Mark and Barry Ch. 04

The week prior, Ms. Mahoney, the play's director, had brought in a gay actor, Sean, to talk to the cast about the unique issues of sexuality raised by the script. With the two lead actors both being straight, they would have been remiss not to try to get some perspective from someone who could relate to what they were portraying.

Sean was a senior at the college, and had a role in another production, but he had made time.

He was a good-looking gay man: neat hair with just a little product, a tasteful vest, sharp-looking shoes, bright eyes and an engaging manner that drew attention.

Both Mark and Barry listened, and tried to improve their acting skills by learning from him. Somewhere in their minds, though, they both wondered:

Am I gay like him?

What would it take to make me gay like him?

What would it be like, having sex with him?

Sean knew they were straight. But he approached Barry after the rehearsal, catching up with him as he walked home, talking with him on the sidewalk.

And when he said: "If you ever need any special instruction, give me a call"...

Barry said: "Uhh... what kind of... instruction?"

And he said: "Use your imagination," and walked off.

Barry watched him go, and when he was gone, realized he had a standing invitation to a no-strings-attached gay experience.

-----

He wasn't planning on using it. When the next week rolled around, after Wednesday's rehearsal, he thought he might have found the alternative he was looking for.

A friend of Ms. Mahoney's, a mother in her mid-30s, was hanging around the theater with her son, 7, a quiet tow-headed kid who wandered around looking at displays on the walls.

Barry didn't know why he was struck by her. It might have been her ordinary charm. She seemed a sensible, stable, older and more down-to-earth woman. He might have wanted something like that after his disastrous bar experience. Also, under her modest blouse she was very womanly, and something about her seemed more than just friendly, perhaps willing to consider... something.

When rehearsal ended, Barry went up to her on impulse, and chatted her up.

Her name was Rachel. She was getting a divorce. She was technically still married, but had removed the ring. She was living on her own. She was busy with her son and her job. She hadn't had much time for herself lately.

She spoke of lawyers and teachers, a world far outside Barry's. He spoke of classes and internships, a world she'd left behind.

She was flattered by the attention from the masculine college kid a decade younger.

She was going out with Ms. Mahoney and some of the girls on Friday night. She already had a sitter.

When Barry asked her to break the date, and go out with him instead, something inside her twinged. It was the first hint of passion and desirability she'd felt since her husband cheated and ran. The first invitation to a date.

His impossible youth, and the ridiculousness of any relationship, made it feel safe.

But his smiling persistence, and the obviously sexual vibe she got from him, gave her a tingling thrill.

She told him maybe. Then called him late that same night to accept.

Two days later, Rachel left her son with the sitter and went out with a college boy.

Both of them were on a budget. They got to know each other over upscale fast-food.

Then he drove her out of town, to a hilly, wooded nature preserve. They walked until it got dark. As the sun went down, he talked about the quirks of the show's rehearsals, and being a straight man playing a gay character.

"I envy you," she said, after a pause. "You're so free. You can pursue anything you want to, do anything, try anything. Your life is so full of opportunities."

"Yours is too," he replied. "All you have to do is reach out and take them."

She shook her head, about to say something about a child and responsibilities, when he took her hand in his, and she was filled with anticipation.

She'd been in college once, and had thought she could never go back. But just for one night...?

They sat in a wide clearing at the top of a hill and watched the moon and stars for a while. He pointed out constellations; she complimented him.

Then they were sitting closer. As if for warmth. Closer still.

He took her chin in his hand, and she melted as their mouths met.

Fast would have let her feel safe, in control. She'd almost wanted to share a lustful, greedy groping with him. She'd almost hoped he would be an impatient, needy lover. He wasn't. He took his time kissing her slowly, caressing her hands and arms, putting his hands on her neck, side, belly -- oh-so-inappropriate but not -- yet -- sexual.

Her breasts were large, and had the normal shape of gravity and an infant. When he unbuttoned her blouse, and looked at them with open lust, something old and familiar returned to her.

When he slipped a hand inside one cup and gently pinched and tweaked her hard nipple, she flushed. The rush of sexuality was returning for the first time in a long time. Their yearning bodies; the power of his youth; the forbidden rush of passion out-of-doors: she felt like a woman, now, not a mother, and she wanted that.

But it felt wrong. And she was a mother. She did the mature thing.

