A Love Like Fireflies

Pete stopped breathing for a moment, panic pressing on his chest. But in a lightning moment of perception, he imagined himself telling Nick about how he woke up this morning, and how he had freaked out and pushed Karvaly off of him and called him a pervert and ran out of the tent with his virtue barely intact. He knew how the conversation would go.

"Wait, so this guy basically gives you the very heat of his body to save you from your stupidity-induced hypothermia, and you blow the rape whistle in his face?" Nick would ask. "Your sexual repression has finally made you insane--you're aware of that, right?"

Pete knew how foolish he would feel as Nick wound up his mocking monologue, and he made a conscious decision to not give him the chance. He would stay right here, and he would be better for it.

Karvaly shifted behind him, a little stretching twist accompanied by a tighter hug around Pete. Pete, for his part, tried to focus on taking deep, calm breaths, and he was doing well at it until he felt it. Down in the small of his back he felt the pressure. Karvaly's penis was waking up, and it too was stretching. It throbbed and grew impossibly hot as it grew improbably large. Pete pressed his eyes closed and imagined himself already out by the fire, where he would make small talk with Nick and Imre while the coffee brewed. Karvaly's penis was now crawling up Pete's back--it felt a foot long by this point. Focus. What would they talk about by the fire? Yes, it's a fine morning--to think there had been snow on the ground at dawn! Pete could now feel the foreskin of Karvaly's cock peeling back down the length of his shaft as it dragged on his warm skin. What would be for breakfast? Probably sodomy and eggs. What? Was Karvaly's cock wet at the tip?

Pete jolted, unable to control himself any longer. Karvaly stirred, and turned a bit, which relieved the pressure that Pete felt on his back.

"Good morning, Peter," rumbled Karvaly's voice, thick with sleep. "You are better this morning?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Pete replied, doing his best to turn away from Karvaly's member, which was still pressing against him. At least it was now throbbing against his hip rather than his ass. He felt a momentary pang on behalf of Karvaly's future wife who, in addition to having to share him with Imre, would have to find some way to accommodate that slab. Wait, was Pete really imagining people having sex? He shook his head, took a breath.

"Karvaly?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"Thank you."

Karvaly smiled broadly. "You are welcome, my friend." Then he embraced Pete, an intimacy Pete was by now used to in normal, clothed circumstances, but which was complicated by the presence of Karvaly's erection, now jabbing him in the navel.

"I think I'll get up now. It sounds like Imre and Nick have the fire going."

Pete unzipped the sleeping bag and slid out. He found dry clothes, dressed quickly, and left the tent. Karvaly, alone, whispered soothing words to his insistent prick, along the lines of, "Soon, soon."

"Morning, Petey!" called Nick, who was pouring the first coffee. "Was that you I heard stomping around in the dark last night?"

"Yeah. I needed some air, and it just happened to start snowing at that moment. Bizarre weather up here, huh?" He sipped his coffee and tried to act like someone who enjoyed talking about the weather.

"How'd ya do with Karvaly last night?," Nick leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "Everyone behave themselves?"

"Yes, everything was fine. I did hear you and Imre having some kind of slumber-party giggle fest last night, though. Did you behave yourself, or did you get to know that long, thin part of our friend that you were talking about before?"

"Ooh, I'm wounded," cried Nick, clutching his chest in mock horror. "Since when does Petey do sexy trash talk?"

"Since I've spent three months with this dirty bastard you might now. Slutty, vain, arrogant, you know the type. Complete asshole."

Nick laughed, and raised his steaming mug in a toast. "Very nice. I am so proud of you, Petey. Apparently when Karvaly tore you a new one last night some wit slipped in along with his big dick. Cheers!"

Then Pete did something that shocked him. He laughed. He actually saw humor in what Nick said, even if it was at his own expense, and he laughed. Oh, how far I have fallen, he thought.

"The good news is that now I'll be able to take that tiny thing you call a dick and not even feel it," he said with a winning smile, and walked over to say good morning to Imre.

Nick was stunned, and filled with admiration. He'd have to remember that one.

