Bobby Learns to Wrestle - Chapter 10

August 24, 1995

I think what made the last week unbearable is that today was what normally would have been a Rotary day for Eric’s parents. I don’t know if it was somehow wired into my brain that I would finally have some alone time with Eric on the last Thursday of the month, but this month it sure was, and it smarted that Eric was off in Arizona on vacation for this week and next.

I buried myself in my summer reading, which somehow didn’t help. I started with a book called A Separate Peace, a book written in the 1950s by a guy named John Knowles. It started slowly, but then, to my surprise, once wrestling was introduced between Gene and Finny, the plot started to pick up. Their matches, seemingly innocent and friendly at first, served as a metaphor for the underlying tensions and conflicts within their friendship. As the two friends grappled with each other, the narrative mirrored their internal struggles and the competition that brewed beneath the surface. The physicality of the wrestling matches became a manifestation of the emotional complexities between Gene and Finny. It was as if the sport itself was a conduit for the unspoken competition and envy that Gene harbored towards Finny’s natural athleticism and charm.

Anyway, I wondered if Gene and Finney made out or wrestled like Eric and I did. If they did, this book probably wouldn’t be on an eighth-grade reading list, I thought. All I could think about, of course, was Eric. Sure, our dynamic was different, but reading this book, I was constantly reminded of how I couldn’t wrestle with Eric.

I missed him. I think my parents noticed, because they made an effort to get me out of the house — either going to the mall, hot dogs at Costco, even just going with my mom to the supermarket. I kept thinking we would round a corner into another aisle, and there Eric would be, shopping with his mom. I’d never felt like that before: Wishing I would just run into someone, and how good that would feel, even if I knew it was incredibly unlikely.

In addition to the summer reading list provided by school, I was allowed to choose a book of my own to read. I paid my parents back for a book I found at the newly-opened Costco that came bundled with a video game: Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. The video game was OK, I suppose, but the book was good in the sense that it reminded me of to the cyberpunk aesthetic that I’d seen with my friends in The Terminator and would enjoy later in life in movies like Blade Runner. I think most transgressively, though, there was a sex scene in the book. I’d never read a book with a sex scene before.

Y.T., one of the two main characters, a girl, gets twisted up with a shady character named Raven — and honestly it didn’t matter, but I had never read something like this before. Sitting in my room, on my bed, reading about penises and vaginas in somewhat cagey coded language was exciting and new in a way that Eric oftentimes made me feel. I read and re-read the scene, getting harder and harder each time. I dog-eared the page, and would even come back days later to re-read it before —

Well, and perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Even after meeting Eric — especially after meeting Eric — I didn’t really masturabate. And I still kind of thought that I didn’t, at least not often. I think one time last December I was in the shower and had a raging boner, and I just kind of rubbed against my washcloth pressed up against the tile. My parents must have been annoyed that I took five minutes longer to shower than I normally did, but I did cum, as dissatisfying as it was.

But with Eric gone, jacking off was all I could do to concentrate. With practice, I did learn to jack off in the shower, in the traditional way, so to speak — wrapping my fingers around my cock, using conditioner or lotion (after a painful start using shampoo), and stroking until I came straight down the drain. A far cry from what I did with Eric, or even with Andy and Cory. But I suppose it took the edge off.

Reading and re-reading this passage from Snow Crash, I wanted to jack off, but I also wanted more than just jacking off. I wanted to read it together with Eric, maybe even re-enact it (save the part where some kind of needle goes into Raven’s dick — yikes) with him. But frustratingly I couldn’t, so I had to find some other way to satisfy the craving.

Humping the bed was always an option, and not a bad one. I’d sneak downstairs and find my mom’s Kleenex box stuffed with extra produce bags — you know the kind you put fruits and vegetables in at the supermarket — and grab one. (Oddly, it never occurred to me to take more than one.) I’d sneak back upstairs, squeeze a little lotion into the bag, and wrap it around my hard cock. Sometimes I’d even pull my pants back up, and just keep it tight in my shorts. I’d leap onto the bed and imagine Eric’s body writhing underneath me, his hard cock next to mine, and it wouldn’t be long before I had the bag filled with jizz. Not as much as it felt like, oddly, but enough, again, to take the edge off. I’d have to keep the bag hidden until I could sneak outside and throw it straight into the black trash can outside the garage.

