It must've been ten minutes into the 'movie' when I got out my cigarettes and lit one, desperately wanting something else to focus on for a bit. Not that I was disgusted, because I seriously surprised myself by finding it no worse than het porn. And I was reacting to it as strongly as I would het. This surprised me and emberrassed me to no end. Hence, the cig, which I focused all of my brain capacity on. Inhale, exhale, a shallow breath of regular air, inhale again, exhale, repeat ex number of times, flick off the ashes.
Focusing on something as completely routineous as smoking a cigarette got old quickly and my eyes were drawn back to the TV screen. And I think my face would've flushed at the view, but somehow I think my blood had headed to other places. Thank God for thick covers.
My hands were starting to experience urges to go places and relieve myself, but doing that to gay porn in front of another guy would just be too emberrassing, so I bit my lip slightly and focused my hand on holding the cig.
The moment I was done smoking the first one I lit the next.
Matt was chuckling from his own bed and I think I managed to blush a bit at the thought that he most likely knew everything about my predicament. But how on Earth could he be so cool and calm about watching this when he was the gay one?
"Just wait a couple of years and the teenage hormones won't be teenage anymore, which'll make it a bit easier to control," he replied, confirming my suspicions that he knew exactly what a certain bodypart of mine was 'up' to beneath the sheets.
So, I took another resort and closed my eyes to block out the images that were doing things to my body I'd never wanted to happen in a situation such as this.
But completely unbidden imaged roamed my mind as my eyes closed. The sounds were still there and since I no longer had any visual imput, my mind decided to fill out the blanks with something that was familiar. And in a rush that night came back to me, the memories tearing through me and making my breathing shallow and slightly too quick. A half-dark room, clothes strewn everywhere, two familiar shapes on a bed, lips on lips, dark chocolate eyes staring lovingly at me through a daze, hips on hips, the inexplicable feeling as he crashed into my prostate.
I opened my eyes with a gasp, managing to hold back as my member threatened to expell its load. I took a deep drag of my nearly forgotten cigarette and hurried to flick some ash off before it fell off on the covers on its own account.
A light sheen of sweat was covering my whole body and my erection was straining painfully against my boxers.
I decided the only reasonable thing to do would be to look some other way and think of things that most definitely wouldn't do this to my body... Spencer's grandmother when we were sixteen and on our way to practice in her living room and she opened the door in her underwear... cold showers... sleeping with my head resting on the edge of the toilet bowl for obvious reasons... Spencer forcing me to throw up... It was working!... The time when Brent had eaten ten burgers in Mickey D's for a bet... Callie all red and gooey when I saw her for the first time... Falling and scraping my knee as a kid, shit I always hated that one... That bet that had me kissing the ugly girl of my year in grade five... Kissing... Kissing Brendon... Doing other things with... SHIT!
Alright, was it bad to want nothing more than to disappear right at that moment? My member had finally relaxed, but my boxers stuck to my skin for obvious reasons and I was panting again.
Matt, though, had the tact not to laugh again and not to look at me as all the blood that was no longer otherwise preoccupied rushed to my face, giving me that annoying blush that came so easily to me.
After a moment of sitting there to regain control of my breathing and my shaking body, I finally got out of the bed and on insecure legs waded to my bag and found a pair of clean boxers, doing my best to keep them out of view from the other guitarist although I was sure he knew exactly what had happened.
Then I went into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, shrugged off the sticky boxers and dried myself off with some toilet paper before putting on the fresh pair of boxers and throwing the old into the zink. Then I turned on the water and let them soak through before scrubbing lightly, all the time feeling fourteen again. Then, finally done with the boxers, I placed them on the heater along the wall, fixed up my tee and bit and went back into the main room on bare feet.
I slumped back into my bed, deliberately avoiding looking at Matt.
"Stop blushing," he suddenly ordered.
And then I had to turn and look at him, raising an eyebrow.
"There's nothing emberrassing about that," he added. "I'm not going to judge you, I'm not telling anyone and I'm not going to call you gay, so relax."
We were silent for minutes.
I'd lit another smoke and was still not looking at the TV. I also did my best to block out the sounds.
"What if I am, though?" I finally blurted.
"Still not judging you," he answered. "But that could also have been called a case of the pot calling the kettle black."
I gave a slight chuckle. "Am I?" I asked.
He gave me a look of disbelief before bursting out laughing. "How the hell should I know? You fulfill the criterias, if you can say that, but if you don't know who you are, how can I? I barely even know you."
I flushed over again, looking lightly at my cig before inhaling once more. "I guess," I answered vaguely, not really knowing how to respond.
"But if you want I can introduce you to the culture once you're out of bed again." He gave me a small, humorous half-smile. "I'll be your guide on the road to self-discovery," he added. Then looked thoughtful for a moment. "Now I sound like a life-style guru."22
I managed to laugh at him. Once again he'd managed to lighten the mood with a few short sentences and I was grateful.
