No Remedy for Love

A month had gone by since I'd been out to Garden City to pick up my stuff, and I still couldn't find a good excuse to contact Thomas. Maybe a not-so-good excuse would have worked equally well, just as it had last time, but somehow I doubted it. We needed a chance to spend some time together in a neutral environment, and I just couldn't figure out how to set that up. I even considered asking Kevin for help – our friends knew we'd split, though not the details – but Thomas would have been immediately suspicious. They liked each other and got along, but Kevin was always solidly on my side, even when I was being a horse's ass, so there was no way he'd suddenly take it on himself to invite Thomas out for a beer and wings. Anyway, after the unfortunate "daddy" incident, I'd been staying off the demon rum, and calling Thomas stone cold sober was becoming a more frightening proposition every day that passed.

Then, one afternoon, he called me. I was in the middle of dealing with a cluster fuck at work, and I snatched my phone from where it was hiding under a stack of papers, and snapped my name. I heard background noise on the other end, but nobody spoke.

"Hello?" I said impatiently, getting ready to check caller ID.

"Scott. Hi."

"Thomas?"

"Yeah. Hi."

"Hi." I took a deep breath, and swiveled my chair, so that my back was to my co-workers. "What's up?"

"This doesn't sound like a good time," he stalled.

"No. No, it's fine. How are you?"

"Fine. You?"

"Yeah, okay. Fine."

I could hear a rapid double clicking sound, which I recognized as him playing with a ball point pen. It had taken me less than a month to learn to hide my own pens from him in college, because he ruined so many of them with his nervous habit.

"Still there?" I asked after another longish pause, trying to gently prod him into saying whatever he'd called to say, because the suspense was starting to kill me.

"Listen, I need to ask you for a favor."

"Okay," I said, trying to keep him talking after he paused again.

"You can say no."

"Okay," I repeated and he sighed.

"It's really stupid."

"Thomas. What?"

"I received a summons. From Detroit."

I was confused for a second, wondering when he'd been in Detroit and what he might have done to get in trouble there, when I realized he wasn't talking about a court summons. Both my parents and his mother had passed away, but his father was still alive.

"Your father?"

"Yeah. He wants to see me."

"Wow." As far as I knew, his father and he hadn't spoken in close to twenty years. They'd barely even looked at one other, when Thomas and I had flown to Detroit for his mother's funeral over five years ago. I'd never understood why Thomas had gone then, given the way they'd both treated him after he came out to them (not that they'd been model parents up to that point), or why he seemed to be considering the trip now.

"I don't want to go alone."

"What does he want?"

"I don't know, but he says he wants to talk to me. He's 88 years old," he added in an apparent non-sequitur.

The clicking had picked up speed.

"I can't believe you're thinking of going," I told him, even though I could. When I came out to them, my parents continued to love me, even if they could never totally accept what they perceived as my choice, and they'd always been kind to Thomas, as well, but if they hadn't? I didn't know if I could have turned my back on a last chance to maybe make amends, however unlikely that possibility might have seemed.

"Will you come with me? Please?" he asked, his voice thickening at the end. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "You can say no."

"Of course, Tommy. Of course I'll come. Just tell me when."

"Thank you." The clicking had stopped. "Next Friday, if you can take off? We can fly up Thursday evening or Friday morning, come back on Saturday or Sunday, depending on how things go."

"Yes, that's fine."

"Okay. I'll book the tickets and send you the details. And Scott, thank you again. Really. Just... Thank you."

After we hung up, I stared at the phone for a long time.

********************

The swim season ended in mid-May, about four weeks before the end of the spring term, suddenly leaving me with the luxury of time to kill and nothing, except for finals, to worry about. I'd even already lined up my summer job working for UPS, like the previous year. The hours sucked, but the pay was good, and hefting boxes helped keep me in shape. Thomas was planning on backpacking through Europe with a couple of his friends.

"It really costs next to nothing," he told me in an effort to convince me to tag along. "You'd probably spend less money there than here. And I could float you a loan, it'd be no big deal."

