Mandelbrot Story

“I just can’t figure this guy out. He’s driving me crazy!” I got up slowly from my last set of push-ups. Tryouts for the swim team were only four days away, so today was going to be my last day of intense workouts; I needed to give my muscles time to recover and prepare for the trial ahead.

Seth was lounging on his bed, eating a salad. (He wasn’t the health-nut I’d turned into, but some of my habits were rubbing off on him.) He was looking my body over, which I rather liked. It was flattering, and I’ve got to admit I was slowly transforming into a bit of an exhibitionist. He was even helping me to plot out my food and diet on a computer program, and we would talk about my ongoing strategies. At first it was hard to build up any noticeable muscle; I was getting progressively leaner but that was it. Then he talked me into upping my caloric intake and shifting my ratios of proteins to fats and carbs. In a way it was just another science topic for us to talk about, and I think that helped keep me from getting uncomfortable about having him objectify my body.

“You’re seeing him again tonight?” Seth asked. We were talking about Taylor, my personal swimming coach, and if I made the team next week, my future teammate.

“Nah, tomorrow. I’m doing some reduced workouts over the next three days. Mostly he’s going to work on my form with the back- and breast-strokes. Those are my weakest right now.”

“So what about him doesn’t make sense.” Seth pulled his legs up and sat cross-legged on his bed, focusing his full attention on the topic at hand.

“I’m getting these mixed signals from him. One minute I’m picking up definite cues that he’s into me, but if I act on them at all he completely shuts down.”

“Does this happen when you’re around other people or when you’re alone together?”

I thought about it for a moment, trying to visualize some of the situations. “Let me think… I think it actually happens more often when we’re talking with other people. It always catches me off guard when it happens. I’ll be talking about anything, not trying to flirt at all. Hell, most of the time I’m not even paying attention to him.”

“And when you two are alone?” Seth was staring at me intently.

“Sometimes. But it’s never when I’m actively flirting with him, nor when he’s coaching me,” I was wracking my memory, trying to tease apart the dozens of times we’d been hanging out, “Although he gave me one of those really-short backrubs yesterday after I’d done a long swim. We were talking about the upcoming tryouts. He’s not as worried about it as I am. It’s going to be rough, though. There are only four open spots on the team this year.”

I really was concerned. The swim team was composed of students not only from our college, but also from the business college on one of the other campuses. (Our college is part of a seven-school consortium, specializing primarily in Science and Engineering.) Competition would be fierce, but I knew I had a shot. The tryout would consist of an intense 800 yard IM—that’s an “individual medley” or 200 yards of each of the four strokes; then a series of shorter sprints, and finally they put all of the contenders in the pool and have us swim as far and long as we can until we’re too exhausted to swim anymore. Altogether it’s a brutal combination that tests form, strength and endurance. Taylor ran me though a simulation of the ordeal once a week, and whereas I died the first time, I was getting progressively better.

Seth wasn’t about to let me change the topic, however. “What happens when you start paying attention to him? Can you describe it in detail?”

“It’s hard to say. He just shuts down. I’ll start paying attention to him—you know, showing interest or paying a compliment or whatever—and he’ll just brush me off. I’ve seen him do something similar to others. Girls, especially. They’ll start fawning over him, and he just looks bored with them like they’re slime. It doesn’t make sense.”

“And how do you feel about him?” he asked me.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why all the attention. Do you have a crush on him, or is this just a beautiful body you want to nail?”

I could feel myself blush, and I started stammering, “I… uh… well it’s not like... Okay,” I took a breath, “I think I genuinely like him. I mean, yeah, he’s got this fantastic body, and he’s completely beautiful. I’m not sure I’m trying to land him as a boyfriend or anything, but let’s just say when he’s around my heartbeat gets a little faster.” Oh yeah, I was blushing!

Seth shook his head, “Sad. Oh, not you! I think I’ve got a diagnosis, though, and you’re not going to like it.”

“He’s straight?” I guessed.

“No, actually, I think he’s into you. But there’s more to it. I think the problem is that you’re a nice guy.”

“Ouch!” I winced. It was the four-letter word: nice. “I’m doomed.”

“Not necessarily. I’d have to see you two together, but I suspect it’s not you; it’s him.”

“Explain.”