"Now. Let's watch. That's the reason I bought this thing," he added, turning back to the TV.
With a sigh I turned back to the TV as well, now having no clue at all as to where we were in the plot. If there even was a plot, which I kind of doubted. So I leaned back, dreading the effect the film was having on my body only to realise that shit had become worse.
Once again my mind seemed to be working on over-load and it was screwing with the 'actors'. It didn't help that they were both dark-haired or that the makers of the porn had apparently decided to play on some people's attraction to teenage boys, because none of those people had looked any older than me and there were none of the over-pumped bodies I might have expected from something like this.
I think you understand what I'm trying to get at. My head was no longer limiting itself to playing tricks on me when I closed my eyes, it was placing familiar faces on the people in the film. One of which I saw every day in the mirror. Another one which I saw every day as well. You get what I mean, don't make me spell it out for you.
With this realisation my breath stuck in my throat and to avoid repeating the incident from a while earlier I ate my pride and cleared my throat.
"What?" Matt asked.
"Can we please not watch anymore right now?" I asked in something close to a low whimper.
He laughed at me, loudly and heartily. "I was wondering how long that would take," he admitted cheekily, but got off his bed and turned off the DVD.
I flushed for the umpteenth time that day and to my own great annoyance, but didn't bother replying. He's comment had sounded pretty rhetorical anyway.
"So, what did it do for you?" he asked, sounding more serious now.
"You SAW what it did to me," I muttered.
"No, no." He laughed he laughed again. "I'm talking in your mind, not your pants."
Cue for me to blush again, I was feeling so incredibly awkward at the moment that once again I just wished to disappear off the surface of the Earth.
"Alright," he said when I didn't answer. "I have a couple of things I need to admit. Spencer said that you were confused, but he also said that Brendon might be involved. And we had that conversation yesterday, I just wasn't supposed to start working with you until you were back on your feet because your health is delicate or something. So I went down to get something and when I saw this I could see that there was a light visual resemblance between the two of you and those two." He gestured with his head back towards the TV. "Then, on his way to the interview, Spencer called and said that you'd said something that made him think you were ready. So I came down here. And I knew that the porn would be easy for your mind to work with." He smiled slightly again. "It's not even that hardcore, though." Once again he looked like he was mulling things over in his head. "Actually, not at all," he added.
That just made me blush again, because I was too much of a hormonal teenager to even be able to watch softcore porn.
"So," he said. "How did your mind process it?"
I didn't answer.
He sighed exasperatedly. "What did it make you think of?"
"Bren," I answered in an emberrassed whisper, feeling more flushed than ever.
"Oh," he said with a smile. "That's what I expected, but you know it's logical enough. He IS kind of hot if you're into the whole doll-face thing."
"But you know," I objected. "It's probably just because he's the only guy I've ever done anything with. I mean, those were the only visuals I had of anything before."
He nodded. "That may be, but I think you need to realise that you're, if nothing else, at the very least physically attracted to Brendon Urie. I'm not saying you neccesarily have any feelings for him other than friendship. I'm not even saying that you're gay, because you have the age to be going through an experimental period, but you are physically attracted."
"I guess so," I admitted mutteringly.
"I know so," he countered. "And now I'm going to head out. I promised Derek and Sonny I'd go with them somewhere to get coffee and I think you could use some alone time to think."
I nodded slowly, leaning back against my pillows. "Or I'll just sleep," I suggested.
He shrugged. "That's up to you, but I believe thinking would do you more good in the long run."
******
I'd been thinking for about half an hour without reaching any conclusions other than how Matt was right when I heard the lock. Why on Earth did everybody have the key to my room?
Then I spotted the DVD case on Matt's bed and scooted over to pick it up and throw it underneath my bed, before I lay back down in my own bed quickly, pulling the covers up to my ears. I wasn't in the mood to face anybody. Least of all...
"Hey Ry, I thought I'd check on you." ...Brendon.
I flushed immediately upon realising that he was the one who'd entered. How on Earth could I face him after what had happened during the movie?
"You alright?" he asked as I felt the bed give into his weight a bit as he sat down on the edge of it.
"No, I don't feel good," I muttered, lying through me teeth. I was rapidly getting better and that day I had barely been able to understand why I had to stay in bed.
"What's wrong?" he asked, with concern lacing through his voice.
I immediately regretted saying I wasn't feeling well, I hadn't wanted to worry him.
"Stomach," I lied. Well, I didn't exactly lie. My stomach was acting up in the way it usually did when I was uncomfortable or emberrassed. You know, the butterflies, the negative ones, though?
"Come here," he muttered gently, kicking off his shoes before swinging his legs onto the bed so that he was next to me. Then he grabbed me beneath the arms and eased me up a bit so I was sitting with the back of my head against his chest.
