Jake’s Hand

Part 8

Awakening

            Jake must have cleaned up the kitchen and the dining area while I was napping, because, when I next opened my eyes, the dining table was clean, the overhead lights were off and some candles were burning softly around the room.  Jake was sitting quietly in the easy chair, across the coffee table, a book sitting on his lap, his left leg across his right knee and a reading light shining over his left shoulder.  He wasn’t reading; he was gazing at me.

            “Hi,” he said softly.  He smiled his dazzling smile.

            “I’m sorry.  How long was I asleep?”

            “About a half hour,” Jake said.  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

            “I’d love one.”  Jake went off to the kitchen, and I heard bustling and smelled fresh coffee brewing—he must have had the water hot.  In a few minutes Jake emerged carrying two cups of coffee on a tray.  I sat up.

            I raised my cup.  “Thanks,” I toasted as if the coffee were cognac.  We clinked cups and sipped to good health.  A couple of sips of strong coffee brought me partly back to life. 

            Jake stared at me silently for what must have been a full two minutes.  Several times he started to say something but backed off.  He had done the start/stop thing a lot since coming to Seattle, and he seemed to be doing it even more the last couple of days.   I must have had the good sense to say nothing, because it seemed that Jake would get out what he wanted to say, and it was going to be important to him.  Besides, I didn’t want to change the mood of soft light, contentment, good coffee and Jake’s companionship. 

            Then he broke the silence.  “Lie down again.  Take off the damn Mariner shirt and let me give you a massage.”  He had noticed the T shirt, and it had irked him.  “I told you it’s going to be a night for you.”  I wondered what that meant again, but I took a final drink of coffee, pulled off my shirt, set it Mariner-logo side up on the back of the couch and lay down on the cushions.  Jake sat on the edge of couch, put his hands on my shoulders and began kneading the weariness and the remaining tension out of my body.  He slowly and expertly worked his hands down my back to my waist, then skipped to my feet, ankles, calves and thighs up to my shorts.  I was in heaven.  My whole body was becoming more and more relaxed.  I noticed that the Mariner T-shirt had “accidentally” fallen over the back of the couch and was no longer visible. 

            Jake blew some air through his pursed lips, a ‘whew” sounding like a cross between a sigh and someone bracing himself for a difficult challenge.  “Rob, I have a number of things to get off my chest.  And you get a point if you let me get through it all without stopping me.” 

            He knew that my competitive instinct assured my attention.  “Okay, that’s easy. Shoot!”

            “First, I have to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so hospitable these past five weeks.  That dinner is a small token of my appreciation.” 

            “You’re very welcome again, and the dinner was outstanding, Sawyer.” I replied.  “But you don’t really have to thank me.  You’re my friend.  Well, fourteen years ago you used to be my best friend.  Maybe I’ll let you be my best friend again.”  Jake slapped me on the butt, getting a loud “ow” response from me.

            “Second, I want to say something that has been on my mind for fourteen years.”  He hesitated for about 30 seconds.  His hands continued to knead my back.  His next words came out little louder than a whisper.  “I love you, Robbie.  I’ve loved you all these years.”

            I heart his statement about love, but I heard it in a brotherly love sense.  “Well, I love you, too,” I said in what I hoped was a proper brotherly tone.

            “When you wrote that you had gotten married, something really hit me.  I figured you were no longer available.  You were off limits.  I couldn’t handle it.  So I did what I do too often:  I stopped communicating and decided to stay away.” 

            I was surprised, mostly by the revelation that my marriage to Anne had caused him to stop writing or calling me.  I didn’t know how to take what he was saying about me being off limits.  It made no sense that we couldn’t have continued to be friends.

            “And that leads to the third and difficult thing to say:  It’s the reason I’m beside you right now and ready to ask you to do something for me.” I looked back at Jake, and he was grinning his most mischievous grin.  I hadn’t really seen that grin since Mississippi.

            Oh shit, I thought, what’s coming next.  What was I “willingly” going to agree to do now?  “Okay, Sawyer, tell my what fence of yours am I going to whitewash tonight,” I said finally.

            “Later.  I already did the dishes.”  The mischievous grin again. He slapped me on the bottom again. “Turn over.” We talked about various things as he massaged my arms and shoulders, then moved to my legs, moving from feet to thighs.  And he was reaching some erogenous zones.  I figured my shorts were hiding the start of an erection; the massage was bordering on the erotic, but it simply didn’t occur to me that what Jake was doing was intentional—that is, until he next spoke. 

