Work Text:
One
In the weeks leading up to Alex’s eighteenth birthday, he spends hours meticulously crafting a list of things that adults are legally permitted to do, and minors are not. It takes nearly twice as long to decide which items to sidebar, so he can narrow the list down to a manageable number. Finally, he’s left with four:
1. Register to vote. Even if he weren’t so invested in politics himself, he’s fairly certain that his mom would disown him if this weren’t #1 in the rankings. He’s first in line at the voter registration office, fairly vibrating with excitement as he fills out the form and hands it back to the clerk – and as of 7:58 AM, Alexander Claremont-Diaz, 18, of Austin, is the newest registered Democrat in the great state of Texas. He takes a selfie in front of the building on his way back out, and posts it to Instagram with the caption, “Reporting for civic duty. #hbd2me #voteblue,” and within minutes his mom has taken a screenshot and shared it in the family group chat.
2. Buy a lottery ticket. Logically, Alex knows that his chances of winning are slim to none, but given the other option at the convenience store is a pack of cigarettes, he opts for a $1 scratch ticket. It takes him longer to find a quarter to scratch off the foil coating than it does to realize he’s lost a dollar, but he’s still completed a rite of passage, so he supposes he can still count it as a birthday win.
3. Get a tattoo. Admittedly, this idea had been a little far-fetched from its conception, but he still finds a shop that does walk-ins for flash designs, picks out something cool, and watches the artist place the stencil. Alex chickens out the second the needle hits his skin, and if anyone ever asks, yes, that freckle has always been there and no, it’s not a different color than the rest of his birthmarks.
4. Go to the adult novelty shop. It’s hard to tell whether Alex is more excited or nervous when he walks through the front door. He fumbles his wallet and nearly drops it when the bored-looking sales associate asks for his ID and drawls an even more bored-sounding “Happy birthday, kid,” as she hands it back. She gestures toward the center of the store. “Let me know if you have any questions.”
Alex nods and looks around, wide-eyed. The novelty shop had really been the entire plan, and now that he’s here, he’s completely unsure of where to go first. So… left. He’ll go left. He skirts around the perimeter of the store, taking in racks of toys in every color imaginable, an entire wall of porn DVDs and Blu-Rays, racks of lingerie for all body types and sexes, the assortment of genital-themed novelty items intended for bachelor and bachelorette parties, a rack of various whips and chains and sundry for the BDSM aficionados in the greater Austin area, and lubricant in containers ranging from individual packets – like ketchup, his brain happily supplies, only sexy – to five-gallon buckets.
It’s possible he’s a little out of his depth, here.
Rounding a shelf that’s crowned by the biggest butt plug he’s sure has ever existed on the planet, his gaze alights on something he might be able to work with. As a newly minted eighteen-year-old, he’s practically a pro when it comes to jerking off, and he’s seen people use this brand of masturbatory aids on more than one occasion during furtive sessions in incognito browser tabs while he’s alone time in his room.
Alex makes his way to the front of the store, snagging one of the small bottles of lube on his way, and deposits his purchases on the counter. The sales associate takes his money, hands him his items in a discreet paper bag, and wishes him happy birthday again as he makes his way out the door.
The next day he returns to the store and buys six more Tenga eggs.
—
Two
When Alex is 20, he tweaks his back during a pickup lacrosse game and moves around like an old man for three days before he finally gives in and makes an appointment with a physical therapist. After a 60-minute assessment, it’s determined that he needs to drink more water, stretch daily, and stop sitting in weird positions. The water is annoying – caffeine is 90% of his bloodstream and he’d hate to dilute it at this point – and he’s not sure how much control he has over finding the strangest, most comfortable way to utilize seating, but stretching? That he can do. And, as it turns out, he’s actually decent at it once he gets started.
Really decent.
Like, weirdly decent. Apparently, it’s not normal for people who haven’t spent most of their lives dancing or doing gymnastics to just be able to hop into the lotus position or put their ankles behind their heads. This is news to Alex because playing his ass like a pair of bongos has been his favorite party trick since his dad watched Dumb & Dumber with him when he was in middle school.
