No pain, no gain
Once I got home, I let my mother know I was home, told her that Mrs. Svalberg had fed me dinner already, gave her a very abbreviated account of my day, and then I did my own homework—which consisted of reading sections of three different text books, and writing a one-page mini-essay explaining the legal doctrine of “due process.” That last assignment was one of the rare cases where I actually turned in homework. Usually, I just read the textbooks, listened to the lectures, and then took the tests. If a teacher had a problem with that, I either convinced him or her that what I was willing to do was sufficient for my needs—or, if that failed, then I’d negotiate some other mutually-agreeable compromise. Hence the mini-essay on “due process.”
It’s hard to argue with a student who’s getting straight A’s, in spite of doing almost no homework. The reason I was so into linguistics—including constructing my own synthetic languages—and also into playing tournament-level chess, among other things, was simple: Otherwise, I’d have been bored stiff.
Having an IQ like mine was both a blessing and a curse: The “blessing,” of course, was that it made many things easy. Also, my high IQ made me feel better about my underwhelming sexual endowment. The “curse” was that I had to suffer fools and idiots—and even just normal people. If I could have waved a wand and made everyone just as smart as me, I’d have done it, no question. And that’s still true.
It actually makes me uncomfortable to be placed on a pedestal. Being better than others does nothing for me: It’s not the life I ever wanted; it alienates me from others—which is the LAST thing I want. That’s one reason I like tutoring and/or teaching: It makes me feel like I’m reducing the intellectual distance between myself and whomever I’m tutoring or teaching. And I really LIKE that feeling.
About 3 months after my father died, one of his MENSA buddies called our phone, trying to get in touch with my father. I answered the call—my mother had been at work. I informed my father’s MENSA friend of my father’s death. After a brief conversation about my father, the guy tried to get me interested in joining MENSA myself. Not happening: I had no interest in “virtue signaling” my intelligence in that way. I have no doubt I would have qualified, but that was—and is—irrelevant to me.
But back to the main story: After finishing my homework, I went to bed early: I was exhausted, and wanted to lay in bed and meditate on all the events in my life over the past few days—especially concerning my relationship with Eric. That had become far more important to me than such matters as whether “the rule of law” should be understood as prohibiting laws that specified their own exceptions (next year, I’d argue in favor of that for an essay in one of my college classes,) what I thought of Popper’s Critical Rationalism (“falsifiability” is the right standard, it seemed to me,) the fact that polysynthetic languages actually just used intra-word morphological structure to achieve what other languages got done using sentence structure (excitingly alien relative to Western languages,) which variation of the Sicilian Defense (a chess opening) that I preferred (the Sozin Attack, when playing White?—it was Fischer’s favorite,) or using the Lambda Calculus to write computer programs (having no access to a computer, I had to think about that one as purely a thought experiment.)
Not long afterwards, deep in thought, I fell asleep.
I woke up just after 7 am—almost a half hour before my alarm would have gone off. But I lay in bed for a while, meditating. I was deeply touched by the fact that Eric had apparently fallen in love with me. But what I really wanted—and really needed—was “somebody to love.” Could Eric be that guy?
Physically, Eric was perfect for me. There was no question about that. And based on what he’d told me, I was apparently perfect for him—in more ways than one—well, assuming I’d continue to be not just willing, but eager, to follow Eric’s sexual desires to the places he wanted to take me. But that wasn’t the issue that I was worrying over, just then.
Eric saw me as “submissive” (his term,) and saw himself as “dominant” (also his term.) I could only assume he meant sexually only—I was not intellectually submissive. Not at all. Not that I wasn’t a nice guy. Not that I tried to belittle others. Not that I wasn’t humble (I can be wrong—and I have been, many times!) Not that I had what we now call an “alpha” personality. Based on modern conceptualizations, I’d self-identify as a “Sigma Male.”
I really liked Eric. I was strongly attracted to him physically. He massively (pun intended) satisfied my sexual fantasies and fetishes. But could I love him? Did I already?
