Chapter 3: Josh

“I feel like I’m in gym class again,” I said as I tugged the blue mesh vest over my t-shirt. In school we had called these weird hole-ridden garments “pinnies” for some obscure reason (there were never any pins involved), and I had no idea what the official name was, if there was one.

“I know,” said Josh. “Isn’t it awesome?”

I looked at him in disbelief. Of course, he would have been that most hated creature in the high school bestiary: the jock. He even managed to make the pinnie look not ridiculous as it barely managed to hold in his muscular frame.

“Oh come on Mike,” said Dawn. “This will be fun. Besides which, we make such a big thing about being more in touch with our bodies, and this is another way to do that. I mean, not that the other ways aren’t great, but...”

“You know,” I said. “I think there are some parts of my body I could stand being out of touch with. Like the pain nerves.”

Josh had a weird glint in his eye. “Those are great too! Come on, man, you’re gonna love it.”

Dawn clapped her hands together, as manic as usual. “All right! Let’s play soccer.”

It was a nice day to be outside. I’d give them that much. The early summer sun cast its rays down on the park, making every glade of grass that perfect shade of emerald, and every leaf sparkle. If there was ever a perfect day for the co-ed weekend soccer league, this was it. I was the newest member of the blue team, which apparently changed its name every few months but was currently called the Kicking Zombies. Our opponents in yellow, the Golden Gryphons, stared across the field at us with smiling menace.

At first I just tried my usual gym-class tactic of hanging around in the back, claiming to be playing defense, but the actual defensive players all urged me forward, and soon enough I was exhausting myself chasing after that elusive black-and-white ball.

I stopped to squat and pant for a moment, sweat running down my face. My legs felt heavy and warm, like they had burning coals strapped to them. Everyone else around me was grinning. How were they happy? Did they find this fun?

And then the ball arrived at my feet, completely by accident. For a brief moment, that I’m sure was a lot shorter than it seemed in my mind, everyone from both teams looked at me, looked down at the ball, and then looked up at me again. And then they were all charging towards me, a surging mass of humanity, and I was running the other way.

My legs kicked the ball forward unwittingly, furthering the chase. I was rushing down the field, driving the all-important ball in front of me. The goal loomed in front of me. With a start, I realized that I was doing it, I was playing the game, and I was winning, I was about to score for my team! Pride shot through my veins like a drug.

“That’s our goal!” shouted one of the blue-clad defenders.

“What?” I stalled in the middle of the field, the ball momentarily still. And then came a pixielike woman sliding in between my legs, propelling the ball forward and into our home net. I tumbled backwards over her, rolling a couple times and stirring up a cloud of dirt.

Dawn bounded up to me, laughing. “Well, at least it wasn’t quite an own goal.”

There was a shooting pain in my ankle. Instinctively, I clutched it, which only made the injury hurt worse. The ground was hard against my back, and the sun shone directly in my face, but for all that I really didn’t want to get up.

The other players crowded around me, including the petite woman that had dropkicked the ball out from under me. “Hey, are you okay”

“Ankle “I said, gesturing to the offending body part.

“Okay, I think we might have found the world’s worst soccer player,” said Dawn as she offered me a hand up.

She and a couple of the others carried me ot the nearest bench. Josh pulled the shoe and sock off my hurt foot, a process that caused me to cry blue murder as pain shot through my leg. This was not exactly the kind of communing with my body that I had been hoping for.

“It’s just twisted,” said Josh. “Not too badly, either. Somebody get me some ice!”

“I am so sorry,” said my inadvertent injurer. “I didn’t mean to do anything, I just wanted to do something cool ... I was thinking in the moment. I’m sorry.”

“Dude, that was like a chop block,” said Dawn. “What did you expect to happen?”

I held up one hand, begging for peace. “It’s okay. It was an accident.” Maybe I would have been more upset if it wasn’t a cute girl who was the one at fault. Dawn scowled, but stayed quiet.

When Josh applied the ice to my ankle it was like a blessing from heaven. Cool comfort enveloped me. The pain was still there, but sort of abstract and far away. Josh still had a stern look on his face, the kind of look I hadn’t seen on him before. “We need to wrap this up properly so that it doesn’t swell. Maybe we should take you home.”

