Gloryhole With My Friend 04

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Chapter 4: Facing My Fears

He swallowed hard. “Dude.” He paused, his face saying it all before his mouth did. Part of me already knew. “It was Charlie.”

The weight of the situation hit me like a truck. My eyes started to lose vision and I sat back on the toilet before I passed out. My chest tightened like I couldn't breathe, and I couldn’t speak. Rugger just stared back at me, terrified.

—[]—

I didn’t move at first. The bathroom was dead quiet except for my heartbeat thumping in my chest. I could feel my pulse in my neck. I had a sudden severe headache and my mind went foggy. I couldn't see clearly, like blinding white light was coming in from the corners of my eyes. Rugger stood frozen by the sinks, his pale face locked on me, like he was scared I’d collapse. My body felt numb, like I’d just been told I had minutes to live. The words kept replaying: It was Charlie.

My brother.

Of all people.

I wanted to tell Rugger he was wrong, that it couldn’t possibly be true, I would have known somehow. But the look on his face said he knew for certain. And the voice I’d heard, barely audible, but familiar. My mind scrambled back to a dozen little moments with Charlie: his texts, barging into the bathroom while I was showering, his casual intrusions that always pissed me off. I tried to think of times I had seen his dick in person. I simply couldn't think of one time. I never actually looked at his dick, even when it was out because he was peeing. There was no way for me to be sure that it wasn't him. I was starting to pass through the denial stage.

I forced out a whisper. “You’re sure?”

Rugger nodded slowly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “I saw him, dude. He was just here. It was Charlie.”

The room swayed around me. I pressed my palms to my knees, trying to steady my breathing. I didn’t know if I wanted to puke or cry or both. My throat still burned from the blowjob, from swallowing, and now it burned from shame too.

“What do I do?” I finally asked, my voice shaking.

Rugger didn’t answer. He just stared at the bathroom door where Charlie had run out minutes earlier. For once, Rugger looked like the one lost for words. The guy who always knew how to turn anything into a dare or a laugh, was dead silent.

And that silence was worse than anything he could have said.

I ended up staying at Rugger’s that night. I couldn’t face going home, not after what had just happened. Summer break meant we didn’t have to think about school, so there was nothing else hanging over us. Just this.

We sat in his basement again, controllers in hand, the TV glowing in front of us. The game ran on autopilot, neither of us really paying attention. Every time I glanced at Rugger, I saw the same haunted look in his eyes, like he was running the moment over and over again too.

When it got late, I lay down on the pull-out couch, but sleep didn’t come easy. My thoughts were a storm. Charlie’s face kept flashing in my head. His voice. That whisper. The possibility that it had been him was eating me alive. I pulled the blanket over my head, clutching it like a security blanket.

"I'll sleep down here tonight," Rugger said, pulling a sleeping bag out of the basement closet.

Across the room, Rugger shifted in his sleeping bag. “You good?” he asked quietly.

“No,” I admitted, my voice muffled in my pillow. “Not even close.”

He silently got up and brought his sleeping bag over to the couch I was on, and laid it down next to me. It was a big couch, so I shifted over to the back cushions and gave him space to lay down. He horizontal with me and put an arm around me. It was comforting to have his support and not be alone tonight. 

He didn’t push me to talk about it. Maybe he didn’t want to hear it any more than I wanted to say it. The silence stretched until I finally whispered, “Thanks for letting me stay over again.”

Rugger was falling asleep, but his voice was assuring. “Always.”

I closed my eyes, still terrified of what going home would mean, and tried to convince myself that tomorrow might make things easier. 

—[]—

I woke up and Rugger was on the floor. I guess it wasn't that comfortable to have two guys sharing a couch. 

I started to feel more clear about everything in the light of day. So what? I had a terrible secret with Charlie that we would carry to our graves. Rugger knew, and he was my ride or die. The world was still spinning, nothing significant in my actual life was going to be different. We were going to pretend it never happened, and I was never going to suck an anonymous dick through a hole in the wall again. 

"How're you feeling?" Rugger said as he opened his eyes and stretched his arms.

"Better, actually," I said, "as long as no one ever finds about that."

"I will never bring it up again. Trust me," he said.

He stood up and I saw the outline of his morning firmness in his boxer briefs. I felt a flash of shame, partly because I liked it. Sucking a dick had led to the biggest trauma of my life. As much as the thought still intrigued me, I said to Rugger, "I feel like I never want to see another dick again in my life."

Rugger and I chuckled and started to head to the bathroom at the same time. We glanced at each other, and I saw his sly smile. Back to our usual selves already, we both made a mad dash for the bathroom door. Even though we could have easily gone upstairs to another bathroom, we always fought over who would use whatever bathroom was nearest when we woke up after a sleepover.

“I will PISS on you!” he yelled, cracking up, trying to shove past me. I doubled over laughing, making my stomach literally hurt, feeling like I was actually gonna pee my own pants. We wrestled at the doorway, tripping over each other, pushing and shoving. In the middle of it, his waistband slipped just enough that I caught a full glimpse of him swinging free.

I froze for half a second, still laughing. “So much for never seeing a dick again,” I muttered, and we both lost it even harder.

We ended up peeing at the same time. We'd never done it before, but it made sense in the moment as a detente to our struggle. Throughout everything, we had actually gotten closer and dropped some boundaries. I wasn't even bothered. It was fun.

I ended up going home, and Rugger tagged along for moral support. Luckily Charlie wasn’t there. He was out with his friends. My mom was in the kitchen and gave us a quick hey before asking me to knock out some chores in the backyard and around the pool.

