Going the Distance (28 page)

I stood up and looked at the team. “This is my fault, and I know it. The second half won’t be like the first, and we’re going to win this. That I promise you.” I saw a few guys smile in response. “So let’s go out there and show these guys whose house it is. Whose house is it?” I asked.

“Run’s house,” a few guys said back.

Louder, I shouted, “
Whose house?”

They all screamed back, “
Run’s house!”

We all got up and cheered as the energy in the room started to rise again. With a roar we charged out onto the court, ready to do battle no matter what the cost.

We won 94-82. Cody didn’t say a word to me on the court. It was official; I was going to A&M to play basketball. But more importantly, I was done liking guys. That part of my life was over.

T
HE
WEEK
before graduation, I signed the papers and became the newest member of the A&M basketball team. They gave me a cap that could have been made out of gold and not been as valuable to me. I had worked my ass off since Germany for this, and now here it was; it was really happening.

My dad was fifteen kinds of proud. He bought a sweatshirt that proclaimed him as the proud parent of an Aggie, which he wore every single moment he was on base out of uniform. Nate was overjoyed; we were going to be playing on the same team, and I was stoked. Emma was happy for me too, even if she understood after graduation we were done.

I was moving to College Station, and she wasn’t.

It made things weird between us, but in a good way. Knowing that this was it, that there was nothing more, freed us a little bit, and we just decided to enjoy the time we had. She became more affectionate, and I was horny enough not to protest. I had tried not to jerk off since finding God, but let me tell you, I have no earthly idea how he expected us to follow that one. I mean, no sex until marriage and no jerking off? People must have been married and knocked up by the time they were fifteen in the old days. I also didn’t want to jerk off that much because no matter how hard I tried to picture girls, it never turned me on enough to do the trick.

So one night after a movie, when she moved her hand over my crotch and squeezed, I couldn’t care less that she was a girl. Fuck, at that moment, she could have been a chimpanzee, and I would have groaned like that. She smiled and asked, “How long until you have to be back?”

“I got time,” I blurted out quickly.

“Find us somewhere private,” she said with a small smile.

It took all my control not to peel out of the parking lot like the devil himself was chasing me. One of the many advantages of living on a mostly closed-down base was the abundance of private places one could find. Whole chunks of space that had once served some greater purpose were now abandoned and just asking to be used by bored kids who wanted to get away from everything. I parked us on the south side of where the hospital used to be. It was covered in the shadows cast by the full moon and gave us complete privacy.

I turned off the car, and we faced each other in the front seat. My heart was racing, and I felt myself starting to sweat.

“Have you ever done this before?” she asked me with a wry grin. I shook my head, since I had indeed never done a thing with a girl. “I didn’t think so,” she said, taking a step toward me. “I was wondering why you hadn’t made a move yet.”

Say what?

“I-I thought…,” I said as she leaned forward and kissed my neck. “I thought you were saving yourself for marriage.”

She scoffed as she nibbled my ear. “God, you really do believe that church stuff, don’t you?”

I was about to answer when her hand came to rest on my crotch, or more specifically my member, even more specifically my rock-hard member. Just her touch, through two layers of clothes, was enough to make me moan. It had been so long since I had come that I was on a hairpin trigger and pretty sure I wasn’t going to last long enough to get my pants off.

“Wow!” she said, looking down at my bulge. “I never believed that whole big-feet thing before, but now….” She rubbed its length, and I felt myself press back against the car door in nervous excitement. “You are a big boy all over, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice dropping lower into a teasing tone. She unbuckled my belt, and I looked down to watch her work. She popped open my khakis and unzipped them in one fluid movement.

“You
have
done this before,” I said, realizing I had completely misunderstood who she really was.

“I’m a Navy brat,” she said, looking for the gap in my boxer briefs. “You’re telling me that you never messed around with girls on other bases?”

I shook my head, telling the God’s honest truth.