Seth laid it out for me: Taylor was one of those people who was conditioned to seek out abusive relationships. Whenever I had something close to a bad-boy quality going on, which coincided with specifically not paying attention to him, he was attracted to me. If I acted friendly, respectful, even bordering of amorous, it was an instant turn-off.

“Great, so what am I supposed to do, become as asshole?” I asked in annoyance.

“I don’t know,” Seth shrugged, “You’re the one who’s big on seduction these days. You’ll have to see if you can figure it out. One thing’s certain though…”

“What?”

“With this body you’re getting, it can’t be too much of a challenge.”

Seth’s theory had me a bit pissed off. I mean, I refuse to become an asshole just to be able to pick-up some screwed-up guys. At the same time, however, I really did like Taylor. The following day as we were working on my strokes I was more aware of our interaction. Although I was an attentive ‘student’ while Taylor worked on my strokes, I did change my behavior a little bit: I was no longer trying to seek out any sort of approval or encouragement from him. I wasn’t cold—I still maintained my evil smile and held stronger-than-normal eye contact—but at the same time I became somewhat indifferent.

After the workout we were in the locker room. I’d showered and was drying off. Taylor was talking about the upcoming tryouts. He was sort of rambling, sort of nervous-like. I wasn’t really saying anything; I wasn’t even looking at him. I’d stopped in front of the mirrors over the sinks, looking at my own reflection. I was looking good, and there was something about my newfound self-confidence. I didn’t even really recognize myself—that old familiar, geeky, self-deprecating guy I had been just a few months ago.

Yeah, I was busy scrutinizing my own reflection (I know: how narcissistic!) but really I was observing Taylor. His behavior  had changed today, apparently in response to mine.

“So after the tryouts—like, later that night—should we… whaddya say we do something to celebrate?”

I didn’t look at him, but went over to my duffel bag and started putting on clothes. I answered, “Don’t know. Depends on how I do. Don’t know if I’ll be in the mood to celebrate.”

“Aw, don’t worry. You’ve got it locked-up. With how well you cleaned up that back-stroke—especially those flip turns. That’s not a problem at all anymore. I’d put money on you making the team.”

“You’re buying the champagne then.” I said.

“Huh?”

“That’ll be the bet. If I make it, that night you’ll buy two bottles of champagne for us. That’ll be your bet.”

After a pause he said, “Okay.”

“Okay then, well I guess I’ll see ya. I’m going to do a really light swim the next two days, probably just 1000 yards. Are you life-guarding?”

“No.”

“Well then, I’ll see you at the tryouts. Thanks for the coaching.” I picked up my duffel and walked out.

Saturday was tryouts day. I tried not to be too nervous, but it was a really big deal for me. I felt like I was at some huge championship event, and it seemed weird that there weren’t any people watching, cheering us on. The morning had started out really cold and gray, overcast with a sprinkling of mist. Here in Southern California the winter season can be like this. The sky and air is this wet, overcast gray color that strangely brings out the saturation of the green leaves up in the trees. Their trunks look bleached-out, matching the sky, but the leaves just jump out at you. I was walking down to the pool for the tryouts; this was a much bigger pool that’s shared by the three colleges and used by the swim team. As I was heading there from my dorm the sun started burning through the fog.

Seth was there at the pool. He was sitting on some bleachers talking with six other girls. I’m guessing they were girlfriends of some of the swimmers. As he saw me he smiled and nodded, but kept talking with the girls. I was really touched to have him there for moral support.

The tryouts were pretty big. The coaches had the entire team do them—not just the people trying out for the four open spots. In the first part we swam an 800 yard Individual Medley. That’s where you swim 200 yards of each of the four basic strokes: butterfly, back, breast and freestyle. They had only three of us do it at a time so the coaches could really look at our technique, and of course it was a race too, so it involved a combination of pacing yourself, keeping up good technique, and still swimming hard and fast.

When it was my turn I saw that I was swimming against one guy who was already on the team and another guy like me who was trying for the open spots. The team member, his name was Jim Gump, was a Junior at the business college. He was wearing the team Speedos (light blue and navy) and was tall and lanky with a closely-shaved head. The other guy was about my height, kind of muscular, curly hair. This wasn’t going to be an easy race!

By now the fog had completely burned off and the sun made the pool look a brilliant, crystal blue. We got up onto the starting blocks and leaned down, ready to dive. There was a general buzz of people talking around the pool; today was going to be a long day, and nobody but the coaches were paying too close of attention. I heard a whistle go off, and my legs pushed off the block, I propelled myself through the air and into the water.

