The City & the Night

"Hard Rain"

Part 1

Spending a final year of college on an exchange program in England was the best last minute decision I’d ever been forced to make.

Now I felt part of a buzzing community, living with an easy going bunch of guys in a large house high above the city, where I’d found, to my surprise, that being the only American in the group had bestowed upon me a certain novelty value, rendering me strangely popular. Back home I’d been just another average Joe from hickville. Over here I felt like Clint fucking Eastwood.

Tonight I was in a good mood. I was bumming around the house, shuffling songs with my phone in my lap and sinking a few beers to pass the time, about to head after the rest of my roommates down town for the night, while I waited for a call from my brother. This meant I was left on my own with Will, who was cramming for an exam, and Will was hard to fathom.

He was the one guy who’d always been a little standoffish. The only thing we seemed to have in common was our first name -- though I went by Billy. We had gotten along perfectly well so far by having as little to do with each other as was humanly possible, but tonight we found ourselves alone and unavoidable.

The wind's whistling, my mind's twisting...

Feeling Saturday night feverish I snapped off my headphones, took my life in my hands and risked a conversation.

“Man I love that song,” I ventured. Will remained glued to his book.

“How many times have you played that now?” he said coolly, turning a page without looking up.

“Three thousand seventy two,” I deadpanned.

“Yeah? How do you even know it anyway? It’s ancient.” Feigning interest wasn’t his strong suit.

“I’m an Anglophile,” I replied with a sly grin, “and YouTube is our friend, Willy boy. It's my current go-to happy song.”

He looked up.

"You do know what it's about, don't you?" he said.

Here we go, I thought. I put my head in the shark regardless.

“I belieeeve,” I stretched out the word attempting a bogus approximation of his accent. “I believe it’s about throwing off the monotony of everyday life and finding exactly what you want when you least expect it: ‘Through the frosted panel I could see you’. I love that line! The one you've been waiting your whole life for is suddenly a tantalising shape standing on the other side of the door. There's something in the air and things will never be the same again."

I was just about to bellow “At long last love has arrived!” but stopped short because that was a different song entirely and I didn’t want to confuse matters. Guys don't talk about that shit anyway, even after their third beer. "Hopefully they have a massive rack,” I deflected, bringing the near-empty bottle to my mouth then pausing as I saw the look on his face. "You're going to correct me now, aren't you," I said, sinking back a long gulp.

"It's about an old woman in a tower block being sexually assaulted by a traveling salesman," he replied matter-of-factly.

I let this sink in for a moment.

"No fucking way!" I blurted, beer spraying in all directions.

“‘You endeavoured as a psycho just to push’," Will recited, calmly wiping froth from his eye. “Did that line not strike you as... odd?”

Crap. "I thought it was 'cycle just to push'," I admitted sheepishly.

He looked at me blankly.

"In my defense, I did kinda wonder what a guy on a bike was doing so high up,” I reasoned.

He closed the book and stood up. “Google is your friend, Billy boy,” he said smartly, enjoying his minuscule triumph.

“But... why do they make it all sound so... euphoric?!” I went on.

"It is a little twisted," he conceded.

“What is wrong with you people?" I joked.

He looked down at me. "The weather,” he said. “It gets to us all eventually."

He left the room, saying he was going out for a run.

So yeah, my limited interactions with Will tended to be a little prickly. He had the knack of pushing my buttons, of relishing bursting my bubble, of fucking pissing me off. Unfortunately for me, none of that seemed to alter the fact that I still craved his awesome ass. He had mounds to rival Ace Era, minus the tattoo (I guessed), though that didn't stop me from wanting to find out.

A university campus is fertile ground; all those nascent personalities liberated for the first time from under the rule of home and hungering to fulfill their potential alongside their immediate peers -- quite often in a certain 10th floor mensroom -- so I'd managed to get the occasional head while  on my sojourn in the UK. This one time I’d even been blown at the back of a darkened, half-empty lecture hall. At the crucial moment I'd had to stuff my mouth with the nearest thing to hand because, how can I put this; I cum like Tarzan. 

Thank the Lord for the Subway Club is all.

Really though, I'm an unashamed ass-man, but so far I'd had difficulty finding anyone brave enough to take on the challenge because, again, how can I put this; I have a huge schlong.

As a result, I was always horny, especially when Will was in the immediate vicinity. There was just something about the guy. I was forever having to find ways to hide my, um, elevated interest whenever he was around; behind beer bottles, cushions, my laptop, the refrigerator. One morning at breakfast, he bent over in front of me saying he'd lost his muffin and I almost bust clean through my shorts.

Maybe my peers were right; I really should try wearing underwear.

I never spent much time agonizing over the vagaries of sexuality, but truth be told, at this point in my young life I was really finding myself much more into guys. My cock knew what it liked and I figured that was entirely its business. ‘No explanations, no apologies’ had become one of my guiding philosophies, which seemed to have served me well enough so far -- that and my big, clued-up dick.

