Outlier, Chapter 9
Warning: Prepare to skim.
Chapter 9
Am I gay?
Reid was back in his chair, at his desk, in his office. He had yet to turn on the lights. As before, his laptop lay in front of him, but it, too, was dark. Though his body was in stasis, his mind was alight - sitting and staring, he saw nothing but felt everything. He was processing on a quantum level, existing in all states at once, was everywhere, nowhere, exactly in between. He untangled spinning thoughts as he sat, outwardly immobile, for an interval of time greater than a sleep cycle but less than enough. His recall was abstract at best, not quite solid on the details of the trip from MRI to office - perhaps involving rematerialization, perhaps the stairs. The frequency shift from ethereal to earthly was complicating coherence; Reid fought to focus.
Am I gay?
The question coalesced. Computation had commenced.
Let’s see - eighteen years of hot sex with women would suggest otherwise.
He pulled from his mind a quickly constructed woman. He could see her, long hair tickling, graceful slopes and swells. He could smell her swirling florals, her subtle sweetness. He could taste the salted silk of heated skin.
But he felt Luke. Still. The warm, soft, slightly parted lips; the light suction as those lips moved inward; the tingling, lingering cool left on Reid’s skin from the moist heat of Luke’s mouth, his breath. Reid held the hand stiffly, moving it gingerly, as if afraid to dislodge a manifest memory.
Right. Bi, then?
In the interest of science, he forced himself to be ruthless. Really, Reid? Never? You’ve never been attracted to a man? He thought back to Dallas, to his residency, to med school, college…to locker rooms, showers, urinals…to mostly male chess tournaments…to the times he’d escaped Angus to lose himself on the beach at Coney Island…
Nothing. Not once. The only time he could remember looking at another penis was to validate his own considerable superiority.
His unseeing eyes finally focused. He opened the laptop.
Fingers hovered.
“Handsome men” [return]
Scanning the results, he was struck more by the ubiquity of improbably developed rectus abdominis and prominent inguinal ligaments than he was by any stirrings. He did note the apparent universality of the concept of ‘sultry gaze’; he wondered if soul-deadening was directly proportional to come-hither proficiency.
He considered his next move.
“Handsome blonde men” [return]
Some looked like Luke. Some had his coloring, his hair, his build. Some almost had his smile. None did a thing. The needle didn’t move. No response - neither on a physiological level nor on a fuzzily emotional one. At most, the pictures served only to remind him of Luke.
Luke.
The needle moved.
Opening his eyes, Reid traced the computer’s keys in the darkness, feeling their edges. He watched his fingers type.
“Bisexual” [return]
He parsed the definitions. Am I ‘romantically attracted’ to men? Heck, am I romantically attracted to women? I’ve certainly never felt romantic love…but I suppose I could envision a scenario with a woman in which there was a ‘desire to connect emotionally’ or what have you. But with a man? Reid stared at his fingers. With Luke? As before, his eyes closed involuntarily. Yes. I feel…a fondness for him. There are…emotions involved. A desire for connection. I think that’s been established. Reid looked back at the screen. But a desire for something more? Something…physical?
Again, Reid imagined Luke’s face, his lips. His lips against Reid’s lips.
And again…nothing.
At least it doesn’t freak me out. Much. And it does say ‘sexual and/or romantic attraction.’ So, I guess in my case it’s an “or.”
But then he remembered Luke’s lips against his hand. Not that he could forget, what with the skin still prickling as if it had been asleep. As if Luke had woken it.
Is that physical attraction? The systemic sensations that were triggered…they didn’t feel sexual. To be honest, they felt…felt almost more like…
Reid clenched his hand. Straightening in his chair, he re-focused on the search results, following links, seeking comfort in facts. He was reassured by the claim that Freud had believed bisexuals to have “higher intellects.” And by a study finding bisexuals to have happier marriages than heterosexuals. No, wait, that was bisexual women. The men, well…
Moving on, he found another description of sexual attraction, one that included not just ‘erotic sensations’ but also admiration and affection. Yes…I feel affection for him. I do. There’s an urge to…I don’t know…pet him, or something. His hair. His hand. Reid unclenched. And once I got past the pique and prejudice (and, OK, a defense mechanism or two), I certainly did come to admire him. What he’s gone through…how he’s not only survived, but seemingly thrived…how he manages to share himself without depletion…how he touches people without even trying…
Right - admiration and affection. Check. He figured two out of three was sufficient. Time to finalize the results.