Stretching leads to yoga, and yoga leads to searching for yoga on PornHub, and searching for yoga on PornHub leads to very specific stretching techniques that have brought him to this very moment, buck-ass naked on his bedroom floor with the door firmly locked. Most of his weight is resting on his shoulders and upper back, his legs as far back as he can get them, and he’s craning his neck, tongue extended, jerking off furiously, and – there.
Holy shit. The taste of his own pre-cum explodes across his tongue, and Alex pulls his legs back just a little more, feeling a deep stretch in his midback, then a release, and he takes the head of his dick into his mouth. He’s so shocked he almost forgets to suck.
Almost.
—
Three
During Alex’s senior year in college, he meets a guy with even less of a filter than him, who just casually brings up his sex life during lectures. One such conversation, which occurs when Alex is trying to focus on macroeconomics, leads Alex down another interesting nighttime search path. It takes him a single trip to the local adult store to get what’s needed, and then he’s back in his senior apartment with his doors locked and his blinds drawn.
He takes a few minutes to get everything set up, then opens his laptop, scrolls through to one of his favorite videos, hits play, and within a minute or two is realizing that Jesus fucking Christ, yeah, No Filter Guy has a point. Alex thrusts into the Fleshlight in time with the couple onscreen, and the silicone stretches and flexes around his dick, making obscene little wet sucking sounds each time he thrusts inside. In his mind’s eye, he envisions grinding into a warm body, feeling their smooth skin and hearing their gasps as he fucks them.
When his fingers brush over the hole at the end of the toy as he adjusts his grip, Alex’s eyes nearly cross at the increase in suction. From there, it’s basically game over – a few rapid thrusts, the imagined sound of his name on someone’s lips, and he’s done for.
Learning to clean the Fleshlight, he discovers, is more difficult than learning to use it.
—
Four
Alex gets into the kinkier side of TikTok pretty early into the pandemic, scrolling through thirst trap after thirst trap – but one video stops him in his tracks. The next day, he locks his bedroom door in the Residence and unpacks his Amazon delivery.
His first attempt at shibari self-tying is a lopsided mess. His second isn’t much better. After a few weeks, though, he’s started to get himself into several very interesting positions – all with quick releases, because he doesn’t want the cleaning staff to come in the next morning and find he’s accidentally and indelibly hogtied himself. His favorite ties allow him one hand free to jerk off; sometimes, though, he manages to tie himself in such a way that he can’t touch his cock, and that’s nearly as good as getting off when tied.
Shibari starts to creep into his everyday life, too – on days when he knows he’ll be under stress, Alex takes to tying himself a shibari armband to help activate his parasympathetic nervous system.
But, like most of his hobbies, eventually, he stops practicing when something else grabs his attention – and then, the only evidence of his knowledge of shibari is the box of nylon ropes at the bottom of his closet.
—
Five
After Henry kisses him on New Year’s Eve and runs away, amidst the pining and the longing and the yearning and the angst, Alex goes down what he later classifies as the most important web search rabbit hole of his entire life. It starts with:
>> My friend kissed me and then ran away
This serves up mixed results on Quora and Reddit, mostly in favor of communicating about the kiss, which would be great, except Henry is ghosting him. So next, he tries:
>> How to tell if your friend has feelings for you
And he’s not sure whether those results are helpful at all, because a lot of the behaviors listed in the mountain of websites he skims through are things that Henry has been doing since the day they started texting. Up until Henry had flipped his world on its axis by grabbing him under the tree and kissing him so fiercely that Alex forgot to breathe until Henry was fully out of sight, there’d never been a clear change in his behavior that indicated he might be developing something more than frenemies-turned-friends feelings. And:
>> How to tell if you have feelings for a friend
… isn’t much better, because of course, Alex wants to spend a lot of time with Henry; he’s funny and caring and smart, and he just gets Alex in the weirdest, most comfortable way. And of course, Alex wants to check in with Henry regularly; they’re five hours apart by plane, so it’s not as though he can just pop in to visit. And of course, he makes an effort with his appearance when Henry’s going to be around; Henry dresses like the fucking royalty that he is, and Alex is going to make sure that he doesn’t disappoint by comparison. So he tries:
>> How to have sex with a guy
… because if Alex has had any realizations since those tumultuous, incredible ten seconds where Henry’s lips were on his in the snow, it’s that he wants to kiss those lips again, to touch him, and to see for himself, in person, what’s under his double-breasted suits. In the span of a few weeks, Alex learns the following things:
1. There’s a whole subset of men who have sex with men who never have penetrative sex. Alex definitely wouldn’t be opposed, but he doesn’t know if Henry’s into it or not – so he does a deep-dive into all the non-penetrative practices he’s never tried with a guy. Intercrural sex is particularly intriguing, but he also spends the better part of multiple jerk-off sessions thinking about whether Henry’s circumcised, and if he’s not circumcised, whether he’d be interested in trying docking.
