Page 55 of Diamond Ring
I needed a minute
Followed by a picture: Mike, with his hand wrapped around himself, still in his shorts, fabric pulled stark, thumb at a darkening spot over the head. A picture clearly meant to draw reciprocation. Jake’s hand descends into his sweatpants, gripping himself where he’s still only half-hard. A coil of want wraps around his spine; his brain supplies a highlight reel’s worth of images. Mike, who looks more and more like Alex in his imagination, with Jake on his knees, sucking at the fabric of his shorts. A hand on his neck, guiding him, a light trace across his airway and—
Fuck. Of fucking course. Nothing to show for it. Just his own frustrations that make him want to shout down his bedroom walls. Because there’s what he desires and what his body is capable of. The story of being Jake Fischer.
Ben: Is that all I get?
Maybe that will buy him some time or at least yield another photo. He waits for a buzzed alert, the slight outrage that Jake hasn’t responded with a picture.
Mike: Can I send you something?
A website link appears a moment later. And Jake’s already flushed all over, but his face actually heats at that. A sex toy site, the promise of fast delivery, discreet packaging.
Ben: By something, you meant...
Mike: You don’t have to. But it seemed like you might be into it
An offer Jake doesn’t quite know what to do with, only that his cock finally,finally, catches up with the rest of him. He scrolls through the site, one hand wrapped around himself, imagining Mike sending him something and watching him get himself off with it. Mike, who seems straightforward and perceptive and very into him.
Jake wanted this day to be over, for his life to be different, for things to go right. But maybe now they have, the simplicity of jerking off, of picturing Mike here with him, the motion of his blunt cock inside him, no demand other than enthusiastic response.
He comes that way, a full-bodied shiver his cock only partially contributes to. The kind of orgasm that surprised him the first time he experienced it, that sex could be diffusely located, a rolling peak and tumbling drop. His cock goes soft again, his mind pleasantly blank, but there’s enough to snap and send a picture of his now-dampened belly.
Mike responds a few minutes later with a similar picture, the head of his cock just visible from the waistband of his shorts surrounded by the wet curl of his fingers.
Jake lies for a minute, letting himself dissolve into his pillows. He feels different. Settled, not just a postcoital haze, but like the anxiety he’s carried all day has turned into regular fatigue. He cleans himself up, brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face, drums his fingers against the countertop for sound in his otherwise quiet apartment.
No one’s waiting for him in his bedroom, but he imagines them anyway. Mike, who’s probably shorter than he is because most people are, warm and solid in his bed. Who might be snoozing or scrolling through his phone, who might be one of those guys who’s not into cuddling, or who might draw Jake in and run his evening stubble across the back of Jake’s neck. Something he’s never really had, not in a relationship that lasted longer than a handful of weeks. He’s dated, but he’s dated like he’s played for teams: never that seriously or with any indication that it would last. (Except Alex, a part of him whispers. If they hadn’t fucked that up.)
Jake goes back to his bedroom, to his cooling sheets and flattened pillow. Mike’s offer is still there. Jake shouldn’t take him up on it...probably. He spends longer than he should scrolling back through their chat, looking for red flags. He can’t just give his name and address to a total fucking stranger who wants to send him a sex toy. Though Mike is less a stranger and more someone who exists in that liminal space between screwing around and dating.
So Jake looks, skimming specifications and reading customer reviews like he might for a new truck.
Ben: Any suggestions for what I should get?
Mike: Whatever you want
Ben: How does this work? Like do you need my address?
Mike: Pick something. I’ll send you the money
Jake’s big-league paycheck should hit soon, money he’ll put toward credit card debt and what his parents lent him for a security deposit on this apartment. An embarrassing ritual each time he landed with a new team, going to them with the confession that he has enough to make it for a month or two but no more than that. A promise to pay them back and their insistence he didn’t need to; a reminder that his draft signing bonus went toward them paying off their house and their cars, toward a new kitchen, a vacation. A time when they spent money like water.
But it’s different if he’s the beneficiary of an internet stranger. If he’s stumbled into some kind of sex-for-pay situation. If he missed signals in his rush for connection.
Ben: I don’t need your money.
Mike: Didn’t mean it like that. I just like seeing people with things I bought
Jake reaches for his throat, which is bare, necklace still in the mini-safe in his clubhouse stall. An old habit: tugging at the pendant when he’s stressed or uncertain. Now with a different kind of uncertainty, absent a familiar pessimistic drop—one that feels almost like hope.
Ben: I could probably pick something out.
Mike: Maybe I could see you with it. In person?
An offer Jake doesn’t want to say no to. Dinner. Drinks. Non-quasi-famous-person stuff even if Jake’s morequasithan famous person.
Ben: How about dinner?