Her blouse was mostly unbuttoned, and his hand had taken a hot, naughty trip up her skirt. He'd rubbed her panties once before sliding one finger just barely under them. He'd felt the incredible heat of her.

As always for him, it was an animalistic excitement, touching a woman's hairy pussy, feeling it ready. He knew from her intense kisses and the stifling sauna hidden in her panties that she was going to be putty in his hands. He was ready, so ready.

But it was then that she pulled back, looked away, and put a firm hand on his shoulder. His hand was gently squeezing her inner thigh as she explained that it was just too soon. He couldn't bear to move that hand away. He felt so close.

But she was saying how much she had to work through, the emotional trauma of her breakup, and her need to watch out for her real needs, as he gave that thigh a last pat. She explained the responsibility of child-rearing and legal appearances, barely able to look at him, as he slid his hand down her leg and out from under her skirt.

He said it was all right, but his mind seemed frozen, and he barely knew what he was saying. They didn't hold hands on the way back to the car.

Rachel and Barry didn't kiss good night.

And when he got home, late, he was closer to masturbating than he'd been in years. He could have cried.

He paced.

He'd already made up his mind. But he couldn't make himself dial his damned phone.

He stopped. Sighed. Pulled out his phone and looked at it.

He dialed Sean.

"Hi there. It's Barry, we met a couple weeks ago," he said into it.

He listened to the voice on the other end.

"Right, I'm Barry from the gay play. Yeah. Actually that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Exactly." He sort-of chuckled. "No, seriously, I do need some help with... perspective on my character. I was wondering if you're free tonight."

"Well I don't think it'll take all night, no."

"Right... I was thinking, ah, some pretty intensive help. Can you come over for an hour?"

"That's..." Barry sighed. "That's sort of what I was thinking."

Silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then assent, goodbyes, and Barry's heart pounded until the knock came, and he was inviting Sean into his apartment.

Sean wore a tight T-shirt and jeans. Barry didn't bother with giving him the tour. They looked at each other for a moment.

Sean seemed calm, but was wound like a spring. "So," he said, "if I get you right, you need help understanding something about the sexual passion of a gay man."

"Right," said Barry.

"For your show."

"For the play, yeah."

"And you're wanting me... to show you that kind of passion... that gay men have, when they have sex."

"Right."

Sean stepped forward and put a hand on Barry's arm. "And you want to be part of the demonstration, don't you."

"Yes."

Sean walked away and thought for a moment. "Let's get some things clear here, first. I am 100 percent disease and drug free. Are you?"

"Yes."

"You don't want to do anything hardcore, right?"

"Right."

"You probably want this to stay just between us, hmm?"

"That's right. Yeah."

He put a hand on Barry's shoulder as he walked back around to face him. "And Barry, from the look in your eyes, I'm guessing you don't really care about much besides getting your own rocks off. You're not really going to take any interest in me, now, are you."

Well, that was a fair question. "I guess not," he said. And if that was a deal-breaker, that was too bad.

He really wasn't attracted to this young man. He seemed attractive enough. He wore a pleasant scent, masculine with a hint of floral. He had a crisp, well-arranged look about him. Easy on the eyes. Nonthreatening.

But Barry didn't know him well enough to feel comfortable around him, and more importantly, apart from his hands and his mouth, he just didn't have the right parts.

"Hmmmmm," said Sean, tracing Barry's collarbone with a finger. "So you want me to do all the work, and you get all the reward."

Barry kept his breathing steady. "That's about what I mean, yeah."

Sean didn't react. He ran his finger just under the collar of Barry's T-shirt, then lazily caressed the base of his wide neck with his finger and thumb.

Barry opened his mouth so he could breathe more easily. His heart pounded. He looked right at this young gay man who was touching him.

Sean stepped lazily to one side, as if he had all the time in the world, and ran his fingers up and down Barry's chest, over his T-shirt, dipping from neck to breastbone, to navel, back up.

Sean stepped behind him. He took a shoulder in one hand and ran the other up the side of that strong neck, to slide his fingers through Barry's short brown hair. Barry's eyes closed as the touch rose and fell, caressing his ear, then the nape of his neck, around and around.

It wasn't a tickle. But neither was the arousal the same as with a woman, nor even with Mark. This was the touch of a stranger, a foreign tingle, and it simultaneously aroused and repelled him.

