Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 21:41:33 -0800 (PST) From: SJL Subject: Paul and Adam, Part Three Questions? Comments? Answers to the secrets of the universe? Send them to geekwriter143@yahoo.com Paul and Adam, part three ---------------------------------------------- My alarm goes off at six-fifteen. I groan and hit the snooze button, pull a pillow over my head. It's warm in the little cave I've made out of my covers and I'm lost in that amazing space right between being asleep and awake. I love that space, and I reach down between my legs to squeeze my erect cock. I sleep naked, partly because I like the feeling of the sheets against my bare skin and partly because it's so easy to touch myself whenever I want. Some nights I fall asleep with my dick in my hand-I don't even play with it, I just like holding it when I fall asleep. I suppose in a way it's a security thing, like how little kids suck their thumbs. Jerking off in the morning is the best. I'm warm and sleepy and I already feel so good that playing with my dick just makes it seem perfect. My ball sac is relaxed and loose, and my warm fingers feel good slipping over my skin. I play with my cock with one hand, pull on my balls with the other. I can't remember my dream but I know it was sexy because I'm so horny. I know I have to get up soon. Swim practice starts at seven every morning. I wish it was the weekend so I had more time. Weekend mornings I can spend an hour playing with myself before I come, sometimes longer. I let go of my balls and press on the smooth skin beneath them. It always makes me come fast, and I don't have time to play today. My hand is flying up and down my cock, and I close my eyes as images flash through my brain. Paul's sucking my cock. Paul's mouth is on my dick and he's sucking me so good. I open my eyes. No. I won't think about that. Not that. Natalie Pierce. I'll think about Natalie Pierce and how when she talks to me she leans over so I can see down her shirt. She has nice tits and I imagine playing with them, sucking them. I close my eyes again. Paul's looking up at me through his thick black lashes as he sucks me off. His dark brown eyes are so full of love as he takes my cock as far into his mouth as he can. He's gazing up and me and squeezing my balls and no one has ever made me feel that good in my entire life. No. I open my eyes. Natalie. I'm thinking about Natalie's big tits. Her nipples, I'm thinking about sucking on her nipples and slipping my fingers into her pussy. Paul. It's Paul. Paul's tongue is teasing me so expertly. I can feel his moans vibrate through my dick. No one's ever sucked me like Paul. No one's ever loved doing it like him. No. Natalie wants me to fuck her. She's panting for it. She's naked and she parts her legs and- I'm shoving my cock down Paul's throat. He's going to swallow my cum. I know he's going to swallow it, every drop, and he's going to love it. He won't pull back. He won't gag and say it's gross. He's sucking me better than anyone in the world ever has and he's going to swallow my cum and the taste of it is going to make him come, too, because he wants it so bad. I arch my back and cry out as I shoot my load up onto my stomach, my chest. It's been almost two weeks since that night with Paul and it's still all I can think about. Every dirty fantasy I've ever had about a girl twists and turns until it's Paul again sucking me off in the park. I shudder and rub my cum into my skin. What the fuck is wrong with me? I knew, and even though I told myself that I didn't care, I did. I liked it, really, knowing that he wanted me. I liked the way he looked at me when he thought I couldn't see. It reassured me, somehow, made me feel better about myself, made me feel powerful. It never made me hard before, though. Not really. Maybe only once or twice. Fine, it made me hard a lot. I jerked off thinking about it. Not about him, really, not about sex with him, but just knowing how much he wanted me turned me on. Anybody need more proof that I'm a shitty friend? Didn't think so. My alarm goes off again and I sit up. I switch it off and grab the sock I use as a cum rag to clean myself up. I toss the sock back under my bed and stretch and stand. I need to piss. I pull my boxers on and stumble out into the hall, then stop dead. There, in the hallway, is a very beautiful girl in nothing but a white button-down shirt. I blink my eyes a few times. She's still there. "Hi," she says to me softly. She seems a little embarrassed. "You must be Adam. I'm Rebecca." "Rebecca," I say. My head's still cloudy. She looks like she could be a senior, but I've never seen her before. She has wild curly red hair that tumbles around her shoulders and very, very nice legs. "Becca," my father says coming down the hallway. "Do you want eggs?" he sees me and stops dead. "Eggs are good," Rebecca says. "Rebecca," I