The gym floor felt cold against Zane Whitaker’s back, and he was grateful for it. Sweat ran down the sides of his ribs, and his stomach still burned from the last set. He and Brody had gone through the whole ab circuit twice, no rest, and now they were both flat on the mats staring up at the ceiling, shirts balled up somewhere off to the side.
Two months into their first semester at State, and the two roommates had become pretty good friends. Zane was easy to be around, and Brody filled up any room he walked into, so they balanced each other out. They were both elite athletes, and they worked out together once or twice per week.
"I'm serious, though," Brody said, still catching his breath. He was a full head taller than Zane and outweighed him by nearly a 80 pounds. “This ‘no rush until sophomore year’ rule sucks ass. Rushing during freshman fall has been an American tradition for over a hundred years. And now they just fucking take that away? For no reason?"
Zane wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "There's a reason. You might not like it, but there's a reason."
"The reason is woke garbage." Brody rolled his head to the side to look at him. "That's it. Some administrator decides 18-year-olds aren't 'mAtURe eNoUgh,' so everybody has to wait a whole year to have any fun. Half the point of college is the first-year stuff, man. And those assholes killed it."
Zane didn't answer right away. That was one of the things Brody had figured out about him early on. Zane actually thought before he talked, which drove Brody a little crazy in moments like this when he just wanted somebody to agree with him.
"My cousin pledged as a frosh,” Zane said finally. "Different school. Lowkey, he almost failed out. Between the parties and the pledge stuff, he barely made it to class. He's fine now, but that first year was rough." He shrugged against the mat. "I don't think it's crazy to say maybe 18 year old freshman have too much going on all at once. Moving away from home, new classes, plus all that."
"So one guy struggled and now nobody gets to do it."
"That's not what I'm saying." Zane sat up part way, resting on his elbows. "I'm just saying I get why they'd do it. You give people a year to figure out how college works before you add all that on top. That's not the craziest idea in the world."
Brody made a noise that was half laugh, half groan. "You always do this."
"Do what?"
"See the other side of everything. It's exhausting."
That was the shape of things two months in. Zane and Brody had fallen into each other's lives fast. It helped that they had so much in common on paper. Both business majors, both stuck in the same overcrowded intro courses—Accounting 101, Marketing Fundamentals, and the enormous Management lecture that met in the auditorium three mornings a week. They studied together when they had to, sat next to each other out of habit, and worked out together sometimes in the training room after their afternoons cleared. It was an easy friendship.
Where they weren't alike was everything outside of class. Brody moved through his sex life like a charging running back…all forward pressure and zero hesitation. By October he had two regular girls he saw during the week (neither of them official, both of them apparently fine with the arrangement), and on weekends he usually found someone new to have a one-night stand with. Brody talked about all of it openly, and seemingly constantly. Zane had stopped being surprised by any of it.
Zane's own situation was quieter, and more complicated, and he hadn't told Brody about any of it. The month before, he'd hooked up with an attractive PhD student named Luc Simon. Luc had an exotic appeal. He was French, older, and decently handsome. It had been Zane's first time having penetrative sex with a man,, and it had turned out to be the best sex of his life. He thought about it constantly in the days after.
The problem was that Zane had found out Luc had a boyfriend the whole time, but never mentioned it until after they hooked up. That detail sat wrong with Zane in a way he couldn't quite talk himself out of. It wasn't jealousy, exactly. It was the hiding.
Luc had spent weeks following their hookup texting Zane, asking to meet up again, always eager and passionate. And every time, Zane had come up with some reason he couldn't. He was busy. He had a test. He'd get back to him. He never did.
Zane just didn’t feel fully comfortable continuing to hook up with a man he didn’t fully trust. Even if that man did give him the best sex of his inexperienced life.
After the ab workout, Zane and Brody hit the showers, changed, and headed down to the dining hall for breakfast. Neither of them had bothered with real clothes. Brody wore a stretched-out tank that showed most of his sides and a pair of low, loose cotton shorts, Zane dressed about the same. It was how half the athletes showed up to the dining hall on weekend mornings.
They'd just sat down when Brody caught someone looking. A guy a few tables over—slim, good-looking in a soft way, with platinum-blonde hair that was clearly dyed and clearly on purpose. It was Oliver Cook, an openly gay freshman living in Harlan Hall. He had a massive crush on Zane, and thought Brody was very attractive too. Now Oliver was ogling the two handsome jocks, and when he realized he'd been noticed, he glanced back down at his phone a beat too late.
Brody leaned in over his tray with a smirk. "You see this guy? Kid's been staring at us since we walked in." Then he lowered his voice and made a couple of crude jokes at the guy's expense. Homophobic jokes that weren’t even clever, just mean, aimed at how the guy looked and moved and what Brody figured he was into. He said it easily, like it was nothing, like it was funny.
"Come on, man," Zane said. "He's not bothering anybody. Let him eat."
"I'm just saying."
"You're not just saying anything. He looked our direction for like two seconds. Leave him alone."
Brody sat back and studied him, still grinning. "Why are you so worked up about it? What, you into it?" He laughed. "You defending your boy over there? You got something you want to tell me, Whitaker? You in the closet or what?"
It was a stupid joke. Brody had made a hundred jokes like it and Zane had let all of them roll off. But this one landed somewhere it shouldn't have, and Zane felt his face go hot, and he was standing up before he'd really decided to.