“Charlie will help you if you’re not done when he gets home,” she said.

The last thing I wanted was to see him, so Rugger jumped in and we powered through everything in record time. After that we bailed to his house. The mall was officially off-limits, so we hit the downtown park everyone called the “cool” park. I checked Charlie’s location on my phone and saw he’d just gotten home as we sat down on the swings.

"I believe if I'm careful enough, I can avoid him for the rest of my life," I said.

We chuckled, but I was kind of nervous. Rugger knew it was time to take my mind off of things again, and started with his jokes, his core skill. He made me crack up as always, especially with the comments on people walking by. 

We went to see a movie after, anything to fill the time. By the time I got home later that night, I felt a little more normal.

I finally got home, alone, and Charlie was sitting on the couch, wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants, phone in his hand. I looked back to the shoes by the front door, and confirmed his shoes were the same ones I saw the day prior under the stall, as if I needed any more confirmation. My eyes acted on their own, and glanced at his crotch. My stomach panged, but he seemed less bothered than I was. He just turned his face up from his phone to me with a calm, half smile.

"Sup," he said.

I swallowed, my nerves making it impossible to act normal, and I couldn't read him at all. I felt my face turn red. "Hey," I said, my voice cracking. 

I wanted to run to my room and close the door, finding that safe space where nothing could bother me, but something told me to stay here. Maybe we needed to talk it out. Or maybe we could just hang out and pretend it never happened, like cementing our unspoken agreement to never discuss it. 

"Check this out," he said, casting the baseball game from his phone to the TV. It was our favorite team, sort of the only thing we would consider to be a shared interest. We were up 3-0 in the bottom of the 8th.

"Nice," I said, "I thought we were fucked this year."

"Nah I guess we're still in it," he said back, eyes on the screen.

As we watched, Charlie smirked and muttered just loud enough for me to hear, “Man, you're really into this team.”

"So are you," I said.

"Yeah, but you're basically on your knees for these guys," he said under his breath. My face turned red, and my eyes widened, but he said it so casually, like it was just another throwaway line. To my own surprise I started laughing, and he looked at me and started giggling as well. It hit me, no one would ever know. It could be like it never happened, just some inside joke between us. I mean, he would be as embarrassed as me, so it's not like he was going to tell anyone.

We both started laughing, harder than we normally would. Belly laughing, getting an ab workout. I started coughing from my spit doing down the wrong pipe in my throat. 

"Don't choke," he said, and it made us start laughing harder. My cough-laugh started getting so intense I felt like I was going to pass out. I was so relieved to find some distance from the stress I had experienced over the previous twenty-four hours. 

The weird thing is that what ended up happening was something in between the worst and best case scenarios. It was like a third option, just get over it. He didn't seem to bothered, probably processing the same way I did, and it was comfortable, carefree. His demeanor made me feel less ashamed.

We sat there watching the rest of the game, the crowd noise from the TV filling the room. The laughter from earlier kept popping back up, and instead of awkward glances, it felt easy, almost friendly. We were just watching baseball, like nothing had happened between us. My trauma was still there, but somehow it was manageable now, something I could carry.

When the game ended, Charlie stretched and said, “I’m gonna crash.”

He wasn't more reserved around me than normal. If anything, it was the opposite. We never normally spent the night watching a game and watching TV and laughing with each other. Part of me was still weirdly torn and reserved, but I was much more enjoying his implicit perspective. We were just chilling.

He walked past me toward the hall, but stopped for a second. “Don’t overthink it,” he said without turning around. Then he disappeared into his room.

"I'm trying," I said, "But I kind of can't help it."

He turned around. Even though he was younger than me, his face had this sense of calm and wisdom compared to the regressed emotional state I had been in.

He looked me in the eye. "I'm sorry, dude. I obviously never would've stuck my dick in there if I knew it was you."

"Well, yeah, I would hope so," I said, chuckling nervously. My face was turning cherry red, finally addressing it out loud. "And yeah, I had never done anything like that before. What are the odds?"

"Really?" he said, "Didn't seem like your first time."

"Dude," I grimaced and closed my eyes.

"Yeah," he said, "sorry."

He turned to walk away, but I had to ask one more thing, before shutting the door on this forever. "Wait," I said, "So was that you the day before also?"

He sort of chuckled nervously. "I thought you said it was your first time?"

"Well, the day before was the first time, I just—"

"I get it," he interrupted, "But, I mean, yeah I was there the day before."

"Around the same time?" I asked, not even knowing what I wanted the answer to be.

"Yeah," he said.

"Are you gay?" I asked.

"I prefer girls, but I've gotten sort of addicted to the anonymous cruising shit. Reddit goes hard."

"Jesus Christ," I said.

I felt the sensation get somehow worse in my stomach. He walked up and gave me a hug. I don't think he had ever in my life given me a real hug like that, arms on my back, consoling me as if he hadn't had the same crazy thing happen to him.

He spoke in my ear, "Don't overthink it. It could've happened to anyone."

He patted my back, like the end of a bro hug, then went to his room.

I sat frozen on the couch replaying his words. Don’t overthink it. Easier said than done. But maybe he was right. Maybe the only way forward was to treat it like nothing happened, like it was just another summer memory.

Later, when I finally crawled into bed, my phone buzzed. A text from Charlie lit up the screen. Just a simple, “ Thanks for chatting. Nice hanging with you ;)”

I stared at it for a minute. Does he mean hanging out tonight? Or was he referring to the thing of which we tacitly agreed never to speak? I actually chuckled, as much as the pang in my stomach remained.