say. "The assistant. Right. Hi." "Hi." She waves nervously. "Nice to meet you," I say, then turn and go into the bathroom. I shut the door behind me. My mother's gone for one day and Rebecca, my father's assistant, is sleeping over. It figures. God, how can my father get better pussy than me? I piss for what seems like forever. I wash my face and brush my teeth but don't bother to shower. I do that at the pool. Once I'm dressed and ready I hoist my backpack up over both shoulders and head towards the front door. I have to pass the kitchen on my way out and my father is, indeed, cooking eggs for Rebecca. "Hey, Sport," he says cheerfully. "You need a ride?" He has never called me "Sport" and he has never offered me a ride. He's showing off for her. "I'm good," I say. I leave before he has a chance to say anything else. Fuckhead. It could be pouring rain and he wouldn't offer me a ride. And where the hell did he come up with "Sport?" It only takes about ten minutes to get to the city pool on my bike. I'm the first one there besides Carl, the janitor, and he just waves as I lock my bike up on the bike rack and head inside. I've got three suits hanging in my locker. They're all dry, so I just grab the one closest to me. It's black with red stripes. I put it on, put everything else in my locker except my cap and goggles, and lock it up. I step into the shower and turn on the spray, waiting until it warms up before I step under it to rinse. I grab a towel but don't dry off. There's really no point. I drop it by the edge of the pool and get in, then start doing some lazy laps to warm up my muscles. I pull myself out of the pool and see that Coach Martin has arrived. He's weird and a little crazy, but he's a good coach. He wears these little red circle sunglasses and his hair is always bushy and wild. Everybody says he smokes a lot of weed, but if he does I've never seen it. "Early bird gets the worm, young Grasshopper," he says to me. "But the early worm gets eaten." "Hey, Coach," I say to him. He's always saying weird stuff like that--I barely even notice anymore. I lay out my towel and sit on it to stretch. When I first made the team I felt practically naked in the skimpy suit, but now I'm so used to it I could probably walk around school with it on and not feel weird. "'Sup, little bro?" Jake Watkins, one of the seniors, asks as he sits next to me and starts to stretch. A lot of the older guys call me "little bro" because I was the only freshman to make varsity. This year I'll probably be the only sophomore. "Hey, Jake," I say. As we stretch I notice the long muscles in his legs, the dusting of light brown hair on his thighs. The skin on his inner thigh is smooth and hairless and I want to-- Shit. There's definitely something wrong with me. I'm at fucking practice, looking at another guy of all things, and I'm starting to get wood. It hasn't even been an hour since I jerked off last. I can't get wood, not in this suit. There's nowhere to hide when all you're wearing is a Speedo. I dive into the pool and do one lap. By the time I'm finished my chub has gone down, thank God. The practices in the off-season are never very intense. You don't even have to show if you don't want to, not until after the 4th of July, but most of the team comes every morning. It's one of the reasons we're so good. Other teams don't practice year-round like we do. I show up every day. It gives me a good reason to get out of the house as early as I can. Besides, I love to swim. When I swim, there's nothing in my head. It doesn't matter that I'm short or that my parents are assholes or that the few girls I've dated have all ended up not talking to me. It doesn't matter that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. It doesn't matter that I feel like a tool half my life or that I'm shitty to my friends when I don't mean to be. It's just me and the water and I don't think about anything. I just go. Only today I'm fucked up and off my game because I can't keep my mind off what's going on with me. I was looking at Jake in a sexual way. I can't deny it, even to myself. I wanted to lick his thigh and the thought of doing it made me hard. This doesn't have anything to do with Paul, it's all me, and I don't understand it. When practice gets over I'm winded and more tired than usual. I rip my goggles and cap off and snatch my towel up off the cement. I'm pissed off at myself. I made shit time and I came out of my lane twice. Thank God I'm too pissed off to bother looking at any of the guys in the shower. I'd probably pop one up, which would be the perfect ending to the perfect practice. "Grasshopper," Coach says to me as I pass him, my backpack slung over one shoulder. "Come and talk to me." I sigh. I don't know why he calls me Grasshopper, but I'm in no mood to ask. "I'm sorry," I tell him. "I know I was shit." He shrugs. "I'm guessing," he