Connor's Pretty Horny

The next morning, Jake and Dean had both passed out in the main room. Regrettably, they had sobered up enough to put their clothes back on. I slunk out the door, giving it just hard enough of a slam to wake them up. They'd need to get moving too.

My car had practically collected dust over the course of the semester. Realistically, I was paying $450 a semester to a park a car with a primary occupation of rusting. As I went to throw my gym bag in the passenger seat though, I noticed a smiley face had been drawn on the dirty window. There, as if left by a passing gaucho, was my cowboy hat and boots from the party. No note, but I had a feeling that only one person could be responsible.

That was enough to drive home with a grin. A Henry grin.

---

I haven't said much about my parents, which I think is equal parts good (they're unobjectionable) and bad (gratitude, it's important). We are a suburban family, to say the least of it. Picture a plain split level in a quite suburb with even quieter neighbors.

Dad's an accountant and my mom is generally selling some craft online. Last Christmas it was these custom ribbon wreaths, then in spring these hand-painted wooden eggs, and now it would be something appropriately Turkey themed. Or maybe we'd be back to wreaths again, or something new entirely.

Dad was in the garage when I pulled up, which was a welcome sight. There's something awkward about coming home. I don't have to knock, right? I still live here, I just also live somewhere else. So I live here, but I still have to awkwardly call out that I've arrived - something I'd never dream of doing on a regular day after school.

Anyway, Dad watched me park curbside and came jogging out to the street to meet me, grabbing my bag out of my hand.

"I've got it, I've got it. Getting into the rodeo now?" He said, motioning towards my cowboy attire. Up close, Dad is a good-looking guy. Don't get your hopes up - this isn't turning into that kind of story. Still, that serene lined face meant "home" - the kind of stubble that I still can't grow and all. If your dad is truly a model for who you'll someday be, I would be thrilled.

"Just looking into backup option if this whole college thing doesn't pan out." I said as we ambled up the driveway to the garage. He set down my bag and leaned against the car, a fixer-upper he had inherited from an uncle when I was still in highschool.

Back then, he had asked me if I wanted to help him out, maybe it could be mine one day. For a few Saturdays, we hung out and he taught me about cars. I wasn't interested, even though I wanted to be - for my dad. Those are the gnawing feelings you try to push down when you're a closeted gay teen, when your dad is a regular nice guy and you were born a people pleaser like me.

Maybe Dad knew I was gay, maybe he just thought I wasn't interested in cars, but one Saturday he took the hint and didn't wake me up. More than that, you could tell it never really mattered to him. There was no awkward tone of failed father-son bonding or even a missed beat of disappointment. Dad knew me then in a lot of the same ways that Henry knows me now. I'm a guy who needs an easy Halloween costume, and can't go to a party alone, and can't pretend to be interested in cars.

"So, is the cowboy bit your way of saying midterms didn't go well?" He asked, but we both knew my scrambled answer way before it came tumbling out of my mouth.

"Nah, no, Dad. You know me better than that." Sometimes it felt like talking alone was a challenge to me, even with my own father. Incurable. Could you still see a speech therapist at 19? Is constantly being tongue-tied a thing? "Where's ah, mom?" I added.

Dinner was going and Mom sat at the kitchen island, pinning together scraps of orange and brown fabric and holding them up to the light. I hadn't inherited a single crafty gene at all and struggled with scissors, coloring, and glue in grade school. I was in completely in awe of her when she was in this mode.

Looking up from her crafts, she saw me and immediately burst into tears. Because she's that kind of mom. After ten minutes of hugging, kissing, consoling, and gentle patting, she'd recovered enough to hold conversation.

"You know, Porter was by yesterday looking for you. He's home for the break too, you know." She chided. Porter being my ex-best-straight-friend, replaced and outdone thoroughly by Henry in college. She was chiding me to rekindle something I wasn't interested in at all.

"I'm sure I'll see him around." I shrugged and picked at the dead skin around my nails.

