Joel Indulges Himself
Joel wasn’t entirely sure of how long he sat rooted to the spot in the bed, body still only half covered by the sheets, before he blinked himself back into a state of semi-awareness.
That was weird, right? he thought, gathering the sheets into tight fists, then relaxing and letting the soft cotton sift through his fingers and fall back to his thighs. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing back the tears blooming behind his eyelids. That was weird, this is weird, and fuck this shit. Fuck this life. Fuck me for being the way I am and driving everyone away from me. He let out a barely audible groan of frustration, then threw his legs off the bed and went to search for his cell phone.
While Joel was appreciative that he had the day off work, he was not looking forward to all the adulting he needed to do. Pushing the home button on his phone, it illuminated, apparently deciding to work again, so he thumbed down his contact list to find his landlord's phone number.
Still no text from Davis, he noted with a disappointed sigh.
“Hello?” His landlord Phil said in his abrasively accented, New England voice.
“Hi, Phil. It’s Joel, in apartment 2D. I wanted to check in and see what was going on with the flood.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess, kid. I got the water turned off about an hour after you called last night, but it soaked through your place pretty bad, and the downstairs place too. They’re tryna dry it out, but it’s gonna take at least a few days to get it dry enough to dig into the drywall and the carpet. Do you have someplace you can stay for a week or two?” Phil sounded regretful, but not overly helpful.
“Um, no I don't, not really,” Joel mumbled, balancing the phone between his shoulder and ear while digging his fingers into his eyes, pressing hard until there were stars in the blackness behind his eyelids.
“Well, do you have renter’s insurance? That should cover a motel stay or something for you at least,” Phil offered the less-than-helpful suggestion.
“No, I can’t afford the premiums, so I don’t have any.” Joel pulled the phone off his shoulder and put it on speaker before throwing it onto the bed.
“Don’t know what to tell you then, kid. But I’ll give you a call when I can get you back in, okay?”
“Yeah, alright, Phil. Thank you.”
Joel hung up the phone without saying goodbye and threw his weight down onto the bed. There had to be something he could do, someplace he could stay. Athena wasn’t due home for another three days, and he knew if he called her, she would force him onto her brother. Even though he had known Athena for years, his relationship with Adonis was tentative at best.
Donny had a personality like Athena, but was tucked into a body half her size. Donny was as slender as Joel, and shorter, but Joel was nothing short of intimidated by the boisterous black-haired twink. Joel would feel out of place and miserable if Athena forced Donny to open up his house to him, and Joel didn’t think he could handle any more discomfort and awkwardness.
But what else can you do, idiot? Joel thought. He dug his phone charger out of his bag and plugged it into the wall next to the stack of records. He sat with his back to the wall and dialed Athena.
While the phone rang and he waited for her to answer, he picked up the top record and was surprised to find it was Sidney Bechet. He set it aside and flipped past Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra… all things Joel would love to relax and listen to on that high-priced turntable in any other situation than this.
“Baby J!” Athena’s voice shouted into his ear as the call connected.
“Hey, Theenie. How is New York?” Joel kept looking at the records, finding every single one to be from an artist who appealed to him.
“Oh my god, you wouldn’t even believe it! I’ve gotten to try on the absolute sexiest latex and I even got suspended from the ceiling for this one shoot idea the photographer had! He’s a total Dom, and he even has a vac bed he said I could try out when we’re done. It’s so dreamy.”
“A vac what? A vac bed?” Joel organized the records he had looked at into a neat pile, trying to understand if he’d heard Athena correctly.
“Vac bed, Baby J. It’s made out of latex on a PVC frame and it's solid, right? Just a little hole for a tube to stick out, and you get into it and put the tube in your mouth so you can breathe and then they suck all the air out of it! It’s like, full body sensory deprivation, Baby J. I’ve wanted to try one for years but I’ve never known anyone who has one.”
“You are a weird one, Athena Marie, and I love you very much.” Joel dropped his head back against the wall with a resounding thud.
“Anyways, though, we all know about my sex life, tell me about yours. It’s a Sunday, and we know Saturday is prime date night, so you better have seen your poet last night. Spill the beans,” Athena prodded him. Joel could hear the happy laughter in her voice.
Joel relayed the events of the previous night to Athena, making an attempt to sound nonchalant about his current living situation. “So I called my grandma and I got here and she has four freaking cats now and I couldn’t even make it inside without sneezing, but her neighbor across the hall was all, ‘Oh, Marilyn, he can stay here, it’s fine.’ So I spent the night in this complete stranger’s house and it's like his spare bedroom was made with me in mind. I love it here and I don’t ever want to leave, but I can’t stay here, obviously.” Joel laughed, thinking how unbelievable his night sounded when he tried to tell the story to someone else. He decided to leave out the part about Gabriel walking in on him this morning. The last thing he wanted to do was fuel Athena’s fire when it came to getting Joel laid.
“A stranger, you say? Is he a handsome stranger?” Joel could hear the motivation in her voice. Apparently he didn’t need to mention jacking off to get her wheels turning.
