Safety Net (24 page)

Erick squeezed again, whole body shuddering,
and jerked once. Panting, he nuzzled Lowell’s hair and did it again. “Oh,
fuck
,
Erick,” Lowell said into his shoulder and bit it.

“Yes,” Erick said against his ear,
his breath harsh. “Yes.” And he squeezed again and jerked hard, over and over until
they both came. Lowell arched back and looked down to watch. His cock trapped
in Erick’s grip, pressed against Erick’s dick, pulsing come in rhythm with
Erick’s pulses. So good, so incredible. The high was dizzying.

Afterwards, sprawled in a sticky mess,
Lowell said, “Hey, Erick?”

“Yeah?” Erick said drowsily.

“The only hot guy I’m interested in
checking out is you. Just so you know.”

Erick tickled his inner thigh. “Glad
to hear it, Menacker. Glad to hear it.”

-----

After breakfast on Sunday, Dale had
a good two-hour workout in the weight room, then went for an easy jog up into
the campus hills. It had rained last week so the grass was green. There were
more joggers and hikers out than Dale had expected, but the hills were his
favorite spot to get away and clear his mind.

That idiot Lowell.

“Andy likes you,” he’d said. Like
he had been completely unaware of Andy’s attention on
him
last night.
Dale hadn’t thought the Warriors game would be a date, though he wouldn’t have
minded a date with Andy -- the guy was fucking hot -- but as soon as he had
seen Andy and Lowell talking together, no chance. Of course. There was Lowell,
the blond six foot six hunk, apparently irresistible to everyone, including
straight guys like Erick. Irresistible to gay guys who knew better, like Dale.

Dale jogged down a gentle slope,
nodding and smiling at an elderly couple walking their dog, coming up from the
other direction.

He needed to find a guy. Not even a
boyfriend, though that would be nice. But he needed to find someone...a
hook-up...get laid. So he could burn off the lingering residue of attraction to
Lowell. He wasn’t jealous of Erick; in fact, he thought getting sex on a
regular basis was doing Erick a world of good. But it was a little hard to take
at times, that his two best friends were getting all the action. With each
other.

Dale stopped for a breather,
deciding which path to follow. Maybe he could call Andy... No. The best that
could come of that was Andy asking Dale for Lowell’s phone number. For an evil
moment of pure malice, Dale envisioned giving it to him, envisioned Erick
waiting at the dorm to loom over Andy and tell him to back off... Except Erick
wouldn’t. Erick would stand back, let Lowell go, and bottle it all up with a
smile on his face, telling Dale how happy he was for Lowell. And Lowell would
think Erick was letting him go because he was too shallow for Erick, and would
go off with Andy, bedazzled by attention and sex and basketball tickets.

Dale wiped his face on his shirt.
Even his malicious daydreams fell apart because he knew Erick and Lowell too
well, loved them too much.

Dale chose the running path that
skirted the interstate before looping back near the creek. It was the long way
around, but a better mix of uphill and downhill with the last third mostly
level.

There was a meeting later today of
the queer students’ discussion group where he’d met Andy. He wondered if Andy
would be there and ask him about Lowell. Andy must’ve figured out that Lowell
was the guy Dale had been talking about in the first meeting, the friend Dale
had admitted to fooling around with, knowing he shouldn’t. It had felt good to
talk about it with strangers, though he felt cheap and skanky saying it aloud.
The group had been supportive, emphasizing that Dale’s friend bore responsibility
for his actions, too. Dale didn’t get into the whole Erick thing. Too fucking
soap opera for his first meeting. Instead, he’d talked about the subject that
had made him show up to the meeting in the first place.

“I want to be more out,” he said. “I
want to be able to relax, be myself. My roommate knows and is okay with it--” Little
did they know, the roommate was “the friend.” “--but our friends... It’s tough.
The group of guys we hang out with. It’s a tight-knit group of macho guys.”

“A frat?” someone asked.

“No. We’re, um, on the football
team.”

Total silence, and half a dozen
people staring at him like he’d just admitted he killed babies for Satan. A
girl behind him murmured, “That’s just as bad as a frat,” and a guy in front of
him turned around to ask, “The Crocker football team? The actual team?” With a
look on his face like, why would anyone do that. Why would anyone be on the
Crocker football team. Despite the fact that nearly a hundred guys were on the
team, thank you very fucking much, Dale thought.

