A Surprise Question

I was on my way over to pick up Reid from work. We were going to hang out like we've been doing quite a bit the last six or so months.

My relationship with Reid is unusual by common standards. There's a good 20 years separating our ages. He's finishing his 20's; I'm in middle age. Many folks wonder why - or even how - the two of us came to know each other.

I think what it comes down to is, we've been largely dissatisfied with the selection in our own age groups, at least in the major city in which we both live. For me, it comes down to having little or nothing in common with other middle-agers. I've never been married, never had kids, never bought a mortgaged home. Many middle-aged folk, that's what they know best. The vast majority of the ones I see in public, I'll look at, and think to myself,

I don't have a shred in common with you other than our ages

. As too many middle-agers skew right-of-center, I'm not eager to spend time with them. My being gay certainly doesn't help.

With Reid, it's similar. He's not just a hottie, he has a brain, a sense of humor. He's multicultural. He's bemoaned to me how superficial so many guys his own age are - how they're just about getting wasted, about sports, about getting laid. They never

read

anything - books, newspapers, magazines, even online. Reid says talking to most guys at this time in humanity is a colossal bore.

We met at a local independent coffee place. I saw his long, flaxen locks that touched the top of his shoulders, comfortably hanging off his head, and his pert brown eyes stealing looks at me from across the room. I'm no looker, so I wasn't sure why I was drawing his gaze.

But one moment, when we were at the counter together, he heard me make a joke to the barista. He made a joke off my joke. I laughed. He smiled.

"What are you about?" I kidded him.

"You look smart," he said back. "I like smart. Where ya sittin'?"

"Over on the couch," I said.

We walked back over and sat down, side by side, and we didn't stop talking for 90 minutes. We had to have covered some three dozen different subjects - art, news, education, popular music, technology, spirituality, psychology, and so much more. For both of us, it was a spectacular bonding of two minds.

Coming out to each other after all that was pretty easy. Again, our dating histories were pretty similar - both of us were disappointed with "the community." Comparing notes with him was like talking to myself.

All that flashed through my mind as I sat at the curb, engine running, listening to smooth jazz on a satellite radio channel. I must have been lost deep in my thoughts because I jumped a bit when I heard the knock on the passenger-side glass from Reid.

I looked over. It

was

Reid, but it was Reid sporting a shorter hair style than when I'd seen him two days prior. Apparently he snuck over to a hair salon and got a cut. It was a neat cut. There was still some length to it, thankfully - it was nowhere near a crew cut. It still hung comfortably off his head, loosely, but the change was noticeable. I immediately missed his rocker-dude locks, but I did like this new look.

I reached over and unlocked the passenger door. He opened it and got in. We embraced warmly.

"Heeeey!" I said in a half-joking voice. "Look at you! Did ya lose a bet?"

"I just thought it was time," Reid said, smiling.

And as I pulled away from the curb, heading for my place, we talked about hair in general - the history of styles, barbers vs salon stylists, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

"You like it?" Reid asked with the slightest hint of caution, looking at me.

"Yes! Whoever did it did a good job."

"Okay, good," he said, and turned back around facing forward. "We going to your place?"

"Yeppers! About three minutes away."

We got to my place, a small but comfortable 2-bed/2-bath home. It has a sizable, but not overly large, living room. It's cozy, but not confining. When Reid comes by, we spend a decent amount of time on my couch, talking much like we did the first time we saw each other.

We happened to be talking this one evening. We had covered comedians, jazz, the history of certain fonts, and the wretched state of talk shows, and we both suddenly fell silent for a moment. It wasn't uncomfortable. It was like both of us knew that something remarkable was about to happen, and both of us psychically knew it. What surprised me was that he initiated.

"Hey, um...are you gonna kiss me?"

My head exploded internally. I mean, I've always known Reid to be a bit forward - Taurus guys often are - but I also thought they were slow movers.

I exhaled with a laugh. "Wow," I finally said, searching for a clever comeback - nothing. Reid was looking dead at me.

"Well, um..." I half-stammered. "Can I?"

Reid nodded his head slowly, a gentle smile on his lips. I exhaled again, turned my body towards his, and reached out with my arms to draw his body to my chest. I figured I'd start with a hug before getting fancy.

Taureans' love language is touch, so I figured I'd linger a bit. I pulled Reid's chest snugly against mine, enjoying the feeling of our pecs pressing warmly against each other.

I drew back after a few moments, and went in for the kill. We got closer, closer, closer, me feeling the body heat from his face a split second before our lips touched.

And we kissed, a very gentle smooching, not the full tongue affairs some guys do. After showering his lips with short pecs, I kissed his cheeks, the side of his head, the tip of his nose, and the lower part of his neck. He reciprocated by rubbing my back and the back of my head with his hands.

