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Story update: This is the end of part 1! Thanks for hanging with me this far! In case you’re new, I’ll be intermittently adding a new chapter to this longer story. It’s going to be a novel, and you guys are the first eyes to see it! Enjoy the next chapter of Entry Level!
Chapter 9: We’ve Created a Monster
I opened the door and Tony was standing in the hallway in a button-down with the sleeves rolled, his tie long gone, his dishevelment familiar at this point. He had been out since before dinner and had covered serious ground since that point.
"My guy," he said.
"Tony."
"I was in the neighborhood."
"It's past two."
"I know what time it is." He looked past me into the dark apartment, spotting the pile of clothes that Marcus had left by the front door. "You got people over or something?"
I stepped back and let him in.
He walked past me into the living room and looked around. He looked at Decker's open doorway, with a clear line of site to Marcus asleep under a blanket. I hadn’t thought to conceal our visitor.
"Is that your boyfriend in there?" he said.
Decker was leaning against the counter with his Coke.
"I thought you said Nick was my boyfriend," he said.
Tony looked back and forth between us. Then he reached down and scratched his balls through his slacks with no shame.
"Ha," he said. "You're so gay."
He dropped onto the couch and kicked his shoes off and looked at the TV, which was off, and seemed unbothered by that. Decker grabbed him a Coke and set it on the coffee table and Tony picked it up and started talking.
He told us about the night. A club somewhere in the Meatpacking District, a girl in a black dress who had been grinding on him on the dance floor for “the better part of forty minutes.” Apparently, this had been torture for him.
"She was going so hard," he said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, the bottle in one hand, the full force of his attention on making sure we understood the severity of what he had experienced.
"Like, aggressively. I almost nutted right there on the dance floor, I'm not even joking. Right there in my pants, in front of everyone."
Decker and I looked at each other across the coffee table. The look lasted about one second and contained several telepathic jokes to each other.
"What happened," I said.
"She left with someone else," Tony said, flatly. "Some douchebag in a tee-shirt."
"That's rough," Decker said.
"I'm fine," Tony said, immediately. "I'm completely fine. Blueballs happen."
He sat there for twenty minutes, talking for most of it. Decker and I contributed enough to keep it somewhat interesting, and fortunately the evening winded down at its own pace. And eventually, Tony's sentences got shorter, and the gaps between them got longer, and his head tipped back against the cushion.
His eyes closed, his mouth open slightly. He was out like a baby.
Decker looked at me. We slowly crept back to bed, getting in without waking our other sleepover guest either. Marcus was on the window side, me on the door side, Decker in the middle, hugging on me.
—[]—
I had a vivid dream about blowjobs. I was getting it from several girls, for whatever reason, all fighting to work on me at once. The sounds of suction and furniture shaking were the main parts of the dream. I recall saying, “Where is Decker, though?” just before I woke up.
I don't know what time it was. The room was dark and quiet and Decker was warm beside me, and everything was fine, except that something had pulled me up out of sleep, some sound from the other side of the apartment.
I lay still and listened.
There it was again. A low sound from the living room, muffled but distinct squishing noises. My subconscious had been correct, I thought, that there was sex happening. In my haze of sleepiness, it took me a moment to remember that we had left Tony out there.
I chuckled to myself. I couldn’t believe he had called a girl over here. But then I remembered the other thing.
My head whipped to look at the far side of the bed.
“Oh shit,” I muttered aloud, finding the bed containing only Decker’s broad form, his muscular leg sprawled across the space that had been occupied by our visitor.
I turned back to the door. The sound happened again, along with a light moan this time.
I put my hand on Decker's shoulder and he was awake after a moment, with little transition between asleep and awake.
"You hear that," I whispered.
He listened for a second.
"Yeah," he said.
We shared a glance, and got up.
I eased the bedroom door open slowly, until I could see the living room through the gap.
The light from the window was enough.