My alarm going off interrupted my pondering. So I got up, did all my morning things, and headed out the door towards the high school.
Tuesday at school was a lot like Monday (yesterday) had been: Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Eric and I played our “we don’t know each other” roles perfectly—as far as I could tell, anyway. After the last class of the day, I headed to Eric’s house using the same alternate route I had used yesterday—except that, this time, I used my watch to time it: 18 minutes. I saw him watching me from his living room window as I walked up the outside walkway towards his front door—unlike yesterday, he knew what to expect.
I didn’t even have to knock: The front door flew open, and he rushed outside to greet me. But he obviously had to check himself, to avoid putting on a show of affection that we didn’t want the neighbors to see: They’d almost certainly gossip to Eric’s parents. But he pulled me inside by my hand, closed the door, and then proceeded to hug me, and then also kiss me. It made me feel good. Really good.
When the kissing had died down, I asked, “So, how was your day?”
“Not good,” he replied.
“Oh?”, I exclaimed.
“Yeah—I had to stay away from you, pretend we didn’t know each other; I couldn’t even hold you in may arms. It was terrible!”, he complained…but his expression morphed into a smile. He was being melodramatic, and “playing for the Oscar.”
I laughed, and so did he: Weaponized cuteness.
“So now that you’ve got me where you want me, watcha gonna do about it?” I asked (I was still in his arms.)
“Make passionate love to you, of course!”, he boldly announced. “Sort of like yesterday, only without the training wheels,” he jokingly said. His grin was like the Sun at Noon—and also quite infectious. “I’m still an amateur, you know”, I replied.
“Yeah, I know. But I think I can move you up a grade before my parents get home. The sooner you graduate from Eric’s Sex Academy, the happier we’ll both be,” he smirked.
“Shouldn’t it be ‘Eric’s Booty Camp’? After all, you’re my personal ‘Drill Me’ instructor, aren’t ya?”, I teased.
He laughed out loud. [No, I won’t anachronistically use ‘LOL’ here: It was a commonly-used phrase long before it became an internet acronym.]
“At your service, Babe”, he replied—smiling hugely.
So, we just stood there for a few minutes, in each others’ arms, gazing into each others’ eyes. Finally, he said “Whenever you’re ready.”
That made me realize that he was waiting for me to make the next move, to show him that I wanted to actually do what we both knew was on the menu for this afternoon: Making forward progress towards our goal of getting rid of my gag reflex. He wanted me to demonstrate “buy in” to getting that done, to be enthusiastic about it, even. The fact that that mattered to him this much, in spite of how strong his sex drive apparently was, and of how horny I knew he was—I could feel the evidence for that pressing against my left leg—really touched my heart, and endeared him to me, more than had already been the case.
I recalled that, yesterday, he had said something about hoping that I’d want him to fuck my face out of my love for him. Did I love him? That much? Well, there was one way to find out. So I said, “I want to make you happy, Eric. And I also want to discover who I am, sexually. So, let’s do this.”
“I’m gonna carry you into the bedroom, Babe. Just like a new husband carries his new wife into their bridal suite,” he announced. He then picked me up, and carried me down the stairs to his basement bedroom. The door was already open. Had he planned this? He set me down on my feet on the floor, and instructed me to take off my pants and jockey briefs, which I did.
While I was getting naked from the waist down, he headed towards his basement bathroom, saying, “Be right back with a towel for ya’”, he explained, as he turned away towards the bathroom.
After yesterday, no further explanation was necessary. The chorus of a Jimi Hendrix song ran through my thoughts, “Have you ever been experienced?” Although I was thinking of how my sexual experience was growing by leaps and bounds every day—thanks to Eric—and not of the meaning that Hendrix seemed to have been implying—although that meaning was just as applicable, I suppose.