"I'm done," he said, and grabbed his tray.
"Zane. Dude. Sit down, I'm messing with you." Brody stood too, easy and unbothered, and reached out to catch Zane in the kind of half-hug, half-shove that usually ended these things. He was just trying to pull him back to the table.
Zane's tray hit the floor. He didn't remember deciding to drop it. Then both his hands were on Brody's chest and he shoved him, hard.
It didn't move Brody too much. It couldn't; Brody was 6’3” and 250 lbs and, he could have put Zane on the ground without trying. But he didn't. Brody just rocked back a step and stared, both hands coming up, palms out, more shocked than anything. A couple of tables had gone quiet around them.
"Dude, what the hell," Brody said. "I was joking. The fuck’s wrong with you?"
And just like that the anger was gone and something worse was in its place. Zane looked at the mess on the floor, the tray, the food, everybody looking, and he felt sick. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, that was—I don't know why I did that." He crouched down and started gathering up the dropped silverware, fast, not looking up. "I'm sorry."
He set the ruined tray on the nearest counter and left before Brody could say anything else, walking quick with his head down and out the doors.
Brody stayed standing where he was, staring after him, totally confused by the overreaction from his usually calm and collected roommate.
Zane’s Econ 1 class was across campus from Harlan, and he made it in with just a minute to spare, sliding into a seat in the very back row. Adam Schrader was already there, slouched low with his legs kicked out into the aisle. The two of them had gone to the same high school back home, where Adam had played varsity football and baseball. Adam was good enough to be a big deal in their town, but not quite good enough to play at the D1 level.
Adam looked over as Zane sat down. Adam had brown hair, a few days of scruff on his face, a loose t-shirt and grey sweatpants. Dude was dressed like he'd rolled out of bed, which he probably had. “Heyyy budddyyy,” he said. "You look like you're about to go for a run, bro. Where's the rest of your outfit?"
"Didn't have time to change." Zane dropped into the seat, and only then, settling in, did he catch it himself. He had forgotten to put on deodorant after the post-workout shower, and the argument at breakfast had him sweating all over again. Zane shifted, self-conscious, and hoped it wasn't as obvious to anyone else.
The professor started up, and for the first 10 minutes it was fine. Then Adam started to getting restless.
It began with his leg, bouncing under the desk. Then he was rolling his shoulders, cracking his neck, sitting up and slouching back down like he couldn't find a way to sit that worked. He kept glancing sideways…not at anything in particular.
Most disturbingly of all, Adam had a raging boner. Zane glanced down and could a clear outline through Adam’s grey sweatpants. Thirty minutes under the lecture, and Adam was still rock hard and fidgeting uncomfortably.
“Dude, you good?" Zane asked under his breath.
"Yeah. No. I don't know, man." Adam scrubbed a hand down his face. "I feel weird as hell, bro. Like I'm crawling out of my skin. And….I’m like horny as fuck…” He grabbed his water bottle and took a long pull, then frowned at it. "I swear to God somebody spiked this or something. I feel all—" he made a vague, agitated gesture. "Amped up. Like I pounded three energy drinks and a whole bottle of Viagra pills or some shit."
"Maybe you're just sleep-deprived and over caffeinated.”
"Nah, dude, this is not sleep-deprivation…” He shifted again, jaw tight, knee going a mile a minute. "This is like—I don't even know. I'm about to lose it back here. Can't focus for shit." He shot Zane a look, half a laugh in it but edged with real irritation. "And no offense, bro, but did you shower? 'Cause something back here is….I don't know what it is. It's messing with me."
Zane felt his face heat for the second time that day. "Sorry, man. Rough morning."
"It's whatever." Adam couldn't hold still. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, bounced his heel, checked the clock at the front of the room like he was counting down to a jailbreak. "I gotta get out of here, though, no cap. Fifty more minutes of this and I'm gonna climb the walls."
Adam spent the rest of the lecture like that…fidgeting, muttering, and even sticking his hands in his pockets to furtively rub his rigid cock that refused soften despite a hundred disgusting scenarios that Adam tried to fill his mind with. Has soon as class let out, Adam bolted to the restroom, locked himself in a stall and jacked himself off (he was so aroused, he couldn’t even wait to get back to his dorm room). When Adam climaxed (which was very quick), it was one of the most powerful orgasms of his life.
As Adam shouldered out the door, Zane stayed in his seat while the room emptied, turning it over. He remembered what had happened with Luc. How Luc sniffed his sweat that night and went completely feral.
Zane looked down at himself, at the skimpy tank top that showed off his sexy muscles. He lifted his arm and sniffed his pit. He definitely had a bit of natural musk going.. Whatever was coming off him today, it was stronger because he'd been worked up. Zane still didn’t put together that the more of the musk there was, the more it did to men who inhaled it.
Zane shook his head and put Adam’s weird behavior out of his mind. He grabbed his bag and headed for the door, and he made a point of giving the last few students in the aisle a wide berth on his way out.
Back at Harlan Hall, Oliver was sprawled across the foot of Emma's bed, retelling the whole breakfast drama that went down between Zane Whitaker and Brody Kessler.
"He said it loud, too. That's the part that gets me," Oliver said. "Like he wanted people to hear it. I'm just sitting there eating my eggs, minding my business, and this giant meathead decides I'm his punching bag for the morning." He flopped back against the wall. "God, I hate Brody Kessler. He's such a douchebag. Like, genuinely one of the most annoying people I've ever encountered."