Tony had found yet another reason to show his oversized equipment to someone, and Marcus had apparently woken up and found Tony there and done what Marcus excelled at.
I felt Decker's chest against my back as we stood in the doorway and watched.
Tony was sitting back against the cushion, his shirt open, his head tilted back, his hand resting on the back of Marcus's head with a loose-fingered grip on his hair. Marcus was between his knees, his head moving in a slow rhythm, and the sounds coming from Tony were involuntary, and nothing like the Tony I was used to.
Decker's chest was warm against my back. His hands rested on my hips and stayed there.
At some point Tony looked down. He looked at Marcus, carefully. I remember thinking that the only thing he usually looked at with that much focus was a mirror. His hand moved from the back of Marcus's head to the side of his face, just for a second, just a touch, before it moved to the cushion.
I felt Decker's hand find my ass in the dark behind me. His palms pressed against me slowly and I leaned back against him, and we stood there in the doorway not saying anything, just watching the comedic tenderness of Tony discovering the joys of a male body on our couch, for real this time.
Then Marcus shifted and sat up and Tony looked at him. They kept eye contact as Marcus stood up fully, his cute bubble butt tensing as he let his large dick point right at Tony’s face. I expected Tony to reject this, but instead he leaned down quickly and took him into his mouth.
Decker's grip on my ass tightened as we watched, a finger finding my hole and pushing on it, making me look at him with wide eyes. He shook his eyebrows at me, smiling.
When I looked back at the couch, my jaw dropped. Tony and Marcus had moved things along rapidly. Tony had put Marcus down onto the couch, and lifted his legs up to his shoulders. He was lining up to start actually fucking him.
I guess the taste of dick made him want some ass, I thought to myself, my sleepiness affecting my logic.
They whispered quietly to each other as he quickly pressed forward, apparently finding penetration to be relatively quick and easy. That’s my jizz, I thought with excitement as I reached back and found Decker’s leaking dick with my palm. We pre-lubed Tony’s first boy hole.
I watched Tony’s ass bounce as he got a rhythm going. I had never really looked at it before, but it was kind of “cute” in a way. It wasn’t big, but it was very round and taut, paler than the rest of him. He started to wiggle his body as he began to pound out the sex guest who apparently needed one more man tonight.
Tony began pumping into him like a horny rabbit, and I watched Marcus’ legs flail around a bit as he tried to keep balance.
Tony opened his eyes at some point and looked down at Marcus, and I watched his face change a bit. It looked like the face he had made at the bar in Hell's Kitchen, like he was doing complicated arithmetic in his head.
He reached down and put his hand on Marcus's shoulder, like he was checking that there was a person attached to the situation. He wasn’t fucking a fleshlight.
Then his hand rubbed down Marcus’ body as he continued to thrust into him, but more slowly, until he reached the giant appendage that was resting on his abs. Marcus looked excited to get some more attention on that part, and Tony looked somewhat mesmerized. Now he was confirming more than a body, it was a body with a dick attached to it.
He wasn't graceful as he started stroking the sausage in front of him while he continued to fuck him. He was doing something new, but he was still Tony, which meant he was going to be loud at some point. He started talking slightly above a whisper.
“You like my big dick?” he said, not totally a question.
“Mmhmm,” Marcus replied, his voice wavering as he continued to take thrusts.
“I’m gonna make you cum,” Tony added.
“Mmmm,” Marcus moaned in response.
I watched Marcus’ eyes close as Tony picked up the pace with his thrusting and stroking. He was looking at the dick now, like he was curious about it. His fingers didn’t fully wrap around it, and I could tell he wanted to see it blast off. The first guy he ever actually did something with, and his cock was a rival to his own. I bet that meant something to him.
I stroked both Decker at myself as I watched them continue on the couch, and Decker was thrusting slightly forward, his natural instinct, the head of his dick poking me while I stroked us, his hands rubbing up and down my body now.
