Chapter 2: Fingering the Memory
The steam from the showers still felt like a film on his skin. Cole slammed his apartment door, the vibration shaking a half-empty protein shaker off his counter. It hit the floor with a wet crack, spilling white goo across the linoleum. He didn’t clean it up.
He just stood there, breathing hard in the dark, the ghost of that impossible thickness still burning his palm.
“Fuck,” he muttered to the empty room. His voice didn’t sound like his. It sounded thin.
He shucked his clothes where he stood, leaving a trail to the futon. The cool air hit his sweat-damp skin, but it did nothing. His mind was back in the humid tile room, pinned, the cold wall against his shoulder blades, that terrifying pressure against his stomach. He’d felt the outline. The sheer, stupid mass of it. More than twice his own. The math was brutal and it made his knees weak.
He fell onto the bed, the springs groaning. He was already hard, his own cock thick and needy against his thigh. It felt insignificant. A toy. The shame of that thought made him grit his teeth.
“Not possible,” he whispered, but his hand was already moving down his stomach, past his navel, fingertips skating over the thatch of blond hair until they found his hole. It was already soft, relaxed, anticipating. He’d prepped that morning, a habit. Always ready. Now it felt like a pathetic invitation.
He pushed two fingers in easily, the stretch familiar, comfortable. He curled them, seeking the spot that usually made his back arch. A spark flickered, then died. It wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.
“Gotta be fake,” he grunted, but the memory was solid. The unyielding heat through denim. The way Julian hadn’t even flinched, just watched him with those calm hazel eyes while Cole’s world tipped sideways.
He added a third finger, scissoring them roughly. The burn was good, a distraction. He closed his eyes and imagined it wasn’t his own hand. He imagined the shower spray, the slick tile, and Julian stepping closer. Not the lanky guy in a t-shirt, but the predator underneath. He imagined those long engineer’s fingers wrapping around his throat, not to choke, just to hold. To present him.
A full-body shudder wracked him. His hips jerked off the mattress.
He pulled his fingers out, wet and shiny in the lamplight. He needed more. He needed to see. With a gymnast’s unnatural flexibility, he hooked his hands behind his knees and pulled his legs back, folding himself nearly in half, knees pressing into his own shoulders. The position exposed him completely to the empty room, his pink hole winking open, glistening.
From this angle, he could see the tight, hairless pucker, flushed and eager. He touched it again, circling, then pushed three fingers back in deep, his knuckles straining.
“Think you can take it, you stupid bitch?” he rasped, the words aimed at himself, at his reflection in the dark TV screen across the room. He saw a blur of pale, contorted muscle. “All that talk. All that shit you give the skinny guys.”
He fucked himself with his hand, the slap of skin crude in the quiet apartment. He imagined the head of Julian’s cock there, not pressing, just resting. The width alone would be a crisis. The stretch would be ruinous. The thought should have terrified him. It did. But underneath the terror was a current of pure, debilitating need. To be proven wrong. To be unmade.
His own cock leaked onto his stomach, untouched.
He fantasized about the fullness, a pain so profound it would border on religious. He imagined begging. The humiliation was the point now. It was the only thing that matched the scale of his earlier arrogance. He saw Julian’s face, not angry, not even hungry. Amused. Patient. Certain.
“Please,” Cole heard himself whimper, the word foreign in his mouth. He wasn’t sure who he was begging—the phantom in his head, or his own traitorous body.
He came suddenly, a choked-off gasp, stripes of white painting his heaving abs. The orgasm was sharp and empty, leaving a hollow ache in its wake. He unfolded his trembling legs, collapsing into a boneless heap on the sweaty towel.
The high ceiling of his apartment swam above him. The buzz of the cheap fridge filled the silence. He felt raw, scraped out. The protein powder on the floor smelled sour.
His phone buzzed on the floor, lighting up the dust bunnies under the futon.
He lunged for it, a frantic scramble. A text. Unknown number.
The preview glowed on the screen: Still thinking about a hands-on comparison?
Cole’s breath stopped. His heart hammered against his ribs. He stared at the words. He knew. He absolutely knew.
His thumbs hovered over the keypad. The cocky retort died before it was born. All he could see was the promise in those calm eyes, the silent threat whispered into steam.
He typed a single word. Sent it before he could think.
Yes.