Eric returned with the towel, and handed it to me. Instead of immediately putting it around my neck as a bib (as I had done yesterday,) I first got on Eric’s bed—on my back, with my feet pointed towards the head of the bed and my head pointed towards the foot of the bed—and then asked, “Should I scoot my head down so that it’s hanging past the foot of the bed? Yesterday, you said that that might be good idea for today…”
“Maybe later”, he replied. “I first want to make sure that you’re ready for that.”
“You’re holding yourself back? For me?”, I asked.
“Yes, my love. I am”, he replied, with a serious look on his face.
With that, he took off his pants and boxer briefs, got on his knees on the bed, facing the head of the bed, with his dick hanging over my head. While he was getting into position, I managed to put my towel-bib—which I had been holding in my hand—over my chest and neck.
“Do you remember all the things you need to do?”, he asked.
“I think so”, I replied.
“Not good enough”, he said. “List them for me.”
I had to think for a second, before I replied:
“Keep my teeth under control. Ummm…Swallow on the downstroke….uh….Is that it?”, I asked.
“Almost”, he replied. “Don’t forget to breathe during the 10 seconds I’ll be giving you to do so, every time after I pull out.”
“Oh, right”, I replied.
Then, he placed his dick on my lips, and said “Open sesame”, just like yesterday. So I opened my mouth, as wide as I could.
He slowly inched his dick into my mouth, until his dickhead was pushing against the back of my throat, and then slowly started pushing to go deeper. So, I then swallowed, and his dick popped into my esophagus. He didn’t go balls deep this time, but held his position for maybe 10 seconds, and then withdrew. I gagged—but not as badly as yesterday; I experienced no choking, and no urge to vomit.
After carefully observing me, and my reaction--giving me way more time than the promised 10 seconds to breathe—he repeated the procedure. But the second time, he did give me only about the promised 10 seconds to breathe. He kept doing that for the next few minutes, but held his position in my throat a little bit longer each time. I was still gagging, but it seemed to me to be lessening in intensity.
Then, he started going deeper and deeper into my throat. After about 5 minutes, he was going balls deep, just like the final stretch yesterday. But unlike yesterday, my gagging was not getting worse as he did so. He fucked my face like that for about another 10 minutes—and then he came, while holding his dick balls-deep down my throat. Then he completely pulled out.
Just like yesterday, my eyes were watering, and I was drooling—quite profusely. My jaw was aching, but not quite as badly as yesterday. The experience definitely wasn’t quite as “uncomfortable” as it had been. But it was still not something I’d choose to do for fun.
The question that mattered, though, was whether I’d continue to do it—for him. But I knew that I would: I had felt the “psychological rewards” he had spoken of yesterday: The pleasure of being being sexually dominated, of submitting to him, of vicariously experiencing a dick like his as it fucked my mouth, of giving him sexual pleasure—the most intimate kiss one person could give to a man. Yesterday, I didn’t have the mental capacity to even pay much attention to any of that, due to the novelty, and the discomfort, of being face fucked for the very first time. That had captured just about all of my focus and attention.
But today, I was able to notice those things. However, unlike yesterday, Eric was not done yet. After just a few minutes, he placed his dick on my lips again, and said “Open sesame.” So I opened my mouth wide, and we repeated the procedure—although, it took him maybe 5 to 7 minutes longer to come the second time.
As for me, there was less gagging, and more ability to focus on, and enjoy, the “psychological rewards:” Submitting to his sexual domination, entertaining my phallic size fetish, giving him the most intimate of “kisses,” and pleasuring someone I cared about. I could see where this was going—and I could also see that, yet again, he had told me the truth.
But this time, while we both recuperated, he asked me whether I wanted to try the more raunchy head position. I had just enough curiosity—and remaining energy—to decide to give it a try. So I told him “yes.” He then got off of the bed, so that I would have room to reposition myself, and then I scooted my head towards the foot of the bed, so that it hung over the edge of the bed—which, by the way, was a rather tall bed, that did not have a foot board. My mouth was only slightly lower than his balls.
