I hated watching him walk away like this, and I seriously considered blowing off Gus to try and help Archer out. It occurred to me as I was considering that my feelings for Archer were probably deeper than what I liked to pretend they were. I put my head back on the back of the couch, sighing deeply and closing my eyes. I only looked up again when I heard the door to the outside open up and Gus come down the steps.
“Hey hot stuff,” Gus said as he dropped his bag on the ground and came over to sit next to me. He pulled me up onto his lap as soon as he was settled, putting his arms around me. “Everything alright?” he asked as he started kissing my neck, pulling my shirt off me.
I nodded my head. “Fine. I’m glad you’re here.”
“I want to ravage you,” he groaned into my ear as his hand slipped into my pants.
“Gus,” I moaned.
“Come on,” Gus groaned again. “We’ve been seeing each other for a little bit now. When are you going to let me get in that tight ass of yours?”
I pulled away from him for a moment. “I want to go slow. I’ve never had sex and I want my first time to be…I don’t know, special. Important.”
“Virginity is a human construct,” Gus said to me.
“Well yeah but it’s still important to me,” I replied. “I kind of want to be able to say I love the person before I have sex, you know?”
“That’s so juvenile,” he said.
“Gus, come on,” I said, rubbing his shoulders. “Let’s start slow. We can start with oral and go from there, see how we feel.”
He looked disappointed but seemed to accept it. I listened to the stairs for a moment, making sure no one would come in and find us like this, before I slipped down to my knees on the floor, unzipping his pants and pulling them down until his cock was free.
He put his hand on my head, running it through my bright red mohawk as I hesitantly started licking along his length, using my tongue along his slip for a moment, tasting the salty precum before I went back down to lick and suck along his balls. He groaned and let his head fall back, and I licked back up his length and took the tip of his hard and thick cock into my mouth.
It was my first time giving a blow job, but I had watched more than enough gay porn to get the idea, and I worked on opening up my mouth and throat to take most of his length, bobbing up and down on him. I went back down, trying to put as much of him into my mouth as possible, and he groaned and dug his fingers into my scalp, pushing me down onto him. I hummed happily, glad I was doing a good job, and that seemed to make it even better for him.
He gripped my head with both hands now, thrusting in and out of my mouth as I moaned around him. I could tell his orgasm was building by the way he tensed his stomach muscles and pelvis. Gus cried out softly as he came, pumping his hot cum into the back of my throat. I swallowed as best I could, not wanting to choke, and then sucked lightly on his oversensitive head until I made sure every single drop was sucked down.
“Are you sure you haven’t done that before?” he asked me.
I smiled up at him before getting up and slipping back onto his lap. “First time, but I’m a quick study.”
Gus kissed me again, pulling me close to him before breaking the kiss and helping me move off of him. “I have to go. The basketball team is having a party, but I’ll see you later?”
That meant Archer would be going too, and I silently cursed myself for not taking more time to make sure he was okay. I nodded at Gus and he gathered his things before leaving through the basement door to the outside. I waited until I heard his car leave and then slowly climbed the stairs of the basement up to where the main bedrooms were. Dorothy always told me I could come to the kitchen to eat or get a drink any time, and chill with her grandkids, so I went up to Archer’s door and knocked.
I heard Archer call out to come in, so I opened the door and peeked my head in, smiling at him as he pulled on a shirt, looking amazing. He was wearing nice blue jeans and was currently buttoning up a dark blue button up shirt over a tank top. He turned to look at me and smiled.
“Did Gus already leave, or did he ditch you?” Archer asked.
“He left,” I replied with a sigh. “Apparently you guys have some sort of basketball party or something.”
Archer nodded his head. “That’s what I’m getting ready for. If you weren’t in the closet, I would tell you that you should come with us. Plenty of players will have their girlfriends there.”
“I can’t let that get back to my parents or sisters,” I told him glumly.
“Eventually, you’re going to have to make the decision to live your life for yourself and not your parents,” Archer said with a frown.
“I know,” I sighed quietly. “I can’t do it while he can still kill me though. I’ll just go far away for college and gay it up as much as I want.”
