Patrick and I had dated for two months and had slept together several times before he dumped me because I didn’t meet his needs. I didn’t understand what that meant at the time, but then I hooked up with Steven who dumped me after our third time together, flat out telling me I sucked in bed, and then I understood what Patrick had meant.
So I was lying in bed with Mitch Schmidt, praying he wouldn’t wake up. Sex had a way of suddenly sobering people after they’d been drinking but weren’t quite drunk. I stared at him and wondered where I had gone wrong. I was always the responsible, smart, friendly guy in school. People liked me. They would always come to me with their problems because I was always able to help them. And here I was, unable to even help myself.
I crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom, washing my face with hand soap. I went back to the room and started picking my clothes up off of the floor. It was 2 a.m. and I figured he would want me gone by now. I was surprised he hadn’t left or asked me to leave right after. Patrick and Steven had both left right after. I had just figured staying the night was a straight people thing.
I was a great writer. I was a good leader. I was an amazing counselor. I was an excellent student. I was good at many things. I figured no one was good at everything. Sports, sex and relationships were just some of the things I wasn’t good at. Other people are that are horrible writers or leaders or students. I can get over it. I’m an adult. I can handle failing every so often.
“What are you doing?” Mitch sounded groggy and bewildered. I had just finished buttoning up my pants and was about to button my shirt when his voice interrupted me.
I swallowed, “I’m sorry, I was just getting ready to leave. I’ll be gone in a minute.”
He frowned at me but didn’t move to get up, “You idiot, get back in bed,” he grumbled.
“I need to go to work tomorrow and-“
“Tomorrow is Saturday. Get in bed.” I gave him a puzzled look and slowly peeled off my clothes, folding them and placing them in a tidy stack on a chair instead of throwing them back on the floor where they’d been before. I crawled back into his dementedly comfortable bed and lay down. He looked at me. “So you’re the kind that’ll leave and make a guy wake up alone, huh?”
Again, I was so very confused, “You want me to stay?” I didn’t get it. I thought I wasn’t supposed to stay.
“You serious?” I guess he thought I was joking.
“I thought…” I stopped and frowned, thinking carefully about my next words, “No one has ever stayed with me before. I just thought that was normal…”
“No one has ever stayed the night with you?” He sounded completely astounded, “Not even your first time? Not even your boyfriend or anything?” He scooted closer to me and I didn’t even question why it was so easy for me to open up to him, why I answered any question he asked without wondering why I was doing it. Blame it on the wine.
“Well, my first time was one of those situations where you wake up covered in vomit and a sore ass while your friends ask you who the hot guy was that just left as you wonder where the truck went that had just hit you… And of the boyfriends I’ve slept with, they just left right after.”
“Some guy raped you?” He sounded so concerned. He put a hand on my hip and used his long fingers to rub gentle circles on the closer dimple in my lower back.
“I don’t really think it was rape… It was more like I was too drunk to protest and probably too drunk to think that I needed to.” I shrugged, “But whatever, what’s past is past, right? Just get over it and move on…”
“My first guy was in college. I’ve never had a real boyfriend,” he confessed, “I’ve had… casual sex, but never a thing where I brought him home to meet the folks. It was always girlfriends to hide behind or I was too afraid of someone finding out to have anything serious.”
“It’s not all that great,” I said quietly, “They just leave when they get bored with you or decide you aren’t good enough.” I smiled and he gave me a sympathetic look.
“How many have you had?”
This was the strangest pillow talk ever. Was this even pillow talk? I don’t even know. This was very new to me.
“I guess three, but the first decided we were more fit as friends so it didn’t last long.” And he said I was too cold and unaffectionate to be in a relationship with him.
“What about the other two?” he asked, “How long were you with them?”
“I was with Patrick for about two and a half months and I was with Steven for almost one month. I, um, I’m not really dating material.”
“That was what I thought when I would date women,” he chuckled.
“I was with a woman once,” I supplied, “I never went to another frat party ever again…”
He grinned and chuckled a little, “These chicks I would date were just horrible. They were always telling me that I never listened, never seemed interested, or didn’t satisfy them. Who’d have guessed it was because I wanted to be with men?”
I laughed and gave him a weak smile, “They broke up with you because you weren’t good in bed?”
“It was probably because I wasn’t really interested. I didn’t really care, you know? It wasn’t that great of an experience.”
Nervously, I asked, “So then its normal, right? I mean, people breaking up with you because you aren’t good in bed?” Obviously sex did not sober me enough, because had I been fully in control of my functions, I never would have asked such a question and I would never have let myself sound as wounded as I did.
He wasn’t really smiling anymore. He looked shocked, “Someone broke up with you because you weren’t any good?”
Maybe that was a stupid thing to ask. That was most definitely a horrible thing to ask. It was stupid. He’s going to think I’m a loser and he’ll tell everyone because he’d had no qualms humiliating me preceding this minor tryst and I didn’t see what would stop him now just because we’d slept together. It’s not like that meant anything, right?
I started to get out of bed and hurried to put my clothes on. He got up and grabbed my arms, pulling me back over to bed. We sat down and he held my hands, looking down at them while I spoke hoarsely.