Warmth returned to the mountain quickly, erasing any trace of snowfall and bringing the temperatures high enough that the guys could again swim and play in the lake. This time Pete joined them, even engaging in a game of chicken on Nick's shoulders. He found he could block out the feeling of his balls pressing against Nick's broad, tan neck if he worked hard enough at it, and he even started to enjoy himself. After a long swim, all four arranged themselves on rocks at the water's edge to warm in the sun.

Pete lay near Nick, while Imre and Karvaly shared a rock on the other side of the small inlet that replenished the water of the lake. After a few minutes of sunning, the pair got up and, putting on just their boots, walked up the trail that led along the ridge above the lake. This left Pete alone with Nick, who was already asleep in the sun, stretched like a cat on the warm rock. Pete didn't feel sleepy, and Nick was unconscious, so he too put on his boots and headed up the trail. The others were far enough ahead of him that he could have some time to himself as he walked--he had a lot he needed to think through.

Pete was reviewing all that had happened since he met Nick, and it dawned on him as he walked that over the last six months the only times he had really been pushed to consider life--not as how he assumed it should be but life as other people lived it--was when he was with Nick. Pete was eager to get to college, mainly because he wanted to be challenged, to be pushed to expand his view of the world; didn't Nick provide that for him? Oh god--he stopped dead in his tracks--what if Nick was his Imre? He stood stock still for a full minute while the horror and strange exhilaration of this thought washed over him. He was nowhere near knowing his mind on that question, so he began to walk again.

He had just taken his first step when he heard a noise off the side of the path he was on. It didn't sound like an animal; rather, it sounded human. Like a voice. Karvaly's voice.

Pete edged closer to the precipice that overlooked the stream bed below, and then he drew back suddenly. Imre and Karvaly were down there, at the edge of the stream, on a mossy outcropping shielded from the view of the path but visible from the slight rise where Pete now stood.

Imre and Karvaly stood by the water, kissing. Pete had seen this kind of show before, and he stepped away from the edge so that he could return to the path and go back to camp. But then he remembered Karvaly's conversation last night about the relationship that he and Imre share. Last time, on the balcony of Imre's grandmother's house, he though he was seeing two gay lovers; now, here, down there, there were two straight men who loved each other, and found this way to express it. Did that make it different? Did it somehow explain what he had felt for Nick after the photo shoot, a feeling he had buried and paved over so that he could get on with his life?

Bewildered by so many synapses firing at once, Pete edged back to the overlook. Imre was now holding Karvaly's enormous prick in both hands, rubbing it up and down. Pete knew how it felt--the small of his back tingled with the memory. Imre then reached for his boot, from which he drew a small tube of something that he squeezed out onto Karvaly's cock. He then kissed Karvaly, and turned around on got down on all fours.

Holy shit, Pete thought. He's going to take it. How is that even possible? And yet as he watched, Karvaly placed the tip of his bare cock against Imre's hole, and then Pete saw the muscles of his ass indent on the sides with the strain of pushing. Pete was horrified. Imre's face was a mask of calm, but Pete could see small furrows playing across his brow. It clearly hurt, but it was a hurt he wanted. How could that be, Pete wondered. Karvaly pushed, and then relaxed, and pushed again, and waited. He spoke softly to Imre in words that Pete could not understand, whether because they were too soft or were in another tongue he did not know. But each time Imre nodded, and Karvaly pushed further, working more of his huge cock into his friend.

The guttural cry rose out of Imre's chest, somewhere deep inside him, and grew until he was roaring like a wounded bear, his face red with effort. Then he took a deep breath, set his jaw, and pushed back against Karvaly--hard. The rest of that thick flesh slid into him, and finally his wide-open ass met his best friend's groin. They were joined, and they stayed that way, still, panting, for a long moment. Then, gently, slowly, Imre pulled forward an inch, two; then back again to press firmly against Karvaly's balls. This was, apparently, the sign that Karvaly was waiting for; he began to thrust into Imre. Slowly at first, but quickly gaining momentum until he was throwing the entire length of his thick, veiny cock into him and pulling it almost all the way back out. Again and again he impaled Imre, faster and faster.