He felt shame, and the urge to bolt out from under the circling fingers. And at the same time, intense excitement.

Titillation: the touch was electric, more alive than any woman had given him, because it burned with a secret wrong.

Still behind him, Sean had slipped a hand under his shirt and was gently kneading his waist. The other traced his jawline. He inhaled as the gay man ran a finger under his chin.

Eyes closed, in the silence of his apartment, he heard the creak of the floorboard as Sean shifted his weight forward. Their bodies weren't touching, not yet. But he could feel the heat.

"You like that?" came the murmur, soft, with lips almost touching his ear. The hand teased his belly and he flinched. He couldn't answer.

Sean's breath on his neck, again and again. Both hands caressed his skin, high and low. They knew just the most wonderfully sensitive spots, and stroked them with a deft gentleness that promised more, much more to come.

Now Sean leaned ever so little into him. The soft lips barely brushed the edge of his ear, and he heard a faint moist sound as he opened his mouth.

"Just one thing..." the cute gay man whispered into his ear. "Do just one thing for me..."

"What is it?" asked Barry, whispering back.

"From here on out... no turning back..."

The fingers ran up and down the side of his neck, and he felt the hot breath on his ear.

He gave a quick nod.

"Good..." whispered Sean, and dipped his mouth to kiss Barry's neck.

He'd never thought it would be like this. Where was the raw animal passion, the pounding naked muscle? His breath took on a ragged edge as Sean's thumb found his navel and circled it. Such casual possessiveness, in that arm half-wrapped around him and gently invading his bellybutton.

Everything was so slow... so hot and slow...

It wasn't right...

He felt a trail of gentle kisses down the back of his neck, then the hands withdrawing and switching places as the slow, wet pecks led back up. Lips touched his hairline as fingers stroked his earlobe. The hand under his shirt gave his hairy chest a lover's caress.

An eternity of Sean's breath on his neck, his lips barely brushing his ears. Endless gentle stroking of the bare skin on his waist, side, chest, as he stood there, helpless, caught.

Hint of warm breath...

Slow, teasing touch...

Fingers probing and coaxing...

When Sean leaned back and pulled his hands away, Barry actually gave a slight gasp. But he was still there, fingers trailing up and down his bare arms as he whispered again into the solidly-built athlete's ear.

"First I'm gonna play with your cock, and get it nice and hard..."

Barry panted, once.

"...and then I'm gonna take it in my mouth, and I'm gonna suck you, nice and slow."

Sean's wet lips closed around his earlobe. Barry made a soft sound, as Sean's tongue slid treacherously up the edge of his ear while the hand on the other side caressed his cheek. The moist, lascivious tongue swirled its way back down, carelessly flicking the ear's pliant, shockingly sensitive flesh.

Barry panted some more, swept away with hideous sexuality, betrayed by his body and his own desires.

The gay man's hands dropped under the straight man's shirt, embracing him, rubbing his belly and chest as he licked and kissed the tender skin of his neck.

It wasn't right. Barry felt a growing disgust with himself, with Sean, with their secret encounter. The erotic touch of another man: it was repulsive and wrong.

He felt an urge to shove the young man away, to wash away the itch of these teasing caresses.

A fast suck-job would have just been sex, just hot horny sex. But this was seduction. He hated it. He was trapped in it. It felt incredible and awful.

His cock was throbbing, angry, lonely. He needed relief. He needed sexual touch. Release. He needed... more.

No turning back. Not now. Sean had promised what he needed. For that, he could endure his body's betrayal. Endure it just a little longer.

Barry lifted his arms to let Sean's fingers trace up his sides, leaning back, surrendering to the hated teasing.

Sean grabbed the hem and lifted the shirt off him, and then he was bare to the waist, exposed for the pleasuring.

Fingers found a nipple, and tweaked and pulled at it, hard, a bizarre and stimulating pain. Grasping hands cupped his jaw, his cheeks, and they turned his head side-to-side as a barrage of kisses landed on his defenseless neck and shoulders.

He was lost in it all, spun up red-hot until he couldn't see his way back. Not once had a hand dipped below his belt, and gone was any thought of turning around and taking control. He'd given himself over to his gay lover and he was helpless until the act was through.