Mom knew better than to press it further and went back to making dinner, asking me if I had kept up with any of our TV shows (I hadn't) or called Grandma lately (Nope).

So that was what coming home to Mom and Dad would be like, a few tears and then falling right back into our routines. It was the most comforting thing in the whole world.

---

First, picture my childhood bedroom to yourself. Feel free to make harsh judgements based on what you know of me this far, and be about as stereotypical as you possibly can be. Okay, close your eyes and put the image in your head. You'll have to use the sum total of 35k words of my inner dialogue, but I'm confident you can do this.

Odds are, if you've been paying any attention this far at all, you've probably nailed my childhood bedroom on stereotypes alone. I'm bookish, and a long low bookcase stuffed with novels, trinkets, and memorabilia proves it. I'm awkward, and a culturally devoid wall proves it. I'd never broadcast my musical or film taste so boldly as to put it on my wall, are you kidding me? And I'm a kinda gross sex fiend, so a bedside drawer full of late-night horny online purchases makes perfect sense. All of that, kept immaculately clean and hidden away in the basement my parent's had finished just for me.

Waking up that first day back home had a way of taking me right back to being a senior in high school. To really complete the picture, there was a note taped to the back of my door with a great list of errands assigned to be my mother. I'd have to work for my keep this week, clearly.

They were both gone which meant I did something that was truly not an option at college: I took a bath. My parent's master bath had a beautiful tub with jets. I slipped out of the goofy pajamas I had pulled out of an old drawer and slipped into the hot water and thought distantly about times that I'd use this tub when they were out. Were you ever an adolescent boy if you didn't point your cock into some jets once or twice?

My skin gets pink when I take a bath. I pawed at my skin, exfoliating gently and brushing my fingers through my short pubes in the water. I thought about all the confidence I had lost and the foolish, childish side of myself I had shown. Then I pulled the plug and let the water drain out around me, suds swirling around the drain and disappearing from sight. Gone.

By then, I was cutting it close on a long list of chores from Mom and it was time to skedaddle. Yep, skedaddle.

---

You know how sometimes, you'll have a really bad dream but it's actually totally plausible? Like we've all had nightmares where your ass is getting chased down by a psychopath with a chainsaw, but then you wake up and you're completely relieved. You're in bed and you know that no part of it was real at all.

I have a lot of dreams that jolt me awake with that same mid-terror feeling, but then I have to go through everything in my head to make sure what I just dreamed up didn't happen. Like if I dream about missing a test, I have to login immediately and check that the test hasn't happened yet. My nightmares are basically always everyday, realistic happening.

So when I looked up from my phone and into Porter's eyes at the grocery store checkout, I had one of those moments. This probably couldn't be real, none of the data points added up. Porter went to college and there was no way he worked here. And the odds of us both being here at the same time were also pretty much impossible.

And yet, as if to prove that it was really him, he said: "Hey Connor. Long time no see," taking the pack of gum out of my hand and ringing it up. As if not a day had passed. As if we weren't currently having a serious run in.

"Hi, Porter," I said, gulping loudly enough that I'm sure the next register over could have heard. Porter showed no sign.

"Home for the holiday?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"I saw your mom the other day."

"She told me."

"Oh, cool." He said simply, pushing the last box of butter over the scanner and into my bag. He grabbed the sack and handed it to me, our hands touching for a split second in passing.

For the second time, my eyes shot up to meet his. Ah, Porter. Some things never change. He smirked, knowingly. "Have a nice day I guess, Connor." I nodded and half jogged out of the store, hoping to put him behind me forever. Hoping the grocery store would close down, the building would be swiftly demolished and replaced with high-rise condominiums, and the possibility of that happening ever again would be completely zero. Alternatively, I hoped our hands touching and our awkward exchange had been a very bad, very uncomfortable dream.