            “I read the story you wrote for the bulletin board,” he said, matter of factly. 

            I was surprised.  Unfortunately, I knew what story he meant.  Things in my mind began to tumble into place.  Maybe I was wrong about the brotherly love bit.  The ‘I love you, Robbie’ words in Mississippi and just a while before maybe meant more that I thought.  I felt a stirring in my groin.

            “Oh, God!” I said to myself as I sat up, almost bumping Jake’s head.  Jake gently pushed me back down.  If the coffee couldn’t keep me awake, that revelation could.  Then, acting as nonchalantly as possible, I turned to him and asked, belatedly: “What story?”  My eyes drifted to the ceiling and I must have turned crimson, because he laughed quietly.  He wet his index finger with his tongue and marked one more point on his side in the air ledger.  I turned even redder, if that was possible.  I had only written that one piece of fiction in my life, the one I had uploaded to the bulletin board. 

            “You changed the names in the story, of course,” he said.  “But I recognized the kids we taught, the incidents, Grannah’s room, the going-away dinner for her.  I recognized that hot night, the house painting and the skinny dipping.   I recognized myself, of course, and you used my name for Alec. Stealing my name was not too original, if I say so myself, but that was the final clue.  By the way, you owe me two points for that plagiarism and theft. One point for each.” 

            “But! But! But!,” I sputtered. 

            “But, but, but! To you, too,” he echoed.

            “The story was fiction and any resemblance between characters in the story and real life was purely coincidental.  I remember typing those very words at the top of the page.  And some of those things didn’t happen, and Jake is a common name, and you shouldn’t have been reading that story, damn you, so you should get no points.”  God, I was babbling.  “Besides, nobody I knew that summer was supposed to read the story.  Besides, writing it was just therapy for me.  Besides, I never should have sent it off to anyone.  That was really dumb.  Besides, I’m not homosexual.  I’ve never had any sexual relationship with a male.  Except a few circle jerks in junior high.”  I didn’t mention that it had gone a bit further than that.  Jake’s smile got larger and larger almost to the point of laughter as I meandered on.

            “You’re babbling, and I love to make you babble.”  He pushed me back down on the couch and continued the massage.  “It was through your story that I found out you and Anne were divorced—and maybe that you were not tied down.  It was through your story that I found out you had feelings for me, just as I had had feelings for you that summer.  So when I had the opportunity to come to Seattle, I literally jumped at it.  I looked at it as an opportunity to rebuild my relationship with you.”  He quietly continued his massage.

            The implications of what Jake was saying were swimming through my head.    Why was Jake reading a story on a gay bulletin board?  And, why did he mention it tonight—or at all—and in the middle of a massage—with his hand just inches from the bottom of my shorts?  Oh, my God, is it possible Jake was not asleep that night 14 years ago?    Was I really ready for what was happening now?  After all, with Jake’s return to Boston, I was about to be returned to my nicely ordered life of work and support for Alec and Celly’s activities and bike rides and sleep.  Oh, my God.  Am I gay?  My head was filled with too many unanswered questions, consternation showing on my face.  But, my penis was starting to show in my shorts.

            There was silence for a few minutes.  “Jake, I want to sleep on this.  It’s just too much coming at once,” I said, nervously, rolling to a sitting position on the couch.  Jake glanced down at my shorts and was grinning. 

            “G’night.  Thanks again for dinner and the massage,” I said.

            “Good night.”

Try, Try Again

            I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and walls for about an hour, repeating the same questions of myself and asking some new ones before finally dozing off.  I slept fitfully.  I remember throwing the covers back from the sheets at some time.

            I dreamed that Jake’s hand was resting on the top of my thigh.  I dreamed of warm, erotic Mississippi nights, of the humid heat of the day, and the people of that summer. And then I woke.  As I opened my eyes, I found myself covered with a sheet and Jake’s hand resting on the top of my thigh, Jake sitting on the edge of the bed. 

            “It’s one o’clock.  I couldn’t sleep,” Jake said.  A candle had been set on the bed stand and another on the dresser.  Jake’s warm hazel eyes looked into mine, the gold flecks glistening from the bedside light.  I looked down at his hand, then back up to him.  We gazed at one another for a long time, eyes searching into eyes, the only sounds being that of the house—the refrigerator cycling on, the ticking of the clock.