Tony’s energy got hotter, and I heard his breathing increase, as his body started making smacking noises against Marcus. He was banging him balls deep, both their bodies moving around rhythmically with the thrusts.
I felt Decker's grip tighten on my hips. His breath was hot on my neck.
Tony’s butt was bouncing and clapping against the boy-ass and I could hear them both grunting as Marcus’ hands roamed around Tony’s body.
Marcus was the first to release, sending a shot up his chest. Tony watched with fascination, and I could tell he felt the pulsing on his own dick. I watched them cum at the same time as the motion of their bodies synced perfectly, climaxing together.
I turned to Decker and quickly dropped to my knees. I needed something right now, anything from him, and his dick was what was presently on tap for me. I sucked it into my throat quickly and bobbed my head, one hand on his ass, the other on myself. I didn’t even try to conceal the sounds of my throat sloshing on his thick meat in my mouth, I just wanted to swallow him whole.
He put a hand on my head to help me along, and I got to the edge immediately as he held me down onto himself.
I coughed and gagged once around it as he held me there, and I released a volley that streaked his foot and ankle. A moment later, he pulsed in my throat, and I felt him feed my stomach directly. I was able to hold on through my orgasm, milking the last drop out of him with swallowing motions, putting a joyful cap on the erotic activities of the night.
I pulled off and took a deep breath as he looked down at me. He reached down and put a hand under my arm pit, lifting me up and pulling me into a kiss. He tasted himself on my tongue as we rubbed each other’s bodies for a moment.
“That was hot,” I whispered in his ear.
“Yeah,” he said quietly with an exhale.
We looked back at the activities in the living room. Tony was already back on the couch, naked, playing on his phone, and I didn’t see Marcus yet.
"We did that," Decker whispered into my ear.
"We absolutely did," I said.
—[]—
In the morning, I woke up first, and everything was quiet.
I knew immediately that nobody else was awake yet. In my head, there were four people in the apartment to account for. Me: check. Decker: check, he’s lying beside me. I sat up slowly to check the rest of the bed. No Marcus. I smirked to myself. He must have stayed out there with Tony.
I sat there for a second registering that, and then I slowly swung my legs out of bed and opened the bedroom door. I was already smiling before I got it fully open.
But the living room was empty. The couch had a blanket pushed to one side and two throw pillows on the floor, and that was it. No Tony. No Marcus. No evidence of either of them except the general disorder of the couch.
I checked the bathroom: empty. I checked the kitchen: empty.
I stood in the middle of the apartment in my underwear and looked around and laughed quietly to myself.
I went back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed and put my hand on Decker's shoulder.
"They're gone," I said.
He opened one eye. "Both of them?"
"Both of them."
He closed the eye again. "Together?"
"I doubt it," I said. "But I genuinely have no idea."
He kind of laughed, and then made sort of a morning sound, waking up and clearing his throat a little, pulling the covers back over his shoulder and keeping his eyes closed.
I picked up my phone off the nightstand and typed out a text to Tony.
Hey, you make it home alright?
I set the phone down and went to make coffee.
Two hours later, while Decker and I were on the couch in our underwear with our lattes, doing the Sunday morning version of TV-binging, my phone buzzed.
One word from Tony.
Yup.
I showed it to Decker. He looked at it for a second.
"That's it?" he said.
"That's it," I said.
We sat with that for a moment.
"He'll never bring it up," Decker said.
"Never," I agreed.
We drank our lattes and curled into each other. Decker pulled up his phone and I leaned over him, expecting us to watch some reels together, like we often do when we’re doing nothing else. He opened Instagram and looked at his own profile, not saying why. I got a little feeling in the pit of my stomach, a not completely pleasant one, before he moved on and opened the reels to watch.
—[]—
Monday at the office, Tony came in with an immediately visible lack of energy. I recognized the emotional hangover. The dude had taken a male ass and had to confront that, or whatever his version of that is.