“I guess I’m out of this game, then,” I said, trying my best to look sad.

“Dude, you’re gonna be off your feet for two weeks,” Josh said. “Sorry, but the way the ankle crumbles. Now let me see if any of these jokers have a decent first aid kit.”

Dawn went off with Josh, and most of the rubberneckers dispersed, leaving me with the petite girl who had knocked me over. She had close-cropped black hair and a nose stud that glinted in the spring sunlight. “Like I said, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking, heat of the moment...”

“Nah, it was a cool move,” I said. “If I wasn’t in so much pain right now, I would probably be high-fiving you over it. Besides which, as just demonstrated, I know a thing or two about getting an adrenaline rush and doing something stupid.”

“You’re really good at acting nice,” she said. “Even when I’m sure you must be pissed.”

“Thank you. I’ve worked very hard at that skill over the years.”

She looked relieved, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Nina by the way. I guess this is a pretty shitty introduction, huh”

“Mike. And I’ve had worse.”

Nina dug her cell phone out from her gym bag. “Here, I want to make this up to you. I’ll take you out for drinks. All on me, of course. That’s if you can stand being around me.”

“I think I could hold my nose long enough for free booze.”

“Hey, if you want you can kick me in the shin a couple times too. Just so we’re even.”

We exchanged phone numbers. I remember thinking that I had done much more embarassing things for the sake of a date in the past. Nina ran off to rejoin the soccer game. Josh and I were out, so she crossed over to the other team to even up the numbers. Dawn also reluctantly got back to playing.

Josh came back with a fistful of medical wraps. “Got ‘em. Now try and hold still, ‘cuz this might hurt a bit.”

“Josh I am never making fun of your Kinesiology degree again.”

He started looping the wrapping around my foot. “I’m gonna hold you to that, you know.”

And that was how I found myself laid up in bed all week. Josh had procured some crutches for me that got me around the house when I needed to -- mainly at meal times -- but the old place wasn’t exactly accessible to the disabled, a realization that caused my progressive-minded housemates no end of dismay.

I spent most of the week in bed with my laptop, killing time on the Internet, perhaps the best method of time-killing ever invented. In the back of my mind I was glad to have an excuse not to go out looking for a job. Everyone stopped in to pay their respects, so to speak. Padma and Julia mainly made fun of me for my athletic mishap, while I tried to swipe at them with my crutches. Julia did leave me some good porn, though, so I guess she meant well. Ellie made me chicken soup, and I didn’t have the heart to explain to her the difference between a twisted ankle and a stomachache.

The strangest came when, in the midst of a riveting YouTube video, I heard my door being roughly and awkwardly pushed open. It was Josh, and he was on his hands and knees, scraggly brown hair hanging down and casting a shadow over his face. He was also entirely naked save for a leather collar around his neck, which was attached to at least that was currently being held by Dawn. She was wearing a black leather corset that clung tightly to her voluptuous body, her heavy breasts threatening to spill out. Her hair was done up in a bun and she had a stern look on her face that I had never seen in her before.

“Uh ... hi guys,” I said.

Dawn put a big leather boot on Josh’s rear end, and he scurried forward across my bare floor until he was at my bedside. From here I could see the beads of sweat on his back and the tense quivering of his body that betrayed a mixture of fear and arousal. There was also a layer of criss-crossing fresh red welts that stood out on his back. I was completely baffled.

“Joshua here would like to say something to you,” said Dawn in a cruel, condescending and entirely uncharacteristic tone. “Isn’t that right”

Josh bowed his head down even further. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, Mike. I let you get hurt. I’ve been a bad boy and I deserved to be punished.”

It seemed to me that he hadn’t let me get hurt any more than Dawn had, and she was holding the leash. “Um ... it’s okay Josh. All is forgiven.”

“Oh it most certainly is not,” said Dawn. “Joshua is going to receive quite the punishment for his failure.”

Josh bowed his head like a dog. “Yes, ma’am.”

Dawn put her foot on his back and ground the heel of her black leather boots into one of the welts. “Did I ask you a question, Joshua”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then why did you speak”

Joshua whimpered. Dawn grabbed his leash and steered him around until he was heading out of the room. I could vaguely make out his erect cock hanging down between his naked legs. “I am so sorry for my servant’s behaviour,” said Dawn in that imperious voice that seemed so unlike her. “I promise you, it won’t happen again. I will make it up to you somehow.”