            Finally, Jake broke the silence:  “Would it help you to know that my hand wasn’t where it was 14 years ago by accident?”  More silence between us.

            I slowly digested what he was saying. “Sawyer, were you trying to… ?”

            “I suppose so,” Jake said, giving me his radiant smile.  “Yes.  Maybe.  Maybe I was just horny.  Maybe it was more.   I wanted you to do something that night in response.  I left it up to you.  I wasn’t going to press you.  I didn’t even know which way you might want to go and I was definitely feeling ambivalent about which way I even wanted to go.  I didn’t go any further, because I couldn’t risk our friendship.”

            “The friendship that didn’t even merit a postcard for 14 years, Sawyer?”  Why did I put in that dig at him.  Was it anger or disappointment or pique—or buying time?

            “Yes, that very friendship,” he answered with chagrin. “By the end of the summer in Mississippi, I thought there was something more than mere friendship growing between us.  You gave me something I had never had in my life—stability.   You were the one who saw through me, through all my wildness and wackiness, without judging me.  You were my tether—the one that represented stability to me in that Mississippi summer.  You were the one that kept us all—me, primarily—on an even keel when things needed to be done, when the pressures mounted. 

            “I was afraid, though, that if I pressed things that night, I would lose you--forever.  But on that hot, hot last night I realized I was in love with that young man who had shared a bed with me all summer.” 

            Jake laughed quietly to himself and went on, speaking more quickly:  “Besides, I really was horny, and we were tossing and turning and drifting between awake and asleep.  In one of my awake periods, I saw you asleep on your back, so I turned myself over on my side and I just ‘happened’ to let my hand rest on your thigh.  It was dark and you couldn’t see it but I had this incredible hard-on the whole time.”

            Like I do now, I thought to myself.

            “I noticed you wake up,” Jake continued.  “And you must have lain there for half an hour thinking about what to do.  I noticed the tent in the sheet in the dim light of the room.  I didn’t want to do anything more, so I waited—and waited.  I fervently hoped and prayed you would make the decision for me and test me.  Eventually you turned—but the other way—and went off to the bathroom.  I heard the shower running and I know from your story that you were in the bathroom masturbating to cool yourself down.  What you don’t know was that I was in the bed, doing the same thing. 

            “And then our summer was suddenly over.  Our lives separated.  You got married.  I got your letter about that.  I guess I was jealous or disappointed or both. I got your letter about having your first kid, but by that time I was in the Army, and I didn’t respond.  These many years later, I saw your story on the bulletin board—and I had this opportunity to come to Seattle.”

            The pressure of his fingers on my thigh changed.  “My God! Oh my God!” I said.

            “You’re repeating yourself.  You said that 14 years ago.”

            “No, I didn’t!  I thought that.”  Then I giggled at how he had caught me.

            I stopped.  We looked at each other, not saying a word, for several minutes.  It was my move, now, and Jake knew it.  I set my hand down on top of his and grasped his fingers firmly.  “Sawyer, it’s just too much déjà vu all over again.  I have the same fucking doubts I had in Mississippi.  I have questions and more questions, I don’t know what’s going to happen.  It’s the end of the summer; we’re shortly going our separate ways.  Last time you were going back to college and I was returning to Seattle.  This time, you’re going back to Boston, and maybe I won’t hear from you for 14 years again.  All this conflicting stuff is going through my mind.  I confess that physically I am ready for something—more than ready—but mentally, I’m not there yet, though I think I love you.  Shit, this is difficult.

            “For Christ’s sake, Sawyer, I also have two kids to worry about.  That means we probably have to sneak around for the next few weeks to keep things private.  God, my mind can’t make up its mind.  I don’t know what to do.”  I was starting to babble randomly.  Rob, you think too much, I said to myself.

            “Rob, you think too much,” Jake said to me.  He leaned over and put his lips lightly on mine then pulled back again.  “And don’t think I haven’t had thoughts about this, too.  It’s new to me.  But I need you, Robbie, particularly right now—at this time in my life.  I need you like I’ve needed no other person in my life.  I need you as a friend, as someone to confess to and as someone to love and someone to make love to—and, most importantly, someone to wake up next to in the morning.

            “Look, Rob, I need to explain.  I thought I had this all planned out so well.  First, I would make you a really good dinner, because I knew you were a sucker for good food.  Likewise, that champagne.  To soften you up.  The second part of my plan was to tell you that I loved you and had read your story, hoping that would, er, harden you up.”

