I’ve screwed, it was a little like that; them wanting more from me than I wanted to give them.”

“Love?” Nathan asked, quietly.

I shrugged and nodded. “I suppose so; a relationship at least. There’s one girl, back home. My girlfriend, actually. She thinks we’ll get married someday.”

“You won’t?” Nathan asked.

I shook my head. “I’m gay. I like Linda. In some ways, she’s my friend. But she can’t be a friend like a guy could.”

“You have a boyfriend?”

I shook my head and looked him in the eye. “Not yet. Do you?”

He smiled. “Not at the moment.” His smile faded and his eyes dropped. “Not ever, actually. Just guys I’ve had sex with.”

“Any of the guys at your house?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ve had sex with most of them.”

“Ever think you’d like to have a boyfriend?” I asked, gazing across the food court at the group of girls; they were watching us. “Have you ever wanted a lover who’s like a best friend, too?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, quietly.

We sat silently a moment, his shoulder resting against mine. My cock, which had been going hard since I walked into Penny’s, now went hard again; but hard because of Nathan in a way that wasn’t just physical. Something was happening between us.

He patted my hand, leaving his warm hand on the back of mine. “Don’t worry about Travis or what the other guys might think,” he said, and then smiled. “They’ve all been screwed at some time or another.”

I returned his smile, then frowned. “You aren’t a top by any chance, are you?”

Nathan laughed out loud. “At this moment,” he said, and his eyes met mine, “I’d be whatever you wanted me to be.”

I swallowed. “Yeah,” I said, nodding, my eyes dropping. “I think I’d even give another shot at being fucked… for you.”

Nathan squeezed my hand. “Come over tonight,” he said.

I wanted to. I wanted to badly. But I shook my head. “I have my first test tomorrow, and a short paper to turn in. I mean… ” I looked him in the eye. “I want time… to be with you… when we… ”

He smiled, patting the back of my hand. “Come Friday,” Nathan said. “I’ll fix supper. I’m a good cook.” Then his eyes grew soft and earnest. “Spend the night with me.”

I nodded. “It’ll be hard to wait.”

He grinned. “It already is… hard.”

I laughed and leaned close to him. “I’d never been so hard in my life as when we were feeling underwear together.”

He laughed. “Me, too.” He squeezed my hand, hard. “You’ve got to bring them all on Friday night. I want to see you in them.”

“Okay,” I agreed with a chuckle. “I will.”

We smiled. We sighed. We looked into each other’s eyes.

Across the food court, the group of girls laughed. I glanced; they were watching us. Were they laughing because they figured out that Nathan and I were gay? I didn’t care.

“Tell me everything about you,” Nathan said quietly. “Everything!”

I told Nathan about having a younger brother and sister, about my dad being a lawyer, about my high school and me running track, about my roommate and my dorm. He asked questions about girlfriends and boyfriends. He asked about what I wanted to major in. “Pre-law, I guess,” I told him. “My dad wants me to be a lawyer.”

“What do you want to be?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure I even want to be in college except for track. I guess I’d like to be a biologist; something outdoors, though. Maybe study animals in the wild.” I smiled ruefully. “My dad’s probably right, though. Lawyers make a hell of a lot of money.”

I bumped shoulders with him. “What about you? Tell me all about you.”

He started to tell me, and while he talked, my eyes traveled over his thick hair and his forehead; it struck me that human perfection came in the very small things; in the fine hairs of Nathan’s feathery eyebrows, in the line of his jaw, the shape of his lips, the hallow under his ear… I was happy looking at his every detail, studying him. It stirred, surprisingly, a fondness.

Nathan was only eighteen, but his dad kicked him out at sixteen when he discovered that Nathan was gay. Nathan was the oldest of four boys, and his dad didn’t want Nathan to ‘corrupt’ his brothers.

I thought of my own family. How would my own dad react to finding out I was gay. Would he think I’d ‘corrupt’ my younger brother?. Would my dad kick me out?

“I finished high school,” Nathan told me, proudly.

“Where did you live?” I asked.

He shrugged. “An older guy, a gay guy, took me in.” He smiled sadly. “I had a sugar daddy.”

“What’s a sugar daddy?”

Nathan took his hand from the back of mine, his eyes dropping. “An older guy who gives you money and takes care of you for sex.”

“Oh,” I murmured, nodding. His hand was still on the table and I covered the back of his hand with mine. “So what are you going to do now? Just keep working at Penny’s?”

Nathan looked at our hands, smiled, and shrugged. “I love cooking,” he said. “I’d like to go to a culinary school.”

“To be a chef?” I asked.

He nodded.

I chewed my lip, remembering him the first time I saw him. “Nathan,” I asked, leaning closer. “Do you dress up like a girl very often?”