I looked up, bending my neck backwards to meet his eyes for a fleeting second. I took the short time I needed to see that they were outlined by black kohl the way they usually were when we did anything official.
Then I looked back down again, feeling nearly guilty for my thoughts earlier. I just hoped I managed to hide my blush as I let my half-long, dead-straight hair fall down in front of my face.
"Just relax, alright," he muttered. "I'm sure it'll stop hurting in a moment."
I think he was still very unsure of limits when it came to touching and all that, which was understandable enough. I mean, for one night I'd allowed every boundary in the book to be removed and now that we were back to friends I think he was afraid I'd bite his head off even for touching me in a way that had seemed completely natural prior to the incident.
Hence, he simply had his arm around me, where a few months earlier he'd have been rubbing my stomach in an attempt to calm it down.
I guess we'd always been kind of touchy-feely for two guys who were just friends, but I'd always felt secure around him and in a way I'd needed that closeness because while I was older and that did make a difference, did make me the one who always struggled to take care of him, he'd always been able to make me feel comfortable and at ease by barely trying. I guess the 'taking care of' part was a two-way street.
And I missed the part of it that had disappeared in our second time of being friends. He'd always been able to reassure me with a single touch, but he couldn't do that now as he was seemingly almost afraid to touch anything but my arms and whatever he had to touch to carry me when that was neccesary.
"Better?" he asked after a while.
Once again I bent my neck back to look at him, somehow less flushed and uncomfortable now. Then I nodded.
"Good," he replied, sending me a small, testing smile.
His face was extremely close to mine, and I was by every fragmented second realising that Matt had been right. If nothing else then at least there was a sharp, strong physical attraction, there was no denying that anymore.
And I seriously don't know what possesed me to do what I did, I think all thought I had was lost in an unbidden whirlwind of secret, erotic images for my mind's eyes and I shot my face up the two inches needed to crash my lips against his for just a single second.
How he made it out to be his fault, I don't know. Perhaps he'd been imagining doing just that and thought he'd actually done it without thinking. Whatever it was, he thought he'd initiated the kiss. And I wasn't about to correct him, that would demand some explanations that I wasn't ready to give, so when he blushed and turned his face away, stuttering out apologies, I quickly told him it didn't matter and leaned back against his chest, my cheek against it this time.
I shot a short look upwards to see, for the first time ever, a blush decorating Brendon's smooth, newly shaved cheeks, and I could barely hold back a laugh at it. It was adorable.
I always found it funny how people dubbed me the innocent one, but then I guess they didn't know us, because no matter how young and innocent I looked, I'd been presented to the so-called cruelties of the world at an early age. I'd lost my trust in families at eight when my father started hitting me, I'd lost my trust in the church I'd been brought up to serve after realising as the ever-wise child I'd been that I'd never ever be able to live up to anything it asked of me. And lately I'd even let sex become about someplace, where wasn't really important, to bury my cock. That's seriously not what I'd call innocent. Brendon, on the other hand, had grown up in a protected environment, protected from the truths about the world. His parents' plans for his life had been for him to become a Mormon priest and he'd only rebelled against that pretty late. I'm still quite sure I was the only person he'd ever had sex with and that obvious innocence was even more profound in the emberrassed way he'd look to those who knew him every time my songs forced him to utter the word 'fuck' in public and the way he'd hide his nerves behind a cheesy smile when girls screamed in delight at being in his mere precence. The difference, the way appearances never are to be trusted was clear in my mind and in that moment more so than ever.
But somehow that innocence was part of what was so attractive about him, and somehow those images I'd never called for were still running through my head and that urgent attraction was doing things to my body again.
"Ryan?" he said lowly.
"Huh?" I looked up only to realise that while one of my hands was playing innocently with his tie the other had, without the consent of my mind, had slipped beneath his blue button-up and was absentmindedly stroking the skin of his side. "Oh, sorry," I muttered, quickly withdrawing it and getting myself into an upright position, sitting next to him instead of half-way on him.
"Don't play with me," he whispered. It was barely audible and it was more of a whimper than anything else and when I looked into his eyes I could see a longing and a hurt sadness so profound that it nearly broke my heart.
Damned be my hormones!
I took a deep, calming breath and gave him a nod although the lower parts of my body were telling me to simply use him for release then and there. He probably wouldn't have minded too much either if I'd thrown in a lie or two, but I couldn't do that to him. I cared too much about him to use him for release or even to experiment. I needed to figure myself out but he couldn't have any part in that because if I wound up finding out I was straight or even that I was gay but not in love with him I'd hurt him so much more than I already had and I simply loved him too much to do that.
But it WAS in that moment I decided to forsake my upbringing, to let go of my father's manipulating words once and for all, break free and find myself. I needed to figure me out and I would no longer dread any possible outcome.