Fortunately, Ty has a couple of things he has to get done for work before we head out on our hike, giving me some solid hangover recovery time.

I take a shower before hopping on my laptop in my room. I’m still nude as I rest it on my thighs. I check Facebook and Twitter before I find myself drawn to peculiar searches, including “anal sex.” I can’t help myself. My curiosity was piqued that day when Eric and I started messing around.

The conversation Eric and I had last night destroyed any hope I had that we’d get to do that again, but now that I know how interested my body can be, I have to check it out. See what it’s all about. Eric awakened this intense desire within me to have him pushing into me, fucking me the way I’ve seen guys getting fucked in porn.

It would be shit for my friendship with Ty, or Eric and Ty’s relationship, which is fucked up enough as it is, but I can’t help myself. It’s an itch that needs to be scratched. And if I can’t do that with Eric, I’m forced to do it on my own.

I look up things like “first time with guys” and “first time anal.” I watch a couple of gay porn vids. I’ve seen them before and thought about the mechanics, but never enough to try and actually figure it out. It seems fairly intuitive.

I set my laptop on the bed beside me. Then I lick my forefinger and middle finger. Reaching down under my balls, I touch my hole. It doesn’t seem particularly erotic, but that’s not how I felt when Eric was playing around down there, so I explore a little further.

My hole seems so tight…like it wouldn’t be possible for Eric to get that thing in me, but I know better just by seeing all the fat, long cocks that some of these guys are able to take in these videos. And if how these guys react to being fucked is any indication, it would feel fucking amazing.

I retrieve my travel kit from the bathroom, pulling out the lube to aid me in my research. Lying back on the bed, I rub some lube on my fingers before I raise my legs and slide my fingers back into my ass, moving slowly, exploring. As I loosen myself up, I’m able to get my fingers farther back in me. The pressure is odd at first, but as I get past the awkwardness and am able to enjoy the sensations my fingers arouse, I’m able to appreciate it a little more.

I can’t help but imagine what it felt like with Eric and his mouth on it, licking, playing around. I’m painfully hard. I know my prostate’s in there somewhere, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t know where, and I’m kind of nervous about pushing back too far.

This is weird as fuck. I’m twenty-three. If I was going to have urges like this, I would’ve expected to try this a lot sooner…like when I dry-humped the mattress at thirteen, making myself come for the first time. It wasn’t something I was trying to do. It happened because my body was urging me through the motions, trying to push me to reach that ever-important climax.

But even after all my times masturbating and exploring my body with the help of an expansive web filled with porn, even when I saw guys messing around with themselves, I never bothered touching my body like that. It didn’t even cross my mind.

In fairness, until I saw guys playing with their own holes, I assumed it was only good for one, not-all-that-appealing task.

As I ease into the experience, closing my eyes and imagining Eric fucking me, my face hot like it was when we were messing around, I decide to go for it. Pushing my forefinger and middle finger farther back, past the knuckles, I take a breath.

I gasp, and while the sensation is powerful, it’s not what I was expecting. It’s pressure and intense, but there’s something erotic about it. Wildly so.

There’s still some pain, but not as much as I would have expected.

I try to relax, taking deep breaths, when there’s a knock at the door.

Fuck! I slide my fingers out.

“Come on, Jesse. Quit jerking off,” Ty says as he knocks again.

His tone suggests he’s joking around, but if he knew what I was really up to, God, he’d fucking flip.

I close my laptop so that he can’t, in any way, come in and see what I’ve been looking up. I tuck away my lube in my travel kit, which I slide into the nightstand drawer.

“Seriously, anytime,” Ty says before knocking again.

“Coming,” I tell him, the way I might have told my adoptive parents when they had disturbed a similar sort of moment when I was younger.

I slide into a pair of shorts, fastening the fly before opening the door.

“Jesus Christ, that took you for fucking ever. I hope you had a good time.”

“Whatever. I was actually doing that, dude, so you could have given me a minute.”

Ty laughs. “I figured you might have been.”

“What’s up?”

Despite his playfulness, there’s irritation in his expression. I wonder if it has anything to do with agreeing to the hike earlier.

My motives weren’t entirely innocent when I pushed to go. Ty’s expressed, on plenty of occasions, that he doesn’t feel like Eric really cares about spending time with him. I can understand where he’s coming from. After all, Eric wasn’t in his life for the first sixteen years of it. And from what I know, they’ve tried to make it work, but there’s this discomfort lingering between them—one it seems they both want to bridge. So when I said I wanted to go hiking, really what I was saying was I wanted Ty and Eric to spend more time together. It’s a fucking miracle they’re even in the same place at the same time, and they should take advantage of that.

Some part of me…I know it has less to do with Ty and Eric and more to do with my own situation. How lucky I would feel to be able to meet one of my biological parents and talk to them. How there’s a part of me that desperately wishes I could hear from them. I’ve always had this stupid fantasy that they’d come running back into my life, and they’d say they were so sorry for leaving me, that they wished they’d kept me…or at least give me some incredible reason for why it was impossible for them to take me in at the time. But that’s a fantasy. I know the real reason: they didn’t want me. Simple as that.

I wish I could come to terms with the fact.

And I honestly wonder if knowing the truth would set me at ease or make me feel even more rejected.

Maybe it’s better not knowing.

But Ty’s not in that situation. At least not anymore. He got the chance to meet his father and get some closure. And he was lucky. Eric hadn’t been in his life because Ty’s mom never told Eric about him. Eric didn’t have a chance to be in his life…not until much later. Not until Ty finally pushed to meet him.

For them, it’s more a matter of making up for lost time than anything else—something that hasn’t been as easy as meeting and catching up and putting the past behind them.

“Oh, it’s work shit,” Ty says. “I was talking to Megan on our conference call, and we realized there’s this issue with one of our big accounts we’ve been handling. And it’s looking like a bit of a clusterfuck.”

“Oh shit. Everything okay?”

“No, that’s the issue. We’re gonna try and get this resolved over the phone. I got Bernie in the office, trying to look for the files we need, but it’s gonna take some time, so I’m not gonna be able to go on that hike.”

Now I really feel for both Ty and Eric. Seems like the universe is fucking against them spending time together.

“Oh. Well, no, it’s fine,” I say. “You didn’t seem stoked about the hike anyway.”

“Actually, it would kind of be doing me a favor if you could go on that hike with Eric for me.”

“What?”

“No, it’s just… I kind of need the place to myself while I’m dealing with this. It’d be easier if I wasn’t thinking of having either of you around and I could resolve this.”

“Oh, I get what you mean.”

I don’t know that this is a good idea, considering I was just sticking my fingers up my ass, thinking about his father. However, if it’ll help him, I guess I should. Still, if I’m being honest with myself, I really want to spend more time with his dad. I want to get to know him, and I’m excited about having some more alone time together…so excited that I feel like a horrible person.