He walked up to my head, put his dick to my lips, and then said, “I’ll be going a little deeper and rougher, but usually staying balls-deep in your throat for only a second or two each time, and giving you about 5 fewer seconds to breathe. But every 5th downstroke, I’ll hold position for about half a minute. Just don’t forget what you need to do. You ready?”
“Ready”, I replied.
“Open sesame”, he commanded. And yes, his tone was less playful, more dominant, more “commanding.” To my surprise, I found that that turned me on.
I did as he requested. Not being able to breathe for almost a minute, on each fifth downstroke, was somewhat challenging, but being able to hold my breath underwater longer than many others was a skill I had practiced: I loved to swim underwater; it let me imagine that I was an aquatic creature, such as an otter, or a dolphin.
I found that I liked what he was doing more than I thought I would: I hypothesized that the fact that he almost immediately withdrew after most of his downstrokes was reducing the severity of my gag reflex—and that, in turn, increased my ability to enjoy the psychological rewards. However, my jaw was still aching. On the other hand, I was also very, very aroused, and so also very, very hard.
Eric noticed: He started jacking me. I came before he did—twice.
This time, when Eric finally busted his nut—down my throat, as he seemed to prefer, at least so far—he didn’t stop fucking. He just kept on going. My gag reflex was diminishing, and so my psychological enjoyment was increasing. My jaw was still aching—but perhaps not quite as much?
He also continued to jack my dick; I came one more time. As did he, about 5 minutes later. I was half expecting him to keep going, but instead he pulled out completely, and said: “Damn! I lost track of time! We need to get you cleaned up in a hurry, before my mother gets home.”
We rushed into the bathroom, and he started to clean me up. While we were doing that, we heard a car door slam (normally, not in anger) outside. Eric freaked out: He hadn’t even put his pants back on yet! He rushed out of the bathroom to do that. We could hear the front door opening while he was making himself presentable. I hurriedly finished cleaning the tears and drool off of my face, combing my hair, and straightening up my clothes. Eric was standing at the foot of the bed, staring at his bedroom door: He had never closed it.
Eric’s mother appeared to have noticed nothing we didn’t want her to see, though. She didn’t even seem to know whether or not Eric was home. Eric signaled me to stay where I was, while he went upstairs to greet his mother. I could hear them talking, but couldn’t really follow their conversation.
Eric came back down to the basement bedroom, and suggested that we switch to doing (his) homework. Relieved, I readily agreed. Eric’s father came home while were engaged with that. Once we had Eric’s homework taken care of, we both went upstairs for today’s episode of “parental inspection.”
Eric’s father’s first question was whether or not Eric was done with his homework—which, of course, he had—with my help. Eric told me later that his parents—especially his father—were quite strict about Eric doing his homework, probably because his grades weren’t the best. However, once his homework was done, they gave him a lot of freedom for the rest of the day.
Having heard our conversation with Liam (Eric’s father) about homework, Beth (Eric’s mother) came out of the kitchen to ask whether I’d like to stay for dinner. I accepted the invitation. My mother had obviously been OK with that arrangement yesterday, so…
The thought occurred to me that my helping Eric with his homework had really gotten me in the good graces of Eric’s parents—more so than I would have guessed.
Liam was watching a news report about Alexander Solzhenitsyn: He had been expelled from the Soviet Union a few weeks prior, as I recall, but I no longer remember what the news report was specifically about. But I clearly remember correcting the reporter’s pronunciations of the Russian names/words used in the report. Taking notice, Liam asked me to say something in Russian, so I sang the “Katyusha” song for him—in Russian, of course. Liam just said, “Well, there’s no way for me tell what the lyrics mean, nor how well you pronounced them, but it sounded legit.” So, I gave him my “off the cuff” translation to English of the lyrics:
“Apple and pear trees were blooming everywhere,
Fog was flowing over the river,
Katie was coming out to the shore..”
