A Friendly Nod – Gay Male

David panted in the dark.

The soft blue glow of the screen shone across his face. A sticky, crystal-clear mess spilled from his knuckles and down his naked thighs without him noticing. He whimpered with need. His hand pumped faster.

A man screamed mutely on the screen in front of him. The close-up showed his every bulging muscle and vein. But it was the man beneath him, the small one on all fours with his arms stretched out, he came first. A puddle sprayed out violently against the sheets between two hairy, quivering legs. Great white globs of mess were emptied out of him. All without a single hand needed to bring him there.

The edge hit David without warning. He let go his hand and bit down on a lip hard. Sweat beaded into his eyes as he teetered on the verge of orgasm. His skin was shaking. His breath left him. Pleasure boiled over him and he melted into the feeling of it.

Too close! He wasn’t ready for it to be done.

He doubled over and grabbed the dresser to steady himself. The hotel vanished around him. He held his breath in and willed himself back from the edge, inching his way out from the brink.

Little by little, the racing of his heart slowed. A trickle of sweat slipped down through his T-shirt. The sounds of the hotel and the guests around him crept back in. Honking returned from the streets below.

David gave an uneasy grin and wiped his hand clean on the bedsheets. He took a long drink of water and stripped his shirt off. With a lick of his lips, he started over again.

The light of early morning grew against the edge of the curtains. David’s legs went weak, and he moved over to a small table beside the window. He downed the last of his cup and shook his cramping hand loose. A stream of clear pre-cum flowed down his shaft and seeped into the fabric of the chair. It didn’t matter now. It was already wet with the sweat of his body. It reeked of sex and need, like every other inch of the room.

David’s body trembled. It trembled and wouldn’t stop. He sank deeper into the seat, savoring the moment.

It was the last day of his work trip. The last gasp of freedom. The last day before the mask came back on. He intended to make the most of it.

The sun had fully risen by the time the thrill of it faded. The next step was inevitable–all part of the routine.

He logged into the websites one by one, typing out logins and passwords he never dared to write down. Dozens of old messages were waiting for him, though not as many as he hoped. All from previous trips, previous times where the need had grown beyond passively watching. Men he had led along and made plans with, teased with promises he would never fulfill. Played with until David could blow his final, pent-up load. He’d howl and he’d lick up the mess on all fours, a middle finger buried down to the knuckle inside of him. All part of the routine.

And then David would close all of his browser tabs. He’d wipe the place down. He would sterilze it. With a long, hot shower, he’d purge the guilt and shame away from him. He could go back home feeling light as air. The need would be satisfied. For a time.

David updated his location and swung through the usual chat rooms. His profile photo was old. It wasn’t terribly impressive. He was medium height, weight, muscle, length… He didn’t show his face, but that was better than most of the empty profiles he was competing against. It didn’t take long to catch some attention.

“Want to call?” a stranger asked.

He blinked at the message for a moment.

There were rules. Rules that dictated the boundaries of normal, healthy porn. It was what let him explore his pleasure guilt-free.

The rules were that he could look -pictures, video. He could imagine. That was acceptable. It was just mental, after all. It was a base, animal need to be stoked. Images meant to trigger chemicals in the brain and get his cock hard. A trigger to empty his balls. What triggered them, or who, didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything beyond the momentary rush. It didn’t need labels.

And chatting with others online, that fell under the same fold. It was just another type of porn. They were vague strangers he would use to get himself off. He would send them photos of himself, because he enjoyed that, too. Then they would be left behind, their photos and words forgotten. His promises and confessions vanished as the cum washed down the drain.

They didn’t get to know the real him. They saw only the pictures he wanted them to see -never his face. Having a stranger see his hard, leaking cock was just another trigger. His promises to meet them at noon, at the bathroom on the corner, to suck their cock and swallow the load -it was all for his own pleasure. It was all as empty and innocent as porn.

But to actually call, and to hear another man’s voice… That was a step too far. That made it real.

His cock bubbled out a warm river of pre-cum just for daring to think about it.

Was it different, though? Why?

What harm would he be doing? They would be a faceless voice. They would exist only for his pleasure, and then they would be gone again. It was porn with the sound on.

