Sometimes memory of that night would come back in pieces. Shards of recollection carried in with more willfully remembered moments, their edges sanded down by time and uncertainty. The plush feeling of an outdated carpet underfoot. The dim light of a television, volume turned down to little more than a murmur. The breathing, slow and steady but labored, thick with trepidation. The ten-ton weight of a gentle touch by an unfamiliar hand.
To this day I can't separate the reality of that night from the manufactured memory haphazardly reconstructed over the years. The once intense feelings deeply buried for long enough that recalling them became indistinguishable from indulging in fantasy.
I remembered our bodies, closer than they'd ever been but still miles apart. I remembered the lightness in my mind being weighed down by the heaviness of my head, drunk on youthful delirium and literally drunk. I remembered being afraid to look in his eyes as though that might break some spell and bring an end to it all. I remembered the kiss -- my first, in all the ways that count -- tentative and short, bad in hindsight but thrilling in the moment. I remembered the second kiss being better, and the third even better than the one before. I remembered his body on top of mine, his grip tightening on my arms, lips on my neck, my ear, hands in my hair.
I remembered it like a dream in the moment before you open your eyes, when it's still vivid but unsure, slipping away faster the more you try to chase after it.
The sun was high by the time I came to. Matt was lying next to me, still naked, uncovered. I studied him under the sharp light of the day, the late summer cast harsh and unforgiving. His body was lean. Thin but obviously strong, full of potential unrealized. The way his body arced across the bed would have been something that an artist might have felt compelled to draw had it not been quite so wiry.
I thought back to the night before. We had fucked twice more after the first time, the spaces in between spent eating a variety of snack foods that a body like his could indulge in without consequence, and talking about everything and nothing, an easy rapport standing in for meaningful conversation. At one point he improvised a song about having sex that was much funnier than it needed to be. By the time we fell asleep wrapped up in each other it was nearly morning.
In the light of day, though, I realized it what a stranger he really was. I knew he had a way of putting me at ease, but I could tell you little more about him other than his name. I noticed the scar across his abs, more visible in the sun, and wondered how he got it. I remembered the way I stroked my thumb across it when he fucked me the second time, making a mental note to ask about it after we'd finished. I never did.
His face seemed younger now, too. He couldn't have been much older than me, the contrast between the flux of my new life and the lived-in state of his apartment exaggerating the difference between us the night before. Two or three years between us, I guessed, if even that.
I started doing the familiar post-hookup mental rehearsals of how I'd make my exit. I didn't have a ton of experience, but I'd had enough encounters that I knew the song and dance well. Do I sneak out before he wakes? Quietly gathering clothes that I would put on once I was in the safety of the hallway? Or do I owe him some kind of goodbye, the exchange of half-hearted promises to see each other again, promises neither of us intend to keep? Do I want to see him again?
Before I had a chance to decide, I looked over and realized he was already awake. He was watching me think, his expression blank, but his gaze boring straight through to my busied mind. His eyes were bluer than I remembered.
"Morning," he said lazily, his tone revealing nothing about whatever conclusions he'd drawn from his assessment. His long arm reached up, sweeping his hand through his hair. I could spend hours in the morning without ever being satisfied with my unruly mop, but the one motion perfectly gathered all his hair in place. Were he not still stark naked, he could've walked out the door, ready for the day.
Suddenly, I was self-conscious, acutely aware of my own nakedness, nothing to distract from my disheveled appearance. My hair was mussed and matted on one slide, my contact lenses stiff and dry from spending the night in my eyes. I drew the bedding to cover the dried remnants of last night while my tongue fought the foul dryness in my mouth.
Matt laughed, handing me the glass of water he'd been sipping from. "Freshmen."
I looked at him, pretending like it wasn't painfully obvious what he was talking about. "What?"
In lieu of a response, he slid across the bed, lust in his eyes. I already knew what he had in mind, and my first instinct was to resist. My body inhaled and I moved to turn away.
"Don't," he cooed softly into my ear. I wondered to myself what happened to the person I first met last night, the hesitant guy who had to be egged on as he fucked me. I supposed he was probably wondering the same thing about me.
His lips met my earlobe, sending a shiver down my spine. He nibbled softly, occasionally letting out a soft moan.
"Wait, hang on." I said half-heartedly, my nervousness about my disheveled morning appearance fading away.
Matt kept going. He pushed me back, sliding down to kiss at my neck, lick my jaw. His tongue hit the spot behind my ear, finally eliciting a moan from me. I felt his lips curl into a smile.
Finally giving into the moment, I pulled him in for a kiss, slipping my tongue between his teeth. I pressed my body into his, my morning wood throbbing against his thigh, pulsing in the heat of the moment. But when I tried to flip him over to position myself on top, he pressed me back down. He pinned my arms down by my sides, holding them there with surprising forcefulness.
"Just relax," he whispered teasingly into my ear. "You're so tense."
His lips were back on my neck, then on my shoulder, down my chest. I felt my the muscles in my body release one by one as he trailed his mouth down to my groin.
I knew it was coming. I felt his warm breath before anything else. But when his tongue flicked at my balls, it took everything in me not to scream. He traced a path up my shaft with his tongue, stopping just before the head.