With Josh’s back turned, Dawn gave me a wink and mouthed a thanks for playing along. The strange duo headed out of the room, leaving me at least momentarily distracted from the pain in my leg.

Before the door could even close Simon caught it and headed into my room, shaking his head. The injury had made me very popular indeed.

“Did you see those two?” I said, hoping that I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing.

“Who, Dawn and Josh “said Simon. “Yeah. They mostly keep that kind of stuff down in the basement, but every once in a while they’ll come up here. It’s harmless enough, although I think Dawn’s in it mainly for an excuse to wear black leather and not get laughed at.”

“I don’t understand it,” I said. “I mean, I just can’t see getting off on some girl insulting me and treating me like shit.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

“Well, I’ve had plenty of girlfriends treat me like a slave, and I’ve never popped a boner from it, so I think that’s one kink I don’t have.”

Simon sat on the edge of my bed, grinning warmly. “Oh yeah? As opposed to the kinks you do have?”

“Um...” I was frantically wishing for a way to take back the last couple lines of the conversation. “What did you come in here for anyway, Simon?”

He took a long sniff of the room and wrinkled his nose. “Well, I was thinking you could use a bath. Considering you can’t use the shower, and it’s been a few days and, well, the aroma is kind of wearing down our sympathy.”

“Sorry, but the shower isn’t the easiest in crutches.”

“That’s why I brought you this.” Simon reached into his pocket and produced a disgusting dried-out sponge. He had a completely serious look on his face. Did he actually want to sponge-bathe me? How would that even work?

I tried to roll away and save myself from this degrading fate. Simon laughed. “Relax, Mike. It was only a joke.”

I turned over to find that Simon was now laying down in the bed, disturbingly close to me. Everything was pressed together -- our chests, our noses, our knees. I was suddenly out of breath. “You know, you have a hell of a deadpan,” I said, trying not to let the shakiness enter my speech.

“Thank you,” said Simon. I could feel his hot breath on my cheek, provoking a strange mixture of discomfort and excitement. Suddenly that first night came back to me, that strange dreamlike handjob from the nymphish Simon. It hadn’t been repeated, and I had halfway dismissed it as just a dream. But here he was, his face -- his lips -- inches from mine, and there was that disquieting arousal that pulsed within my ribcage, something that felt wrong but irresistible.

When I went to speak, I found my throat suddenly dry. “So, what did you really want?”

“Do I need to want something to come see you?”said Simon. He ran a hand across my short hair and under my ear, the latter spot suddenly seeming like the most sensitive spot on my body. “Surely you don’t think I’m that mercenary.” I couldn’t stop staring at the soft pinkness of his lips, of the small strand of saliva that he broke when he opened them to talk.

In a way it was a natural position -- I had been here with girls numerous times before, a couple times in this very bed (although mostly that was with Dawn, who never dragged out the teasing this long.) There was an instinctive part of me that wanted to lean in and kiss Simon, to wrap my arm around him the same way he was doing to me. But then I felt the hardness of his muscled chest, dropped my eyes just slightly and saw the prickly field of a five ‘o clock shadow, and felt something stiff swelling against my thigh through our clothes.

I shifted back. “You’re making it hard to stay in bed, you know.”

Simon chuckled. “Really? That’s not what people usually say.”

I folded my arms across my chest, as if warding off Simon and his strange magic that made me question things I had always known about my sexuality. He kept his distance, but continued talking. “Seriously man, you stink. If you want to take a shower, I could help you out.”

“Like I said, I’ll have to pass on the sponge bath.”

There was a twinkle in Simon’s eye that made some unknown organ inside me do flips. “Nah, I can just help you in and out of the stall, and keep you standing. Be a physical support as well as a moral one. Just think of me as a human crutch, one that’s not going to get all soaked and soggy.”

