Page 9 of Choke Up

Fucking-A.

If I’m being honest, it probably is too much. He could split me in two. But the moment I think it, my mouth waters and my ass clenches. I have zero experience with touching anyone else's dick, but my body seems to instinctively know what it wants to do with one. Still, I'm too awkward to say any of that, so I resort to humor.

ELLISH: That little thing? Now why would that be too much?

Another picture pops up on the screen, and I almost drop my phone. In swift but disjointed movements, I manage to catch my phone and attempt to pinch off an unexpected climax. But it's too late, and the first spurt of cum floods my hand. I use it to lube my fist as I stroke out the rest of my orgasm. Leaning my head down, I stare at the picture of his hand wrapped around the base of his shaft, panting as I soak my hand and cover my stomach in cum. Fuck.

I'm not very big. Nothing close to what I’m looking at in Johnny’s picture for sure. Would he be disappointed in what I have to show him? I want to show him what his picture did to me, though. I try an artsy angle, pressing my cock against my stomach with my hand, so only the very tip of my dark pink cockhead is exposed, still leaking while my hand and lower stomach are wet with what is obviously the release his picture caused. I snap the picture and send it, cleaning myself up while I wait for his response.

It takes a few minutes to get a response, but when he does, I groan loudly. The picture he sends me back will live rent free in my brain for the rest of my life. It's a closeup of his mouth, licking what can only be his own cum from his fingers.

ELLISH: Jesus Christ

JOHNNY: I want to lick you clean. Thinking about it made me shoot so hard I hit myself in the chin.

ELLISH: You're killing me!

JOHNNY: I think now is a good time to admit that I'm a dirty bastard.

ELLISH: Yeah, you've been holding out on me.

JOHNNY: I didn't want to scare you off.

ELLISH: I'm not afraid.

JOHNNY: Maybe you should be.

And maybe he’s right. I should be afraid, or at least cautious. But I’m not the same innocent, nerdy little boy that got pushed into that utility room this summer. Something was unlocked inside me that night, and I walked out with a new awareness of the man I could be. The man I want to be.

CHAPTER 3

ELLIS

Studio time is my favorite part of the week, and I've been stalking the schedule for any extra time I can get. I miss having my own space for art. So much so that I've been considering what it would take to afford my own apartment. Not having to live with Brad would certainly be worth it, however exhausted I'd be maintaining a job with a full class schedule, and it's not as though I have a terribly busy social calendar or anything.

Well, maybe it's a little busier than it's been before, considering the number of notifications I have on my phone after ignoring it for the past couple of hours. Why are there so many?

It's probably Elliot, and maybe Ivy, trying to get me to agree to the party tomorrow. I'm sure they'll break me down. Honestly, I'd rather go to a dumb party than be stuck in the dorm all night, anyway. Ignoring the messages, I turn back to the piece I'm working on.

The canvas in front of me is indicative of how I've been feeling lately. Messy. Disjointed. Jumbled. Equal parts excited and afraid, struggling to find myself and accept myself as I am.

It's barely been a month since we moved from home, but already so much has changed in me. I think being out, without the pressure of announcing it to the world, has been freeing. I'm able to be more myself here, even if I'm still working on coming out of my shell more. Between Ivy, the Pride Alliance, and my constant communication with Johnny, I think I'm coming along.

I'm happy here, if you don't count the two, unfortunately large, glaring obstacles to outright happiness.

Obviously, there's Brad. He's made living here miserable. I'm constantly on edge around him, to the point where I can't breathe in my dorm. I've opened the website for student services so many times, but they make it very clear that living arrangements are permanent except for extreme situations. It's got me almost hoping he punches me just so I could have a chance.

And then there's Gabe. Despite living halfway across campus from my dorm, having completely different majors, and almost no crossover in our social circles, he's still everywhere. Both physically and mentally. He's in two of my core classes, so I have to be in the same room with him almost every day. Luckily, the Contemporary Literature course is a large seminar, so I don't think he's even noticed I'm in the same room. I sit in the back row and keep my head down. He sat right next to me in our Applied Mathematics class though. It didn't occur to me that signing up for the easiest basic courses might land me in the same classroom as him. I assumed that my graphic arts major and his kinesiology major wouldn't have any crossover, but I guess most freshmen take basic core classes together. Unless you're Elliot and came in with transcripts full of high school AP courses and early college credits.

After our first couple of classes together, Gabe tried to follow me out and walk with me to get lunch. I still feel guilty for being rude to him. When simply trying to brush him off wasn't getting through to him, I ended up losing my composure and snapping. I think the pressure of trying to put him out of my mind while trying to be a fuller, more authentic version of myself just got to me. It's too hard denying what my heart wants most, while realizing the potential of what my body wants at the same time. Making out with a stranger awakened something in me, and that something has grown into hunger now that I've been able to explore my sexuality more with Johnny. Wrong though it might be, Gabe’s face is still the only one I see in my fantasies. Looking at it in person is just too much.

Not that I have a choice. Even though Gabe has barely tried speaking to me after I unloaded on him, the professor asked us all to keep our same seats until he learns all our names. So I still have to sit next to him three times a week. It's hard to concentrate when I can feel his presence and smell that he's fresh from the shower after his morning workout. It doesn’t help that every time I look over at him, he's watching me with a weird, worried expression. Probably because I've never yelled and told him to get out of my life so I could pretend I didn't know him.

Today, I apologized. I can't stand the tension anymore. It’s not his fault that I'm pathetically in love with him. He has no idea, anyway. It's probably easier to just deal with him being around occasionally rather than try to wash him from my mind. I let him walk with me to the art department since it's on the way to the dining hall, and didn't even lose my temper when I had to explain twice why I was choosing to skip lunch for studio time. I didn't bother mentioning that I'd be here for hours. The concept of skipping meals has always been abhorrent to Gabe. I've tried explaining that my body requires significantly less fuel than his, but not consuming five thousand calories a day is a foreign concept to a six-foot-three muscular beast of a man that spends most of his time working out and playing sports. But I have a stash of granola bars in my backpack and a free afternoon, so I'm going to be in my happy place until my studio time is up. Then I'll grab a sandwich or something on my way to the library, where I'll stay until they kick me out before I go back to the dorm.

I bite my lip and consider the project I’m working on. I wonder what Johnny would think of my project. Or Gabe.

The base of my canvas is layers of black and different shades of grey. A lot of my normal stuff has a darker, almost grungy feel to it. This piece has more color to it, or it's starting to. From the bottom left there is the beginning of a rainbow, and it arches across the canvas in wisps of barely visible swipes of color, or broken fragments of brighter pieces of the rainbow. In some places, the colors are muted and mixed into the dark background, and in others, the colors look like they are breaking through the darkness.

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