I don’t remember what happened next too clearly. In the back of my mind, or maybe in the peripheral of my vision, I felt like I was seeing the swirling patterns of the Mandelbrot Set, like when I was back in the dorm room wearing the visor. Seth and I had been working with it the night before. I remember I was helping him test it for about an hour, and then I got really tired and crashed. Despite being anxious about today I really slept well.

Anyway, I was aware of swimming that 800 IM, almost hyper-aware. Every stroke, every breath, the distance covered after every flip-turn. I could have swum it with my eyes closed, I knew exactly at which stroke I would make the next turn. My breaths were strong and clear, optimizing my oxygen intake. I knew I had to meter-out my strength so I would make it all the way through to the end, but there was such an urgency. The last couple laps of freestyle, the muscles in my shoulders were beginning to burn.

I slapped the side of the pool at the end, jerking my head up out of the water and breathing hard. For a while I couldn’t think of anything but gasping for air. Eventually the haze cleared, and I was aware of my surroundings. The last guy was just finishing—not Jim Gump but the other one. Jim was breathing hard, and he was looking at me intensely. I didn’t even know which of us had won.

Then I realized people around the pool had stopped talking. Most of them were looking down at us. It turns out I bested Jim by a good 35 seconds, and nobody had expected that. The rest of the day the teammates were paying a lot more attention to me. I made of point of learning all their names and talking at least a little bit to each one. I could see that Taylor was really proud of me. He mostly held back and watched me interacting with the other swimmers. A few of them knew that he had been coaching me at the other pool. They were trying to figure out how much of my skill I’d gotten under his tutelage, but I stayed coy about it.

The rest of the day went well. The second event—sprints—were painful. After pushing myself so much in the first event I felt pretty wrecked. The coach had me do breaststroke, which is by far my worst. I wasn’t spectacular, but I did okay.

For the last event the entire team got in the pool and just swam endless laps until we couldn’t swim any more. This wasn’t about speed, but just to determine our stamina. It’s a brutal way to finish up, and one guy started getting a serious leg cramp. I just got back into the zone—like when I’m looking in those visors at the Mandelbrot Set—and swam. It felt like forever. I’d counted 3500 yards—that’s a little over two miles—when somebody slapped my shoulder from the side of the pool; they were packing it in.

Most everyone had left already, including Seth. The head coach had already decided who was taking those four spots, and I was in. It’s funny, that had been decided about fifteen minutes before, but nobody bothered to tell me I could stop swimming. In the end I learned I had done one of the best tryouts for a newcomer. It wasn’t the kind of performance that would turn me instantly into the star team-member, but everyone was impressed.

Taylor was grinning like crazy. You’d have thought he had been the one who’d just made the team. He slapped me on the back, told me how he never doubted I’d make the team, and finished with “That Champagne is going to taste so sweet!”

I looked at him, and he returned my gaze directly. “Oh yeah, the bet,” pretending that I just remembered, “When do you want to celebrate? You need to go buy it, right?”

“Nah, I already bought them. I told you, I knew you were going to make the team. They’re already chilling in my room. I think they’re good bottles—they’re French.”

We agreed to go grab something to eat first. I was starving and seriously craving protein. We went to the Coop, this grill on campus that has the most incredible burgers. Taylor told me about swim team training, about how we would be spending most of Winter Break on campus training hard every day. Apart from the swim team, campus was totally deserted. They reserved an entire dorm building near the pool for us, which was a little weird because for three weeks we would be living in other guys’ rooms. I wouldn’t have access to Seth’s and my room; all the other buildings on campus were locked up.

After burgers we sauntered down to Taylor’s dorm room. Since he was an Upperclassman, he had one of those coveted singles. It was small, but nice and private on the end of a hallway. It was clean and conservatively decorated. I scanned my surroundings looking for any indication of whether he was into boys or girls, but didn’t see anything concrete. Oh well! I was convinced that didn’t really matter.

He popped the cork on the first bottle of champagne and filled two large drinking glasses with champagne, sheepishly apologizing for not having real champagne glasses. He also extracted from his dorm fridge a small container of strawberries, explaining that he heard champagne was better if you bit into a strawberry first.

I kind of expected him to hand-feed me a strawberry, but I guess that would have been too flirtatious. In fact, I think he was picking up on how blatantly romantic the setting was because he started getting quiet and acting shy again.