It’s official.
I have bisexual tendencies when it comes to Luke.
But only Luke.
Reid shook his head with small, accelerating movements. Is that even possible?
He continued to cyber-search, finding only weak, anecdotal evidence for person-specific sexuality. Other research seemed to call into question the very concept of male bisexuality.
OK, so I’m an anomaly. What else is new?
He supposed, however, that his situation could be consistent with a continuum theory of sexuality. It would mean simply that he was a degree short of straight. Ever-so-slightly curved. A touch heteroflexible. (One hundred percent homovestite, however.) Not so much bi-curious as bi-resigned. Unknown was the temporal dimension - many of the anecdotes were either tales of transition or ended with reversion. Seeing that ‘enduring’ was a constant presence in definitions of sexual orientation, he had to wonder how sustainable his current state was. Was this his new equilibrium? Would he always feel…whatever this was for Luke?
Granted, predictions were only as good as the still-relatively sparse data, but Reid felt fairly certain that his internal set of conditions wouldn’t be changing any time soon. Signal strength had only been growing since Luke had first come into range. Like it or not, Reid’s personal environment had altered. The only reasonable course was to adapt.
So, what now?
Reid stared at the screen, for once at a loss for search terms. He felt affection, respect; he wanted to be around Luke. He wanted to look at him, hear his voice, occasionally pet him. He had absolutely no interest in seeing him naked. That sounded like friendship; why couldn’t it just be friendship?
Because he didn’t want anyone else to see Luke naked either.
Reid’s sigh ricocheted off his hands, the keyboard, the screen. There it was: he didn’t want to think of Luke with anyone else. Not romantically. The idea was simply anathema. He couldn’t even…when he saw Luke with Noah…when he imagined Luke moving on…with another man… He couldn’t. He literally couldn’t imagine it. Not if he wanted to avoid assorted somatic aches.
I’m jealous. I feel jealousy. Possessiveness. I don’t want Luke to be with anyone else.
I want him to be with me.
Holy shit.
Reid lifted cramping hands from the keyboard. He didn’t want to touch anything in that moment, didn’t want anything touching him. It was as if he were suddenly over-sensitized, as if any additional stimuli would crash the system. Even the blinking cursor was too much; he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, wincing at the contact.
The spinning thoughts slowed. Orderly processing gradually resumed.
You want him with you. Romantically, I’m assuming. Fine. Terrifying, paradigm-shifting, but fine. I’ll allow - the results do appear to be unambiguous.
But you don’t want to kiss him. Let alone engage in…other activities, I’m assuming. So, how would that work, exactly? Are you really expecting him to be satisfied with, what, holding hands? Manly hugs? Could you be satisfied with that? With an indefinitely platonic state of affairs? Or…were you planning on fulfilling certain needs elsewhere?
His hands, now resting over his eyes, dug in again. It was as if they were trying to contain a mind revolting at the thought of touching skin that wasn’t Luke’s.
Well, shit.
Reid lowered his hands.
Right. Then I hate to break it to you, but that means you’re gonna have to…do…things with him. Let him do things to you. At the very least you’d have to kiss him. Reid lifted his still-tingling hand from the keyboard. Good thing you don’t find the thought too abhorrent. He brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
His hand dropped. Fine, next…what else do men do? Hand jobs? Reid flinched. He’d never been a particular fan, having yet to find a woman who knew what she was doing. Perhaps a man… Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine Luke’s hand on him. He couldn’t. He tried again - it was as if he’d encountered a firewall. He found himself hesitant to push.
Suddenly, his face contorted. Would Luke…would he expect reciprocation? Reid swallowed. OK, well…you touched worse in med school. At least this would be an ostensibly pleasurable context. To give Luke pleasure. (I could give Luke pleasure.) And at least his penis wouldn’t smell like formaldehyde. Oh, for the love of…come on, Oliver, enough with the shuddering. You’re a doctor, for fuck’s sake - you can say the word “penis” without an anxiety attack. You jerk your own off enough; what’s one more?