"He's the worst," Emma agreed from her desk chair, where she'd swiveled around to face him. She paused. “The man is unfairly hot, though."
"Oh, he's disgustingly hot. That's what makes it so annoying.” Oliver sighed. "It'd be so much easier if he were ugly. You could just hate him clean."
"Right? It's like the universe wasted one of the sexiest men in the world by making him a dickhead.”
"Completely wasted." Oliver picked at a thread on the comforter, then his whole face changed, brightening. "Okay but the other one. Zane." He said the name like it tasted good. "He actually stuck up for me. Told his dick roommate to knock it off."
“I love Zane,” Emma said. “He’s a gem.”
"Em. He is so beautiful it makes me a little bit angry." Oliver pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I want him so bad it's embarrassing. I would let that man ruin my entire semester."
Emma laughed. "You barely even know him."
"I don't have to know him. I have eyes." He dropped his hands. "Okay, real question, though. Have you ever noticed the way he smells?"
Emma blinked. "The way he—what? No….? Why would I have noticed that?"
"So you haven't." Oliver said it almost to himself, a little thrown, like he'd expected her to back him up. "Okay. I got stuck next to him in the gym locker room one time, like a month ago, we were both just there grabbing our stuff, and I swear to you, Emma. Whatever he had going on—it messed me up. I couldn't think. I nearly forgot my own combination standing there." He shook his head. "I wanted to ask what he uses. Cologne, body wash, whatever it is. I chickened out completely. Couldn't get a word out."
"That's the horniest thing you've ever said and you've said a lot of things."
"I'm being serious! The smell…it wasn't even normal-good. It was like—" he searched for it and gave up. "I don't have words. It fucked up my brain."
From the other bed, Lydia finally looked up from her phone, where she'd been scrolling with total indifference through the entire conversation.
"You guys hear yourselves, right?" she said flatly. "Like, what are you saying.”
Oliver twisted around. "What."
“Uh, dude…you guys spent several minutes rating the bodies of two guys you've never had a full conversation with, and now you're doing a whole monologue about how one of them *smells*." Lydia arched an eyebrow. “Zane lives in our building, Oliver. He's a person not some scratch and sniff toy. Lowkey…you sounded a bit unhinged.”
"I never claimed to be well," Oliver said.
"You're objectifying the poor guy. Both of you." She went back to her phone. "It's giving ‘creeper’… I'm just saying."
"It's giving *appreciation,*" Oliver shot back.
"It's giving weird," Lydia countered, without looking up, and Emma threw a balled-up sock at her, and Oliver laughed, but even as he did he was thinking about that locker room again, and about how much he wished Zane Whitaker had shoved him against the wall and fucked the living daylights out of him.
That afternoon, Zane made himself use the one campus resource he'd never had a reason to use before. State ran a walk-in counseling center on the ground floor of the health building. They did same day appointments. Just show up at an open slot and you got 45 minutes with a licensed counselor.
People raved about it. Zane had walked past the door a dozen times without going in. Today, after the morning he'd had, it seemed like the place to be.
The waiting room was small and, for some reason, kept warm as a greenhouse. Zane sat in one of the padded chairs, still in the tank top and shorts he'd never gotten around to changing out of, and within a few minutes he could feel the heat working on him, a fresh sheen coming up on his skin. He shifted in the chair and tried not to think about it. He'd been thinking about it all day and it hadn't gotten him anywhere.
"Zane?"
The man who came to get him was tall, an inch or two over six feet, dark-haired, somewhere in his late 20s. He had an easy, settled way about him. "I'm Peter. Come on back."
Zane couldn’t help but stare a bit. Peter was handsome. He looked almost like a Bel Ami model. Peter's office was cooler than the waiting room, which was a small mercy. He gestured Zane to a comfy reclining chair and took the one across from it, no desk between them. Zane clocked the wedding ring, still new-looking, when Peter folded his hands.
Peter Kovac was 27 years old and about four months into being a licensed therapist, working the walk-in center while he built up hours. He'd been born in Croatia and brought to the States as a kid, and he'd grown up in the same Ohio suburb from second grade on, which was where he'd met his now-wife, Ana. They'd started dating in high school and have been in love ever since. Peter married her this past summer, and now he was, by any measure, a happy and devoted husband. He was also good at this job in a way that had come to him quickly. Peter was naturally steady, warm, and empathetic. Students asked for him by name.
"So, walk-in—first time here?" Peter asked.
"Yeah."
"No wrong way to do it. We've got about 45 minutes. You can use them however you want. What's on your mind today?"
Zane hadn't fully planned what he was going to say, and it came out plainer than he expected. "I shoved my friend this morning. My roommate. Name’s Brody. We were at breakfast and he was giving me a hard time, being kind of a jerk, and I just…I stood up and shoved him. In front of everyone.” He looked at his hands. "I've never done anything like that. I don't get in fights. I don't even really lose my temper. And I feel awful about it."
Peter nodded slowly, unhurried. "That sounds like it caught you off guard as much as it caught him."
"Yeah. Exactly. That's the part that's fucking with my mind. It wasn't like I decided to do it. It just…happened, and then I was standing there and I couldn't believe it was me."
"What was Brody giving you a hard time about?"