says to me, "that right this very second Annie is making pecan pancakes." Annie's his wife. "What does that have to do with my shit performance today?" I ask him. "Absolutely nothing. You up for pecan pancakes?" My stomach growls. "I've got my bike." "I've got a truck," he says. "Let's go." Pancakes sound way better than the McMuffin I was planning on. I unlock my bike and hoist it into the bed of his truck and get in. He's playing Dave Matthews Band on the tape player in his old, beat-up truck, and he's singing along off-key. He's so bad and so enthusiastic that it immediately improves my mood and I smile and sing along, though much more in tune. The windows are open wide and the morning air is cool against my face as the truck flies through nearly empty streets. Coach lives in a small house on the edge of town, and when we pull into the dirt driveway I notice that the sunflowers in the garden are nearly taller than I am. "Garden looks nice," I tell him as I get out of the truck. "We've got early tomatoes," he says in response. "I'll pick a few for breakfast. Go in and tell Annie hi." The screen door's not latched, so I open it and walk inside. Annie smiles when she sees me. "Hey, Adam," she says. She hugs me and kisses my cheek. She and Coach are both huggy-type people, which was weird at first but now I'm used to it. She's pretty in a natural, unaffected way, and she wears her hair in braided pigtails that hang down her back. She has a bridge of freckles across her nose and her skin is smooth and lightly tanned. "You here for breakfast? I'm making blueberry pancakes." She walks into the kitchen, then turns. "Can you believe the irony?" she asks holding her arms out so that I can look at her. She's barefoot and very pregnant. She flips a few pancakes onto a plate and walks it to me. "Syrup's on the table," she says. "Thanks Mrs. Martin," I say. She laughs, a high, tinkling laugh that sounds like bells. "Call me Annie," she says. Annie's getting her Ph.D. in mathematics. I wonder if all really smart women make kids call them by their first names, since Paul's mom makes us call her Delphine and laughs like Annie did when we slip and call her Mrs. Johansen. "Thanks, Annie," I say. I sit at the table and pour thick maple syrup over my pancakes and Annie brings me a knife and fork. "Ripe and delicious," Coach says as he comes into the house. He tosses a tomato at me and I catch it. "Right off the vine." He goes into the kitchen and bends Annie back as much as her pregnant belly will allow as he kisses her. He then leans and kisses her stomach. "How's my little tadpole?" he asks. "Big," Annie says. She takes the next batch of pancakes and sits down across from me at the table. Coach makes his own pancakes and by the time he's at the table I'm nearly done with mine. "Do you want more?" Annie asks me. "No, I'm good," I say. "They were really delicious." I bite into the tomato without cutting it first, and it's warm from the sun and absolutely the best tomato I've ever had. I don't say much, just listen to them banter back and forth. They really love each other. I wonder if my parents ever loved each other that much, but I doubt it. Sometimes when I'm over I pretend that Coach and Annie are my parents. It's a secret, guilty pleasure that I'd never tell anyone, not even Paul. Not that I tell Paul much anymore, since in the rare moments we're alone together we're both awkward and weird. "Now, what's that sad face for?" Annie asks me. I hadn't even known she was looking at me. "I'm fine," I tell her. She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. "Your mom left yesterday, didn't she?" she asks. I wonder how she knows, but it's a small town. If one person knows everyone knows. I shrug and look down at my plate. I didn't even know how upset I was about it until she said it. I feel my mother's absence like a void in my chest. She's gone and she's not coming back. I take a deep breath. "Hey," Annie says softly to Coach, "why don't you go see how the strawberries are doing? I think they're nearly ripe." He leaves without saying anything and another breath catches in my throat. "It's OK, Adam," Annie says. "You're allowed to miss her." "I hate her," I say. I'm crying, now, and I can't stop. "I hate her so bad." "She didn't leave because she doesn't love you. She does love you, but sometimes people have to make tough decisions." Annie pulls her chair over next to mine and rubs my shoulder. "She didn't do it to hurt you." I turn and hug her and pour everything out--the way they screamed at each other, the never ending fights, the way they were either ignoring each other or fighting and how nothing I ever did changed it. "I did everything," I tell her, my tears falling onto her sundress. "My grades were perfect. I never got out of line. I won the 1000-yard freestyle at state. No freshman's ever won the 1000-yard but