“Well, then,” she said, finding the slit and smiling. “Let me be your first.” She reached in and grabbed the shaft of my cock and pulled it out. “Sonofabitch,” she said, gripping my manhood firmly. “You’re going to make some girl very happy someday.”

Before I could respond she leaned down and put it in her mouth.

It was easily the best feeling I have ever had, hands down. A million times better than jerking off, a billion times better than just grinding into my mattress, and though I was delirious at her mouth’s ministrations, one thought bubbled up loud and clear in my head.

This will show Nate I’m straight.

It was so out of place, so completely wrong for the moment, that I almost lost my hard-on.

Almost, but not really.

When we were done, she sat up and wiped her mouth with a napkin that seemed to come out of nowhere. I just lay there against the car door as she dropped the vanity mirror down and checked her hair. “Well, that clears that up,” she said as she grabbed her lipstick.

I cracked one eye open. “What?”

She applied the makeup and then puckered her lips. “Most of the girls on base said you were either a virgin or gay. Now I can say for sure you’re just a virgin.” She looked over and smiled at me. “And normally I’d change that before you took off to college, but seriously, Danny, that thing is getting nowhere near me.”

I followed her gaze and realized she was talking about my softening cock, still lying out of my boxers. I sat up and tucked it away. “They said I was gay?”

She nodded and flipped the mirror up. “Well, you are cute as fuck, in fantastic shape, and obviously you aren’t ashamed of what you got down there. You never hit on a girl, never even looked at one. People talked.” She saw the look on my face. “But it’s cool. I mean, it’s not like you’re gay.”

I lunged across the car and kissed her hard.

At first she was shocked, but then she began to kiss back. “I’ll show you who isn’t gay,” I said, unbuttoning her blouse. She laughed as I pulled it open.

Before I began to kiss her breasts and ignored everything else, the fact was, I felt like I was playing to an audience I couldn’t see. The feeling that all the girls on base were outside the car looking in at me, seeing how I really acted around a girl, was overwhelming. I began to ravish her, focusing all my efforts on replicating what I had seen in every sex scene in every movie I had ever watched. Maybe it was because I was trying so hard or because I was so rattled by what she’d said, but this was doing nothing for me. I wasn’t turned on, and I wasn’t even the slightest bit hard, but I still went to town because I had something to prove. To her, to the girls on base, to Nate….

To myself.

By the time I had her pants slipped down to her knees, she was panting hard. She grabbed my hair and pulled my head back to hers. “Do you have a condom?”

I did, but the thought I was going to have to be hard to use it panicked me.

“No,” I said, trying to sound disappointed. “I thought I wasn’t getting close to you,” I said with a fake smile.

“I was thinking just the tip,” she said. “It’s no big deal….”

It was, and I couldn’t lose her now. I needed to send her back to her friends with a story that killed every rumor once and for all. I needed to plant my flag of manhood here and now, and I needed to do it as forcefully as possible.

“I can do better than the tip,” I said, moving back to pull her pants off completely.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, giggling.

“My feet aren’t the only thing I have that’s big,” I said, sticking my tongue all the way out.

Her eyes got wide, and I lowered myself on her… praying to God that I didn’t throw up.

I didn’t throw up, though I can’t say I enjoyed myself, but then again I wasn’t down there for my own good. I was down there to bury an ugly rumor once and for all and make sure it never crawled to the surface ever again. This wasn’t a zombie movie. This was a mistake I was tired of having to pay for. Luckily Emma wasn’t quiet about what she liked and didn’t like, because I was clueless about what I was doing, if I was honest. Slowly but surely I figured out where I needed to be, and when I did, her entire body spasmed around me. Her legs closed hard on either side of my head as I felt her start to react.

And then she reacted again.

And again.

And then she came.

Hard.

She was glistening from a good sweat, and I could see the look of utter bliss on her face. Her eyes were closed, and she was sporting a huge smile. “Okay,” she said out of breath. “You are in no way gay.”

I grabbed a bottled water from my gym bag in the back and congratulated myself on a job well done.