The long afternoons seemed interminable. Sitting up in bed, oftentimes with snacks, I was finishing a book every two or three days. Next I was onto Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. There was a long, uninteresting, multi-chapter flashback in the middle of the book, focusing on the rats, captive in a laboratory environment before their escape. I found that I was reading the same paragraph over and over again, completely unable to focus. I sighed, and laid the book down on my chest.

My thoughts wandered over my bed, seeing the places where Eric and I had pinned each other, the places we had cum the hardest. I was replaying the mental movie where we had locked each other so tight in a pin that neither of us could move. Our cocks were smashed together, but it’s almost like thrusting was impossible: We were just a tight knot of naked bodies, boyish muscles flexed to the extreme. We barely moved against one another in a silent challenge: Who would be the first to cum? Eventually I couldn’t hold it in any longer and exploded in what little space there was between us, causing Eric’s orgasm almost immediately afterward. Eric said his legs ached the next day.

My cock twitched and started to grow. I realized I had to do something or else I wasn’t going to be able to think straight. I ran downtstairs, and grabbed a produce bag, thankful that nobody was in the kitchen. (“What do you need a produce bag for? Don’t you want to use a Ziploc bag instead? That one’s dirty, here, get a clean one.”) I raced back upstairs and quietly closed the door. I squirted some lotion in the bag, and pulled my shorts down.

A thought. Why not try something new?

Like what? I asked myself.

See where your mattress is laying on top of the box spring? Get on your knees, my inner voice told me. It was a little low, but my cock more-or-less lined up with it. What if you jammed the bag in there, and, you know, fucked it?

Hmm, I thought, that’s worth a shot.

I put the bag around my hard cock, and stuck it under the mattress but above the box spring. Not without it’s charm, I suppose, I thought to myself. I started thrusting, doggy-style, I guess, and it started to feel better as the friction warmed things up. I went slow, and then fast, and then slow again, imagining I was kissing Eric the entire time. I can’t imagine how silly it looked. I started feeling the familiar rising feeling deep in my core as my orgasm started. I tried to make it last, thrusting harder and harder, flexing my glutes and my quads to find that good-feeling ache that Eric talked about. Here we go, I thought, here I come.

Pop! I felt it more than heard it. My cock throbbed, and I was briefly transported away, my brain blank for just a second or two before relief flooded my body. I thrusted slowly, savoring the feeling, but feeling something different, something rougher. I stopped. Oh shit, I thought. The bag broke.

I lifted up the mattress and sure enough, there was a wet smear of white cum spread between the mattress and the box spring, the bag tight around the head of my cock, but split open, like a little skirt for my glans. Shit, I thought, and I went to find a washcloth to try and clean the mess up. I rolled my eyes. It’s so much easier with two people, I thought.

Or in the shower! a voice shouted at me from deep in my brain. I sighed. I put the damaged bag in a Kleenex, which I would have to dispose of outside later. I washed my hands, and got back in bed, and successfully read three more chapters before slunking downstairs for dinner.

“You got some mail!” my mom exclaimed as I came down the stairs, back from the mailbox. She handed me a postcard, photo side up, featuring a picturesque vista of the Grand Canyon at sunset. In case I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, the words GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA appeared over the orange sky in an old-west type font. My heart skipped a beat.

I turned the card over, and read.

My heart fluttered, and I realized Eric had left a puzzle for me. I wasn’t going to wait until he came back to solve it together, and I don’t think he wanted me to. I ran upstairs with my mail and broke out a sheet of paper.

Eric’s message popped out at me immediately when I saw the W, because I had to believe he was just as horny as I was, if not moreso. My heart soared, and my cock hardened.

I couldn’t wait for Eric to get home.

Author’s note: I know the rule that says “don’t mention a good movie in the middle of the bad movie you’re making,” and know, dear reader, that I understand that feeling having mentioned the books Bobby read.

Highlight the box below to see the hidden message on the postcard.

Solution: WRESTLE & CUM