We were sitting next to each other sideways across my bed, our shoulders propped against the wall, sharing a joint and listening to Bruce Springsteen, whom I loved and Thomas only barely tolerated. He leaned against me, and held the joint to my lips. I took a deep drag, then held the smoke in my lungs as long as possible.

"You know I can't, man. I have to work," I said after exhaling.

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

Despite the open window, it was hot in our room. I was in my boxers and Thomas had appropriated a pair of my shorts. I liked how our bodies looked together. Thomas was thinner than me, his shoulders just as wide, but bonier. I shaved for swimming, but I wasn't very hairy to begin with, and what hair I did have was so blond and fine that it was barely visible, even in my crotch. Thomas' chest, belly, arms and legs were covered with a light dusting of dark hair. I loved how his skin felt against mine, how the hairs tickled my fingertips and palms. I turned towards him, slung my leg across his, and reached for the joint.

"Hey," he protested, holding it out of reach. He wrapped his other arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple affectionately. "You always smell of chlorine," he observed. "Or frying oil. Sometimes both."

"Fuck you," I cleverly retorted, and kissed his chin. I licked a small drop of sweat from under his jaw and then sleepily settled my head against his shoulder. Over the past few weeks, we'd grown closer. We each had our own set of friends and we didn't really spend more time together during the day, but at night, once we shut (and now locked) our door, we often cuddled together to watch TV or read. We kissed more and most nights we slept squeezed together in either one or the other's bed, generally, but not always, moving from the bed with the wet spot.

"Hey, Scott?"

"Hmmm?"

"Are we ever going to do it? You and me?"

I was feeling relaxed and at peace with the world, partly due to the pot and partly due to the warmth of Thomas' skin, and Bruce was singing about proving it all night, and suddenly the thought of Thomas and me fucking seemed as inevitable and as welcome as the sun rising.

"Yeah, I guess we will."

"When?"

I listened to his heart beating strongly under my ear. I laid my palm on his cotton-covered crotch and felt it lengthen and grow, and the beat of his heart grew faster. He carefully reached out and placed the joint in the jar cap we used as an ashtray, then pushed me until I was lying flat on my back with him on top of me. I raised my knees and spread my legs and we made out and ground against each other for a while, starting slow but the urgency quickly growing.

"Say it," he whispered.

"I want this. And I won't be a dick afterward."

He kissed me, then got up and rummaged for something in his ditty bag. He stripped both of us, then lay on top of me again.

"It'll be good, Scott. I promise, it'll be good."

I ran my palms up and down his back. His skin was smooth and slick with perspiration, and I dug my fingers in to better feel the play of muscles under it. I was dizzy from the joint, the heat, his smell, my own arousal at his words. I'd had a lot of time to think about it, about what it would feel like. I was nervous, and unbelievably turned on at the same time Either way, I didn't have enough spit in my mouth to talk.

When he raised himself and pulled on my shoulder in order to turn me onto my stomach, I didn't resist. He kissed along my shoulders, then lower, down my spine and finally, stunningly, the top of my crack. He'd never done that before. I writhed under his lips, then startled away from his hands on my butt.

"Tommy," I moaned, and he hesitated.

"What? You want me to stop?"

I shook my head, then pressed my face and fists into my pillow. I felt his lips and tongue at the top of my crack again and I bit off another moan.

"Get up on your knees," he told me, and his hands lifted my hips, and, as usual, I did as he said, arching my back and opening myself to him. Something cool dripped against my hole, causing me to whimper and jerk forward, and I heard him shushing me, one hand tugging on my hip to bring me back into position.

I didn't know anything about stretching, didn't even know why it might be necessary, and if anybody had ever done it for Thomas, he'd forgotten. He pushed his cock against my hole and I tried to relax and let him in as instructed, but I had no idea what muscles would accomplish that feat. He forced himself in inch by slow, burning inch and I ground my teeth against the pain I hadn't known to expect.

"Okay?" he gasped after a while. I was sure he'd pulled a switch and jammed most of a baseball bat up my ass, and I blindly reached back to find out that I only had the head of his cock in me.