Note: ‘Katie’ is my translation to English of ‘Katyusha,’ which is the slang term the Russian soldiers used for their artillery pieces in World War II. Literally, it could also be translated as “Little Catherine,” or perhaps as “Cathy Dear”: Inter-language translations may not be as straightforward as those who are monolingual typically imagine.
I continued giving the translation to English of the remaining lyrics—but I didn’t try to sing them; there was a mismatch in the count of syllables per verse between the original Russian and my translation to English—which I was doing on the fly, without any attempt to make the syllable counts match, so that the lyrics would fit with the melody.
I had been teaching myself Russian since 9th grade, by the way. I had revealed that fact to Eric’s parents yesterday (Monday) evening during dinner, but without having provided a demonstration.
“You have to be a polymath,” Liam said. “And an autodidact,” he added.
Believe it or not, I had never heard either of those terms before—although I had a pretty good guess regarding what ‘autodidact’ meant; you just needed to know the meanings of the Greek roots. So I asked him, “What’s a polymath?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know,” he answered. “It means someone who has expert- or specialist-level knowledge in multiple disciplines, such as math, linguistics, engineering and medicine. In other words, a generalist who also has deep knowledge in multiple fields.”
“And an ‘autodidact’ is someone who’s self taught?”, I asked.
“You got it, buddy”, he replied.
“Guilty as charged,” I said.
“Very guilty”, Eric chimed in.
We all laughed. Liam then thanked me for helping his son with his schoolwork. “No problem. I like to help my friends,” I said.
And then Beth called us all to dinner. During dinner, Liam questioned me about various issues and topics, obviously trying to gage the depth and breadth of my knowledge. No, I didn’t know the answer to every question, nor have an opinion on every issue—but I must have impressed him, nevertheless. Eric and Beth mostly just listened, with one exception—Beth asked me a question about the law: Did I happen to know the difference between ‘interpretation’ and ‘construction’ of the law?
That one I did know: ‘Interpretation’ refers to comprehending the abstract semantics—the meaning—of a Constitutional clause, statute, regulation or clause of a contract. ‘Construction’ refers to how the abstract semantics of the law, clause or regulation applies to the people, things and events involved in a specific case before a court. And that answer seemed to satisfy her.
I took note of the fact that I didn’t seem to have to use “dumbed down” terminology when speaking to either of Eric’s parents. They rarely asked me to clarify what I had said in “layman’s terms.” Good to know.
After desert (pecan pie,) Eric asked me—while still sitting at the dining room table, with both Liam and Beth present—“So John, would you like to help me break in my new exercise equipment?” Liam responded before I could: “I was beginning to think you didn’t like your birthday present, Eric.”
Eric, looking sheepish, said “It’s not that I didn’t like it. It’s just that I wasn’t feeling very motivated, after Scotty moved away.”
“But now you are, because you’ve found a new friend?”, Liam responded. That told me that I’d scored yet more points with Liam.
“More than ever!”, Eric responded—with perhaps more enthusiasm than he should have. Beth gave the both of us a curious look, but Liam seemed to be rather pleased.
Belatedly, I told Eric, “Sounds like a plan.”
Eric gave me a big thumbs up, said “Thanks, man”, and started toward the garage. I followed.
When we arrived at the exercise equipment, Eric turned to me, and said, “You were awesome, dude! My parents have usually been rather dismissive of my friends—at least since I started high school. But you! You’ve won them over.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that—partly, because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Sure, I had some pride in my abilities. But I also didn’t like being singled out as different—whether better or worse—than anyone else. But being accepted by Eric’s hard-to-please parents was obviously a good thing.
So, what I said was, “I just hope I don’t set expectations so high that it guarantees failure.”
Eric looked at me funny, and replied, “Damn, dude! You really are into self deprecation.”
“You really think so?”, I replied.
“I know so. I’d be super happy to be as smart as you. You act like it’s no big deal; you’re even sort of apologetic about it.”