Zane hesitated. Somewhere in there Peter shifted in his seat, rolled his shoulders back a little, and reached over without a word to nudge the thermostat on the wall down a notch. He did it smoothly, barely a break in his attention, and settled back in.
Peter was starting to feel distracted for some strange reason, but he did his best to remain a consummate professional. His eyes stayed on Zane, calm and level.
"There was this other guy in the dining hall…a gay guy,” Zane said. "Brody started making fun of him. Kind of nasty stuff. I told him to knock it off, and then Brody turned it around on me. Made a joke about how maybe I was defending the guy because I was, you know. Into men. Called me closeted, basically. As a joke."
"And that landed harder than the usual joking."
"A lot harder." Zane let out a breath. "And I don't totally know why. That's the thing. He's said dumb stuff like that a hundred times and I never cared. This time it just—I don't know. Something snapped."
Peter let the silence sit for a second. "You don't have to have it all worked out here," he said. "But I'll offer this. Usually when a reaction is way bigger than the thing that set it off, it's because the thing landed somewhere that already mattered. It touched something real, even if you weren't planning to look at it. That's not the same as saying the joke was true. It just means it wasn't nothing."
Zane sat with that. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Maybe."
"The shove itself….how are you feeling about it now?"
"Terrible. He could've flattened me, honestly, the guy's way bigger than me, but he didn't, he just stood there looking confused. And I apologized and cleaned it all up and basically ran out. I haven't talked to him since. I don't even know what I'd say."
"It sounds like part of you has already done the important thing, which is take responsibility," Peter said. "You know it was over the line, you're not defending it, you feel genuine remorse. That's a lot of people's whole problem, that they can't get to that part. You're already there." He tilted his head. "The piece that's left isn't really about Brody, is it? You know how to apologize to Brody. What's harder is the other thing….why the joke about being gay hit you the way it did."
Zane looked at him, and something loosened in his chest a little, the relief of being seen without being cornered. "Yeah," he admitted. "I think that might be it."
Peter gave him a small nod. "Okay," he said. "Then let's talk about that part, if you want to. We've got time."
"Okay," Zane said. He rubbed his palms on his shorts. "I'm bisexual. I figured that out pretty recently. And I'm not really…out, or anything, so that's kind of the first time I've said it to anybody."
"Thank you for trusting me with it," Peter said simply. "That takes something."
"The weird part is I had full-on sex with a man for the first time recently, and I decided it’s not what I want…” Zane gestured vaguely. "Like, I realized I want a normal straight-guy life. I want to marry a woman, have kids, do the whole thing. So the fact that I'm—that I also—it kind of screws that up in my head."
"Say more about the screwing-it-up part. Because wanting marriage and kids and being bisexual aren't in conflict on paper. So I'm curious what makes them feel like they are, for you."
Zane was quiet a moment. Then, lower: "A couple months ago I was with a guy. Like….welll….fucking him…like anal. First time doing that. And I was the one—" he stopped, decided to just say it. "I topped. And it was better than anything I've had with a girl. Not a little better. A lot better. And I can't unknow that now. I keep thinking, if I marry some woman and that's my life, am I always going to be sitting there knowing the best it ever got was that one night?"
Peter opened his mouth to answer, and found the words weren't quite where he'd left them.
It had been creeping up on him for a couple of minutes and he'd been ignoring it….a subtle yet distracting scent in the air. The room felt warmer. His collar felt tight. There was a pull in his attention he kept having to correct, like trying to read with loud music on. He blinked, refocused, made himself hold the thread of what Zane had said.
"That's—" Peter started. "That's a real fear. A lot of people carry some version of it." His own voice sounded slightly far away to him. He became aware, without meaning to, that Zane had a great body—the muscular shoulders on him, the definition in his arms and the sexy lats that the thin tank did nothing to hide. Peter's eyes had drifted to Zane’s fit body before he caught it and pulled them back up to Zane's face, fast, a flush climbing the back of his neck.
*What is wrong with you,* he thought. *You're married. You're straight. You're his clinician, for God's sake. Focus.*
Peter sat up straighter, planted both feet, and reached for his professionalism like a handrail. There was sweat at his hairline now; he ignored it. "The thing I'd push on," he made himself continue, steadier, "is the idea that one experience being intense means it's the ceiling. Novelty is powerful. First times are powerful. That doesn't automatically mean it's the truest thing or the best thing available to you for the rest of your life. Sometimes it just means it was new."
"Yeah," Zane said. "I guess."
"What I'd rather you not do," Peter said, and here he found his footing again, the work steadying him, "is build your whole future around outrunning one night. Whatever life you choose, I'd want you choosing it because you actually want it. Not to prove something to yourself, and not to hide from something either." He held Zane's gaze and kept it there, deliberately, not letting it wander again. "You're allowed to want the marriage and the kids. You're also allowed to be exactly who you are while you have them. Those don't have to cost each other."
Peter got the sentence out clean, and was privately, intensely relieved that he had.
The relief didn't last. The scent in the room hadn't gone anywhere; if anything it had gotten thicker. Peter caught himself doing something before he'd consciously decided to do it. He tipped his head back slightly and drew in a slow, deep breath through his nose, a long masculine pull of air, chasing whatever the mysterious, intoxicating stench was.
"Do you—" He blinked. "This is going to sound strange. Do you smell that? There's something in here. I can't figure out what it is."