It was, of course, not a very bad uncomfortable dream at all. It was as real as heartbreak, Alex, birds singing, and maybe as real as bad dreams so often are.

----

The drive home caught me in a miserable recounting of events with Porter while I tried to drown it all out in pop songs on a Level 11 radio. As you can imagine, I was not the type to listen to my music loud, especially at the dangerous cost of masking traffic noise. And yet, the rushing of blood through my head and ears when I remembered the details of Porter were still much louder.

My relationship with Porter might have been the straight boy crush to end all straight boy crushes. We'd been friends all through high school. A wound that I had healed, partially because of Henry, and majorly in spite of him. The sad thing, of course, was that Porter had done me absolutely no intentional harm in his entire life and had never intended to. The harm was mine: that I fell for my straight best friend, a feeling that built over years and years until I would either die a young death or have to make the biggest fucking fool out of myself possible. Sadly, I didn't spontaneously combust three days before graduating. My body involuntarily selected unbearable shame instead. Not sure which I would have preferred.

We're doing a montage, people. Here's a few quick vignettes from my teenage relationship with Porter: There was the time I hid in the utility closet and peered through the tiny wooden slats into the bathroom where he had just taken a shower, claiming the tiniest glimpse of his beautiful ass. There was a time we'd spent all night watching the Harry Potter franchise, and when he fell asleep, I slipped two fingers into the waist band of his pajama pants just to feel skin I hadn't felt yet. Once, he'd dragged me camping and spent the whole weekend without his shirt on and I beat my cock furiously in the fucking woods. The fucking woods! That was the effect that a close, boyish relationship with Porter had cast on me.

There was a severe side effect to the intense drug of being attracted to my straight male friend: I absolutely hated myself for it. A fun day at the water park was tainted by lusting after Porter. A slight slip of skin was jerk off material for me, and completely innocent for him. I felt like being gay and him not knowing was this big guilty secret that put him in situations he'd never voluntarily go. Would a straight guy really strip naked around a gay guy, knowingly? Probably not.

That guilt was no joke. It was powerful, but not too powerful to stop me from occasionally snapping a quick picture with my phone when he wasn't looking and saving it for later. Yeah, it was sick. What was worse, though, is sometimes I could trick myself into thinking that it all might be a game of cat and mouse. I'd say to myself: Maybe Porter knows I'm watching, and he's gay too but just doesn't know it yet, so he's showing off for me.

If you're now thinking: Are you the dumbest fucking child ever born? then boy do I have an epic conclusion to Porter and I's tale. The finality of high school graduation was running through everyone's veins a little bit in those last few weeks of May. The looming date meant many a peer had a bucket list item or two to get crossed off before we all parted ways forever. Mine was Porter, who I knew I'd either finally suck his dick or I'd have to cut him out forever so I could just get past my obsession.

After graduation pictures and tears and confetti and whatever, Porter came over to my house where we'd then get dropped off at a fancy hotel where there was a party being hosted. It was well understood that kids would drink, and some forward-thinking parents had arranged rooms and a ballroom at this one little hotel. We'd go, we'd linger between rooms and chat with friends, cry some tears and sign shit or do whatever you do before you graduate, and then crash in a room with two other boys. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, the first thing that went fucking horribly off the rails was that Tyler and Palmer never showed up to the party. The major buffer between me and confessing my feelings to Porter while groping at his undoubtedly thick dick (I mean, it just had to be) was completely wrong. The second thing that went wrong was that I was a nerdy kid who was watching Netflix at home instead of going to crazy high school parties, so my understanding of the effects of alcohol on an empty stomach was very, very limited.

Last, but not least, Porter looked incredible after a night of crazy jumping to stupidly bass-ey music. He'd undone not two, not three, but four buttons on his white dress shirt and his tan face was red and rosy when he sank onto the corner of the hotel room bed that night. If life were The Sims and I could just go back and make one action command, I'd have ordered myself to go sit on the other bed. If I'd gone and laid on my own goddamn bed, I was so drunk there was no way I'd have ever gotten back up again to do what happened next. I'd have flipped on CNN, stared at the screen blankly until I fell asleep, and woken up and known that the whole notion was so laughably stupid.