"I don't think so," I mumbled.

He rubbed my back.

"You need to relax, Scott."

"I'm trying," I snapped, any good feelings, whether physical or emotional, long dissipated.

He didn't offer to pull out, probably guessing that I'd take him up on it in an instant. Instead, he pushed further in with slow pulses, rubbing my back all the time, then reaching under me and stroking my belly and cock. When he kissed the back of my neck, I realized that he must be all the way in to reach that far. I tried to concentrate on something beside the hot poker up my ass, and became aware of the slight tickle of his pubic hairs, of his chest pressed against my back so that I felt every beat of his heart, every breath. I spread my knees and shifted my weight, trying to ease the pain. I knew what had to follow and I didn't want it, I didn't want any of it. My dick remained resolutely soft, despite the attention Thomas was giving it.

"Fucking hell, this hurts," I gritted out, every muscled in my body clenched.

"Relax," Thomas whispered again, his breath warm and damp against my neck. "Please. It'll be okay, I swear." He sounded as if he was closer to tears than I was.

Either I was getting tired and naturally relaxed or I unknowingly finally located the right muscles, because suddenly the pain receded. It still burned, especially at my stretched ring, but I could handle it. I reached back and caressed Thomas' flank reassuringly, then carefully rocked my ass against him. His breath caught, and his hand tightened on my cock, which was also showing slow signs of revival, though not actual interest in the proceedings. His hips rolled against me, one slow, gentle pulse, and yeah, that was okay. I rocked back again, and then we were moving against each other, finding a rhythm that gave us both pleasure. I heard his breathing speed up, his whispered 'yes, oh, yes,' and I pulled him into me. He hung on tightly as he came, then slowly pulled out, and I collapsed onto my stomach. He stayed kneeling between my legs, until I twisted around, grabbed his arm and pulled him down next to me.

"I guess we won't be doing that again," he preempted me, once his breathing had settled.

I rolled onto my side, then hurriedly back onto my belly when I felt his sperm start to leak out of me. Given the body parts involved, there didn't seem to be that many ways one could do this, but...

"Are you sure we did it right?" I asked.

He shrugged tensely. "I think so. It didn't hurt when I tried it. Maybe a little at first, but not really. Actually if felt pretty good."

"But you prefer fucking to being fucked."

He sighed and pillowed his head on one folded arm. "Yeah, but not because it hurt or I hated it. It's just... well, it's like lemon pie and cherry pie. They're both good, I just prefer cherry pie."

"Cherry pie," I repeated, fighting to keep a straight face, and he shrugged again.

"Yeah."

"What's a blow job, then? Spinach?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? A blow job, giving or getting, is... well, it's a bacon mushroom cheeseburger. The best."

I laughed then, and he laughed with me, his body softening against mine.

"Hey, Thomas? I feel like a bacon mushroom cheeseburger right now."

He made a gagging sound. "Please tell me you're not one of those people that likes to use stupid codewords for sex. If you want me to suck you off, just say so."

"No, I have the munchies. Really."

He reached out and stroked my back from my shoulder to the dip above my butt, his face uncharacteristically serious.

"Thank you, Scott. For trying it. I'm really sorry I hurt you."

I blushed and shrugged, and found that I liked being a generous and brave guy, Thomas' generous and brave guy (sort of), even if completely unintentionally.

We didn't try anal sex for the rest of the term, but got bolder with oral, to the point where Thomas rimmed me and I actually returned the favor. Several times.

There was no question that we would continue being roommates sophomore year. About a week into fall term, Thomas confessed that he'd learned a thing or two in Europe. I wasn't sure I liked the fact that he'd been fucking someone else, but it was hard to be jealous of some Klaus guy in Germany, whose last name Thomas claimed he didn't even know, and I sure as hell couldn't stay mad when Thomas applied his newly learned skills on me.

Let's just say that although I'd never had much of a sweet tooth and merely appreciated cherry pie, I very quickly came to crave lemon pie.