Zane went still. The memory of Adam twitching out of his skin all through Econ came back cold. "It's, um." He felt his face go warm. "It might be me. I'm sorry. I was kinda in a hurry getting out of the shower this morning I don't think I put on deodorant. So if it's—if that's BO, that's on me. Sorry, man.”
Peter shook his head, still half-distracted. "No. No, that's not—it doesn't smell like BO at all. That's the thing." He breathed in again, slower. "It's not a bad smell. It's actually—" he searched, and landed somewhere that surprised even him. "It's incredible, honestly. Are you sure you're not wearing something? Cologne, one of those oil things? I know there’s like a whole ‘scent-making’ trend these days.“
"I swear I'm not. I really think it's just, like, sweat." Zane shifted, uncomfortable now for a whole new reason.
And then Peter leaned across the space between the chairs, dipped his head toward Zane's chest, and took a slow breath right off his skin. It happened fast enough that Zane didn't move, just froze with his back against the chair, and Peter straightened almost as quickly, a strange satisfied look crossing his face.
"It is you," Peter said, a little marveling. "Wow. That's all you." A short, off-kilter laugh. "You're lucky, man. Most people's sweat is not doing that. You could bottle whatever that is."
The words hung there for a second, and Zane watched Peter's own expression catch up to them. Something clicked behind the man's eyes, and the color went out of his face as he realized what he just did and said. Peter sat back hard in his chair, jaw tightening, and Zane could practically see him disciplining himself, hauling himself back over some line he'd just wandered across.
*Get it together,* Peter told himself, appalled. *You leaned over and smelled a patient. What the fuck are you doing.*
"I apologize," Peter said, formal now, overcorrecting. "That was—unprofessional of me. Let's get back to it." He looked down at his legal pad like it might rescue him. "You mentioned the, ah—the experience a couple months ago. With the man. Tell me a little more about that."
And that was where it should have stayed clinical. But the questions that came out now weren't the usual questions a therapist asks. Peter heard himself asking what the guy had been like. What types of foreplay went on. Then, leaning in slightly, his voice lower than it had been all session, what it had actually felt like—physically—for Zane to be the one, to be inside someone like that, whether it was different from what he'd expected.
As the questions became increasingly intrusive, Zane realized something. Peter wasn't asking these things to help him. Peter's face was flushed, there was sweat standing out at his temples now, his eyes had that pulled-along quality Zane was starting to recognize, and the questions had stopped being about Zane's feelings and started being about the mechanics, the sensation, the details.
Peter was starting to get aroused. It was the same thing that had happened to Adam. And that had maybe happened with Luc.
Zane looked at Peter. This married, ultra-professional man who 20 minutes ago was cool as a cucumber….now leaning toward him red-faced and asking questions he had no business asking. Zane now understood, with a slow sinking certainty, that Peter was turned on. And that Zane was the reason.
Zane felt heat run through him. He thought about Luc going feral off his sweat. He thought about Adam losing it in the back row of Econ and desperately rubbing his erection through his sweatpants. Now this. A recently married therapist with a shiny new wedding ring…
Zane stood up suddenly. The athletic college stud stepped in between Peter's knees. He reached out, hooked two fingers in the open collar of Peter's shirt, and pulled.
Peter came forward off the chair with a small startled sound. Zane kissed him.
It wasn't careful. Zane crushed their mouths together and Peter made a noise into it, shocked at first, then open. Peter's hands came up like he meant to push, and then they just landed on Zane's waist and stayed there. Zane could taste the coffee on his breath. He could feel Peter shaking.
Peter broke the kiss first, breathing hard. "I can't. I'm married. I’m straight, Zane….I’m your—this is—"
"I know," Zane said. He didn't let go of the collar. "You still leaned over and smelled me like a horny dog.”
Peter's throat worked. His eyes were dark and unfocused. "I don't—I don't do this. I've never—"
Zane kissed him again, slower this time, and Peter let it happen. Peter's mouth opened under his. Zane felt Peter's cock jump against his thigh through the dress slacks, already hard.
Zane pulled back just enough to look at him. Peter was handsome in that clean, almost-pretty way. Dark hair, neat and short. A sharp jaw. Brown eyes gone glassy. He was, lean through the shoulders, clearly worked out, but not a meathead. His body looked good in a button-down shirt.
"Stand up, dude,” Zane said.
Peter stood. Zane kept a fist in his collar and walked him back a step until Peter's calves hit the low couch against the wall.
Zane dropped to his knees.
"Wait—" Peter said.
Zane popped Peter’s belt, dragged the zipper down, and hooked Peter's slacks and briefs and pulled. Peter's cock sprang out, flushed and stiff. It was 6.5 inches, a little thicker toward the head. The uncut tip dripping with lines of precut already. Dark, untrimmed hair at the base. Peter grabbed the back of the couch to stay upright.
Zane wrapped a hand around it and stroked once. Peter made a punched-out sound.
"Jesus," Peter whispered. "Zane. This is completely crazy.”
Zane leaned in and took Peter’s manhood into his mouth.
Peter's hips jerked. Zane held him still with both hands on his thighs and sucked, wet and straightforward, no teasing. He took what he could and used his hand on the rest. Peter tasted clean and a little salty. The head dragged over Zane's tongue and Peter swore under his breath.
"Fuck. Fuck, your mouth…” Peter's fingers found Zane's dirty-blond hair and grasped it lightly. "I can't believe I’m—Ahhhh…ohhhh…mmm…“
Zane pulled off, spit shining on his bottom lip. He looked up. "You can tell me to stop."