Dale sat there in the uncomfortable
silence, wondering if the team’s reaction to him being gay could possibly be
worse than these students’ reaction to him being on the football team. Then the
gorgeous guy sitting across from Dale said, “That must be tough. Fighting all
the stupid stereotypes about jocks and all the stupid stereotypes about queers
at the same time.” He smiled a little, letting Dale know he didn’t share the
same opinions about jocks, and after the meeting Dale thanked him. That’s how
he’d met Andy.

Yeah, Dale thought, reaching the
creek. Andy was a cool guy. He’d like to get to know him better, even if sex
and romance was off the table. It would be good to have another friend he could
be both gay and a jock around.

When Dale showed up at the
discussion group later that afternoon, the girl who thought the football team
was as bad as a frat gave him the evil eye, so Dale deliberately sat next to
her. She surprised him by not moving to another seat. Andy showed up late and
exchanged a smile with Dale as he sat down across the room.

A couple of kids spoke, the second
one kind of whiny in Dale’s opinion, but he supposed he shouldn’t judge. The
group discussed things they could do for Gay Pride Month in June, which was
months away. Dale didn’t say anything. It reminded him of the kinds of things
Brent used to do at CU Rockridge and it was just as boring back then.

When the meeting broke up, Andy
waited for him by the door. “Hey,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d show up this
week.”

Dale fell into step with him. “Yeah.
I thought I’d give it another try, but maybe it was a waste of time. Not really
my scene, I guess.”

“Rather be playing football?” Andy
asked.

Dale smiled. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

“Yeah. I’d rather be shooting
hoops,” Andy chuckled. They walked down the stairs of the student union and
Andy paused by the coffee shop. “Wanna grab something here?”

“Sure.”

They picked a table where they
could watch the hockey game on the flatscreen. Dale had a regular coffee and
Andy had a latte and an enormous apple pastry.

“Hey, I wanted to ask about your
friend Lowell,” Andy said, slicing into the pastry with his fork.

Oh, here it comes
, Dale
thought. Should he invent a girlfriend for Lowell? Maybe he could just say
Lowell was taken and leave it at that.

Andy finished a bite of pastry
before saying, “He said he plays basketball. I was wondering if he’d like to
join our group.” He looked at Dale. “You could join, too. We’re always looking
for new blood.” He smiled his beautiful, warm smile.

“I don’t play,” Dale said with a
shrug. “I’m strictly football. But I can ask him. What’s your group?”

Andy carefully cut off another
slice. “A group of us. Queers. It’s just guys this year. We had a lesbian last
year, and she was fantastic, but she finished school and left the area. We have
guys from San Jose, from here, from the community college. We get together a
few times a month to play. It’s good to get a game in and not have to worry
about all that crap talk, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Dale. It sounded great.
“Is there a football group like yours? Do you know?”

Andy ate the slice of pastry and
sipped his latte. “I don’t know, but I can ask around. Some of the guys might
know of one.”

“That’d be awesome.” Dale sat back
and wrapped his hands around his coffee mug. “Oh, but about Lowell. Um.”

“Yes?”

Dale hesitated. He’d been about to
say, “Lowell isn’t gay,” but stopped. He could hear Lowell in his head:
I’ve
been sucking Erick’s cock for a month
. Dale inwardly cringed and said, “Um.
Well. I’ll ask him.”

Andy smiled again. “Thanks.” He cut
off more pastry and said, “Do you want some of this? My eyes were bigger than
my stomach.”

The pastry looked delicious, and
Dale regretted not ordering one. “You sure? ‘Cause yeah, I’d love some.”

Andy held up his fork with a bite
of pastry on the end, and Dale took the bite with his fingers and popped it in
his mouth. As delicious as it looked. He licked sugar off his fingertips, and
Andy cut another slice and offered it. Dale hesitated, but he wanted more, and
Andy’s smile was inviting. He ended up eating a third of it.

Dale finished his coffee and said, “You
figured out Lowell was the one I was talking about, didn’t you? The friend I
talked about at the meeting.”

Andy gave him a steady look. His
eyes were a very dark brown, intelligent, serene. “I wondered,” he said. He
glanced at the hockey game and watched for a moment. “I can see why. He’s
certainly, uh. Got classical good looks.”