I did and they didn't even...they wouldn't even look at each other over the celebration dinner." "Shh, now," Annie says, smoothing my hair down. "You're an amazing kid, Adam, you really are. But their relationship didn't have anything to do with you. You could have jumped to the moon and it wouldn't have saved their relationship. It doesn't mean that they're not proud of you. I'm sure they are, they have to be. They just have their own problems." "I wish you were my mom," I whisper. Annie takes a deep breath, and when she speaks I can tell she crying. "That's maybe the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me," she says. I pull back and look at her. "I didn't mean to make you cry." "Hormones," she says. "I can't help it. Anybody around me cries and I'm like a waterworks." She smiles at me through her tears. I lean forward and kiss her, then jerk back and put my hand up to my mouth. "I didn't mean to do that," I say. Annie looks back at me, stunned. She starts to laugh. "That was really weird," I say. I've forgotten all about hating my mom. "Don't tell Coach." "I won't," she says. She's still laughing and it makes me laugh, too, even though I'm horrified about what I did. "Oh, Adam, you'll live," she tells me, rubbing my arm. "Life's really shitty when you're fifteen." "Was your life shitty when you were fifteen?" She pushes her chair back and starts clearing the table. "God, yes," she says. "I was an awkward fat little girl who wasn't good at anything but math. I was completely miserable. I think being miserable when you're fifteen is some sort of rule." "Does it get better?" I sniff and wipe my tears away. "Thank God." She smiles down at me. "Go wash your face and help Coach in the garden." I nod. "OK." I like how even Annie calls him Coach. I help Coach weed their gigantic garden. It takes a long time since they don't believe in using chemical weed killer. Annie comes out and sits on the wooden porch and watches us and brings us tall glasses of lemonade when we need them. Music by The String Cheese Incident wafts out their open windows and even after everything, it's turning out to be a really good day. I eat lunch with them, too, tomato and onion sandwiches with cold, thick slices of cheese. Coach tells me about how he and Annie met in college when they were both following Phish around the country and going to every show. "His hair was longer than mine," Annie says, laughing. "It drove his coach insane. When he swam he used to French braid it and wind the ends around his head." I laugh at the thought. After lunch I help Coach fix a loose board on the side of the house and Annie hovers at the bottom of the ladder, biting her bottom lip, imploring us not to fall. Neither one of us falls. After we're finished I take my bike out of the back of Coach's truck and hug both of them goodbye and bike back into town. I hold my arms out to the side, my hands catching the wind as I ride. I grip the handlebars again and jump the curb and laugh as my bike and I fly through the air. I don't even notice that I'm riding down Paul's street until I'm nearly in front of his house. I want to turn back but I don't, because his sister and her friends are in the front yard laying out and they've seen me. "Hey, stranger!" Caroline shouts to me, waving her hand. Even though she's always been nice to me I'm kind of scared of her. When she smiles her eyes flash in a way that reminds me of lizards or snakes. At first I was afraid that Paul was going to tell her about what happened, but it doesn't seem like he has. If he told her, I doubt she'd be as nice to me as she is, unless she's just waiting for the right moment to strike. That thought terrifies me since I've seen what happens to people who piss her off. Paul says she's not really like that, that it's just a control thing. She had a breakdown when we were kids, and ever since she's been really tense and anxious about everything. He says that she just lashes out at people in self-defense. I don't give a shit why she does it, I just don't want her lashing out at me. "Hey, Caroline," I say to her, stopping my bike in front of their gate. Their yard is surrounded by a picket fence and rose bushes. I always wanted to live at their house instead of mine. "Hey Laura, hey Danielle," I say to Caroline's friends. I look at the three of them, hot, popular juniors in bikinis, and I will myself to feel something. I look at Danielle's ripe breasts out of the corner of my eye. I can see the outline of her nipples through the thin material of her bikini top. My dick is uncooperative. It just lays there in my shorts, refusing everything except a small twitch. "Paul's upstairs painting again," Caroline says to me. "Go upstairs and make him come down. It's too nice out to be inside." I walk my bike over and park it next to the garage, since Paul's mom is really picky about things like