Pete's attention turned to Imre when he began making gasping noises in time with Karvaly's thrusts. His first thought was that Karvaly had punctured a lung with his wild jabbing. But then he noticed that Imre's own cock had stiffened until it clung to his sweating, rippled belly like a missile under a bomber. It began to bob up and down, and as Imre's moaning reached an impossibly high pitch, it began to ejaculate, untouched. It shot out a blast of white every time Karvaly thrust, keeping perfect time with the monster that was working it from inside. Imre shuddered and growled, shaking as the orgasm tore through him. Karvaly stiffened as the spasms that shot spunk from Imre's cock tightened his ass, milking his thrusting prick until it too exploded. He pushed one more time into Imre, whose cock responded by shooting out a final white jet. His orgasm was a study of silent tension, his every muscle steely, as he breathlessly, noiselessly, filled Imre with the seed that would one day create his children.

Spent, they folded together on the mossy bank, Imre jumping slightly when Karvaly's cock slid out of him, leaving him empty, shivering, and wet. He turned over and they kissed, and smiled, and laughed, babbling sweetnesses to each other in their suddenly poetic tongue.

Pete stepped back from the overlook, and walked back to the path. His erect cock pointed the way, and it was with a perverse relief that he noted it had not, for once, come all by itself. He willed it to soften as he walked back to the camp, leaving Imre and Karvaly to their cuddling. His mind was a whirl; he was not proud of his voyeurism, and he was somewhat disgusted by what the two of them had done down there by the stream. But he was not totally disgusted--why? Pete kept coming back to that conversation in the tent last night. As twisted as Karvaly's logic had been, it made a certain kind of sense, at least out here in the wilderness where things can happen that no one else ever needed to see or think about.

As Pete rounded the last bend in the trail, he saw Nick still stretched on his back in the sun, naked. He was about to go to the tent to put on some shorts, but then, with a thrill of naughtiness, he shucked off his boots and was as naked as Nick. He walked quietly over to where Nick lay sleeping, and realized that this was the first time he had really looked at him; sleeping next to him for three months he had never really taken a good look--had never wanted to. But now, here, alone, he could look and not have anyone, even Nick, know.

Nick was, of course, tan from head to toe. His body clearly declared his commitment to working out, though Pete realized that he had no idea what sports, if any, Nick played. One rarely developed such comprehensive musculature without a competitive goal in mind. Nick's collarbones stood out in smooth relief above his chest, which was powerfully built and sported the largest nipples Pete had ever seen. He had a queasy moment as he thought that perhaps Mr. Patronus had had that very same thought, but he pushed that out of his mind. Nick's belly was flat and smooth, with muscles that were not ripped but rather insinuated beneath the skin. His pubic hair, Pete noted with some surprise, was neatly trimmed--how had he managed to manscape in this remote country? Perhaps the nuns were a fastidious bunch, he thought with a smile. His legs were powerfully built, like the rest of him, but without the exaggerated development that sometimes results from overtraining. Overall, Nick's body was built for exactly the purpose for which he used it: seducing nuns, cameras, and geography teachers.

Motion caught Pete's eye, and he turned involuntarily toward it; it was in Nick's crotch--it was Nick's cock.

Pete stared at Nick's member as it lazily stretched and repositioned itself, turning its head to point upwards, up his stomach. Nick mumbled something in a dream, and his cock began to grow in earnest. As it moved upward, lengthening and thickening, it exposed Nick's balls, which were churning up and down as if pumping the cock above them to even greater size. Pete was fascinated by the changes Nick's penis went through, as the skin tightened and grew glossy, swollen with blood and lust for whomever he was talking to in his mumbled dreaming. Nick was thrusting now, his dick pumping in the air, his balls drawing tight.

Then Nick said, simply, "Oh, oh, oh," and his cock did the rest. The first streak of white, heavy and unbroken, laced up his torso all the way to his collarbone. It was followed by five or six jets of cum, each reaching a lower point on his body until finally the last flowed from the tip of his cock and pooled by the head.

Pete had never seen anyone ejaculate before. He didn't even watch himself cum when he masturbated, preferring instead to close his eyes and pretend that someone else was doing to him what his own hand was doing. He was astonished at the force of it, at the sheer volume of it, and the smell of it.

