Gabe-O

It was Monday of the second week of August when Gabe knocked on my open door, a week before training was supposed to start. I looked up and was startled to see his familiar bulk in my doorway.

"Hey coach," he said. He had a huge grin on his face.

"Gabe!" I said, and leapt up to greet him. We hugged. Maybe we held the hug a bit long. It had been several months since we'd last seen each other. My mind spiraled when I smelled him, his fresh, cut-grass smell. Suddenly I felt the mat, slick with our sweat, under me. I felt his forearm press across the back of my head. I heard him call me a bitch.

"Look at you!" I said, stepping back, attempting to quell my racing thoughts. My face felt hot. I looked him up and down. "Didn't skip any meals this summer, huh?" I said. He looked and felt much beefier. My heart was pounding and I probably had a stupid smile plastered on my face.

He laughed and dropped the gym bag he was carrying onto the carpet of my office floor. "Yeah," he said, grabbing at his belly. "But I think I put on about ten pounds of muscle, coach." His smile was radiant. "Don't worry, I can lose fifteen, easy, before weigh-in."

"What's with the beard?" I said. It looked like he had a few weeks worth of stubble, not quite a full beard. There were some bare patches where it hadn't come in yet, but overall it suited his face. It had a slight reddish tinge that offset his eyes. "You gonna keep that?" I asked.

He laughed and his cheeks flushed red. He rubbed his hand across his chin. "Maybe. My girlfriend likes it," he said. There was a slight furrow in his brows when he looked at me after he said this, uncertainty lurking in his dark, hazel eyes.

"Girlfriend..." I said, and felt a twist in my gut, but covered it up with another big smile and slapped him on the back. "Who's dumb enough to date you?"

He laughed. "She's in school in Overland Park. I know her from way back."

"Good for you, Gabe," I said. And I couldn't help thinking,

at least she's in Kansas

.

"How was your summer, coach?" he asked.

"Oh, pretty boring," I said. I wandered back behind my desk and bent over to shut some windows that were open on my computer, really an excuse to adjust my erection when my back was turned to him. "I was here, mostly. I'm teaching this fall, exercise physiology, so I've been prepping that..."

"I should take that," he said.

"Yeah, couldn't hurt..." I said, turning to face him again.

I saw him look at me in that way he did. I had forgotten what it felt like, to have his eyes on me.

I said, "You know, nothing much exciting goes on here in the summer. I mean, it's Iowa."

He laughed. "You've been working out, coach. You look jacked."

"Ha. Yeah. I got yolked," I said, flexing an arm, and we both laughed.

It was true, though, I had hit the gym hard over the summer. Without coaching or teaching, I needed an outlet for my energy, and I hated being alone in my apartment. Perhaps I had gone a bit overboard. I hadn't carried this much muscle since my last year at UT. But I was looking forward to showing the guys what an old fogy like me could still get up to in the gym.

After a somewhat awkward silence, Gabe said, "Hey, is it cool if I hit the weight room? I just got in today and I want to get right back into it."

"Sure," I said. I looked around and grabbed my key fob off the top of a filing cabinet. "Let me swipe you in. Your card doesn't work yet, I bet."

"No, I gotta go to security later and get it activated." We left my office and walked toward the wrestling unit. I hoped his early arrival to campus was a sign that Gabe was coming back with a good mindset. His head could get goofy.

~

"Where's your head, Gabe?" I asked him, once I was in my singlet and all the other guys were in the shower.

"I don't know, coach," he said. He sounded sullen, defeated. He was sitting cross-legged on the mat, looking down. I walked over and stood over him.

"I'll tell you where it's not. It's not anywhere close to here." I pointed down at the mat. "You've been out to lunch since the meet at State."

"I know," he said, and his voice broke. I wondered if he was going to cry. Guys had only cried on me a few times, but I would never expect it from Gabe.

~

"How's your head, Gabe?" I asked him, as we walked down the hallway. He knew what I meant. We knew each other really well. I'd started this coaching job three years ago, when Gabe was a freshman. We bonded quickly; we were immediately at ease with each other. He was one of the greatest athletes I'd ever coached, here, or at either of my two previous jobs. It was a joy and a privilege to coach such a natural talent. But there was something more. Working with these kids, you inevitably click with some of them more than others. Among those, maybe a few rise to the level of the connection I had with Gabe. And we'd had it, an almost preternatural connection, somehow, since day one.