He wasn't being taught anything that would be very useful onstage, but his teacher had uncovered the hidden half of his own lust and showed it to him, and it was more than he could handle, and it was all he could do to take it in, and hang on for the ride.

Sean extended his arms and stretched them alongside Barry's, taking him hand in hand from behind, interlacing fingers as he nuzzled his nose into a shoulder. He'd leaned forward to do it, and Barry felt Sean's erection pressing into his butt.

Brought back to reality just a bit, he opened his eyes. Sean was talking.

"Ready to have your cock stroked by a man for the first time?"

"Mm," said Barry, and didn't elaborate.

"Are you ready to have your cock sucked by a man for the first time?"

"Mm-hm."

Sean let go of one hand and, as he slowly and pointedly sashayed around to face Barry, he stroked the other hand with a feather-light fingertip. Barry wasn't sure if this was something gay men did, but in that moment, the touch sizzled across his palm, lingering in its absence. Attraction and repulsion, erotic and wrong. He cupped his empty hand as if he could hold the memory.

Facing him, Sean looked into his eyes as he ran all ten fingertips down Barry's body. "Are you hard for me yet? Did the nice gay boy make you all hard?"

He slowly started running his palm down the front of Barry's jeans, and encountered the thick lump there with a shock. "Oh! I guess I did!"

"Ooh," said Sean, as he unbuttoned Barry's jeans, and, looking him right in the eye, tugged his zipper down. The sound seemed loud. Barry's pants fell open.

Sean leaned in, and kissed Barry's shoulder, then his collarbone. Barry lifted his head involuntarily as the moist lips found, at last, the soft notch at the base of his neck. The hungry, wet lips nipped and kissed his exposed throat. Slippery, they pinched him all over: his Adam's apple, the heat of his pulse, up and down.

When he felt the tip of Sean's tongue lick up under his chin, he couldn't help himself: his hands came up of their own accord and grasped Sean's head, as he kissed him, hard, on the mouth.

Not practice for a show. Not for anyone else. A hard, fierce kiss, from lover to lover.

He gave a faint "uhhgn" as their mouth separated, because it was just then that Sean's hands had finally found his cock in his boxers.

A moment to free it out the fly of its cloth prison. Freed. Then their foreheads pressed together -- they were almost the same height -- as thin, gay fingers stroked a fat, straight cock.

"You're so big," breathed Sean.

"I know," muttered Barry.

"And so hard and wet already. You must really want it bad."

Barry's eyes closed and he breathed twice, sharply, through his nose, then his mouth fell half-open again. Sean had just gently stroked the tip of his penis.

As usual, his penis and boxers were soaked in pre-cum, the sticky, slippery fluid of this man grown confused and desperate in his desire.

Their bodies swayed together. Sean balanced himself against Barry, forehead to forehead. He laid one hand on his chest almost like a reclined, sleeping lover, while he explored the swollen manhood with the other.

Sean kept looking into Barry's eyes. Barry would look into Sean's, and have to look away, eyes rolling and closing, head rocking slightly side-to-side, as the pleasure was doled out to him touch by agonizing touch.

"Don't come yet," said Sean, his voice low and serious. "I want to play with you some more first, before I slip my lips around your giant cock and give it a nice hard sucking."

"Mmmm," said Barry. The words were echoing around his mind, the concept of a gay man sucking his cock. He couldn't quite grasp it, like something said in yesterday's dream. What did it mean?

Just one hand's slender fingers groped and rubbed at his cock.

The two of them stood, balanced together. Barry was holding onto Sean's shoulders.

The well-built -- even brutish -- college senior was giving out small pants that weren't quite gasps, and small noises that weren't quite moans. He was twisting his body back-and-forth, ever so slightly, in a way that wasn't quite writhing.

It might have looked a bit like a wrestling match. The slight, delicate, well-groomed man had taken his stocky opponent in a very clever lock, and with barely any pressure, had him wriggling, pinned upright, unable to escape.

"You like me stroking your cock?" asked Sean, looking right in his eyes while he did just that.

Barry gave a noise that might have been an "oh," but might also have been an "ooh," and knitted his brows as he realized that he did, he did, yes, he did like Sean stroking his cock, he could stroke his cock all night long if he wanted, and -- oh God -- why had he gone so long without letting this man stroke his cock?

"Fuck. Ah. Oh fuck. Yeah," said Barry, blinking his eyes.