Peter stared down at him. His chest was heaving. He didn't say stop.
Zane stood. He peeled his tank off over his head and dropped it on the chair. The office air hit his skin. He was still a little damp from the warm waiting room and from everything that had happened since breakfast. He lifted his right arm.
"Come here."
Peter frowned, dazed. "What?"
Zane grabbed the flustered therapist by the shirt again and pulled his face into his armpit.
Peter resisted for half a second. Then he breathed in.
He moaned in desire and lust. Peter inhaled again, deeper, nose pressed to the college boy’s damp pit hair and, his whole body went loose against Zane's. Zane felt Peter's cock twitch against his hip. Peter made another helpless noise and sniffed harder, like he couldn't help it.
"That's it," Zane said. His voice came out flatter than he felt. Heat was pounding through him. "That's what you were chasing."
Peter's mouth opened against his skin. "What is that. What the fuck is that?”
"It's just me."
Peter dragged another long breath off him and groaned. His hands were on Zane's bare back now, sliding. Zane could feel how gone he was. Same as Luc. Going feral. It still shocked him how fast it took.
Zane removed Peter's shirt. The dress shirt came off one arm at a time, bunched at the wrists until Zane yanked it free and threw it. Peter's undershirt followed.
Peter's body was lean and defined. Smooth, round shoulders. A firm chest with small dark nipples already tight. A flat stomach with a faint line of hair running down. The slacks were still shoved to mid-thigh. His cock stood out red and wet against his belly. Zane shoved Peter into his warm armpit again.
Zane reached down and stroked Peter’s throbbing cock while Peter was still buried in his armpit. Peter gasped and rocked into the grip.
"Turn around," Zane said.
"I—I've never—"
"I know. Turn around."
Peter turned. Zane pushed him forward over the arm of the couch. Peter caught himself on the cushions, ass up, slacks and briefs tangled at his knees. He had a tight, pale ass and long athlete-lean thighs. The wedding ring sat right there on the hand gripping the fabric.
Zane spit in his palm and rubbed it over Peter's hole. Peter flinched.
"Easy," Zane said. “I’m just gonna put a finger in you. You were asking what it felt like earlier. I’m just gonna show you.”
Zane pressed his middle finger in.
Peter was tight. Clearly a virgin hole. He made a sharp sound and his back bowed.
"Breathe," Zane said. He reached around with his other hand and wrapped it around Peter's cock and started jacking him, slow and firm. "I got you."
Peter's hole clenched around the finger. Then it eased a little. Zane worked it in and out and kept stroking him. Peter's breathing went ragged against the couch cushion.
"That’s….oh my God." Peter's voice was wrecked. "That shouldn't feel…ughhh…oh yeah…”
Zane added a second finger. Peter swore. Zane scissored them carefully and kept the hand on Peter's cock moving. Precum slicked his fist. Peter's hips started pushing back in little aborted twitches, like his body had gotten ahead of his head.
"You're doing it," Zane said. "You're taking it."
"I'm married," Peter said into the cushion. "Ana—I just married her. I don't even like men. I don't—"
Zane crooked his fingers and Peter cut off with a moan.
"Doesn't feel like you don't like it," Zane said.
Zane worked a third finger in. Peter went stiff, then shuddered, then shoved back onto them. Zane felt the stretch give. Peter's hole clung wet and hot around his knuckles. Zane jacked him faster. Peter's thighs shook.
"Fuck. Fuck. Don't stop. Please don't stop." Peter's voice had gone high and broken. "I can feel all of it. Shitttt that feels amazing….I’m going to—if you keep—Zane—"
Zane kept fingering him and stroking him until Peter was panting and pushing back onto his hand like he wanted more. He sounded like a desperate whore.
Zane pulled his fingers out. Peter made a lost sound at the emptiness.
Zane pulled a lube packet from his wallet. Then he shoved his own shorts and briefs down. He was hard enough it almost hurt. He opened the lube packet, slicked up his 7 inch cock, and lined up.
"Last chance," Zane said.
Peter's hands fisted in the couch. "Do it. Just—do it. Please."
Zane pushed in.
The head popped through and Peter cried out, raw. He was tighter than Luc had been. Zane had to stop and breathe. He felt heat rush through his whole body. The baseball jock couldn't believe his cock was inside his straight, married counselor. He couldn't believe Peter was letting him.
"Jesus," Zane said. "You're tight as hell."
"It's big. Wait—wait—" Peter's breath hitched. "Okay. Okay. More."
Zane gave him more. Inch by inch, until his hips were flush to Peter's ass. He stayed there. Peter's hole fluttered around him. Zane reached around and found Peter's cock again. It was still hard, leaking onto the couch.
He started to fuck him.
Slow at first. Short strokes. The couch creaked. Peter's slacks rustled around his knees. Skin slapped. Zane could smell himself in the room, his own sexy scent mixed with Peter's arousal sweat. Every time Zane bottomed out Peter made a punched sound.
"Harder," Peter said. Then, like it surprised him: "Fuck me. God. Fuck your therapist. What is wrong with me."
Zane went harder. He planted a hand between Peter's shoulder blades and drove into him. Peter's body took it. After a minute he was pushing back to meet it, ass slapping against Zane's hips, moaning into the cushion.