Suddenly he found himself retching into the lake, heaving everything he had eaten that day into the water, unable to breathe until his stomach was empty and he could bring up nothing more than acid. What the fuck was he doing here? He had just watched two guys buttfucking, and now he had watched--just sat there and watched!--his roommate have a wet dream. The smell of Nick's cum was in his nostrils. Pete hurled again, unproductively and uncontrollably. He made himself sick, and he had to get the hell out of here, back to his normal life.

He had to leave. Now.

Pete dressed and packed up as quickly and as quietly as he could, and left a note scrawled on a luggage tag he found at the bottom of his pack: "Not feeling well, heading back. Don't worry. Pete." He took off down the trail at a jog, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the others, distance that he hoped would allow him to put this entire experience behind him.

As soon as Pete reached the outskirts of the city, he hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take him to Imre's grandmother's house; the car waited outside as he gathered his things from the room he shared with Nick. He loaded everything into the trunk of the taxi and asked the driver to take him to the hotel where Mr. Patronus was staying. He would know how to get Pete home.

CHAPTER NINE

Pete found himself back home two days later; Mr. Patronus had been able to arrange for a medical emergency ticket, on the basis of Pete's nearly catatonic state when he arrived at the hotel. He clearly needed to get home right away, and Mr. Patronus had taken him to the airport immediately. He slept a total of about three hours over the two days in transit, and when he reached home he collapsed into bed for a full 24 hours.

He awoke when his mom sat on his bed and shook his leg gently. "Honey, it's time to get up and have something to eat. You need to start thinking about getting packed for school."

The idea of having to pack his life into boxes and drag them to college didn't thrill Pete at the moment. He'd probably end up having Nick show up and find a way for them to room together for the year. Fucking Nick.

"And honey, Diane called--remember, she's Toni's cousin's friend who works at the ad agency? Well, she called and said that there's going to be some kind of unveiling at X&Y down at the mall next Saturday, and some pictures from the photo shoot you did might be up in the store. Isn't that great? You should go."

Pete winced at the mention of the X&Y shoot, mainly because it brought back the image of Nick, and the feel of Nick's lips, and the dream he had had right on this bed, where is mom was now sitting and--

"Oh dear," said Pete's mom as she watched him bolt for the bathroom. "I guess he's not quite right yet after his trip. Poor thing."

CHAPTER TEN

Pete didn't want to be at the mall for the event at X&Y, but his mom had been so excited about his going that he gave in and agreed to it. A similar event was being held at X&Y stores nationwide to launch the Winter collection, but this one was particularly well-attended because word had gotten out that some pictures shot locally were going to be displayed. This brought a crowd of the young and trendy, who loved X&Y's overpriced clothes, and the older and paunchy, who loved X&Y's oversexed models. There was a crowd gathered outside of the store well in advance of the 8pm unveiling, and Pete did his best to remain an anonymous part of it. He didn't want anyone from his school to see him here.

At 8:05, fashionably late, a tan, stylish, and dangerously underweight young woman in impossibly high heels tottered out from the still-covered storefront to address the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Xavier and Young's celebration of the winter season!"

The crowd dutifully applauded.

"It is my great pleasure to unveil the faces of the season!" She turned and made a graceful flourish toward the storefront, and the canvas covering it fell, revealing an 8-foot-tall gilt frame standing at the entrance to the store that held the centerpiece photograph, in artistic black and white.

It was a picture of Pete. And Nick.

The photographer had captured the moment just before their lips touched, but there was no doubt that their lips would touch. Nick's eyes were closed, and Pete's were open, but unfocused. The effect was one of total abandon to an illicit kiss, and that edge of the forbidden is exactly what X&Y's agency wanted to convey. It was a risky move, but X&Y was pulling out all the stops in their battle with A&F. This was a serious frontal attack.

But Pete couldn't care less about the retail marketing strategy of provocative, homoerotic photos; all he cared about was that, in his hometown mall, there was an 8-foot tall depiction of him about to kiss another guy. His life was over.

"Oh, hell yeah!" gushed a voice from behind Pete, who whirled around to see Nick standing there, wide-eyed, grinning.

"Oh, fuck me," muttered Pete, who bolted for the quickest way out. The food court was close by, and relatively calm this time of day.

"Wait, Petey! Hold on!" Nick called, attracting the attention of several in the crowd, who immediately recognized him and shouted out that the models for the photo had come for the unveiling. The crowd began to move toward them.