But I plopped down on the bed right next to Porter, who's black hair had just taken on the slight sheen of sweat as he rubbed his fingers back and through it. As I drove away from the grocery store that day, this next scene was the one that made me white-knuckle the steering wheel in painful remembrance.

"I guess that's high school, then." I said softly, falling back on the bed and letting my legs dangle over the end. Porter fell over, too.

"I guess that's it." And, I swear to god, he pulled his shirt out of his pants, undid the button, unzipped, and pushed his pants around his ankles. My cock, which was ragingly hard despite my drunken state, responded immediately and drove the next foolish decision, which was to reach out and grab at his crotch. His completely flaccid crotch.

"What the fuck?" Porter said, and you wouldn't have even know that he was drunk as he snapped to his feet.

"I thought you took off your pants to---" I rasped, propping myself up on my shoulder. Porter had already popped back into his shoes and was throwing his suit jacket on, walking out of the room.

"I'll see you around this summer, Connor." He yelled back over his shoulder. There was a bite, there. We were best friends. We didn't just see each other around. I am sure this threw me into a tornado of emotions, but all I can remember today is waking up alone in a dinky hotel room and just feeling like I'd been punched really, really hard in the gut.

The next awful truth is that a lot of straight guys would have written me off as a dumb fag right there, but Porter didn't. He texted me two days later, asking if I wanted to hang out. Then he called me, and then he even invited me on his fucking family camping trip. The guy just wouldn't quit. But I bore that shame in the only way I knew how, which was to just cut away all that pain. I knew, secretly, that I could never, ever get over Porter. I'd be 40 years old, Porter would be inviting me on his family camping trips, and I'd still be pining after him and hoping that things might work out between us some day.

So, I didn't do that. I didn't text him back, and until this brief encounter at the grocery store, we hadn't shared a single mutual word. Ideally, I'd like to keep it that way.

----

Back at the house, I took a nap. That nap, as my naps often do, consisted of a stress dream where I was looking for my locker because I needed a textbook for a test, and I'd wander down hundreds of hallways looking for the number. Then, I'd finally find it and realize I didn't know the combination and I had just five minutes until I would completely fail the test. For some reason, I can very rarely have a stress-dream-free nap.

Groggily looking at my phone, I huffed out loud to see a text from David. Do you even remember David? He was my first college Grindr fuck, and now he'd sent me a picture of his thick fucking cock in a perfect curve against some dude's ass with a caption asking if I was still at school. Maybe it was related to Porter, maybe I was just feeling horny, but I hauled my own cock out of my pants and took a picture, captioned: No, but let's meet up when I get back.

Fucking around with David actually didn't sound so bad. I had another text from Henry, asking if I had arrived home okay, but quickly swiped past it to open Grindr and see what the neighborhood had to offer now that Grindr was a thing I apparently did. A few faceless bodies later, and I'd secured a sexting buddy while I jerked off in my childhood bedroom which felt kinda skeevy but whatever.

He was actually pretty hot, with a nice toned stomach, a decently thick uncut cock, and of course: no head. I didn't mind, I was in this to send a few texts and hopefully shoot a load.

"Hey. Want some cock?" He had messaged me, along with a few torso pictures and that first sideways picture of his cock.

"Always." See, I couldn't really act like a slut out loud, but it was pretty fucking easy over messages. I stood up, faced the mirror hanging on the back of my door, and took a picture of me gripping my cock as it hung out of my pants. It was hot, to be honest. Here's the less hot thing, though: I forgot to crop my face out. In my hometown. With a guy I didn't know, on Grindr.

"Whoa! What's up Connor?" He replied, and my heart didn't just sink, it plummeted through the floor and crashed into the kitchen table.