that. I walk inside without knocking. In my life I've probably spent more time in Paul's house than my own. I take my shoes off and leave them next to the front door so I don't track any dirt in. I take the steps two at a time and stop when I reach Paul's bedroom door. I don't usually knock, but I knock this time. "Come in," Paul says from inside. I open the door and step in, then shut the door behind me. I haven't been in his room since before that night in the park. I like Paul's room. It has a weird, uneven ceiling and some of the walls are flat, some of the walls are curved. The summer before, Delphine had been cool enough to let him paint it himself. We spent hours painting the walls a dark red, and Paul had painted swirling tribal designs around the windows and over the doors. My mother would rather shit her pants than let me have a room painted anything but off-white. He still embellishes the tribal swirls sometimes, and there's a can of black paint on the floor near his desk and a brand new vine snaking across his wall. "Good, you've finally learned how to knock," Paul says, not looking up from where he's painting. "What do you think about gold?" he asks. I realize that he thinks he's talking to Caroline. "Not all over, just as accents." "Hey, Paul," I say softly. He looks over his shoulder at me. "What are you doing here?" His voice is cold and I know it's my fault, but it still hurts to hear it. "Caroline sent me up. She wants you to come outside." Paul nods and turns back to the vine he's working on. Even though it's black and stylized, it really looks like it's growing across his wall. He's wearing a t-shirt that's way too big for him, his long, skinny arms sticking out of the sleeves like a straw out of a Big Gulp. I can see the muscles in his arm move beneath his skin as he paints, and now my dick's responsive. I feel it legnthen and swell. I'm not hard, but I've got the beginning of a pleasant chub going on. "You're really good," I say, as much to distract myself as anything else. Paul knows he's good, and I've told him before. He shrugs. "Yeah, well, you know. Faggots and art go together like cookies and milk." I swallow hard. "Don't call yourself that." "It's true. You should know, considering that I sucked you off." In public Paul's just distant towards me. The few times we've been alone he's been angry like this, saying whatever he can to hurt me. I know it's only fair, but I hate it. "Paul..." "That's me, the cocksucking faggot," he says. I can hear the anger in his voice. I've never heard him so angry. "The little fairy cocksucker decorating his little faggot room with his faggot fucking paintbrush." He throws the brush across the room and it lands hard on the carpet, paint splattering around it, but he doesn't seem to care. "Paul, don't," I say. "I hate to see you like this. I'm sorry." "Why'd you come here, Adam?" he asks, turning to face me. "Horny again?" "Stop it." "Can't get any from Mandy or Kara? You down to your last resort?" I clench my jaw and look away from him. "But let me guess, you don't brag about me to your buddies on the swim team, do you? You don't brag the same way you did about Laci. Why not, huh? Don't you want everybody to know what a good little cocksucker I am?" "Paul, you have to stop this. I made a mistake." "I'm a mistake." "That's not what I said." "You might as well." His lower lip is shaking and he's close to tears. "It's what I am, right? Just a mistake. A freak of nature." "No. No, Paul. You're not a mistake. You're not a freak." "You look at me like I'm a freak. You knew. That whole time you knew and you just fucking..." He turns from me because he's crying. He doesn't know that I don't think less of him for it, that I was sobbing just a few hours before. I see the utility knife on his desk before he does. He uses it to cut the thick foam he mounts his paintings on. I don't know how I know, but I know that he'll see it and I know what he'll try to do. As soon as he reaches for it I spring forward and grab his arm and push it away from us as I pull him to me. "Don't you dare," I say as he drops the knife to the floor. "Don't you dare hurt yourself. Ever." Paul turns and wraps his arms around me and we're both crying. "I fucking love you and I can't stop," he says. "I know." I stroke his hair and we sink to the ground. "I know, Paul. I'm so sorry." I hold his body close to mine and rock him slowly. "There's nothing wrong with you. I'm the one that's fucked up. You're fine. You're all right." Paul clings to me and buries his face against my shoulder. I think about Annie and how she said that it's a rule you have to be miserable when you're fifteen. I'm about ready to grow up because this misery shit is getting old. I hear footsteps on the steps outside his room and I'm pulling away from him as Caroline opens his door and says, "We're making...oh, sorry. Cookies?" "It's