Reid ground his teeth. Right, then - what else? What else does one do with a penis… The laptop screen automatically dimmed. Reid shifted in the chair. No. Just…no. I’m afraid he’s just gonna have to be satisfied with hand jobs. Line drawn.
Reid stared at the screen until it went black.
Unless…he really wanted to…I mean, well, they do say that gay men give the best blow jobs. He was beginning to feel the heat of the firewall. And there are tales of otherwise straight men periodically partaking, so it can’t be that big of a deal…
Really? Are we really having this conversation? Are you actually considering…
Reid dropped his head. Do I have a choice? The logic was sound: being with Luke as more than a friend, keeping him happy, would require…compromises. The alternative, not being with him, was untenable.
Compromises. Fantastic.
But which? How many? How far could he go? What were the options, even?
He woke the computer up. The cursor winked.
“Gay sex”
[return]
He un-squinted just enough to see the images, relieved that his search settings had spared him from full frontal attack. He saw someone who looked like Luke - with a second young man, both shirtless, wet.
Reid wasn’t entirely repulsed.
He settled on another picture, of another young man, blonde, too-long hair, lying on grey sheets. The arm of a second man framed his face, his hand on the blonde’s brow, as if stroking it. The young man’s eyes were closed, his expression serene; his own hand was resting on the inside of his partner’s elbow. Reid clicked on the photo.
There were videos. He chose one.
It appeared to be scenes from a movie or TV show. TV, by the dialogue. He saw the blonde man…boy, really, more so than Luke. Too young, too thin. Too callow. For all Luke’s childish cheerfulness and unreasonable optimism, his experiences and responsibilities had forged remarkable maturity. Not that he wasn’t an over-passionate, annoyingly idealistic 22 year old, but there were times when it was clear that life had aged him. There were shadows behind the light. Reid supposed he was drawn to both.
He wasn’t drawn to the young man on the screen, but he kept watching. He was in too deep not to continue this particular scientific inquiry. He watched as the young man entered the orbit of a moderately older, markedly more dissolute man. The youth was obviously the innocent of the pair, and the man was steadily intensifying the initiation. They were in bed now, naked - the young man on his stomach, the older man slowly licking his way down the boy’s back.
I suppose that looks bearable. The guy’s just using the very tip of his tongue - not as if I’d run into a lot of hair back there on Luke. And just that simple act seems to be giving the kid pleasure.
The man’s tongue moved lower.
Reid considered never eating again.
Is he out of his fucking…are we supposed to think that he’s…do they do that? Don’t they realize that almost two-thirds of human feces is bacteria? The sheer number of potential pathogens he would have just ingested… The video played on; Reid was too shocked to move, too stunned to make it stop.
Note to brain: expunge all memories associated with the word “rimming.”
By the time Reid regained control of his motor functions, the couple on the screen had moved on. To intercourse. Once again, Reid was caught off-guard - he hadn’t realized that men could have sex face-to-face. He frowned; his discomfort was now equal parts watching-anal-intercourse and not-knowing-everything. He didn’t care for either.
Determination overcoming revulsion, Reid opened a new tab.
“Gay sex videos” [return]
He scrolled down, looking for sites with a low probability of transmitting viruses, either computer or vicarious. Fortunately, he had some experience with internet porn.
Unfortunately, he had no experience with gay porn, particularly with its terminology. Which is how Reid ended up on a hardcore site.
The first video seemed harmless enough. Once Reid got over the mild shock of seeing non-simulated male-male sex, he began to appreciate the technique and enthusiasm of the man giving what looked to be a stellar blowjob. Yeah, OK, perhaps I could suffer… He had to admit that both participants - make that three, no, four - appeared to be genuinely enjoying themselves, which certainly could not always be said for straight porn. Just as Reid was feeling his squeamishness subside, the fellatio recipient began to urinate. Onto the face of his fellator.