He sat at the cluster and opened his laptop and looked at his screen without saying anything to the rest of us. “No weekend recap?” Sophie asked, smirking while she kept her eyes on her own screen.
Tony just glanced at her. “Nothing to report.”
“No conquest highlights? No unsolicited anatomical commentary?” she added, amused at his change in behavior. She didn’t normally mess with him like this. It was her own subtle payback. Decker and I just chuckled, keeping to ourselves.
Tony just sat there and worked, drinking his coffee and staring at his screen, typing slowly.
Around ten-thirty Decker got up and came back from the coffee cart with three cups and set one in front of Tony.
Tony looked at the cup. Then he looked at Decker, his eyes glassy.
"Thanks man," Tony said.
"Yeah," Decker said as he re-opened his laptop.
—[]—
Around mid-morning I ended up at the coffee machine at the same time as Tony, which had probably happened a hundred times this summer but hit different today. He was at the counter with his back to me, waiting for the machine, still uncharacteristically quiet.
I poured my coffee out of the carafe and stood next to him.
"Hey, did you see that thing about Cam Briggs?" I said, keeping it casual.
He looked over. "The linebacker?"
"Yeah. Said in some interview that he hooked up with a guy in college once." I shrugged. "Said everyone should try it at least once."
Tony looked at me. "No way. Really?"
"Yeah," I said. "Makes you think."
He was quiet for a second, looking at his coffee cup, showing the faintest hint of a smile.
"Yeah," he said.
—[]—
By lunch Tony had started to recover. I could see the “Tony” part of him starting to crack through again, making me feel somewhat relieved internally.
The volume came back first, then the subject matter, and by mid-afternoon he was describing his weekend to Sophie’s uninterested ears, in the version he had edited for general audiences, which he delivered with total conviction. Sophie looked annoyed, even though technically, she had asked for it.
“That girl had me blue-balled to hell,” he said, “Then I just crashed with Dick and Necker. Nick and Decker. Whatever.”
I chuckled at the mistake. Decker didn’t seem to notice, successfully tuning him out.
"Next weekend, I’ll take any hole I can find," he went on, with a new sort of confidence.
Sophie looked up from her screen with her irritated expression, patient and faintly incredulous. I knew she was one of the smartest people in the room, and it hit me in that moment that she had probably made peace with having to deal with the “Tony” types a long time ago.
"Maybe try a guy," she said. “They have holes too.”
Decker and I looked at each other, then back at our screens.
Tony met her gaze for a beat. I expected him to self-implode again, but instead he smirked slightly.
"Who says I haven't?" he said, turning back to his screen.
Sophie blinked once, slowly. I couldn’t tell if she was surprised at the tacit admission, or just vexed that her taunt had failed. She went back to her work without saying anything more.
I looked at my screen and kept my face completely still, and felt Decker doing the same thing three feet away from me, the two of us holding it together by the thinnest possible margin, the way we had been doing everything all summer.
—[]—
That night we ordered food and sat on the couch, and the TV was on and neither of us was really watching it.
I had been thinking about the Instagram thing since Saturday, or at least actively putting off thinking about it.
"Hey," I said.
He looked at me.
"The Instagram thing," I said. "I didn't answer that right."
He was quiet for a second. "It's fine," he said.
"I know you keep saying that."
"Because it is."
"No, but..."
He looked at the TV. The show kept going.
"I got scared," I said. "I’m kind of a pussy.”
He chuckled, and turned to look at me as I went on.
“I said the wrong thing, and I've been thinking about it since you said it.”
His face was somewhat careful.
"What's the true answer," he said.
"I don't know yet," I said, hearing myself getting louder, real feelings tugging at my throat. "But it's not that I don't care. It's the OPPOSITE of that."
He nodded slowly. He looked back at the TV.
"Okay," he said.