But he didn’t want the call on his phone record. His eyes trailed over the hotel’s phone, sitting idly in its cradle.

Who would ever know?

It was only the sound of moaning and an orgasm. The same as a million videos he had seen before.

“Absolutely,” David wrote back.

His feet stretched out along the bed, and he dragged the phone closer, waiting for the number. An area code he didn’t recognize appeared on the screen, and he punched it out quickly.

The phone rang twice before it answered.

A low, husky voice met him on the other line. “Is your cock out?”

David grunted and moved the phone down to his hips. The wet sound of his hand slapping against flesh rang out.

He brought the phone back up and spoke in a half-whisper into it. “How about you?”

“I’m going to come over there and fuck you in the ass,” the stranger said. “I’m going to bend you over the bed and fuck that tight little asshole of yours open. You been with a man before?”

David swallowed hard and willed his hand to stop. The edge was already there again.

The other man didn’t wait for him to respond. “Maybe you got a wife. I don’t care. She can watch. I’ll fuck her afterward. You’re going to lick my cum out of her little bald cunt.

“I’m gonna… gonna- fuck!” the man howled. “Fuck!” he shouted out again.

There was the sound of motion. The line went dead. David blinked at the receiver.

For the first time since dawn, his cock wilted slightly against his hand, droplets spilling from the head.

“Wanna phone?” he asked the next man in line.

The conversations all ran about the same. They would fuck him. They would fuck his girlfriend. Or his wife. They didn’t care if she existed, they wanted her. To show their dominance over him. They would rape him while she watched. They would dress him up in his wife’s panties. They would make him marry their twelve inch cock. He wilted back down again. He was starting to get hungry.

“Hey there,” a new message popped up. “Lived here long?”

David wiped his hand clean and looked over the stranger’s profile. About his age, about his weight. They lived here in town, like most of the others had. He bent over and typed out a response. “Just visiting. Last day :/”

“Here for work?”

“Yeah. Was here the whole week,” David wrote back. He went and looked for snacks in his bag, but found only the last dregs of the week’s supplies.

“Did you like it? What was your favorite place in town?”

“I didn’t actually see much of it at all. Just the office and room service for me so far.”

“You’re breaking my heart!” the stranger wrote back. “Was the room service any good?”

“Not a bit. Any suggestions for my last night here?”

“Hmm. Depends a bit where you are.”

“The south part of the city, near the suburbs, I guess.”

“Oh, smart. Well, I grew up on Ray’s, if you want something quick and cheap. Let’s see… Italian? Asian? Mexican? Pubs? What do you like? There’s quite a lot over here.”

“Well, it’s still early, what about somewhere I can get a coffee and a sandwich?”

“Ha! That doesn’t narrow it down. Hm. There’s a place called Over Easy that does lunch. Has a lot of coffee options, if you’re into that.”

“I think I am,” David wrote back.

He strode to the bathroom and got a washcloth to wipe himself down as he waited for a reply. It was very strange to have a normal, human conversation in the middle of all this. But he had to eat. And the need felt momentarily satiated.

David wiped himself down a second time. The smell of it all seemed to cling to him. It was like a fog through the room. He nearly forgot to check back into his conversation.

“I could meet you there if you wanted,” the stranger wrote. There had been a long pause while David had puttered around. “Was that too forward?”

“Oh,” David replied.

It was all he could think to type for a moment.

“I haven’t really… done that before.”

“Same!” the other man wrote back. “I actually have a girlfriend. Is that a problem?”

“No.”

“I haven’t actually done anything with a guy before. I’m not sure I want to. I only started getting a bit… ‘curious’ recently. I thought it might be nice to meet up with other guys like me, to talk about it. Or movies, or whatever. lol What about you?”

David eased himself back onto the bed. “I’ve always been a little curious. But I’ve always only been with women. I only…. want to be with women.”

“I understand. It’s nice to talk about it, though. To think about it. I’m glad you’re not one of those guys who just wants to jerk off and disappear.”

David let go of his cock again, feeling guilty. “Yeah,” he wrote back.

“Well, I have an idea. Maybe this sounds silly, but if you did want to go get a coffee, I could go run over there, too. And we could just kind of…. nod to each other. And then go home. We wouldn’t have done anything wrong, or given ourselves away. We would, you know, have just taken that step. And see that it wasn’t so bad. Just like making another friend, you know?”