“Yes,” Dale said with a heavy sigh,
staring into his empty mug. “He sure does.” He caught Andy’s curious look and
said before he could stop himself, “Oh, admit it. He’s a fucking wet dream come
true. The tall blond all-American straight boy who gets his first taste of cock
and decides he likes it. And the part that kills me is that he doesn’t even know
it. He’s, like, completely unaware of the effect he has on people, despite the
fact that he’s not only seduced me but also our mutual best friend... A guy
with a girlfriend, by the way... It’s so ludicrous it’s laughable. There are
times when I wish I could hate him, truly and absolutely hate him. But then I
see him and he smiles, and we have a laugh, and I can’t. He’s impossible to
hate.”

Dale looked up from the mug,
aghast. “Oh, fuck. I can’t believe I just said all that to you. Fuckity fuck.”

Andy had propped his chin on his
fist and was watching him with mildly bemused interest. “I think,” he said, “you
have Lowell issues.”

Dale smiled ruefully. “Gee, what
gave it away?”

Andy laughed softly, and something
about his laugh put Dale at ease. He relaxed a little. “Sorry for dumping this
crap on you.”

“Not a problem,” Andy said. “I’d
return the favor but my love life hasn’t been anywhere near as dramatic.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Dale
said, arching an eyebrow.

Andy shrugged. “What can I say? I
didn’t date anyone until I came here, and it was all very boring and normal. We
dated, we broke up. No love triangles. No seducing straight boys.” He sighed
theatrically.

“Sounds kind of nice to me,” Dale
admitted, smiling a little. “Boring and normal.”

Andy gave him a long look, and Dale
was worried he’d said something stupid. He glanced at the TV. The hockey game
was over.

“I better get back,” he said. “I’ve
got a ton of stuff to do.”

“Yeah, okay,” Andy said with a
small sigh, gathering up the plate and mugs. As they left the coffee house he
said, “Do you think you’ll come to the next meeting?”

Dale stuffed his hands in his
jacket pockets. “I kinda doubt it, but we’ll see.”

They walked towards Poitier. “Even
though you don’t play, you could come by one of our games,” Andy said. “We’re
meeting next Friday down in San Jose. It’s a good group of guys. You could
watch us play, hang out. We usually go for pizza and beer afterwards.”

It sounded tempting before Dale
realized what a miserable loser he must’ve sounded like to induce Andy to
invite him to a game he didn’t even play.
Lowell issues
. Yeah, that was
putting it mildly.

“Um...”

They reached the corner where their
paths split. Andy smiled gently. “No pressure. Want me to text you the
location, just in case?”

Dale smiled back. “Yeah, okay. Just
in case.”

They waved goodbye. Dale got back
to his dorm room, which was dark and empty, and spent the rest of the night
studying. Lowell never came home.
Getting some quality cocksucking time
,
Dale thought sourly.

Why the hell had Lowell told him
that, anyway? He already knew they were messing around. Obviously. He didn’t
need the details. This wasn’t like back in the fall, when he and Lowell had
fooled around and Lowell had told him about his Erick fantasies. Which were
pretty vague, actually. Along the lines of
I want to watch Erick having sex
.
Never
I want to suck Erick’s cock
. Well, yee-fucking-ha. Lucky Erick.

While Dale got ready for bed, he
suddenly wondered what Erick liked to do in turn. Did Erick suck Lowell? The
taste and feel and vision of Lowell coming while Dale sucked him off burned
through Dale’s head.

Dale stared at himself in the
mirror and ran his hands through his hair.
Lowell issues
.

“Oh my God, I so have to get laid,”
he said.

-----

The following Friday Andy texted
him about the basketball game and Dale, on a whim, decided to check it out. The
place was on the San Jose State campus, easy enough to get to but Dale had only
ever been to the stadium and didn’t know his way around. By the time he found
the right building, the game was already in full swing. There were a few other
spectators -- an older man and a couple of guys Dale’s age. They watched
everything intently, as if this was an NBA game.

Dale sat on a bleacher, spotted
Andy, and watched him play. He took in the rest of the players, figuring out
the two teams, and concentrated on the game for a while before giving up. Truth
was, basketball wasn’t his game. It was fun enough to watch but after a while,
it was same-old same-old. Not like football, with its strategies and
complicated plays. Football was elegant. Basketball was...basketball.