            “That’s bad,” I said.  “Really bad.” 

            Jake shrugged and grinned.  “The third part of my plan, if necessary, was to make it more apparent what I was up to.” He moved his hand a fraction of an inch toward the inside of my thigh, which, of course, seemed to double the hardness of my erection, if that was possible.  Jake paused and sighed deeply.  “These past weeks have meant more to me than anything in my life since that summer. Because of you, I’m putting my fucked up life of the last 14 years behind me and out of my mind.  In time, I’ll take the final step and tell you all about everything—nothing held back about these last years.”

            I was deeply moved by Jake’s confession of love—and conflicted—and still unable to make a decision.  My libido was still acting like a teenager’s.  My brain kept saying: “What about Alec?  What about Celly?  What about my friends?  What about Jake’s hand?  What about my love life?  What about love?”  My libido said:  “Yes!” and “Now! Now! You didn’t take your opportunity in Mississippi.  Do it now!  It’s only for a few days.  You’re horny.  It’s only for a few more days.  Alec and Celly won’t know, if we’re careful.  It’s a fling; it’s only for a few more days.”   My brain was on overload again.

            I turned to Jake.  “Leave!” I said suddenly, and my voice sounded a little louder and harsher than the whisper I intended.  Jake looked bewildered, and his eyes became misty. “Out! Out!” I said more softly.  “I just need some time to think, Sawyer, without your goddamned hand sidetracking my brain.  Come back in 15 minutes.”  His eyes glinted in the light, but as he left the room he turned and gave me his best Sawyer grin.  “No, come back in ten minutes, and I’ll make my decision.”

            Shit, he had flimflammed me again.  Another point for him, though he hadn’t asked for it, fortunately.  I lay there, already knowing my decision, damn it.  Jake knew my decision, too.  Down the hall, I heard the sounds of doors opening and closing, then heard the water turned on in the kitchen downstairs.  All the while, I could think of no really good reason about the decision I was about to make if I wanted to follow my heart.  

            Five minutes later, I had made my decision.  “Sawyer,” I shouted, “come back!”   Jake appeared in the doorway in his shorts and a Red Sox T-shirt, which he had found in the short interval he was away.  He knew the t-shirt would get me aroused, and I would demand he take it off.  He moved over and sat down next to me, running his hands first nervously through his hair then down his chest and across his abdominal muscles as if he didn’t know exactly how to proceed.  I grasped his right hand, pulled it to me and placed it back to my thigh.  After a few seconds, I rolled my body towards his hand and closed a 14-year old chapter of our lives. 

            I imagined myself in Mississippi on that hot night.    I moved my lips to his, he bent his head and we kissed--softly, gently, somewhat tentatively.  I broke the kiss and lay there just gazing at him. 

I could feel the warmth of the back of Jake’s hand on my erection, and I responded by moving my legs together to increase the pressure.  I sensed only a second of hesitancy on Jake’s part.  Jake moved his hand down my thigh, slid it further between my sensitized legs.  I gasped at that first touch. Jake slowly moved his hand up the inside of my leg and started a light caress across my balls.  It was too much.  I couldn’t speak.  I could only sigh deeply.  Then Jake let his fingers dance up the shaft of my erection.  That sent more incredible feelings into my groin and what I had left of my brain.  I took his face in my hands and kissed his lips softly and tenderly, the third time I had ever kissed a man on the lips—the first two times being a few moments earlier.  I looked into his eyes long and hard, then nodded my approval gently.  Oh hell! We could sneak around for the next week or so, and then I could return to my life as I knew it.

            “You realize this is my first time at this,” Jake said huskily, “I’m just getting the feel of it.”

            “Well I would hope you do that very soon.”  Laughing, Jake danced his fingers along my erection again and grasped my cock.  My breath caught again.  “Nice feel,” I said.

            “Off with the boxers.  Off with that goddam shirt, particularly” I ordered.  “I want to see the rest of you.  I want to see all of you.”  He laughed lustily, then smiled warmly.