I weighed the idea. There was a part of my mind that was screaming at me for even considering the idea, insisting that I wasn’t a fag and this wasn’t something that I did. Of course, that part of me -- the superego, to crib from Freud -- was pretty much constantly indignant lately, and usually to little effect. I still wasn’t sure about the strange mixture of attraction and repulsion I was feeling, but I could use a good shower. And despite his obvious fondness for seduction, I had a feeling that Simon wouldn’t do anything that I didn’t want.

It was just a question of what I wanted.

“Sure,” I said, with a long exhalation, as if trying to purge all the uncertainty from me via the lungs. “I think Josh said that these bindings were waterproof.”

“Cool,” said Simon, trying and failing to contain his excitement. “I am at your service.”

In a moment Simon was around the other end of my bedside, offering me a helping hand up. Being vertical rarely over the past couple days, the sudden shift brought a round of dizziness to me, but I was able to steady myself by leaning heavily on Simon, draping my arm over his opposite shoulder. I held my injured ankle, wrapped up in a virtual shoe of bandaging, up while I stood on one leg and let Simon lead me to the bathroom. I had been in here before, on my crutches to use the facilities, but I didn’t want to see how the wooden instruments warped under the shower’s water.

“All right,” said Simon, all business. “Let’s get you undressed.”

“I knew you had an ulterior motive,” I said. Simon bent down and let me sit on the edge of the tub.

He reached down and unbuttoned my jeans. “I can do it myself,” I said.

“Just sit back and let yourself get helped already,” said Simon. He instructed me to lift my legs up, which I did with some difficulty, and tugged my pants and boxers down in one smooth motion. It felt strange, like I was a little kid being helped into (or out of, as the case may be) his big boy pants.

“Wait,” I said. “I need to pee.”

Simon helped me limp over to the toilet. My dick, half-erect but shrinking, sat their like a useless piece of vestigial flesh. Simon stared at it, a faintly amused look on his face.

“Well, I can’t do it with you watching me.”

“All right.” Simon turned his back. His presence was still disruptive, but I managed to get a trickle of the pressure in my bowls out. I turned my head to find that Simon was disrobing in the meantime. His shirt was already on the floor, and he was slipping out of his pants as I watched.

I opened my mouth to say something, but what got out was only a weird strangled noise, as that happened to be the moment Simon turned around. He was a slender guy, but he had a surprisingly well-developed chest, and abs you could bounce a quarter off. I reasoned in my head that I didn’t have to be gay to appreciate an attractive guy when I saw him -- I mean, appreciate that he was attractive, as in knowing it, not as in appreciating his body in a sexual way. Of course.

“What, you didn’t think I was gonna get my clothes wet,” Simon said as he peeled off his underwear. His cock was thick, heavy, and uncircumcised -- it didn’t seem to belong on Simon’s sleek, almost effeminate body. Despite this, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. He caught me staring with a wry grin. “I know, it’s pretty, but we need to focus on cleanliness here.”

“You know, maybe I should see if Dawn or someone can do this.”

Simon sidled up to me and helped me up off the toilet as I undid my shirt. His naked skin against mine was like an electric shock. “Dawn’s too busy disciplining a naughty slave. Now come on. Let’s get in the tub.”

Getting my injured foot over the edge of the tub was a challenge, which required Simon to lift me up practically like he was carrying a bride over the threshold. Like I said, the guy is surprisingly strong. The blast of cold water that greeted us only calmed our fervour for a moment, and then that strange nervous crackling feeling between us was back. As the water turned warmer I could feel my cock stir, and thought I saw Simon’s doing the same. (Once again, I told myself to stop looking at his cock, but my eyes wouldn’t listen.)

Simon moved around behind me, still somehow supporting my weight. His cock pressed up against my ass cheek, making me shiver. I realized that I had perhaps never been as close to another man before, and certainly not while the both of us were naked. It wasn’t really comfortable, but I couldn’t push away without falling and hurting my ankle more.

How did I keep getting into these situations?

Simon’s hand emerged from behind me lathered up in liquid soap, and at that moment I wished I had gotten the bar kind. His hands roamed all over my chest and into my armpits, up to my neck and face, down to my stomach. Simon practically massaged the soap into my skin and watched as the shower water cast it away. I couldn’t help but appreciate the sensation. Simon seemed to take especial care in soaping up the area around my nipples.