"Good, coach. I'm doing good. It's been a really good summer," he said, quietly. He hadn't emailed or texted me at all, unlike previous summers. Realistically, I hadn't expected him to, not after what had happened last year. But of course, I had hoped to hear from him, if only to keep tabs on his training. I might have been able to talk him out of eating so much, at least.

~

"Well, we are gonna try to figure it out, tonight," I said, clipping my ear guard on. I was 36 years old, starting to gray at the temples and in my beard, not in the best shape of my life by a long shot, but I was angry. I wasn't about to let my best wrestler do this to himself. "Get down," I said, motioning him into the bottom position. He had been scored on over and over from the bottom in recent matches.

"Coach, no. I don't want to wrestle you," he said.

"I'm not asking, Gabe," I said, raising my voice. "Get down or you're off the team." There were a couple of guys still at their lockers, changing after their shower. They were watching Gabe and me, and I saw them exchange shocked looks. The unit was so quiet, my voice boomed loudly, amplifying off the concrete walls. I almost never showed my temper. The remaining guys hustled to get dressed and out the door as fast as they could.

~

I swiped us into the separate wrestling unit, a space that was ours to use, exclusively. I'd never coached in a better setup, and once again I thanked the gods that I'd gotten this job. The university had equipped us with a large weight room, an adjacent locker room, showers, and an additional large, open space equipped with several mats. Two of the walls were covered with whiteboards and we also had a large flat-screen monitor. This is where we had teem meetings, reviewed tape, and it was even big enough for the whole team to practice in if the main gym was being used for other sports.

I turned on the lights as we entered. The temperature felt a bit warm in the unit; I walked over to adjust the thermostat. "I haven't seen any of the other guys around yet," I said. "She's all yours, bud."

"Thanks, coach." He set his bag down on a wooden bench by the lockers and took off his windbreaker. He was wearing a tank top underneath. He really had bulked up, especially in the shoulders, back, and chest. And there were new, prominent veins running down the front of his arms. He sat to unlace his sneakers.

"Damn, you weren't kidding, Gabe!" I walked over and grabbed his shoulder, gave it an appreciative squeeze. It looked like he'd added at least half an inch of muscle across his upper body. He grinned up at me and then pulled off his tank top.

"I'm gonna hop on the scale," he said. I saw hair stubbled on his chest. He had clippered it recently, but I could see the spread of it across his pecs and stomach. And there was the thick curl of his dark underarm hair. My erection, which I'd controlled after the initial rush of seeing him again, came raging back.

~

Gabe reluctantly rolled onto his knees and into the bottom position. I knelt behind him and paused for a moment, feeling my body relax into the repose I had learned to cultivate before a start. I felt loose. I leaned onto him, wrapped my left arm around his belly. I felt him breathing, I could tell he was incredibly uncomfortable, especially with guys watching us.

"On three. One, two, three." I hesitated for a split second. As I anticipated, he didn't move. He was just gonna sit there, in some sort of protest. I needed to make an example of him. From cross-body, I hooked his right elbow with my left arm, pulled his shoulder tight against my chest and flipped him over me in a leg tilt. Too, late, he moved to escape, but I had him, arms locked through his legs, and he was immobilized, his much bigger body stretched out across my lap like a tied hog. I held him for a long moment, wanting him to feel the humiliation of being stuck in my grip. Through my wrist, buried deep in his crotch, I felt his cock thicken a bit. I let go of him and he flopped, belly first, onto the mat, then rolled back to his knees. He looked at me, surprised and angry.

"You ready to get serious?" I asked.

~

I watched Gabe as he took off his sweat pants. Underneath, he was wearing a pair of shorts, and he stripped those off too. He tossed his shorts on top of his bag and looked down at himself, and then up at me. He stood, naked except for a new-looking jock. Uff. It was more than just fifteen he needed to lose. There a distinct belly on him, an extra layer of thickness around his stomach that extended down into his butt and thighs.

"Gabe-o, Gabe-o." I said, disapprovingly. But my whole body was electrified by the sight of him.

"Yeah, I know, coach." As he walked to the scale, I saw the boulders of his ass bounce, framed by the elastic of his jock.