It wasn't forgiveness, and it wasn't closure but it was a door left open, and I sat with it. I leaned into him and he put a hand on my thigh, and I told myself that it was enough for tonight.
—[]—
When we went to bed, I lay there for a bit in the dark, listening to him settle beside me in his routine way of taking twenty minutes to fall asleep, going through the same set of rotations of his body until he finally turned onto his left side and his breathing dropped into sleep sounds.
I looked at the back of his head and thought about all the things I could say to him about how I felt, and how strange it felt for me for anyone else to know those feelings existed.
His breathing slowed, and I could hear him quietly breathing.
My phone buzzed once on the nightstand. I hadn’t set it to sleeping mode yet.
I wasn’t tired yet. I picked it up.
It was an email from the internship program. And automated, formal, note with reliably bureaucratic language, clearly labeling it as both official and slightly not real. It was about move-out procedures, what to do with the key and the rental agency when our internship ended “On August 23.”
The specific date was rendered in plain text.
August twenty-third.
I read it twice. It made me feel almost nauseous. I didn’t even realize why at first. Then I set the phone down and looked at the ceiling and felt the information land in my chest while I did some math in my head, picturing the calendar that had been on the wall of my Kindergarten class. Whenever I had to calculate dates, that same imprinted image came to my head, even if the numbers land on different days of the week now.
I remembered the color of each month on that thing. It had hung there all year. November was orange. August was green. June was blue. January was Pink. July was purple.
We were in July now. August twenty-third was five rows down.
Five weeks.
I lay there and turned it over in my head. Five weeks of this apartment, the couch I had gotten used to, this bed I’m sleeping in every night. Five weeks of his arm finding me in the dark in the middle of the night and adding some color to my usually lonesome sleeping arrangement, and the shared Cokes, and his voice being the first sound I heard in the morning. Five weeks before we packed our bags and went back to our schools in our very different cities and became whatever we were going to be without the summer holding us together.
I lay there for a long time. Decker was deeply asleep.
A new fear hit me, and it took me a while to realize what it was. I was afraid that I would lose what I had gained this summer. I was afraid of losing the big piece of man meat that I had gotten attached to.
Then I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder.
He opened his eyes slowly.
I pulled gently and he turned, rolling onto his back, and I moved and climbed on top of him, settling my weight against his, our bodies finding the arrangement they knew. He put his hands on my hips and looked up at me and I looked down at him, quiet for a moment.
"I love you," I said.
His lips curled slightly. He had enjoyed hearing that. There was warmth in his face, and peace. He wasn’t exactly sentimental, but I knew deep down that he had been waiting to hear those words from me, in that order, without a qualifier attached.
"You're just," he said, and stopped. He tried again. His voice came out quieter than usual. "You're just the most important thing in the world to me."
I felt a quick pain in my throat, a tension. I looked at the ceiling for a second and then back at him, and felt my eyes fill with a little water, betraying my proud nature of keeping everything light.
"I'm sorry I freaked out," I said, wiping one eye.
He shook his head.
"I love you," he said to me, reaching up to wipe my other eye with his thumb.
He made another sound, the slightly-too-tired half laugh he does when he’s been awoken prematurely.
I laughed at myself. He laughed at me too, which was the right response.
"Let's post it," I said. "Instagram, Facebook, fucking LINKEDIN I don’t give a shit, I genuinely do not give a single fuck. We’re official."
He paused for a moment, smiling up at me, his perfect jawline visible in the dim light through the window.
"Who cares," he said quietly.
I dropped down and kissed him and he kissed me back, and we slowly rolled to our sides as a unit, our mouths locked onto each other, his arms staying around me.
I don’t know when the kissing ended and the sleep began.
Outside the window the city kept moving, the way it always did, indifferent and relentless, full of people who had no idea what was happening up here on the fourteenth floor of a Murray Hill apartment building, two college boys who had come here for a summer internship and ended up discovering more than they expected.