2. He really, really wants to go down on Henry. Or have Henry go down on him. Or both, ideally, maybe even at the same time.
3. If When he starts having sex with Henry, there are a large number of countries in the world they’re not going to be able to visit. He makes a mental note to check that list whenever they’re making overseas travel plans because he’s determined now that they’re going to at the very least talk about this.
4. Prostate orgasms are fucking otherworldly.
That last thing, he learns by way of lots of lube, his fingers, and once he feels comfortable, a prostate massager, which he’d purchased online and warned the Secret Service in advance not to open – to prevent traumatizing both himself and them. (They’d opened it anyway because it was protocol, but at least they hadn’t looked too closely.)
Alex barely has the patience to let the massager charge for 24 hours before he tries it the first time. It’s wider than a finger and curved at the end, but he uses enough lube that it slides in without much effort, the exterior flange nestling right up against his taint. He presses the button on the base and oh, holy shit.
As the majority of his research has suggested, he focuses on clenching and releasing around the massager, and he finds that it rocks the massager against his prostate in a way that sends heat radiating out from his core. He barely has time to think about jerking off before he comes hard enough that he loses feeling in his fucking face, and the massager doesn’t let up, just keeps buzzing away inside him until he’s arching and writhing on the bed again, his dick twitching with a fucking dry orgasm, which he’d been pretty sure was just a myth until about, oh, eleven seconds before.
He’s almost tempted to leave the massager in for longer to see how many times he can come.
—
+1
“Baby, I want to try something.”
“Hm,” Henry replies from the end of the bed, where he’s sprawled on his belly in a pair of Alex’s pajama shorts, thumbing through a literary magazine.
Alex sits up, then crawls over to Henry and settles down half on top of him. He kisses Henry’s shoulder, then clarifies, “It’s something sexual.”
“As many of your ideas tend to be,” Henry confirms. He closes the magazine and sets it down on the floor, then turns over beneath Alex so he’s looking up at him. “What is it you want to try?” he asks softly.
A wave of unbridled fondness washes over Alex at this question, and he bends down to give Henry a sweet kiss. “God, you’re just the fucking best,” he gushes, nuzzling his nose against Henry’s. “So, the thing I want to try. I should preface this by saying it’s something I saw in porn, so I don’t know if it’s actually possible for us, but.”
“Do tell,” Henry murmurs.
“I just really want to see if I can bulge your belly with my dick,” Alex blurts.
Henry’s mouth drops open, and for a moment it looks like he’s forgotten how to breathe. Then it seems as if his brain resets because he clears his throat and says, “Ah. Yes, when would you like to try?”
Alex grins. “I mean… now?” he suggests.
Henry chuckles and pulls him in for a kiss. “Get the lube,” he says against Alex’s mouth when they part.
Alex scrambles for the nightstand, retrieving the little bottle. When he returns to the end of the bed, Henry’s shed his shorts and is lightly stroking his cock. Alex pauses for a moment just to look at him, then shakes his head a little and crawls over him, hiking one of Henry’s legs up as he presses in for a kiss that immediately turns heated. Alex’s hand slides up Henry’s thigh toward his ass, finding him still soft and a little slick from earlier.