called fucking knocking, Caroline!" Paul shouts as Caroline turns and pulls the door shut behind her. I hear her footsteps as she heads downstairs. I get up and walk to the door, turn the latch on his doorknob. "There," I say, turning back to him. "Privacy." He's sitting with his back against his bed. I sit down next to him. "Don't look at me," he whispers. "Look at you, don't look at you. Make up your mind." I'm trying to make him laugh but it doesn't work. "Can't we just..." I don't know what to say. "All get along?" Paul asks. He laughs and so do I. "Be friends again. Like we used to be." He shakes his head. "I don't think so." I sigh. I feel like crying again. You'd think I'd have run out of tears for the day. "But you're my best friend." "It hurts too much to be around you, Adam," he says softly. "Especially now." I hate that I fucked everything up. I just want to make everything better, but I don't know how. I know how. I reach for him and slide my hand between his legs. Paul jerks his head up to look at me. "What are you doing?" he asks. I don't say anything. His cock isn't hard, yet, but I stroke him anyway. I feel it growing beneath my hand. "You don't have to--" "Shh," I cut him off. He watches me with nervous eyes, then his head rocks back and he lets out a little moan. He can't fight how good it feels. I fumble with the buttons on his shorts, reach in to stroke him through his boxers. His cock is growing quickly and he leans back against the bed, lets his legs fall open as I stroke him. I reach in through the fly of his boxers, pull his cock out. It's uncut. I guess I knew that, but it seems brand-new to me. I slide his foreskin back, exposing his pink cockhead, then slide it back up again. "Lay back," I whisper. Paul pulls himself up onto the bed and lays on his back. I climb over him and pull his shorts and his boxers down to his ankles, then off. He parts his legs and I kneel between them, never letting go of his dick. I stroke it slowly, studying it. It feels so weird--not in a bad way, just different than anything I've ever done before. He's bigger than I am, which I guess is normal since he's also a lot taller. I'm fascinated with his foreskin, though, and I slip my finger in and circle it around the head of his dick. Paul gasps. I pull my hand back. "Did that hurt?" I ask. He shakes his head. "Felt really good." His breath is coming fast and he's watching me as I play with him. I feel a little self-conscious as I go back to stroking him but it passes. I lean down and lick the inside of his thigh, right where I wanted to lick Jake earlier that morning. It tastes good and his skin is soft and hot against my tongue. I get an idea, but I'm not sure I want to go through with it. I look at his dick. I feel my own dick hardening. Do I want to do it? Yes. I move forward and take Paul's cock in my mouth, slip my tongue between his cockhead and his foreskin and circle it around like I did with my finger. Paul cries out and I feel something pelt the roof of my mouth. I jerk my head back and see that he's coming, ropes of cum that shoot out of the tip of his dick and land on him, on me, on the bed. I can taste his cum in my mouth. It's sweet, maybe because of all the cookies Caroline and Delphine feed him. It doesn't taste as bad as I'd expected. Paul looks up at me and laughs. "What the hell was that for?" he asks, his voice shaky. "To make things even," I say. "To show how much I care about you." "You couldn't have bought me a card?" I sit back on my heels. "Was it OK?" Paul nods. "Yeah." He grabs his boxers and wipes up with them, then pulls his shorts on. For some reason, it's sexy that he put them on without anything underneath. "You're hard," he says softly. I look down. "Yeah." "Do you want me to...?" "You don't have to," I say. Paul looks at me with his big brown eyes and I'm melting inside. I don't know what it is that he does to me, but I'm starting to like it. He smiles. "You have cum in your hair," he says. I can feel it. I remember right where it hit me. I reach up and wipe it away with my fingers. Paul takes my hand, sucks my fingers into his mouth, sucks his cum off my fingers. I shiver and my cock begins to throb. "Jesus, that's hot," I whisper. Paul continues to suck my fingers. He slides his mouth up and down on them like he did on my cock. I feel a sharp stab of pleasure spread through my belly and I shudder. Paul smiles around my fingers. He pulls them out of his mouth. "You want me to suck you?" he asks. I shake my head and he looks surprised. "Come here," I say. I reach for him and pull him to me and kiss him, really kiss him this time. I explore his mouth with my tongue, feel his teeth and the roof of his mouth, slide my tongue across his. We stretch out together on the bed, still kissing. I'm rocking my hips against him and I know I'll come eventually, but I'm not in any hurry.