Between Boyfriends. Michael Salvatore
what happened. Fuck Counter started fucking me and I was mentally airlifted to that place you think is only attainable for dewy Bel Ami models and their siblings and then I started to hear mumbling. I assumed Fuck Counter was being airlifted to the same place I was about to enter and he’d chosen to speak in tongues to the Bel Ami children. Then I realized he wasn’t mumbling words, but consecutive numbers, and by the time he got to twenty-five I realized he was counting the number of times he had entered my ass. I felt like a Tootsie Roll Pop and he was the Owl trying to figure out how many thrusts it would take to get to my center. I tried to turn off my ears, but the Owl’s counting only grew louder and my erection softer.
“Are you actually counting cock thrusts?” I finally asked.
“Forty-seven, remember that number,” Fuck Counter ordered before pausing, but not exiting. “I tend to ejaculate prematurely. So my therapist suggested I count thrusts to control my sperm and teach myself not to come until I reach a certain number.”
I digested this information like a sexual trouper who has seen much and done some.
“And are we approaching that magic number?” I queried.
“Well, my personal best is one-fifty-three, but your ass is pretty tight, so I don’t know if I can make it that long,” said Fuck Counter with a dopey grin.
In spite of my disappointment that he’d broken one of my cardinal rules and used the word sperm during sex, I’m a sucker for a challenge as well as a dopey grin. I felt my inner Mary Lou Retton grow along with my dick, and I tried to loosen up my inner ass. However, as my proctologist once told me, “Steven, you have the sphincter of a straight man.” I had to face facts: my asshole is tight. If I couldn’t help Fuck Counter by loosening up my ass, I’d have to help him another way.
“You want to count thrusts, boy?” I bellowed.
Fuck Counter was startled at first, but quickly realized I was totally on his side and willing to act as his sex coach.
“Sir! Yes sir!”
“Well, counting costs. And right here’s where you start paying. In sweat!”
I kept shouting like Debbie Allen instructing dancers whose only chance at fame would be as chorus members of the bus and truck tour of Fiddler on the Roof starring Eddie Mekka and it seemed to do the trick. Fuck Counter was energized. His hands gripped my ankles like two vises, his face became a mask of focused concentration, and his dick swelled.
“Fifty-five!” he shouted.
With each thrust his shouting got louder, so by the time he reached 178 I could swear I heard the parade watchers outside counting along with him. Soon he gasped, “Two hundred and ten,” orgasmed, and collapsed on top of me in a pile of muscle and sweat. His body felt wonderful and I rode an emotional roller coaster lying underneath him as I realized Fuck Counter could be a fun boyfriend if he wasn’t so fucked up. Once I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t explore this relationship emotionally, but only numerically, I was able to shoot my load and rush back to catch the end of the parade leaving Fuck Counter to clean up.
Heading to the Club M dressing room with my size-32 distressed jeans I walked by Fuck Counter and gave him a smile that said, “Hey, how are you doing?” “You look great,” and “Glad to see you’re alive and well, but I have no desire to get naked with you again.” Comprehending my silent comments, Fuck Counter just leaned into me and whispered, “I’m up to three-twenty-five.”
As I entered the dressing room, I carried not only my merchandise, but also an unexpected erection. Shopping satisfies on so many levels.
By the time I got to J. Crew, I had five bags and felt like Joan Collins sauntering down Rodeo Drive, if Joan Collins carried her own bags, which everyone knows is an activity relegated to a paid employee, i.e., her husband. I clutched one side of the J. Crew door as another good-looking Sunday-strolling gay retail whore clutched the other. Much to my joy I realized it was my best friend, Flynn McCormack.
“Ahhh!” Flynn shrieked.
“Ahhh!” I shrieked back.
“Bad night?” Flynn asked, eyeing my bags.
“Yes,” I confessed. “But now I’m in love.”
“Ooh, baby got bounce. I want to hear all about it, but first Mama needs some argyle.”
Steven Ferrante and Flynn McCormack would make the perfect homo-couple if only we were in love. But, alas, some things are just not meant to be. I met Flynn when we were both at Boston University and he was an out-of-the-closet junior and I was a please-don’t-unlock-the-closet-door freshman. Mutual friends set us up on a blind date not so much because they thought we’d be compatible, but because they knew Flynn would rip open my closet door and fling me out into the real world like a skilled obstetrician ripping a baby from the comfort and security of its mother’s womb. And that’s just what Flynn did. He reached into my symbolic vagina and yanked out my true self. He was the first person who taught me what it really meant to be out and proud. And even though we physically looked like a couple you’d be jealous of—Flynn’s auburn hair, freckled cheeks, pale complexion, and six-foot-two swimmer’s body perfectly complemented my dark brown locks, olive skin, high cheekbones, and five-foot-ten nicely muscled frame—there were no real romantic sparks between us. We did engage in a hot make-out session that resulted in my first facial burn, which still makes me wistful whenever I think about it, but something better than romantic sparks grew out of our first meeting, a flame of friendship that still burns to this very day. No one knows me better than Flynn and no one knows Flynn better than me, so for better or worse we’re stuck with each other, which is just the way we both like it.
“Did you measure it?” Flynn asked in reference to Ely’s penis, as we walked further south on Fifth Avenue toward Washington Square, carrying multiple bags of queergotten merchandise.
“No, but when I went to stroke it, it got lost in my fist.”
“Ah jeez, poor guy. Perhaps I should send him this book I’m reading—You’re the Top: How to Be a Better Bottom in Twelve Easy Steps. It’s changed my life, it could change his.”
“Thank you, but I think it’s best if Ely and I go our separate ways.”
“Sometimes that’s best,” Flynn agreed, “like me and Andy.”
“I thought he was the new love of your life?”
“He was until I realized he’s a freak,” Flynn said. “Like every other man I’ve ever had, except you of course.”
“You never had me,” I corrected.
“I know,” Flynn said. “Just testing you in case this latest setback made you embellish your memories.”
“How thoughtful,” I said, then asked tentatively, “Did he get upset when you told him?”
“No, he was fine with that,” Flynn said.
“Good.”
Flynn has been HIV-positive for the past ten years and on occasion it has gotten in the way of a budding relationship. Fortunately, healthwise, Flynn has never had a serious problem. At first we were both frightened and devastated by his diagnosis, but those feelings quickly gave way to the survival instinct—we both wanted Flynn to live. So I helped him find a wonderful doctor who found the right combination of medicine; he got to the gym more often, started eating healthier and, most important, clung to his optimistic spirit. It’s what I love most about Flynn; he truly believes life is worth living. The only caveat being that there has to be good musical theater—so now that Cats has finally closed Flynn should live for a good long time.
“So what elevated Andy to freakdom?” I queried.
“Last night we were about to have sex for the first time,” Flynn began. “We’re on his bed and his dick is almost all the way in and he stops. I figure he wants to take it slow, which I love, so I close my eyes and get ready for him to crank up the volume, but there’s no sound.