“Not too sore?” Alex asks, probing him carefully with the tip of his middle finger.
“If I were,” Henry replies, circling his hips against Alex’s hand, “I would’ve said no.”
Fair enough. Alex opens the lube and drizzles some onto his first two fingers, then hands the bottle off to Henry, who takes a little and spreads it on his own dick. Because Henry’s still a little open from the last round, it takes almost no time to prep him again, and Alex savors every soft gasp and moan that he wrings from Henry while he does it.
“So I think,” Alex says, leaning down, “we should probably start with you on your hands and knees.”
“I like where this is going so far,” Henry murmurs. He turns over, getting himself situated, arching his back deeply and Alex feels his nostrils flare at the sight of him.
“You,” Alex declares, “are trouble, and I love you more than life itself.”
Henry huffs out a laugh that becomes a moan partway through when Alex settles himself behind him.
Alex chuckles, rubbing his dick over Henry’s open hole, then grabbing his shaft and giving Henry’s ass a few light slaps. “Speaking of things I’ve seen in porn,” he murmurs, leaning back just far enough that he can align the head with Henry’s slick entrance. He caresses Henry’s hole with his dick a few times, until Henry finally reaches back, taking him in hand, and bears down against him until he pops inside.
Henry exhales shakily. “Always so thick to start,” he mutters, shifting on his knees as he searches for the right angle to allow Alex to just… sink inside. When he finds it, he lets out a low moan and his head drops to the mattress.
“There you go, baby,” Alex praises, feeling Henry open up around him. He rolls his hips gently a few times while Henry’s adjusting, and when Henry turns his head to look at him out of the corner of his eye, he takes Henry’s hips in his hands and begins a shallow rhythm, watching Henry’s ass cheeks flex against his hips on each stroke inside.
Keening, Henry rocks back against Alex, the movement arching his back even further and creating the illusion of a tiny, delicate waist, which – is definitely doing something for Alex that he’ll have to contemplate further later.
Alex fucks into Henry until he feels him slacken further around him, and then he leans down over Henry’s back, finding his earlobe with his teeth. “I’m gonna pull you up so you’re kneeling in front of me,” he says softly, and Henry shudders and nods in response. Alex’s arms band around his chest and he leans back onto his knees.
Henry’s back remains arched, his shoulders now flush with Alex’s chest, and he turns his head, seeking his mouth. He groans when Alex licks into his mouth and chases his tongue with a wet kiss.
Thrusting up and into Henry, Alex keeps one arm wrapped around his chest and slides the other down to his lower abdomen, pressing in. He’s not even sure it’ll work, because he’s decently endowed but not porn star endowed, and then Henry does something to change the angle, and holy fuck, he can feel himself just there, pressing against his palm. “Ohshit, baby – ” Alex groans.
“Can you – ?” Henry asks, leaning his head back against Alex’s shoulder. His hand joins Alex’s on his abdomen. “I want to feel – ”
“Yeah,” Alex replies, “fuck yeah, just – ” He slides his hand to the slide so Henry can take over. “Feel it?”
“Oh god,” Henry groans, fucking back against Alex, trying to feel the line of Alex’s cock more clearly through his skin. “Harder – ”
Alex’s free hand wraps around Henry’s dick, and he sets a harder, buffeting rhythm, jolting Henry in his lap and forcing a soft moan from Henry’s lips each time his hips hit Henry’s ass.
“Good?” Alex asks, checking in.
“Yes,” Henry hisses. “Close.”
“Me too,” Alex replies, jerking Henry’s cock in time with his thrusts, chasing both their pleasure, gritting his teeth to hold back just long enough that Henry comes first. When he hears the sharp cry that always signals Henry’s climax, Alex lets go as well, pounding up and into him with a ferocity that has Henry shooting cum nearly all the way across the bed as Alex finishes with a groan.
Breath shaking, Alex collapses back on his heels, and Henry drops down as well, nestled on his lap. Alex presses a few soft kisses to Henry’s sweaty shoulders, his dick twitching as it slowly goes down inside him.
“You really are the fucking best,” Alex murmurs into his ear, and Henry laughs.