“I don’t want to be seen as better than others. Especially not when they’re my friends”, I explained.
“You’re not stuck up; not full of yourself. I get that. But it’s OK to be proud of what you have. After all, I am—as you may have noticed”, he said with a big grin. Eric had no reason to be modest about his body—unlike me.
“You mean, if you’ve got it, flaunt it?”, I offered.
He chuckled, then said, “Well, yes and no. Be proud of yourself, but don’t act like you think you’re entitled to lord it over others, just because you’re a fucking genius, or because you have the biggest dick in the whole school”, he advised.
Well, that was certainly an interesting perspective. It immediately occurred to me that the principle was just as valid when applied to one’s failures and/or deficits.
So I replied, “In that case, I guess that I shouldn’t be down on myself because my dick is smaller than average, just as you shouldn’t be down on yourself because you’re not as smart as someone else.”
The look he gave me was priceless. “Touché”, he said.
I started examining the exercise equipment. I asked what each device (or whatever) was for, and how it should be used. He answered as best he could, but explained that he was far from an expert. But I clearly knew less than he did—just because I was smart, didn’t mean I knew everything. Far from it.
“Are there instruction manuals? Someone from whom we could get advice?”, I asked.
“Yeah, we have the manuals, but I haven’t really looked at them. Not sure how helpful they’ll be”, he answered.
“What about your dad? He must have known something about this stuff, if he bought it?”, I surmised.
“Good point. Maybe we should ask him”, Eric replied. “Wait here”, he continued, “I’ll go see what he says.” With that, Eric went back into the house.
He and Liam came back a few minutes later. Liam explained that, in college, he had actually been responsible for maintaining the school’s exercise equipment, and helping students to use it correctly—it was a job they’d give students who needed extra income, and the job came with the training necessary to do the job. So he showed us how to use the bench press, and said he’d show us more, later.
It was only then that I noticed that Liam—Eric’s father—was actually in pretty good shape for an old man (he was in his early 40’s, so absolutely ancient, to my 18-year old eyes.)
“You’re in pretty good shape for someone your age,” I told him.
He smiled, and said, “I got in the habit of staying in shape when I served in the Marines. That’s probably one of the reasons that [the very prestigious university where he studied psychology in the 1950s] assigned me to the job of taking care of the exercise equipment. And now, as a full professor [at that very same university], I have the privilege of using the school’s exercise facilities. So, I do”, he explained.
“Is that why you usually arrive home from work later than mother?”, asked Eric.
“It’s one of them,” replied Liam. “Probably the major one.”
It occurred to me that Liam might have purchased the home exercise equipment just as much for himself, as for Eric. But I didn’t ask.
Eric was the first to give the bench press a try, using a barbell with relatively light-weight disks installed. Liam spotted for him, and gave him helpful instruction. After Eric needed a break, he invited me to give it a try.
I chose the same barbell that he had used, and tried to do what he had done. Liam spotted for me, also, and also gave me some very helpful advice. I tired more quickly than Eric had.
Once I got up from the bench, Liam said, “John, don’t give up. You can do this. You just have to have the self discipline, and the patience, to go through hell, in order to achieve your goal for yourself. No pain, no gain.”
I thanked him for that advice. It made me think about another path down which I had recently started to travel, where the same advice would seem to be highly applicable.
“Yeah, John”, said Eric. “Be a trooper. I know you have it in you. You’ve already proven that to me.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I just hoped that Liam had no clue.
I then looked at the time, and announced that I should be heading home: My poor mother might already be worrying herself sick. It was almost 10 pm.
When I got home just before 10:30 pm, my mother gave me a look that said I had pushed a boundary, but didn’t mention it. Instead, she just had me confirm that I had been at the Svalbergs’, and that Eric’s mother had fed me dinner. She then started getting ready for bed—that takes her about an hour, because reasons—and I went to my room to read ahead in my textbooks.