We sat there for a good 15 minutes, wrapped up in each other, totally in the moment, totally in the warmth of each others' bodies, and the energy coming off of each. I felt my shaft stirring and getting harder by the minute.

"Hey," I said quietly at one break in the smooching, "I wanna give you a kiss a little lower down."

"I'm for that," Reid said in almost a whisper.

"I wanna kiss your navel."

"My navel?" It was said with an inflection that sounded like I was talking about a foreign part of his body, or using a foreign language. Since it was a "different" body part, his response carried a touch of anxiety about me being too weird, and him being a bit neurotic that he might possibly like it. I absolutely love it when hotties say that word in this tone. It sounds so...vulnerable.

I nodded yes.

"Um...sure," Reid said, finally cracking a slightly goofy,

I-don't-get-it-but-okay

kind of smile, as if we were going to embark on some wild adventure. He slowly pulled up his short-sleeve tee, emblazoned with the emblem of one of the local universities. Then he tied it up at the side in a knot, so that the effect was that of a crop-top, his lovely, soft, creamy, unblemished midriff bared for my desiring eyes. He knows bared male midsections are my "thing."

He sat back and let me gaze at him, which I did. For a good minute. "You are so beautiful," I finally said, reverently and admiringly. Reid's stomach was flat and unmuscular, the way I prefer, unmarked by tattoos, piercings, or scars. No body hair. No visual distractions.

"So are you," Reid said back.

"Why don't you lie back?" I gently suggested. Reid did so, and I cast a lustful gaze at his beautiful, deep, long, oval slit of a bellybutton that was facing upward now. He was still looking at me, curious as to just what exactly I was going to do.

"Um...my bellybutton is sensitive. Like...really sensitive," he said. "When I lather my stomach in the shower, I always take my time, and I get super horny."

I wasn't sure whether this admission was a caution or an invitation. Either way, I appreciated it. I surveyed his navel carefully with my eyes with this new information.

"Duly noted," I responded with a touch of mischief in my voice.

I slid myself down to the carpet and crouched over his bared midriff, holding it with both my hands, enjoying its warmth and softness. And then I leaned over and began to kiss his oval innie bellybutton, pressing my very warm lips against it now. I heard him yelp with pleasure. I kissed it some more. He yelped more.

"You like this?" I said.

"Yeah, this is wild, I've never felt this before with anyone," Reid gasped, clearly in the throes of ecstasy.

I pressed my lips down firmer and firmer, loving the perfectly oval and symmetrical shape of his navel, allowing the moist inside of my mouth to cover the navel's nearly one-inch long opening. Then I sprayed a series of short pecks in a circle around it, all over his stomach, to his great delight.

With my hands, I began to stroke his belly, loving its warmth and firmness, letting my fingers graze the perimeter of his navel, tracing the shape lovingly, pressing my index finger through the deepest part of the center of it, hearing Reid's breathing getting deeper and a little faster. I settled into a back-and-forth, up-and-down pattern of massaging his bellybutton.

"I'm gonna come," Reid said in a husky tone.

I unzipped Reid's blue jeans and fished out his rather firm and throbbing penis, which had already started to ooze precum. I pointed it upward toward Reid's face, at an angle.

I relentlessly continued my finger stroking, on and on, changing the cadence, speed, occasionally pausing to let him catch his breath, then beginning a new set of strokes anew.

"I'm gonna come," Reid said in a more urgent tone. I didn't let up. I kept fingering his navel.

Reid moaned loudly and then shot a strong stream of thick, white semen into the air, hitting his shirt, his chin, and catching his lips. He moaned again as I continued fingering him and a second glob of it shot out, almost as strong, this time grazing his cheeks and catching some strands of his new haircut.

"This is so hot," I said in a low voice, continuing to work his bellybutton.

Another glob hit his stomach where my fingers were, immersing them in his slippery, syrupy jizz. And yet another landed squarely in the middle of his navel instantly, filling it so it looked like a white, wet line in the middle of his stomach. My fingers were caught in the rush of his bodily fluid, and his cum lubricated them as I continued fingering the deepest part of his innie.

I slowed my strokes down and eventually paused. I looked at his shirt. Globs of wet semen were all over the place, partially covering the printed pattern on it. A string of semen was dangling off his hair on the side of his head, defiantly refusing to break and fall off, swaying helplessly side to side.

We sat there in silence, both of us surveying this incredibly erotic sight, now breathing more steadily.

"Did you like that?" I finally asked gently.

"Please don't stop kissing me," Reid said.

I leaned over and pressed my lips onto his cum-covered navel, marveling at the warmth and gooeyness of it all, and then, holding his chest in my arms, moved to his head and pressed my wet, slicked lips onto his wet, slicked lips - already moist from his own semen, from the first blast when he came.

And we kissed, and we kissed, and we kissed.