I tensed up as I felt his hands going lower, now armed with more soap. Simon carefully cleaned my thighs, but instead of going for my now stiff erection, he went down further. I found myself moaning -- with pleasure? with disappointment? -- as he ran his hands over my legs, letting the sudsy water drip down onto my bandaged foot. Simon kept me propped up by ducking down and throwing my arm over his shoulder. Our bodies were wet and hot and slid together with great ease.

“There,” said Simon, his voice husky. “I think I’ve washed everything.”

“You missed one thing,” I said quietly. I wasn’t talking about my back.

“Oh? What did I miss?”

I didn’t want to respond to his coy voice, didn’t want to identify my desire. Somewhere in my mind there was a difference between a guy jacking you off in the shower and asking a guy to jackk you off in the shower. As much as I begrudged Simon for his advances, it was much easier going along with him than vocalizing the desires I had a hard time admitting to myself.

“Well, I can’t help you out if you don’t tell me what I missed.”

I couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t.

“Is it your cock?” Simon was hard against me now. I could feel it.

I nodded, slowly but unmistakably.

“Well why didn’t you say so? We’ve got to keep that clean.” The first few strokes were with the addition of soap, actually cleaning the foul-smelling organ. But that pretence could only last so long. The soap fell away into the warm water and then there was just me and the guy who was briskly stroking my cock.

It was an exhilarating sensation, the kind of quick and dirty pleasure that was utterly addictive. Simon’s grip was different than mind, but he seemed like he had the same experience with stroking my cock (or at least a cock), and his devotion to onanism was paying off with incredible sensations. Of course, this was so much more than masturbation, with the independent hand and the feel of another man at my back constantly surprising me. And when Simon pinched the head of my cock between his fingers ... I almost came right there.

For the moment, my anxieties about my sexualities were banished, and I was a creature of sensation alone. The water made Simon’s increasingly agressive strokes a little uncomfortable, but it was that slight amount of pain that seemed to multiply the pleasure. He leaned into me closer, somehow still supporting my weight, and licked the side of my neck.

That was it. I shuddered as cum spurted out of my cock, landing in white streaks across the wall of the shower. Simon kept slowly milking it as it deflated, drawing out every ounce of pearly white juice he could. He then held out his hand palm-up, as if making an offering to the carnal gods, and watched my cum dissolve and race into the shower drain.

We were all over each other as we staggered out of the shower. Orgasm hadn’t dimmed my fervour, although I was starting to feel those old anxieties beating at the walls again. I pressed my body against Simon as we kissed, and it was as though our forms were meant to be together, the grooves of our chests falling into complete alignment, our cocks almost intertwining. He tasted good -- wet and juicy, like summer fruit. I separated him briefly, and almost fell, but Simon caught me by the arm and pulled me back up. I felt a twinge of pain in my ankle, and was sure that Josh would be scolding me later, but at the moment I didn’t care.

We stumbled back into my bedroom, and he guided me back to my bad. And there we were again, minus the clothes, leaving a dripping trail all across my room. Our bodies were wet and slippery as we grappled on the bed. I was going to do it, I realized. I was going to have sex with another man.

No, not just some abstract other man. Simon, this gorgeous young specimen that I felt privileged to have my hands on.

I found myself kissing my way down his torso, flicking my tongue into his belly button. It was like with a girl, save for the breasts. And then I reached the major difference.

Simon’s cock stood erect inches from my face. It shouldn’t be a big deal, I knew. I should just stick it in my mouth. By logical standards, I was definitely past the point of stringent heterosexuality. But the cock loomed enormous and unappetizing in front of me. And then suddenly the doubts crashed through the mental walls built up by Simon’s touch, and this other man’s penis was revolting.

I tried to rally myself around, but my previous state of mind was gone, and I was now finding even Simon’s earlier attentions disquieting. He was looking down at me, my head hanging still between his legs, his anticipation slowly transforming to confusion, and then to disappointment.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t. I just ... I can’t.”

Simon drew up his feet and sat cross-legged on the bed. “It’s okay.” His cock throbbed insistently, but he was doing his best to be understanding. “We can take it slow.”

I stared intently at the bedspread. “You must think I’m so selfish right now.”