When I looked down to see why he didn't continue, I saw him looking up at me, waiting to make eye contact before diving down to fully take me into his mouth. This time I couldn't stop myself. "Ohhhhh fuck."
He moaned around my cock, more out of self-satisfaction than actual pleasure, but the soft, deep vibrations from his throat nearly sent me over the edge. I thrust my hips upward, aching for more. But he pulled back, shaking his head in response.
"I told you. Relax." He began the whole process over again, licking his way up my shaft before engulfing me completely, this time even slower than before.
I close my eyes and laid back, surrendering myself to his teasing. I felt him bobbing, slowly, up and down, letting my cock slide in and out of his throat with little resistance. He worked on me like that for what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than ten minutes. A mix of precum and spit from his lapping and deepthroating making a mess of both of us.
I felt myself getting closer and closer to cumming as his blowjob picked up speed and intensity. My cock was throbbing in his mouth, my balls tight up against my body, when he suddenly slowed down.
He pulled his mouth nearly all the way off, swirling his tongue around the head. Then he dropped all the way down in one smooth motion, planting his lips at the base and letting his tongue bathe the underside of my cock.
"Oh my god," I moaned, hearing a naked desperation in my voice that would've embarrassed me in any other situation, but only heightened the heat of the moment. "I'm gonna cum."
He repeated the motion, all the way up, all the way down, now faster than the one before. I felt myself losing control, my muscles spasming and my body writhing on the bed.
"I'm gonna cum," I repeated, his quickening pace edging me closer and closer.
I hadn't noticed that he released my arms, but my hands were already in his hair by the time I felt his hand grab onto my cock for the first time. The new sensation of his stroking was enough to put me over.
"Fuck!" I screamed as he milked the cum out of my cock. One, two, three, four, I lost count of the number of ropes I shot into his mouth, as though I hadn't already blown more than once the night before. I started to feel the dull ache from my tensed muscles before I came down from my climax.
"Wow," he said, the bemused tone in his voice lightly mocking but still charming. "Feel better?"
I laid there panting, blinking my eyes to regain my vision, my body too tired to move. A nod of confirmation was the best I could deliver.
He slid out of the bed, completely unselfconscious about his nakedness and his own unattended erection as his long legs carried him across the room. I heard the shower start through the open bathroom door, left to wonder if I was meant to wait here, show myself out or join him.
"Are you hungry?" His head popped into view, a toothbrush protruding from his mouth. "I'm fucking starving. Let's get food then I'll drive you home."
I opened my mouth to protest, more out of habit than actual preference, but he'd already dipped back into the bathroom.
"Can I get three large fries and two coffees?" Matt had pulled us into a McDonald's drive-thru. I couldn't tell if he was ordering for himself or for the both of us. "You drink coffee, right?"
It was phrased like a question, but if there was an expectation of an answer, I didn't feel it. It had been that way since we got in the car, the ride from his place mostly silent. Not exactly an awkward silence, just a relaxed calm without the expectation of conversation. It started out nice, almost soothing. But the quiet seemed to engulf us as we drove, slowly making me uncomfortable. As though I had become invisible.
"Ah, fuck it. And an apple pie for the road."
He rolled his eyes in my direction when the woman in the speaker box informed him that they don't start serving fries until 11 a.m. I hadn't wanted fries, but the silent look made me feel like a co-conspirator in his disapproval of the woman, the establishment, everyone beyond the two of us. The acknowledgement of my presence put me at ease.
"We'll wait."
We sat in the McDonald's parking lot for nearly half an hour as Matt hummed along to songs he clearly didn't know on the radio, chomping on fries four at a time. He seemed calm, almost dazed, clearly enjoying the late morning air.
What I couldn't tell was if he was enjoying my company or if I had become a burden, an errand awaiting completion, like a bag of clothes to be dropped off for donation.
"Breakfast of champions," I said when he handed me the fries, immediately regretting how sharp it sounded. Matt just laughed.
"My treat, of course." He haphazardly tore the apple pie apart with his bare hands and waved one of the halves, a little smashed but no worse for the wear, in my face.
"What is this?" I waved the pie back at him, my impatience finally getting the better of me. "What are we doing here?"
He seemed genuinely surprised by my outburst, or by the very idea that I would wonder why we were sitting in a McDonald's parking lot at 11 a.m. eating french fries and apple pie.
"Oh shit, did you have somewhere to be?" he said, apologetic.
"Well, no, not really," I said, now embarrassed. "But I should get home. I don't want my roommate to worry."
"Oh god, don't scare me like that," he said. If he was upset, it didn't show. He just seemed relieved that he hadn't done anything wrong.
He sat back up in his seat, dusting the salt off his fingers onto his pants. "You worry too much. It stresses me out."
We drove back to my dorm in silence once again, the wind and sounds of the road through the windows drowning out the song on the radio. I felt guilty, but Matt remained unbothered, his expression inscrutable behind his sunglasses. I just wanted to get home and out of the car, to get back to my own life where I knew how to behave.
As if sensing my discomfort, he reached over and put a hand on my knee, steadying me as he drove.
"This was fun," he said as we pulled up to my building. "Let me know if you want to do it again sometime."
"Yeah, for sure," I said meekly, already halfway out of the car.