I had spent the summer trying to forget the feel of him on top of me. But the sight of him now, those massive thighs, even more plumped up over the thick sheaves of muscle, brought it all thundering back. I felt him grinding those massive hips down against my ass, I felt my body pinned, helpless, under his.

He had caught me unprepared, today. I hadn't expected to see him until next week, and I had been too distracted by all the administrative tasks that accumulate before the semester. I didn't realize how much prep I would need to get my head screwed on right before seeing him again. Now, here he was, and it was too late. My mind spiraled.

As he walked to the scale, I felt the thrill of watching him. The calm, relaxed manner in which his body moved through space. It's why he was such a natural wrestler. There was almost no unnecessary tension in him. He propped one arm against the wall as he turned the digital scale on. His back was to me. As muscular and bulky as he was now, the long lines of his body were starkly apparent, his frame had a lankiness about it even carrying all that weight. He stepped onto the scale. The pouch of his jock hung heavily, I saw. It was impossible not to see.

~

"Gabe, you stay." I said as the guys headed to the showers.

"Coach?" he said. He looked annoyed.

"Wait for me on the mat," I said, as I grabbed a singlet from the clean laundry rack and began to unbutton my shirt. "You and I need to do some work," I said.

He swallowed hard, and sat back down on the mat. I knew exactly where his head was, what he was feeling, and I knew how to coach him through it. He needed to feel powerful again, to work out his frustrations, throw someone around a little bit. He had a natural power, but he had disconnected from it.

~

"Shit," he said, snapping me out of my memory. "You've got to be kidding me." The digital readout on the scale was flashing the numbers "306". He took a deep breath. He needed to be 285, max, to qualify for his weight class. He looked at me, and I could tell he was worried that I was going to be angry.

I scowled, playfully. "What's that girl been feeding you, Gabe?" I said. I wasn't too worried about his weight. He had plenty of time to drop it, and he could always cut from within spitting distance. But it all depended on his head.

"Ha," he said. "Well, she does like me a little... chunky." He looked at me, sheepishly. I imagined him with some big-titted farm girl, her head back, howling as he pounded into her.

"Well, it's a good thing you left her back in Kansas, because..." I hesitated. "It's time to get serious," I said.

"Yeah, it sure is," he said. He reached up and rubbed his neck. Looked again at the scale's display. "Fuck," he said. He stepped off the scale.

"Hey," I said. "You got his. This is your year, Gabe." I couldn't get a good read on him today. Maybe it all the time apart, the residual weirdness between us. Something was off. "You're my main guy this year, OK? You're gonna go all the way."

~

"C'mon, Gabe!" I gasped. "You've got thirty pounds on me and you're twenty fucking one years old. You can do better." He reeled back, onto his knees, with his head down, chastened after I had thrown him him off me, again, too easily. "You're holding back. Knock it off." We had been at it for about thirty minutes. All the other guys had left.

"I dunno, coach," he said, reaching for his ear guard. "I'm just not feeling it today."

I knocked his hand away from his ear guard. "Are you a quitter, Gabe?" I said. He didn't look at me.

I pushed his chest. He kept looking away.

"Hey." I pushed him again, harder, trying to knock him off his knees. "Knock it off."

~

"You really think so, coach?" He said. He stood there, in his jock, about six feet from me by the scale. He reached up to stretch his triceps, across the great expanse of his chest. My cock was completely hard now.

Fuck

. I walked over to one of the weight benches, pretending to inspect it.

"Not if you have to ask me, bud," I said. "There's no time for any... bullshit this season. You gotta come out hot. Keep the momentum from the end of last year."

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

~

He looked at me, surprised I had pushed him so hard, and I saw a flash of anger in his eyes. I reached out to push him again, and he batted my hand away.

"What the fuck, coach?" he said.

I lunged at him, then, hit his shoulders as hard as I could with the butts of my palms, and knocked him down. With a grunt, he sprang back up to his feet and tackled me, hitting me hard. He sent me sprawling across the mat, and before I could get up to a crouch, he was on me again. I felt some of the old fire in his body. He felt it too. All of a sudden he seemed to connect with his weight, not holding it up and back, but letting his mass carry the action of his muscles against my body. He slammed himself down on me. At the small of my back, I felt his stomach expand out as his diaphragm relaxed, using his hips to ascertain my body position, sliding intuitively into a sweet spot where his weight was balanced on me, minimizing my ability to get out from under him.