“A nod, that is bold,” David wrote out with a sneer. He immediately felt guilty and deleted it, though. Because it was bold. His heart was pounding faster at the thought of it.

A quick talk, an exchange of photos, that was all so… discrete. He could do it all from the dark shadows of his room without another soul knowing about it. Without leaving a trace of evidence.

But for someone to know this secret, to connect it with his face, that made it real. It put that information out into the real world. It left a trail back to who he truly was.

David’s hand was on his cock again. Clear liquid spilled from him once more. He watched it run down the back of his palm and drip into the carpet.

And he would have a face to connect it with, too. The face of a stranger he could have had, in some other life. A man who might be stroking himself to the memory of David’s face and body later that night. And David would remember that man’s face forever. It would be his own private well to return to again and again.

The two of them would have that and no one else would ever know it. No one else could ever prove it. He would be a face in a crowd. A single, harmless nod was nothing anyone could ever pin back on him. That couldn’t prove anything.

Was it really worse than chatting with a strange man online? To calling one on the phone? To watching men fuck in an endless parade of porn online? A simple nod across a crowded room?

“When can you come?” David wrote back.

“I’m already on my way. Look for a gray hoodie and a white shirt underneath. Clean shaven. Blonde hair, short. The hair is short, I mean.”

David bolted from the bed and dug through a half-packed bag, searching. A moment later, he dived back onto the bed. “Jeans, green shirt,” he wrote. “Black hair to my ears, glasses.”

The stranger sent back a winking emoji. David dressed faster, not giving his mind a chance to object.

“I won’t have my laptop,” David wrote back. “But I’ll look for you.”

The tabs were shut down. He wiped a damp cloth across the keyboard, imaging the last of the evidence washing away beneath it. Then he was off.

He found the restaurant a block and a half away. He spotted it from the end of the street and came to a stop, looking for signs of a gray hoodie, finding none.

The place was smaller than he hoped, with only a few tables inside. Most of them were empty, too. There wouldn’t be a crowd to hide in. There wouldn’t be distance between them at all.

All at once, it seemed like a very good idea to simply wait where he was on the street and watch from afar. He would still see the stranger. He could still have his fantasy. But, this way, the stranger would never see him. No one in the world could trace the meeting back to him. Hell, if he went back up and changed, if he took off his glasses, he could even be sure the other-

“Hey there, green shirt,” a voice called out from behind him.

David jumped.

He couldn’t tell if his heart had stopped or simply burst apart. His body was wet with sweat in a sudden flash. Goosebumps shot down his limbs in a trickling wave.

The other man watched him, looking caught between amusement and concern. “Are you okay?”

David nodded eagerly, hardly hearing it, and looked the man over: Gray hoodie, white shirt. He looked like any other guy on the street. Strangers passed them on the sidewalk without looking over.

“Yes,” he coughed. “Hi.”

“Hey, damn, I didn’t kill you, did I?” the other man asked cautiously.

David shook his head. “Give me a minute.”

“Having a change of heart?”

Reluctantly, with his eyes on the ground, David nodded. “Giving a change of heart a lot of serious thought, maybe.”

He raised his eyes and laughed. The worst had happened, and the world hadn’t ended. No one cared. The stranger was just an ordinary guy.

The man wasn’t even particularly attractive. There was only one part of a man that David found erotic. The rest didn’t interest him very much at all.

“Yes, I can see why you’d be intimidated,” the man grinned, stretching his lanky arms. He might have been in his late twenties or younger. He looked quite at ease with himself, given the circumstances. “Still hungry?”

David turned back toward the restaurant. He wanted to say no, but he couldn’t think of a reason now. Sweat trickled down his back, but he nodded.

“Still trying not to have a heart attack,” David said softly as he started to walk.

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry. It’s that bad? Should I have stuck with the nod?”

David shook his head. “No, I… I was going to run away. And I really don’t have any food.” He ran a hand across his empty belly.

“Yeah, I got the feeling. Kyle, by the way,” he said, gesturing to himself.

“George,” David muttered, clearing his throat.

Kyle nodded at him, his face blank.