Reid’s mind rather shut down at that point, save for one ephemeral thought: At least it’s mostly sterile.
Other videos on the site ranged from merely disturbing to truly traumatic. Though his higher brain processes were still mostly out of commission, or perhaps because they were, Reid kept clicking, kept hoping that he would finally find a scenario that didn’t make him want to scrub his eyes with a surgical brush. Alas, he was treated instead to a procession of automated-dildo impalements, genital shockings, punitive enemas, and entire arms in rectums. His bare hand…literally trillions of microbes….sweet son of…up to his bicep? But that’s…he can’t…that would mean he’d had to have turned the corner into the transverse colon…
Reid quickly clicked a link of what he assumed should be a relatively benign fetish: “sounding.” Is there singing involved? Not on the screen, but Reid did approximate a constipated falsetto as he watched an aroused man insert a steel medical probe deep into his urethra.
The desk shook as Reid’s fingers violently tapped and slipped on his computer’s track pad in his rush to navigate off the page. After several overshoots, he finally landed on a link identified only by an abbreviation.
Just close the tab already. But he couldn’t, not when these would be the images he’d be left with. Not when there was a young man in the current video who looked to be only slightly younger than Luke, hair only a bit blonder, a bit more styled. His smile was too big for his circumstances, too open - his radiance did not at all befit the black-sheeted bed or blood-red-lacquered walls or swinging suspended chains. And his let’s-play-with-puppies bounce seemed just a smidge out of place considering the dark leather harness and spiked codpiece. He turned his head over his shoulder and smiled, his look somehow both perky and provocative. A similarly dressed man entered, built for power, with short hair, a short beard, and a massive codpiece. Long, serpentine tattoos wound around both arms, climbing shoulders to frame pierced nipples. Where there wasn’t ink there was chest hair - a light, dark coating funneling to a line following the rise and fall of hard muscle. The silver spikes of his codpiece tilted to aim at the blonde on the bed with each step. As the bearded man approached, the young man spun to face him, balancing on his knees as the bed bounced beneath him. Licking his lips, he fingered sharp metal before unsnapping the bearded man’s codpiece. In the brief time between leather being removed and the man’s forcing the blonde’s head onto his monstrous, cock-ringed penis, Reid caught a flash of additional ornamentation.
Hold the…good lord, is that a metal rod in his glans? That’s clear through the corpora…I’m surprised he can still get it up. And from the positioning…how has that not bivalved the urethra? Wait, what’s…mother of…is that a ring in his frenulum? As the boy’s head bobbed, Reid leaned forward. Hang on, are those…more? Holy Hippocrates…the rings go all the way to the base…why on Earth…the risks to him, to his partner…even just a blow job - how has that kid not busted a lip?
The kid was weaving and teasing with ease and zest. He didn’t react except to sway his back when a third man with messy dark hair and lazy light eyes stepped behind him and began to knead the pale skin of the blonde's buttocks between the straps of the leather jock strap. This third man was even taller than the bearded man, with lean lines and full lips, his face a series of symmetrically sculpted shadows. He raised his hand - the arch of blonde’s back accentuated when the third man slapped him; the blonde hummed, redoubling his attentions to the cock in his mouth. Using one hand, the third man unsnapped his own codpiece; his uncircumcised penis sprung up, rebounding against his ridged abdomen.
The third man lifted his other hand - it held a whip. His fingers flexed on braided red and black leather; nine knotted strips rustled against his bare leg. With a control that made the movement seem almost casual, he stung the blonde’s ass brightly while slowly stroking his own cock. There was a brief break in the sucking as the young man dropped his head and moaned; his ass lifted higher. As the bearded man shoved his dick back in the blonde’s mouth, the third man whipped with circular strokes. He reached under the blonde to undo his codpiece; his next few blows struck the blonde’s balls with stinging tips. The young man yelped - breathing heavily he transferred the bearded man’s penis from mouth to hand and, turning, reached for the third man’s curving cock with his other hand. The two standing men moved closer to the bed as the blonde brought both penises to his mouth. He alternated from sliding foreskin to flicking metal to successive swallowing in sloppy rhythm. The blonde’s slightly smaller, though no less hard, penis swayed metronomically as the third man reached over to touch the short hair of the second. Pressing his palm at the back of the bearded man’s head, the third man pulled it toward him, leaning in to bite the bearded man’s bottom lip. The bearded man pulled away only to snarl the fingers of both hands into the shaggy dark hair of the third man; a look passed between them, perhaps a hint of history, before mouths mashed together above the busy blonde head. Exposed tongues twined with aggression; the grips on both heads tightened. As the blonde attempted to administer to both cock tips simultaneously, the kisses of the two standing men slid into something less frenzied, more fused.