Fuck!

There he was, the perfect specimen of what I used to worship: strong frame with tanned skin pulled taught over well-defined muscles, not an ounce of body fat, six-pack abs that he never showed off, but you couldn’t miss when in the locker room with him. And his ass—it would be a disservice to simply call it a “bubble butt”—curved out from his lower back and arched back around with that curve, just a few degrees tighter around than any other ass you ever saw. (It reminded me of some perfect, ripe, supple fruit that would make any man’s mouth water!)

Only six months ago I would have been so nervous around a guy like this, never allowing myself to be within ten feet of such a guy, let alone close enough to smell his naturally soft and musky scent. And here he was, body suddenly tense, eyes looking away like a deer preparing to bolt.

Six months ago, had I been in this exact situation, I would have given up, resigning the situation as hopeless. But I was a very different person. In fact, I felt very much like a predator, stimulated by sense that my prey was about to bolt. This wasn’t about acceptance or rejection or psychology or anything like that; it was about the hunt. I immediately relaxed, my nostrils flared as I breathed in his scent deeply. I relaxed, and I could immediately sense his body relax next to me.

Stalking my prey.

I focused on the champagne; taking a deep drink and telling him, yes, that the strawberries did in fact make it better. I belched, laughed, and broke the tension. I asked him if any drinking happened during the three weeks of swim team training. (He answered that, yes, despite the coach’s best efforts quite a bit of drinking and “male bonding” took place.) I kicked off my shoes and sat in a big chair opposite him as he sat on his bed. I looked around his place, commenting on his musical choice of music CD’s—the Frey and Love.54 among others.

Gradually he relaxed and started to get a little drunk. While my own posture and outward body language were similarly relaxed, I was sporting a massive hard-on. At first it was a normal distraction, but its intensity kept growing. Rather shifting my position to somehow hide it, I just acted normally; Taylor would probably notice it at some point, but I wasn’t going to draw attention toward or away from it.

I was outwardly casual but inwardly alert, tracking my prey, waiting for a the time to pounce, getting closer. While we continued to talk about music I moved over to his bed, ostensibly to grab another couple strawberries.

Whether intentional or not, Taylor spilled champagne over the front of his shirt. He swore, stood up and, retreating to a safe distance from me, pulled his shirt off. There were those beautiful six-pack abs. My pulse raced. For just an instant he looked up, straight into my eyes, but immediately started to look away.

Now.

“Come here.” I said to him. He looked back at me confused. I gestured with my finger for him to take a step toward me, a step out of safety and into my personal space. I didn’t give him an explanation, no excuse to break the spell. I just looked at him, and continued to gesture. “Come here.”

He took one tentative step toward me, and that was it—that was all the invitation I required and I knew that was all the invitation I would get. Time to pounce. Before he could retreat I put my palm on his stomach and felt those muscles, running my hand up and down slowly.

“I like these,” I said simply, and then instructed “Come closer.”

One step closer. I put my other hand around his waist and drew him in closer to me. This was the point of no return… for both of us.

I pulled Taylor’s stomach in close and licked up and down his skin, pausing momentarily to run my tongue in and round his navel. His entire body was tense, but he couldn’t keep from sighing a little. The aggressive approach was working so with each hand I grabbed some loose fabric from the thighs of his sweats and pulled slowly but firmly downward. There was some resistance as the waistband worked around and past his own erection, and then they were down to his ankles. I cinched my fingers around the elastic of his underwear and with another pull I freed his cock. It bobbed a couple times up and down before I got my mouth around it, swallowing it whole.

There was a tension; his breathing was uneven and he fought to keep his balance, but his knees buckled as his hips simultaneously shot forward. With such an awkwardness I could tell Taylor had never experienced anything like this before—certainly with a guy and maybe with anyone at all!

I stood up partially, put both hands around Taylor’s lower back, twisted, and threw him down onto his bed, crawling on top of him. I yanked my own shirt off quickly and then started licking my way up his body: nipples, armpit, shoulders, neck… Meanwhile his hands ran first along my waist, pulling my pelvis into his; then up to my chest, pushing against it to help support my weight as I lay on top of him. I gently put my on his cheek and drew his mouth to mine.

We kissed.