"That's it," Zane said. He was breathing through his teeth. "Take it. You want this don’t you. You wanted this the second you smelled me."
"I did. I did. Don't tell anyone. Please don't—" Peter's sentence broke into a groan. “Oh yeah….Zane. Right there. Right—fuck. Your cock. I'm going to cum. I'm going to fucking cum on the couch with a student's dick in my ass."
The freshman baseball player jacked the sweaty therapist in time with the thrusts. Peter's hole clamped down. Zane felt his own orgasm building fast, low and sharp.
“Cum, dude,” Zane said. "I've got you."
Peter came hard. His whole body locked. He shot over Zane's fist and onto the couch in thick pulses, moaning like it hurt. His ass squeezed so tight Zane had to grit his teeth.
Zane fucked him through it and then he was coming too. He buried himself and came inside Peter with a low grunt, hips stuttering. Heat emptied out of him in waves. He held on to Peter's waist and rode it out.
For a few seconds the only sound in the office was both of them breathing.
Zane pulled out. Peter hissed. Come slid down the inside of Peter's thigh. Peter stayed bent over the couch like he didn't trust his legs.
Zane stood there looking at the man he just fucked. Married guy in his mid 20s. Dark hair all messed up from sweat and from getting pulled. Ass still up in the air, hole wet and used.
“Come sniff my balls,” Zane ordered. Peter complied, turning around and crawling over to Zane’s crotch. He stuck his straight nose into the college boy’s ballsack and inhaled deeply.
“Holy fuck that smells amazing…ughhh….” Even having just cum, Peter found himself getting horny again. Very horny. He sniffed again. Then he couldn’t help himself. He started licking the baseball jock’s sweaty balls.
Just a few moments ago Peter Kovac would have never believed he would ever have his face in another man’s balls. Let alone huffing it up and licking it clean like a straight-up pervert.
Seeing Peter get so aroused turned Zane on. A straight married man acting like a desperate slut for him. Zane started jacking his cock. Within a minute, he felt warmth flush…”Ahhhh….yeah….dude I’m gonna jizz….fuck I’m gonna jizz all over your handsome face…”
Zane’s body tensed, and then his hips locks. Five spurts of virile semen splattered all over Peter’s face. Cum dripped down his forehead, over one of his eyes, and down both cheeks.
Zane pulled his shorts up. He found his tank on the chair and put it on.
Peter wiped the cum off his face with his forearm. He then pushed himself upright, slow. He wouldn't look at Zane at first. He pulled his slacks up with shaking hands and sat down hard on the couch, staring at the floor.
"That didn't happen," Peter said. His voice was hoarse. "That cannot have happened."
"It happened," Zane said.
Peter dragged a hand down his face. "I'm your counselor. I have a wife. I fucking love her. I’m straight for gods fucking sake.” He finally looked up. His eyes were wet at the corners, not quite crying. "What did you do to me?"
Zane didn't have a clean answer for that. He thought about Luc. He thought about Adam in the stall after class. He thought about the way Peter had shoved his face into his pit and inhaled like he was starving. Zane felt a pang of guilt stab through him.
"I think it's me," Zane said. "The smell. I don't know how….it seems to do something to men.”
Peter laughed once, ugly and short. "That's not a thing. That's not a real thing."
Zane picked up his bag. "You leaned over and sniffed my chest in the middle of a session. Then you bent over that couch and asked me to fuck you. You tell me."
Peter's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Zane went to the door. He stopped with his hand on it.
"I'm not going to say anything," he said. “I promise.”
Peter just sat there, shirtless, ring catching the light, staring at the wet spot on the couch.
Zane opened the door and stepped out. As soon as the door clicked closed, Peter unzipped his fly. He pulled his cock out again. Rock hard. Then he rubbed himself, closed his eyes, thinking about Zane. The sexy back muscles showing through the skimpy tank, the handsome face, the shape of his cock. These were things that had never aroused Peter before. But somehow, because it was Zane, it turned him on more than any girl’s ass or any pair of tits. Within 30 seconds, Peter Kovac ejaculated a second time.
—
Zane’s phone buzzed as he was walking out of the building. It was Brody.
hey man. i was being a dick this morning. that gay stuff wasnt cool, i was just running my mouth like i do. didnt mean anything by it. you good?
Zane read it twice. It was, for Brody, a genuinely sincere apology—about as raw as a guy like Brody got over text, no jokes hiding in it. Zane felt the knot in his chest from the whole morning loosen a little. He typed back.
nah you’re good. i overreacted way harder than you did. shoving you was messed up, im sorry about that. we're good
The reply came fast.
bro its already forgotten. just keep helping me with my accounting problem set when you get back lol.
And that was it. The whole thing resolved in four texts. That was the thing about jocks….Brody, Zane and the guys like them. They ran hot and it was over as fast as it started. They'd get in each other's faces, get physical, say something they shouldn't, and then an hour later it was gone, no grudge, no long conversation required. Whatever came up got burned off quick and then everybody moved on like nothing happened. Half of it never even got mentioned again. It was, Zane thought, kind of an easy way to live.
Zane was still musing over his strange experience with the therapist when he opened the door to his room and walked straight into a scene he was not prepared for.
Brody Kessler was naked. Fully, completely naked, sitting sprawled back in his desk chair with his laptop propped up in front of him, some lesbian porn playing loud enough that Zane heard it before the door was even all the way open. Brody had a fleshlight in one hand and was very much in the middle of using it, and he did not stop, or flinch, or reach for anything to cover up.