“Wouldn’t he take away funding for your school if he found out?” Archer asked me.
I frowned at that. “Probably, yes, but there are a lot of resources for kids in my situation, so I guess it would work out.”
Archer looked at me with concern. It wasn’t a pity, because that wasn’t an emotion Archer had ever felt for me. It was just complete and total worry about my safety and wellbeing, and my happiness, and it made my heart feel like it was being squeezed in my chest. I looked into his bright blue eyes, wanting so badly to kiss him, but I kept my head about me and smiled at him instead.
“I should let you get to your party,” I said quietly and then turned to leave.
“Jason?” he said, making me turn back around when I got to the door to his room. “Just be careful about Gus. I know you think you have everything figured out, and that you know better than we do, but I’ve known this guy for a while, and I don’t trust him.”
I thought about how pushy Gus had been today and nodded once before heading back down to the basement to grab my stuff and head home. The next week or so was the same as it had been, with Gus and I meeting up to make out, and sometimes I would suck him off, and occasionally he would reciprocate. I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with how pushy he was being about sex, and I was beginning to see cracks in the exterior of who I thought he was.
The more I didn’t do what he wanted, the angrier he got. He was also incredibly upset that he had to hide our relationship, and while I understood why he was, I was trying to tell him just how bad it would be if my parents found out. He didn’t seem to believe me though. The few times I went to their basketball games, Gus completely ignored me, angry that I wasn’t willing to just come out for him, so it was really only Archer that would smile at me.
“You know that you’re in love with him, right?” Varick asked me from my right as we sat in the stands. They didn’t like going to the games either, but they did for me.
“Gus?!” I demanded.
Varick snorted. “No. Archer.”
I gave him a sideways look. “What makes you say that?”
“Are you kidding me?” Zach laughed.
“Dude,” Nigel said with a shake of his head.
“What?” I demanded.
“All any of us have to do is see the way you look at him,” Varick explained. “You’ve been in love with him for a long time.”
“I have a crush on him,” I admitted. “That’s not love.“
“I think you’re trying to downplay how you feel about the man,” Nigel said matter-of-factly. “He’s single now, and you would be if you dropped that load of trash.”
“Guys,” I chided.
“Just do some soul searching,” Varick told me. “I think Gus is just a placeholder for what you actually want, and by what I mean who.”
My friends were nothing if not intuitive when it came to me. I went home that night, locking myself in my bedroom with my lights off after doing homework and thought about what they said. I spent the entire night thinking about Archer, and how I felt about him, and when I finally fell asleep, I had dreams about him. I awoke the next morning having to admit to myself that my friends were right.
I got dressed slowly that day, still kind of trudging along when Archer pulled up as I was walking to the bus stop and motioned for me to join them. This was our normal morning routine. I would walk to the bus stop, and if he didn’t catch me before the bus came, then he would tell me to get in the car and he’d drive me. I smiled at him and got into the car, looking out the window trying to figure out how to have this conversation with Gus. I was already feeling like I wanted to break up anyway, but it added an extra layer of anxiety knowing that part of it was because of Archer.
“You okay?” Archer asked me.
I nodded slowly. “I’m breaking up with Gus today.”
He turned to look at me in surprise before putting his eyes back on the road. “What made you decide to do that?”
“A lot of things, honestly,” I replied, looking out the window at the houses passing by. “He’s really pushy about sex, he doesn’t take no for an answer, he’s been really on my case about coming out and acting like I’m exaggerating about how bad that would be, and…honestly, I kind of like someone else.”
“Is he gay?” Archer asked me.
I gave him a sideways glance. “He’s queer, yes.”
“Does he like you?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Honestly, that part of the reason is the least of the reasons, though it’s still important.”
Archer nodded at me. “Well, if you need anything, like help or an ear to listen, I’m here for you. You’re my best friend, you know.”
I smiled at him. “I know. Thank you, Archer.”
I went through the day kind of in a haze, paying attention to class as much as I could. We got through practice too, though my bandmates all told me that I seemed off today. I agreed with them and told them I’d be back to my normal performance by tomorrow. They just had to give me a little leeway right now.