This wasn’t like making out with David Penn in the hallway of that dorm party or Tim O’Malley the R.A.; this was something altogether different. Maybe it was the pent-up anticipation that had built between us over the last several weeks, but I think it was something else. There was something sublime, something incredibly romantic and emotional going on here. Taylor’s lips were at some moments gentle, at others firm and passionate. He let out these sounds that were half-sigh, half-moan.

We must have been making out for at least thirty or forty-five minutes, before I began to sense Taylor’s shyness and worry return. It was like he was beginning to get distant, and I could almost feel his brain starting to calculate, to freak out. I had no intention of letting this experience get interrupted. I knew he needed me to seduce him, to make this thing happen that scared him so much.

I worked my fingers along his shoulders and just behind his clavicles, softly working against some pressure points I had recently discovered to be effective at relaxing—almost paralyzing—his entire body. Simultaneously I licked the back of his ears, the side of his neck, his nipples—driving his body into a sensual frenzy. Then before he could react I worked my tongue down to his navel, placed my hands on his waist and without warning flipped him over onto his stomach.

He started to struggle, working out of his disoriented haze, but I instantly buried my face into his ass and firmly drove my tongue in and around his sphincter. He moaned loudly but stopped struggling.

This was new territory for me. Until now I had never done more that sucking Tim O’Malley off, but this was different. This was the prelude to real bona fide I-ain’t-going-to-be-a-virgin-by-anyone’s-definition-anymore sex. I had studied dozens of gay porn films over the last month, trying to prepare for this moment. I had no intention of being some clumsy first-timer, and besides, it was taking every bit of finesse to keep driving Taylor onward.

He was loving the rim job. I never heard anyone moan so loudly before. There was something so satisfying about knowing I could play his body like an instrument. After a while I moved back up his back, massaging it with my hands while kissing the back of his neck gently. I let my cock lay lengthwise along his ass as I lay on top of him.

“Zach?” Taylor asked gently.

“Mmm hmm?”

There was a long pause. Then, “Would you like to… I mean, I really want you to…” He sighed, unable to say the words but knowing I understood.

I put my arms around him and hugged him from behind, kissing the back of his neck. We lay there together for a couple minutes, our breaths going in and out together.

Then I leaned over to my backpack and pulled out a condom and a small container of lube. I had practiced dozens of times over the last week putting a condom on myself quickly, in the dark. This time it was real, and I was so excited it took a little fumbling to get right. I poured a generous amount of lube along his ass and then placed the end of my cock against the opening of his ass.

It felt like we're in that position forever. I was terrified of hurting him, and Taylor was also tense. I kept a slight but firm pressure on his ass, but I would be patient. I started massaging his back, kissing it again lightly. He started pushing back against me, moving his ass around rhythmically. Finally he let out a long sigh. I could feel his entire body relax and suddenly the head of my cock was inside him.

He tensed up again, making a small yelp. We both froze for what seemed like an eternity, and then he relaxed a bit and started pressing back into me again. I could sense millimeter by precious millimeter as I slowly eased into him, until finally my thighs stopped against his ass. I reversed the pressure and slowly backed out of him, and when I felt his sphincter stop just under the head of my cock, I started back into him.

The sensation was so intense: the warmth, the softness, the intense strength and pressure of his ass-muscles. I continued to run my hands lightly over his back, kissing it when I could. He began to relax, moaning softly and only occasionally wincing.

Then our bodies started to get the rhythm of it. I pressed my arms against his shoulders in a sort of push-up position and used the newly-developed musculature of my frame to drive smoothly in and out. My cock was so damned hard; it felt like a steel spike. So this was sex! Again I felt like a predator, I could smell every nuance of Taylor’s body; I noticed the subtle difference as he became covered in that sweet, fresh perspiration. My heart was racing, and every muscle was tense with excitement.

The tone of Taylor’s moans suddenly changed. He seemed to be caught off guard by something, and I guessed he was about to come. I wanted to be like the stars in the porn movie, timing things perfectly, turning Taylor on his bad just before we shoot on each other, but it didn’t work out that way. Before I realized what was happening Taylor bucked and gave out three loud moans. I could smell something very pungent and salty and realized he was coming. The sound and smell set something off within me, and all I could do was to put my arms around his body and bury my face in his neck as I shot my load while still in his ass.

We were in no way being graceful, but that didn’t matter: we were in the throes of something passionate, something animalistic. We both collapsed in the bed in each others’ arms. Taylor pulled me in close to him, and we fell asleep in that tight embrace.