The scene jumped - now the blonde was on his back, the bearded man bent over, his mouth full of cock, his own glinting in the harsh lighting. The blonde’s hands were above his head, his wrists chained to the wall from links on his leather cuffs. His back bowed off the bed as the man drew upward with fierce suction; the angle shifted to show his hand at the young man’s anus where it rotated a flared black base. With a long lick he lifted off the blonde’s dick to watch his own hand’s activities - as if opening a safe, he carefully twisted his wrist to the left, to the right, at times pulling the toy out slightly to reveal a rippled form. The blonde’s body twisted as well, his arms straining, his whimpers pleading as his hole stretched and sucked. With knees raised he bore down on the man’s hand, ass quivering. The man pulled and pushed, buried and released.
The dark-haired, light-eyed man now entered the frame, his hand taking hold of the blonde’s penis, gliding the length of it several times before lowering his head and licking the bearded man’s saliva off the tip. For his part, the bearded man had withdrawn the butt plug completely; he spit on the boy’s open hole. The light-eyed man raised his head from the blonde’s cock to watch the bearded man stand and fold the blonde in half, lifting his legs over tattooed shoulders. Grasping his own heavy penis at the gleaming metal cock ring girdling the base, the bearded man rubbed the pierced head across the blonde’s sphincter, running the steel balls of the barbell around the perimeter. The light-eyed man returned to stroking the blonde’s penis; his hooded eyes watched the oversized cock push into the slack hole, the stepwise rings along the underside disappearing one by one. The blonde’s eyes were closed, his head restless as he was filled with man and metal. He swallowed a gasp as a ball of the barbell piercing passed over his prostate.
Once the only jewelry visible was that adorning his balls, the bearded man began to thrust, the blonde flinching regularly as steel tugged at his insides. The light-eyed man had moved around to the back of the bearded man and, grabbing the vertical harness strap running down his upper back, kicked the man’s legs apart. As the bearded man continued to invade the blonde with increasing speed and force, the light-eyed man spat on his hand and lowered it to his hard-as-steel cock. He spread the bearded man’s ass cheeks and pushed into him, yanking on his harness as the bearded man closed his eyes, hissing breath inward through clenched teeth; his hips temporarily halted as the light-eyed man’s inexorable intrusion continued until his abdomen was flush against the bearded man’s lower back. The three established a rhythm - the blonde pressing down as the light-eyed man pulled out, the bearded man seesawing between the two, balls and ass slapping in turn. The light-eyed man leaned back as he thrust, one hand still gripping the bearded man’s harness, the other behind his own back, his hand, palm up, resting just above flexing buttocks. Eventually, he brought the hand up to the bearded man’s face and turned it toward him; the two men shared an imperfect kiss.
Fade out, fade in - the men lay on the bed, their heads at opposite ends, legs scissoring, erections pointing to opposite poles. The blonde, angelic eyes dancing with dark light, moved toward them on his knees, stopping when he was straddling them both. Biting his lip as it curved upward, he rose slightly, reaching for the two reclining cocks. He brought them together, cold metal to burning skin, partially encircling them both with one hand while reaching beneath himself with the other. The two older men were motionless save for increasingly laborious breathing. The blonde bit harder, squatting until the two cocks were poised at his opening.
(Close the tab.)