“Out of everything that has happened to me in the last twelve hours, that is what you pick up on, Athena? Seriously?”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like a no to me, Baby J.”
“Yes, Athena. Yes, he is handsome. He’s hot, even. He’s older and he’s really sexy. Is that what you want to hear?” Joel unplugged his phone and started to restack the records.
“No, what I want to hear is why you’re telling me you need to leave the handsome stranger’s home when you basically told me you would absolutely let him inside of your cute little butt if he asked nicely enough.”
Athena was not ever going to stop until she got Joel laid. She had asked him once if he was asexual and he’d told her no, just painfully afraid of being a disappointment, and ever since then she’d made getting him laid her number two goal in life, right behind getting herself laid.
“Because he’s a stranger, Athena. I don’t want to fuck a stranger, no matter how handsome he may be.” Joel started dumping clothes out of his duffel bag.
“What’s his name?”
“Gabriel.” Joel grabbed a pair of jeans and a clean pair of briefs.
“Then he’s not a stranger anymore, Baby J. Listen, I gotta go. It’s almost lunch time here and I need all the strength I can get to take on Mr. Dom Photographer later tonight.” She laughed, throaty and deep.
“Athena, wait, I wanted to ask if...” Joel stopped himself. He didn’t want to ask at all. He’d been secretly hoping that Athena would have offered to pawn him off onto Adonis.
“If?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” Joel was back to not knowing what the hell he was going to do.
“You were going to ask if I'd ring up Adonis for you, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, but no. Never mind. It would be weird.”
“Your bad luck continues anyway, Baby J. Adonis is shacked up with a triad of stray Siamese kittens he found in a box behind the grocery store. You’d literally die. Whereas if you suck it up and stay with Gabriel, the sexy not-stranger, you might only figuratively die… of orgasms! I love you, Baby J, bye!” Athena spoke the last sentence quickly and before Joel could even object to her ludicrous suggestion, she hung up.
“Fuck.” He threw the phone back down onto the bed and slid a pair of pajama pants on so he could go to the bathroom and shower. He wanted to rinse off how much he hated Athena in that moment, in addition to washing off the pitiful burst of cum that had dried on the shaft of his cock.
Joel opened the door to the bedroom and looked down the hallway. He heard the sounds of flatware against porcelain, indicating Gabriel was most likely in the kitchen, so Joel skittered down the hallway and quickly closed the bathroom door behind him. Turning the water on to hot and stripping down, he stepped in the shower, pulling the door closed behind him.
Joel lathered some soap into his hand and gave his dick a quick tug, trying to loosen the dried cum, but his cock started to harden under his fingers, obviously having a better idea. He wasn’t sure he had it in him, after the disappointment from this morning, so he released his hold, surprised to see his dick swell and rise the more he thought about Gabriel walking in on him. Why was the idea of Gabriel barging in and catching him in the act making him so turned on? Was it that, or was it Gabriel himself doing it? Joel couldn’t figure it out, and didn’t have the brain power to try, as his cock was now standing fully erect, bouncing and practically begging for attention.
Giving in to the urge, he rinsed the soap off his hand and squirted some conditioner into his palm, using it as makeshift lube to slick the length of his cock. He gave a few more tugs along the entire length, being sure to rub his slippery palm over his sensitive and leaking slit on every up stroke. Joel was tired, though, so he redirected the spray of the shower and squatted down in the basin of the tub before laying down and stretching out his body so he could jerk himself in earnest and not worry about balancing himself through what he could already tell was going to be a strong orgasm.
Joel bent his toes against the porcelain at the end of the tub and flexed his feet and leg muscles as he continued to rub his hand up and down his cock, quickening his strokes. He gave a quick tug to pull his balls down, attempting to extend the duration of his pleasure, and then brought up his hand to pinch and roll one hard nipple between a finger and thumb. Even though he was expecting it, the shock of the pain shot through his entire body like a bolt of lightning and he gasped, opening his mouth wide and arching off the floor of the tub.
He imagined Gabriel walking in again, catching him. He imagined Gabriel standing in the doorway, loosening his own pants and pulling out a thick and throbbing cock. He imagined Gabriel tugging a large hand down his length and stalking forward, crawling into the shower with Joel, fully dressed.
Joel closed his eyes and he could picture the way Gabriel's wet shirt would cling to the planes of his chest, and the smattering of hair he would see showing through the soaked fabric. He could see, in surprising detail, the way the drops of water would cling to Gabriel’s inky black hair before falling free to spatter across Joel’s face. He imagined Gabriel straddling his head, one knee on either side, and then leaning forward to feed his cock into Joel’s mouth. Joel brought his hand up to his throat, mimicking the pressure he would feel if it was Gabriel’s body, and with one final pull on his cock, cum shot out of him in a rush.
Joel jerked his body up and folded in on himself, overwhelmed by the severity of his orgasm. As he slowed his breathing and released his now-sated cock to drop against his thigh, Joel lay back against the floor of the tub with his eyes closed.
The real world came crashing back around him as he stood up and started to wash himself, being sure to avoid his overactive dick as much as he could. He felt better, sure, but what would he do now?