"There you go, Gabe. That's it. Watch my head... my shoulders," I said, under him, lifting my left shoulder to show him that I still had an escape route.

He raised his torso and pressed above my shoulder blade with his broad, flat palm, ground it up along my neck to pin my head to the mat. I pressed my ass up against him, but he buckled me right back down, slamming his hips onto me and wrapping his lower legs around my calves. He leaned down, palm against the nape of my neck, pressed his forehead against the back of my head. I felt his hot breath against my ear.

"How's that," he said. I couldn't tell if he was asking me or telling me.

"Better," I said, heaving for a moment to catch my breath. "But still not good enough."

I jackknifed my body, and flipped him partly off of me, scrambled out from under him.

"You're getting there," I said. "Use your head. You should have hooked my elbow. My shoulder was too high."

He opened his mouth wide, releasing tension in his jaw. He gave his head a shake. Curling out between the straps of his ear guard, his dark hair was wet with sweat. I could see, then, what my ass had felt; his dick was mostly hard, pointed up under his singlet. The distinct, thick ridge of his dick head stood out starkly under against the lycra. I wasn't surprised; erections happened. The guys were usually pretty cool about it, and of course I never called it out. Some were more difficult to ignore than others, though.

He looked at me, and there was determination in his eyes. This was good. We circled each other, crouching, he was batting at me with his big right arm, I could see the gears turn as he tried to position me for his next attack. As he herded me around the mat, his footfalls shook the muscles of his thighs and ass, sending shudders through his flesh. His erection hung low in the crotch of his suit as he stalked me. I tried not to fixate on it, on the heft of it as it bounced under the thin fabric, the girth of it. I focused back on his eyes.

"I'm not your coach," I said. "I'm that big asshole from Kansas State, the one that kicked your ass last week."

"What?" he said, spitting the word.

"You went down like a little bitch, Gabe. How did it feel, being that guy's bitch? Did you like feeling that big fucker all over you? You let him dominate you. You liked it, didn't you? You wanted to lose."

He narrowed his eyes and I saw a muscle twitch under his eye.

"Oh you don't like hearing that? What, you don't think you're a fuckin' loser, Gabe? When you can't even pin and old guy like me? What are you gonna do, huh?" My voice was getting louder and louder.

"What the fuck, coach?!" His eyes flashed with anger.

"I told you, I'm not your coach. I'm every guy that beat you this month. Are you gonna shut me up? Or are you just gonna keep being a little bitch?"

I saw something cold come into his eyes. He lunged at me, and there, at last, was his innate, animal speed. He caught me by the midsection and flipped me all the way over, slamming me so hard onto the mat I momentarily lost my breath. I landed mostly perpendicular to him. He reached through my legs in an attempt to get me in a cross-face cradle. I arched my back and managed to prevent him from locking his wrists, but he rolled on top of me. He pressed my torso into the mat, and had my left arm hooked in his, immobilized. I tried in vain to get some traction with my legs. He pistoned his pelvis across my ass, bracing his thighs against mine, blocking my legs from bending. I felt the hard shaft of his dick catch against my right buttock, then slip into the groove between my asscheeks as he adjusted his hold on me. My face was pressed against the mat under his meaty forearm.

"Now who's a bitch, huh?" he said, angrily, and I felt his spit hit my cheek. I grunted, barely able to breathe under him. I tried to bend at the waist, but he ground down harder against me.

"That's better," I said, between ragged breaths. "You got me." I felt his heart pounding in his chest, which was pressed against my back. I expected him to release me, to get up, but he stayed on top of me for a long, suspended moment. Then he rocked his pelvis forward. I felt the thick shaft of his dick slide against my asshole, through our sweat-soaked singlets.

"Now who's a bitch." he said, again. His voice was low in his chest. It didn't sound like Gabe.

Involuntarily, my buttocks clenched around his thick shaft. I felt my asshole dilate and then contract.

"You like that, huh, coach?" He grunted, and pushed his dick further into my ass crack.

I took a deep, faltering breath, struggling to regain control of the situation. "OK, Gabe you got me," I said.

"Yeah, I got you," he said. He pressed my head hard into the mat. I felt him reach with his other hand to grab my other arm and bring it around behind my back.

"What are you doing?" I said. He ground against me again. His breath got quicker, more ragged.