The blonde pressed downward, his head tilted back, eyes closed, forehead folding. A sudden jolt - both heads were in. His mouth puckered with exhaled breath as he opened sparkling eyes; he looked down at his impalement, his curving tongue touching his upper lip as he continued to squat and stretch and sweat. At last, the pubic hair of two men tickled his balls and buttocks as two cocks tested his receptive limits. Seemingly enraptured, he began to lift and drop with progressively more fluid movements, one hand on the bed behind him, the other caught in one of the bearded man’s nipple rings. The light-eyed man’s hand wrapped around the blonde’s dripping cock, twisting his wrist in time with the thrusts. Meanwhile, the bearded man winced with each absentminded tug of his nipple; his own hand lifted to pull at the other.
Suddenly, the bearded man sat up, flipping the blonde, still skewered, onto his back. The blonde now lay on top of the light-eyed man as the bearded man powered his own cock in and out, his piercings pleasuring both the blonde and the still-embedded light-eyed man. The blonde breathed rapidly out of his mouth, the muscles of his neck straining as he lifted his head to pin the bearded man with his eyes. The man bent down as he pistoned, capturing the blonde’s lips in a messy kiss. The blonde then turned his head to the side, arching to suck and lick at the lips of the light-eyed man, who was flicking the blonde’s nipple with a thumbnail. Breaking away, the light-eyed man gripped the bearded man’s head, bringing it down for another kiss, continuing to hold it as the blonde’s lips replaced his. The action intensified - thrusting and jacking, eyes and tongues impaling, wet skin lapped and bitten.
With another sudden movement, the bearded man pulled out. Sitting on his heels, he wrenched off his cock ring and began to jerk swiftly. The blonde eased off the second cock, shimmying on his back toward the middle of the bed as the light-eyed man rose to his knees and languidly began to stroke himself. The blonde lay looking up at both men as they kneeled over him, keen eyes hungrily tracking their steadily speeding hands as he played with his own nipples and cock. The bearded man’s hands began to blur - a growl, a spasm - cum coated his hands, continuing on to hit the blonde’s belly, his chin, his lips. Soon, silently, the light-eyed man followed, painting the blonde’s hair and chest in strong, bucking spurts. Licking what he could from around his mouth, the blonde waited for the men to finish before smearing their semen in circular sweeps, trailing his fingers up to flushed lips. He lowered his hands next to his anus, slicking himself with saliva and semen, eyes closed as he relived the invasion, as if trying to make it complete.
The blonde let the bearded man lift him, let him pull him against the dark skin of his tattooed chest, nipple piercings reddening the pale skin of the blonde’s back. The bearded man wrapped an arm around the front of the blonde’s chest; the light-eyed man folded his fingers over the blonde’s bursting cock tip, his thumb circling the small opening before moving down to pump the top half. His eyes still closed, the blonde began to pant in counterpoint to the light-eyed man’s quickening strokes; the bearded man tightened his arm and appeared to be whispering in the young man’s ear. The light-eyed man brought his free hand to the blonde’s forehead, lifting away sweat-stuck hair. Speed and pressure increased; the blonde’s pants turned to piercing hiccups rising in pitch, his body heaving against the bearded man’s chest, one hand reaching behind to grasp at the man’s head, the other reaching underneath to slip into himself. The light-eyed man bent down just as the blonde bucked a final time, arching severely, shots of cum caught by the light-eyed man’s tongue. He kissed the blonde, letting him lick the liquid from his mouth. Without looking, the light-eyed man captured the rest of the cum with his hand; the bearded man pulled it by the wrist up to his mouth with his free hand, snaking and sucking with lips and tongue. The three men remained entwined in idle engagement until the video’s end.
A message appeared: “Play again”
Reid didn’t close the tab.
He closed the computer.
A phone rang in a nearby room. The heating unit hissed. Reid’s stomach creaked like a slowly opening door. Eighty-seven seconds elapsed before Reid resumed accepting incoming stimuli. But only after subjecting them to a background check. He issued his brain a stern reprimand for what it had just let happen.
He begged it not to let him dream tonight.
He heard a woman’s laugh. Purging - Reid needed to purge. To sand-blast his brain and his palate. Slopes, swells, florals, silk…breasts. Naked breasts. Wet, soapy breasts. Being lathered by other women. By Madeline Stowe. Madeline lathering her own breasts. Lathering the breasts of…
Holy fuck.
Katie.