“I don’t. I think you’re trying hard to get over something, and right now you haven’t done it yet, but you’re working on it ... and when you get past that wall, I’ll be on the other side waiting for you.”

imon redressed both of us and left, giving me a pat on the shoulder and telling me to get better soon. My ankle, which I had been more or less ignoring in all the confusion, was throbbing hard and recriminating me for my reckless activity. I wasn’t sure what I had been thinking. I mean, I was straight. I had always been straight. It wasn’t that I had anything against gay people, I just hadn’t even thought about being one of them.

In other words, I was a confused, pained, and generally miserable form laying prone on my bed for a good long while.

Once again, the Internet’s seemingly endless wonders had been exhausted, and I found myself watching once-funny YouTube videos for the tenth time in a row. If there was a hell, then I was certainly going to it, and I was afraid it might look a bit like this -- boredom, malaise, but nowhere to go and no way to go there. Or maybe that would just be purgatory.

I mentioned the boredom once in an off-hand conversation with Padma, and the last thing I knew Josh was barging into my room, with a big flatscreen TV cradled in his arms. “Hey man. I heard you were going stir-crazy in here, so I thought I would set up my entertainment centre in here.”

I’ve never liked people who called their TV-setup an “entertainment centre”, but I wasn’t about to split hairs here. At this point, any kind of amusement was like water in the desert. “You don’t have to do all this,” I said, hoping that he would be unconvinced.

“Nah, this is nothing,” said Josh. “Hang on, I’m gonna grab some games. I’ll get you set up on some Mass Effect and you won’t be moving from here even after your leg gets better.”

A minute later Josh came back in carrying his Xbox, a tangle of cords hanging off the back and a small stack of games perched precariously on the top of the console. I felt a little bad watching him labour without helping, but my ankle felt like lead at this point.

“I will warn you,” said Josh. “I’m gonna be in here watching the UFC special on this thing tonight. Other than that, it’s all yours.”

“Is this the only TV in here?”

“Yeah, I own it from my last place,” said Josh. “Julia doesn’t want the idiot box in the house, but don’t think I don’t hear her watching Mad Men on the computer in her room. And then there’s her whole porno thing, which is apparently less uncouth than watching a TV show. It actually works out pretty well for me ... anytime someone wants to watch something, they have to barter with me. I haven’t done dishes in months.”

“And now you’re giving me this power?” I said.

“Ah, but with great power comes great responsibility. Do you accept a handjob from Dawn for letting her watch Real Housewives of Wherever, knowing that it’ll torture you later? What happens when Simon and Padma both want the TV at the same time? These are the dilemmas that are gonna torment you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You should be thanking me for taking it off your hands.”

“Let’s not get carried away here.”

I paused. As much as I liked joking around with Josh, there was a four-hundred-pound elephant in the room dressed in leather. “Um,” I said softly. “Can I ask you about something”

“Is it the dom/sub thing?” he said, without even looking up from the tangle of wires he was trying to thread through to their appropriate mates.

“Yeah ... your relationship with Dawn. It’s not ... it’s like, I’m okay with it, I just don’t get it. I never imagined a guy like you enjoying being abused and ordered around.” After I said it I held in my breath and hoped fervently I hadn’t offended him.

Josh grinned just a little bit. “I don’t get it either.”

“Huh”

“It’s like ... I guess if you want to play shrink you can come up with all kinds of reasons for why I like being Dawn’s sub. Like, Julia says to me that since I’m such a brute in real life I enjoy having that power taken away ... although I dunno if I’m really a brute. Maybe it has something to do with my mother. But I don’t worry myself about shit like that. I mean, having Dawn call me scum and whip me is hot as hell, and I don’t know why and I don’t really care. You can really freak yourself out worrying why you are who you are.”

He said all of this casually, without the confessional pretensions that Julia had when she was talking about her sexuality. I wasn’t sure how to respond. “I guess so. Is it just with Dawn?”

“Well, Padma doesn’t want to touch me, Jules does but doesn’t like to admit it, and Ellie’s too sweet and wholesome to hold a flogger. So right now it’s just a thing between me and Dawn.” Josh finished shoving all of the pins and other metal attachments into the right sockets and triumphantly turned on the TV. The bright blue screen made him frown. He quickly turned it off and went back to fumbling with the cords.