He studied me a second, and then nodded, slowly. “I like to, yeah, sometimes.”

I nodded. “I like you better like this… not that the other isn’t okay.”

He leaned closer. “I’d love to doll you up sometime… those eyes of yours… ” Then he laughed.

I laughed, too, wondering what I would look like; not as pretty as Nathan, certainly. “You do make a helluva hot chick, Nathan,” I told him. “I mean, if I had a line up of girls I had to choose from, I’d choose you every time.”

He laughed; a rich, happy laugh.

Nathan gave me a ride back to the dorm, and we held hands in the front seat of his car all the way. He stopped on the street in front of the dorm. It was early September in Texas and it wouldn’t be dark for another hour or two. I glanced around. There were guys outside the dorm; several of them. A couple looked in our direction. I squeezed Nathan’s hand as I turned to him.

“I wish I could kiss you,” I told him. “I’d really like to.”

He smiled sadly and squeezed my hand. I squeezed his back.

“Friday night at your house,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

He grinned and gave my hand a last squeeze. “Bring lots of underwear!”

I laughed, got out, and then paused. “What are you fixing?” I asked.

He gave me a puzzled look.

“Friday night, what are you fixing for supper? My dad thinks he’s a wine connoisseur. I’ll find out what kind of wine to bring, and I’ll bring the wine.”

Nathan smiled sadly. “I was going to fix hamburgers.”

It occurred to me that hamburgers might be all he could afford. “I love hamburgers!” I told him, enthusiastically.

He smiled… the happy smile that I loved.

I figured I could get an upperclassman – there were a couple in track who liked me – to buy the wine for me, and that night, I called my dad.

“What wine goes with hamburgers?” I asked.

Dad laughed. “Thunderbird.”

“Seriously, Dad,” I said, impatiently.

“Why do you need to know?” my mom asked from a second phone.

“Because,” I said, deciding the call had been a bad idea after all. “A friend is fixing hamburgers and I wanted to bring the right wine.”

“How are you going to buy wine?” my mom asked, pointedly.

“He’ll get an older friend to buy it,” my dad answered for me. “I want to know about the friend. Tell us about her.”

“No, Dad, just tell me what kind of wine; and not an expensive one.”

“What?” my mom said. “A girl already? What about Linda?”

“Cabernet Sauvignon,” Dad said. “It may be a little dry for her, but that’s what’s best.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I murmured.

“"Not letting you take your car down there didn’t do much good," he observed, sounding amused. "You’re supposed to be studying hard; not chasing girls."

“I want to hear about the girl,” Mom protested.

“She’s a black Muslim radical, Mom,” I told her.

Mom gasped.

Dad laughed. “You can forget the wine, then. She won’t drink it.”

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I'd love to hear from you if you enjoyed this chapter. Remember, reader email is the only pay we Nifty writers ask for or receive. :) My email address is jnuanced@gmail.com.

Also, because it is my first time to post in this area, here's information on some of my other stories here at Nifty...

Watch for Dizzies to post in bi sci-fi. It's my first try at that genre as well.

All of my stories are listed under Jack Edwards on Nifty's prolific authors page. The ones I'd recommend would be

Junior High
Sex Olympics Boys who decide to hold their own Olympics. It turned out to be pretty popular.

Boy to High School (mostly Junior High summer)
Boy Play I'll warn you that this one begins with a very young character for a couple of chapters, but that's to set things up (and, I've heard from several guys over the years who started with other boys that young). Most of the story develops over a summer when the boys are junior high and early high school ages. This story definitely had a following.

Historical Adult/Youth
Waisen A story of an American and a Brit and war orphans in post war Germany. I received a number of emails from guys who thought it a true story. Everyone who wrote, seemed to like it very much.

Adult/Youth
Gator I've only posted part one so far, but it has been well-received.

First Time Stories
A Book of Firsts Stories of first sexual times or first time in love.

I've also written more romantic, and more polished stories under a second pen name of Josh Maxwell. All of those stories are also listed (under Josh Btomandback) on Nifty's prolific authors page. I'll mention a couple you might like...

High School
The Least of These A love story between 'special' boys, one of the first I wrote, set in San Antonio, Texas.
Sealing Our Fate An idyllic love story, set mostly at South Padre Island.
Bookworms First love... in the library.

High School to College
Sea Change My longest story, a love story set in south Texas with some Hill Country bicycling.

Historical
Jeet Another long story, a departure for me, along more 'epic' type lines; young boys and powerful influences in Hellenistic Persia.

High School with a Twist
Masquerade A love story with a surprise ending.

And one I wrote for Halloween once
The Touch Short, meant to be fun.

Please do let me know if you read any of these and enjoy them. And thank you for reading Book Worms!