            Jake stood next to the bed facing me and pulled the shirt over his head, with slow but deliberately sensuous motions.   He laid it on the back of a chair, Red Sox logo facing the bed, and smoothed it with his hand.  He turned his back to me, and pulled his boxers part way down the bubble of his butt, did a half turn so I could glimpse the pubic hair above his penis and see the lump that lay under the waistband.  He took the front of his shorts and very slowly pulled them down to his ankles, then kicked them off.   If it had been a strip-tease show, I would have paid a million dollars for it. 

            He stood next to the bed, nothing between him and me but sexual tension.  He leaned over and kissed me again, then stood back up.  I looked at a cloud of reddish brown pubic hair around his curved erection, and I saw the slight trail of curls going up his muscled abdomen to his navel.  I stared at the sight, my cock getting harder and harder.  His cock twitched, seemingly in harmony with my feelings.  

            I rose to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, still gazing at this man that I realized I probably loved once and maybe would love once again.  I opened my arms, wrapped them around his middle and pulled him nearer with my hands. All I wanted to do at that moment was to feel his body—to nuzzle his pubic hair with my nose and chin, to smell his intimate male smell and to feel the soft skin of his hard cock pressing lightly on the outside of my cheek.  He just sighed softly as I did.  I put my left hand on the cheek of his butt and buried my nose in his pubic hair, enjoying the musky smell.

            Holding his hard penis against my cheek, feeling its warmth, I wet my thumb with my mouth and gently massaged the soft almost silky skin of its head.  He moaned softly.  I moved my lips to his testicles, and starting applying soft kisses on his ball sac, then moved them along his shaft to the corona, feeling the drop of pre-cum. An “Mmmm” arose from his lips.  I moved my kisses to his golden treasure trail, feeling the brush of his erection across my chin, ran my tongue into his navel, then, pulling him down on the bed, kissed his right nipple, drew my lips across the dusting of hair beside it, to his other nipple, then to his neck. 

            “God, I’ve been waiting so long for this, Robbie,” Jake whispered hoarsely in my ear. 

            “It’s time, Sawyer.”

            I moved my lips to his lips and we kissed--longingly, lovingly, passionately—our mouths opening to each other’s tongues.

            We pulled our bodies together with force, muscle tensed against muscle, chest against chest, cock pressing against cock, balls softly touching balls, legs intertwined with legs, hair touching hair as our kisses grew deeper.  The physical contact grew more intense.  My breathing became heavier and more ragged.  “It’s been awhile.  I can’t hold back much longer.  I’m gonna come pretty soon,” I said.  Jake moved his hand between our bodies to my cock, wrapping it in his warm palm, and just held on.  The blood in my cock surged and receded against his hand as I neared my climax.  I moved my hand to his cock, felt its warmth and slowly stroked it. 

            I suddenly couldn’t hold back.  My penis swelled in his hand, and I moaned in pleasure as my cum spewed forth in surges between us.  With each surge I tightened my grip on Jake’s penis.  “Yes!  Yes!” he whispered hoarsely.  Then his orgasm overcame him and his cum flew between us in wave after wave of his pleasure, landing with mine on our stomachs and chests.  We lay there for several minutes, panting and kissing each other lightly, massaging the cum into each other’s skin.

            Then we began to laugh.  “I came first.  One for me,” I said.

            He pulled back and looked me in the eye.  “What?  I came second.  I should get the point.”   

            “Sorry, Sawyer,” I laughed, “but if you want to call a truce for the future, that’s fine.  But this time, I came first and I get the point.”  There is an advantage in setting new rules.

            “Okay, you asshole.  From now on no points during sex, okay?”  I guess that meant we had begun a relationship.

            “Asshole?”

            He grinned.

            Later, after we had cooled down, I whispered to him, with a warm laugh:  “God, that was wonderful.  You were talking about my lucky day, weren’t you?.”

            “It was just a start.  I think we might get a bit deeper into this in the morning.”

            I kissed him and we caressed each other.  I felt the soft, warm post-orgasm feeling.  I was so contented I could almost purr.  However, the fatigue and satiation were catching up to me.  “You know, if you weren’t so subtle, we could have done this 14 years ago,” I said with a yawn.

            “If you hadn’t jacked off so many times in the bathroom, you might have been horny enough to finish the night off right.”

            “Well, at least we can make something of your last week in Seattle,” I said as I yawned.  I heard a “hmm, we’ll talk about that later” as I closed my eyes from exhaustion.  Sometime later in the haze of sleep I felt Jake cleaning the cum off our chests with a warm washrag.

            We slept in each other’s arms.  I dreamed erotic dreams.