"Yo," Brody said, glancing over like Zane had walked in on him doing homework. "Get in, close the door, you're letting the AC out."
Zane stood there for a second with his hand still on the knob. "Dude."
"What?" Brody looked back at his screen. "Relax, man."
There it was again. That total absence of self-consciousness that was becoming Brody’s trademark. He genuinely did not care that another guy was in the room while he was jacking it with a fleshlight. It didn't even compute as a thing he should care about.
Zane shut the door quickly so nobody would see, crossed to his own side of the room, and sat down at his desk with his back angled away as much as the geometry allowed. He dug his headphones out of his bag, jammed them in, and put on the first thing in his queue. Then he opened his laptop and pulled up a long sports column he'd been meaning to read, some breakdown of the upcoming season, and fixed his eyes on it with everything he had.
He read the same first paragraph about four times. Zane turned his volume up, hunched a little closer to the screen, and did his level best to disappear into college baseball projections and pretend, very hard, that he was the only person in the room.
Across the room Brody was doing absolutely nothing to be quieter. The fleshlight made a wet, steady sound. The porn sounds were annoying as fuck…the women were making all these exaggerated moans. Brody's chair creaked every time his hips rolled up into the toy.
Zane told himself not to look. He had just shot his load 20 minutes ago inside his straight, married therapist. He did not need this. He hunched closer to the screen and tried to care about SEC pitching depth stats.
His knee started bouncing. He could feel it in his shorts already, a slow unwanted heat. He lasted maybe another minute.
Then he caved and turned around to look at Brody.
He did it careful. Just enough to see what Brody was doing. Zane kept his face slightly pointed at his laptop like he was stretching his neck.
Brody was 6’3”, 250 pound heavyweight wrestler, and naked he looked even bigger than he did in clothes. Wavy short black hair, a little damp at the temples. Dark brown eyes locked on the screen. A thick neck. Wide, heavy shoulders packed with muscle. A broad chest with dark nipples and a patch of black hair in the middle. A narrow-enough waist for a guy that size, then huge wrestler thighs spread open around the chair.
His cock was thick and dark and shiny with lube, disappearing into the fleshlight and coming back out on every stroke.
Zane felt his mouth go dry.
He found Brody incredibly sexy. There was no other way to put it. The size of him. The way he sat there with his legs open like the whole room belonged to him. The low grunt he made when he punched the fleshlight down to the base. Zane had seen Brody shirtless a hundred times in the training room. This was different. This was Brody using his own body for sexual pleasure and not caring who watched.
Zane turned back around so that Brody wouldn’t notice him staring. He didn’t want to get caught like Oliver this morning.
Zane’s cock filled out in his shorts, fast and obvious. He shifted in the chair uncomfortably. Heat ran through him. He couldn't believe he was hard again. He couldn't believe he was hard for Brody Kessler, his fucking annoying-ass roommate.
Brody's hips snapped up. The fleshlight made a filthy sound.
"Fuck," Brody muttered, not to Zane. Just to the room. "That's it. Take it you fucking dirty bitch.”
Zane’s ears were hot. He pressed the heel of his hand against his throbbing cock under the desk, and it jumped.
Zane unlocked his phone. He opened Grindr. Zane stared at the grid of men. His pulse was up in his throat. He scrolled without any particular plan until one profile stopped him.
The username was just **DL**. Zane knew what it meant. “Down low”, a straight guy who wanted this kept quiet and off the record. The bio was a few blunt lines:
*Straight man looking for a throat to use. Be discreet. You're here to serve me. If you're annoying I'll block you.*
Zane looked at the profile stats. Height: 6'5". Body type: muscular. 31 years old. 9-inch cock.
The pictures were all headless, but they didn't need a face to make their point.
The guy had an incredible muscular body. Wide heavy shoulders. Arms thick through the biceps and forearms. A massive chest covered in a thick forest of black curly hair that ran down over hard abs and disappeared into the waistband of a pair of gray briefs. The last photo was him in just the briefs, the bulge obscene, the dark hair spilling out over the band.
Zane felt heat rush through his body. He licked his teeth without meaning to. He was still hard under the desk from watching Brody. This made it worse.
Zane knew he should close the app. He had enough to deal with right now….what with him discovering that his sweat scent somehow turned men into horny, feral beasts. The smart move was to lock the phone and go to bed.
Instead his thumb hovered.
A message came in. From DL. It was a photo, and Zane opened it, and it was exactly what the profile had promised.
A huge cock. There was a thick bush of dense black curly hair. And then a straight uncut penis jutted out obscenely, 9 inches easy, the foreskin half-rolled. It looked heavy. It looked like it would choke him.
Zane stared at it a long moment, the noise of the room gone somewhere far away, his heartbeat loud in his own ears.
Then, slowly, without quite meaning to, he licked his lips.
Hoping to continue pumping out chapters. The next chapter will include rougher sex and more domination themes.
So far, the sex has been somewhat vanilla, but I'm really hoping to incorporate more domination/humiliation kink in the coming chapters (first with the DL man from Grindr, and then especially when Brody turns Zane into his personal bitch). Definitely plan to have some scenes with rough sex and lots of verbal domination throughout this series.
I appreciate all your comments and feedback and hope you all continue engaging with me through Discus comments or emails to [email protected].
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