David regretted it immediately. What if the cashier saw his credit card? What if they printed his name on the bill? He’d have to pay with cash now, he thought frantically.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. I meet with people around town all day long for work and, I can assure you, very few have died in my care.”

David nodded along. “So, you’re used to meeting people, just not…”

“…Meeting people,” Kyle said suggestively. “Yup. So, even if you don’t like your lunch, I think we can at least both say we did good work today.”

Kyle smiled widely and pulled open the restaurant’s door.

They ordered at the counter. Kyle let him go first. He paid with cash, and sank into a seat beside the window, all on his own. He gripped the scalding paper of his coffee cup and watched his hand shake the liquid inside.

It was done.

It was over. And he had gotten through it unscathed. Cautiously, he turned his eyes without moving his head, searching out the other man, defying the rules with a sudden boldness. But there was no sign of him.

Then, as quickly as he had vanished, Kyle appeared again. He sank into the seat across from David and gave a grin.

“Since we’ve already broken the ice, this is okay, right?”

David opened his mouth, unable to think of a response. He glanced around the other tables to see if anyone was watching, but no one looked back. With a quick nod, he turned back to the window. He sipped at his coffee, just for something to do, wincing as it burned his tongue.

“Well,” Kyle went on, “now you can say that you got to see a little bit of the city. What kind of work do you do?”

David shrugged. “Just… paperwork,” he muttered.

“Ah. Well, I’m sure it’s very impressive paperwork at that,” Kyle chuckled.

David licked his lips, ready to explain more, but he stopped himself. If the man knew what he really did, he could find out his job. He could trace it back and find out who David really was. The smallest slip could ruin everything.

“It’s pretty boring,” David told him.

“Ah. Is that why you ended up… you know?”

David shrugged.

He looked to check that the tables around them weren’t listening His cheeks burned against his eyes.

“Well, just two old friends eating a sandwich. It’s good to see you again. It’s been years, sir,” Kyle said, his voice rising enough to be overheard. He reached out for a handshake and gave David a wink.

David took it silently, and he gripped it tight. The skin was so warm. There were bristles of hair along the back of it. The strong muscles and tendons beneath. His eyes slid shut, committing it all to memory. He could picture that hand gripped around the base of his…

His eyes met the other man’s for the first time. Something stirred back to life between David’s legs.

Kyle’s hand slipped back away, and David tucked his own beneath the table. The other man’s leg glided forward, brushing up against David’s knee. No one saw it. No one in the world knew it had happened. Only them.

His breath was gone. A warm, tingling wave of pleasure slipped through him. His cock spilled out pre-cum against his leg as Kyle’s knee pressed again his own. The blush grew past his cheeks and gripped around his throat, cutting off the air.

The food arrived. David ignored it. He shut his eyes and let Kyle’s leg slip back and forth against his own, teetering him on the edge once more. His mouth filled with spit. His fingers trembled, desperate to reach out, to feel the warmth and muscle for themselves.

Little by little, David clawed his way back from the edge again. It was harder this time. Warm goo seeped into the fabric of his briefs and grew cold. But it didn’t seem to stop the trickle of it coming out.

He forced the food into his mouth without tasting it. He held his eyes on the world outside. He was lost in the slow stroke of the knee.

Kyle finished his meal first. He waited, then tossed away their trash and came back to the table.

“Ready?”

With a nod, they took their coffees outside. Slowly, they made their way back toward the direction they’d come from. In what felt like only a few steps, the hotel was back in view.

“Well, thank you,” David muttered.

“It was fun. Glad we could catch up, old friend,” Kyle walked on without slowing, throwing up a friendly wave as he left.

David opened his mouth to stop him, but the man was already gone.

And then he slowed.

“Actually,” Kyle said, spinning back around, “is there a bathroom inside I could use?”

David nodded quickly.

They passed through the lobby and hit the button for the elevator. They reached David’s room without a word or shared look.

It took three tries to unlock the door. Kyle slipped through without waiting. He apparently hadn’t been lying, though. He made right for the bathroom and left David standing alone outside, unsure of what to do, or what the other man intended.

He still hadn’t figured it out by the time Kyle stepped outside again. They gave each other sheepish grins.

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