“I’m good at lots of things,” I mumbled, “Really, really good at a lot of different things. So it… it doesn’t matter if I’m not good at... at that, right?”
He kissed my forehead, something soft and gentle and kind and it made me want to cry, but that was weird, because I only ever let myself cry around Jeff because he was the only one who ever really made me feel safe.
“I thought… I thought you were great,” he said softly, murmuring so his lips tickled my skin
“Maybe I’m only good after I’ve been drinking expensive wine for an hour or two,” I laughed, trying feebly to make a joke while he just pulled me in his arms, his warm strong arms, and I sighed, refusing to let myself cry. No one had ever seen me cry other than my mother and Jeff and that was the way things were going to stay. He could call me a flaming queer all he wanted, but I was not some crybaby faggot. No one had ever gotten away with calling me a faggot.
But his voice was so kind…
“Maybe you were just dating the wrong person… people.”
XxXxX
Sex has never been anything that great to me. It was just something you did with people you dated, right? They wanted that so you gave it to them, but then when you weren’t what they wanted they left you. That’s just how I figured it was. Other people said all this stuff about sex being this marvelous experience where you give yourself to someone you love. But when Jeff dumped me for being unaffectionate I figured that was a big crock and just did whatever they wanted. I am a freaking loser.
But when Mitch Schmidt had his mouth there… sex felt like something that might live up to what people say about it.
He was licking his lips as he moved up to lay next to me, our heads on the same fluffy down pillow. He liked touching my body and I was too dazed/shocked by… everything to protest. Plus I liked his touches. Did you know that the average human being needs positive physical contact with another person at least 14 times a day to be psychologically healthy? I was definitely getting like 5 tops for a while there…
“You have a nice voice,” Mitch gurgled wetly. There was no other way to describe how he was speaking, “I like to make you scream.”
“You could just tickle me. It takes a lot less energy.”
He smiled and rolled his eyes, “That’s not as much fun.”
It was late Saturday afternoon. I’d been here since the night before. We would get up and do something, like eat or shower, and he would just drag me back to bed for sex or some type of sexual act. I was exhausted, but I was secretly enjoying it a ton, so I only complained a little. He would probably be suspicious if I didn’t.
“So three days ago, you insult me on national television,” I sigh, “And today all you want to do is touch me. What’s with that?”
“Well, all that shit you wrote in that article was really mean and I had to get you back, though I admit I crossed a line,” I snorted and he paused before giving me a weak smile, “And I guess I just never grew up. I’m still the little boy tugging on the girl I like’s pigtails.” He then gave a soft tug on a chuck of my hair.
I frowned, “You like me?”
“No, I sleep with everyone I think is a completely obnoxious twat.”
“I knew it!!”
He rolled his eyes and I smiled then I stopped and thought for a second. He gave me a curious look and I asked, “Do you even know my name?”
He gave a dry laugh, “I can read a byline!”
“You’ve never called me by my name. How do I know you even know my name?” I gave him a wide-eyed accusing look.
“The chick said it when you came on the show Wednesday, Tad.”
Is it normal to feel glow-y and squishy inside just because someone says your name?
“You’ve never called me by my name either, you know,” he said and started nibbling on my earlobe. I gasped and cooed.
“I can’t say your name,” I whimper.
He just chuckled and continued nibbling, “Why is that?”
“It makes me think of David Hasselhoff,” I said, completely seriously. He pulled away and gave me a baleful look.
“David Hasselhoff?”
“Mitch was the name of his character on Baywatch.”
I screamed as he assaulted my sides, tickling me without mercy. I shrieked and squirmed, trying to get away from his hands but he’d rolled on top of me and was pinning me to the bed. Again, he was three times me size. I wasn’t getting away.
“Mitch!” I shrieked, “Mitch, stop!”
“I’ll show you David’s Hasselhoff’s Baywatch character!” He shouted and redoubled his efforts.
“STOP!” I wailed, tears streaming down my face, “You’re going to make me pee my pants!!”
“You’re not wearing pants!” he shouted in reply.
“That’s even worse!!”
He gave me a chaste kiss as he stopped tickling and rose off of me before falling back onto the bed next to me with a thump. He smiled and ran a hand through my hair, “You are so weird…”
I was still catching my breath. I smiled as he pulled me into a loose embrace, the skin on my back feeling so soft against his chiseled chest.
“Let’s date,” he said quietly, “Be boyfriends or whatever. I want us to be like this all of the time.”
“Sweaty and naked?”
“Together.”
I sighed. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to have another boyfriend considering I just kept getting hurt over and over again. Well, not that many times, but I have never really been a glutton for pain and avoided for the sheer purpose of avoiding pain. I was afraid…
But things felt so different with him.
I rolled over and stared at him, a serious expression on my face.
“Before we date, I have to ask you a very important question and you have to answer honestly. This can determine the entire course of our relationship and if you lie, it’s just going to cause a lot of pain, a lot of yelling, and a lot of tears.”
He looked offset. He swallowed and nodded, “Ok, shoot.”
“Yankees or Red Sox?”