I dropped Emma off, and she gave me a long and passionate kiss as she got out. “I hope we can do that again before you leave.”

Nodding, I gave her a wink. “Count on it.” I watched her walk away, wishing my body would react in some way to hers, but it didn’t.

I dispelled that thought as I drove back home. Doing my best ninja impression, I crept into the house hoping not to wake my dad. Of course, he was awake in the living room watching
SportsCenter
.

“Someone can’t tell time,” he said, not even glancing over at me. “You’re lucky you already have a scholarship, or I’d—” He stopped and looked over at me. “Did you have sex?”

My jaw hit the ground.

“Seriously, Danny, you stink like sex. What the hell?” he said, getting up.

“I-I mean….”

“With Emma?” he asked. I nodded, and he sighed. “Please tell me you were safe.”

“Um… we didn’t really do that. I mean, we didn’t do something that needed a condom
per
se
.” This was worse than anything I could have ever imagined.

“Jesus Christ,” he cursed, pacing in front of me. “I cannot believe I’m wishing you went back to liking guys.” I felt a flush on my face, but he kept talking. “Danny, you have to know that hands down you’re the best thing that has ever happened in my life. I in no way regret having you, and I know your mom felt the same way.” I nodded slowly, not understanding a word he was saying. “But you cannot ruin your life getting a girl pregnant as young as I did. You can’t. You have a whole life ahead of you that can only be complicated with a kid right now.”

Oh, well, all of a sudden this made sense.

“Dad,” I said, trying to interrupt him. “Dad, listen.” He stopped talking and looked at me. “We didn’t actually have sex. It was more oral than anything….”

He made a face and shook his head. “Please, Danny, do not describe what you did with her.”

“I’m trying to tell you we didn’t do that because we didn’t have a rubber, okay?” He looked up at me, and I smiled. “I thought you’d be happier that I got it on with a girl.”

His expression grew grim for a moment, and I thought I was in trouble. “I didn’t have a problem with you when you liked guys.
If
you liked guys. I don’t even know now.” He sighed and looked down for a moment. “Seriously, Danny, if you’re having sex with girls to prove something—”

I lost it.

“I’m having sex with girls ’cause I’m horny, Dad, and I happen to like them, okay?” I fired back. “You know you made me feel like shit in Germany about guys, and now you’re doing the same thing about girls. Do you have a problem with sex or just with me having it?”

It was a completely unfair thing to say, and I knew it the moment it was out of my mouth, but I couldn’t take it back now. It was out there now, and there was nothing to do but deal with it. We’d never talked about what went down in Germany; instead we’d navigated around those mental icebergs, trying our best not to sink this ship we called a life. But I had just steered us into the biggest one out there, and there was no way to turn back now.

He sat down and turned off the TV. The look on his face was half pissed and half hurt. It was killing me to look at him. “You think there isn’t a day I don’t think about how I handled that? Do you honestly think I’m happy with what I said to you then?” I didn’t say a word. “I wasn’t upset about you liking guys, Danny. I was upset about the fact that kid was saying you forced yourself on him.”

I sat down across from him as he kept talking.

“I get it now. You guys were fooling around—everyone does at that age—and I should have handled it better.” He gave a mirthless little laugh that was like nails on a chalkboard. “This was supposed to be one of the things your mom was supposed to help me with. I have no idea how to handle something like that without fucking you up for the rest of your life.” He looked up at me, and I could see tears in his eyes. “Danny, you can be anything you want to be, and at the end of the day you need to do two things to make me happy. Be the best man you can be and come home safely every night. I don’t care about anything else.”

“But you wanted me to be straight,” I said, my voice sounding like I was about to cry too.

He half sobbed. “No, son, I wanted you to be happy.”

That was when we both started crying.

We hugged it out and tried to talk around the subject some more, but we were both drained, and there was nothing left to say. I took a shower while he went to bed. I looked down at my dick and closed my eyes as I took it in my hand. I imagined Emma naked in the car, just laid out for me as I stroked.