Grindr and all that shit really wasn't my thing; too much scope for misinformation and drama. Plus I got a strange kinda kick just looking for the signals; the meaningful looks, the backwards glances, the eyes which held your gaze that little bit longer than was strictly necessary or checking you out when they think you haven’t noticed. Yeah, good luck with that.

No such signals were forthcoming from Will. Whatever he was into I figured it wouldn’t include me anyway. Will was the model student, the dedicated athlete, smarter, prettier, frustratingly aloof. The only thing I had over him was my height. I was at least a foot taller, lean and laid-back with dirty blond hair and a mind to match.

I was about to oh-so-casually call after him to ask if he'd be joining the rest of us down town later, when my crotch started making music.

A half hour or so later I was saying goodbye to my brother and Will still hadn't returned. I'd been stretching out the transatlantic small-talk in the hope of catching another glimpse of him in his shorts. The way they clung in all the right places did weird stuff to my dick -- good weird -- and the fabric was so tantalizingly thin you could easily see the outline of his jockstrap, but it was getting late and I was already pretty buzzed, so I picked up my keys, smushed up my hair in the hallway mirror and headed out the door.

*****

Walking along that lamp-lit street it really did feel like there was something in the air; a tangible sense of expectation brought about by the sudden ripening of the season. The month of May had finally exploded into life turning everywhere green seemingly all at once. A warm breeze lifted the tails of my open shirt and there was a sultry feel to the air.

Through the frosted panel I could see you... 

I sang quietly to no-one in particular, reclaiming the song for myself.

A full moon hung huge and bare against a dark blue sky, glittering in the windows of the distant Arts Tower and illuminating it a brilliant white like a beacon, but behind it, clouds were piled high on the horizon, containing the threat of a storm.

For a moment, I could've sworn I saw the dark shape of a figure standing high up there on the roof of the tower, but when I looked again it was gone. I made a mental note to pace myself during the night's revelries.

As I turned down the hill, a time-honored question posed by The Human League resonated insistently from the sound system of the nearby Damhouse bar, bouncing across the lake toward me, as if throwing down the gauntlet to the city and the night.

The pavements were teeming with bodies. Everyone seemed to be headed down town except for the two guys approaching me up the hill deep in conversation; a tall scruffy guy in a baseball cap and some dude who was a dead ringer for Chris Pratt, who in turn, it had not escaped my notice, was a dead ringer for Ace Era. As they parted good-naturedly to let me through, I chanced a look over my shoulder to check out the ass on Star-Lord, idly wondering if he had the tattoo. Nice, I thought. Someone needs to put that to good use.

Then I realized two things; first of all I'd forgotten which pub I was meeting everyone at, and secondly I fucking needed to pee. Invariably this happens on the way home, but I usually wait until we've reached Crookes Valley Park so I can sneak in on the pretext of relieving my bladder while checking out the lower reaches for any signs of action.

I turned into the park entrance by Mushroom Lane but there were still too many people on the street behind and a suit with a beard was staring at a cell phone in a large black convertible parked on the corner, so I headed down the steps into the dark below. 

I'd just unzipped and was about to yank out my piss proud cock when I heard noises coming from the trees further within.

I knew those noises.

Treading carefully, I crept to the end of the small redbrick bowling shed and peered around the corner to see if I was correct.

Two guys were standing with their backs to me feeding their meat to someone. A third guy was round the other end. By the heavy sound of his breathing he'd just had a very happy ending. He got to his feet and then all three were standing over the fourth someone who was kneeling in the dark. I couldn't make out a face but it was obviously another guy.

In a heart-warming parting gesture the three of them drooled gobs of spit into his wanting mouth, growled something in a foreign tongue -- Polish, I guessed -- then began to stroll away, laughing quietly and sparking up a cigarette.

I waited for a while, wondering if an opportunity had come my way, my breathing getting heavier until I was sure it could be heard, but the guy remained on his knees, chest heaving, as he lifted a hand to wipe the spooge from his lips. The light of the moon broke through the trees and lit up the contours of his face. My cock twitched.

“No fucking way,” I whispered.

How many times had I imagined this while listening to him soaping up in the shower or lying naked and asleep in the room next to mine, as I yanked one out alone on my bed, letting my mind trace the ripe curves of his body, aching to sink my throbbing dick all the way into that sweet round ass and ream the little bitch while he begged for more?

About three thousand seventy two.

I stepped out from behind the wall and walked quietly over to where he knelt in the shadows, shorts ripped clean off and the ample curves of his beauteous mounds enticingly framed by his jockstrap. He looked up at me dreamily, as if in a trance. I guess being gang fucked in the park can do that to a guy.

“Hi buddy,” I said drily. “Looks like ya got yourself a little wardrobe malfunction there, Willy boy...”