Bill leaned against Pete’s body. Pete licked his neck, ran his hands over Bill’s chest and belly, teased his nipples between thumb and forefinger and made them hard.

“You’re a beautiful boy,” Pete said. “Your skin’s so soft and smooth. You have those pretty blue eyes, those thick lips…”

As he continued complimenting Bill’s body, his hand slipped down to Bill’s crotch and he began, gently, to stroke his dick.

“Beautiful, tight little ass,” he said. “Being inside you was so mind-blowing, Billy, so hot and wet in there. You just gobbled me up. Like you were born to be fucked.”

That none of this sounded true to Bill did not prevent him from getting hard in Pete’s hand.

“Yeah, that’s right. Billy, fuck my hand. Fuck it hard. Come for me.”

Bill twisted his head back, caught Pete’s mouth and stuck his tongue into it, feeling at the same moment the bristle of Pete’s chest hair against his back, the heft of Pete’s thighs beneath his butt, the heat of Pete’s dick against the small of his back, the smell of Pete’s sweat and the sound of his own whimpers; all these sensations and smells and sounds built up in his belly and flushed his chest. A jolt of almost unbearable pleasure coursed through his body, curling his toes, and he gushed semen into Pete’s hand. Grinning, Pete slowly spread the cum across Bill’s torso, saying, “This will put hair on your chest.”

He sat there for a moment with his arms around Pete’s neck until Pete said, “Get up, Billy. I got to go home and get ready for work.”

The encounter with Pete confused Bill. Pete had hurt him and when he had asked him to stop had ignored him and yet, at the end, he had given Bill that second toe-curling orgasm, the mere memory of which made his dick jump to attention. Maybe the roughness, the borderline brutality, was simply part of sex between men. Still, the experience troubled him and he thought long and hard about why before concluding that it had felt like he was part of Pete’s fantasy, a fantasy that, except for the convenience of his body, excluded Bill. He remembered the exchange of warm, low laughter between Waldo and Eddie when they had sex, like two people sharing a private joke, a private happiness. Sex with Pete had been arduous, painful, bewildering and ultimately stupefying pleasurable—but it had not been fun or happy. And yet, though it bothered him, and he was relieved that Pete showed no signs of wanting a repeat, the memory of sex with Pete completely supplanted any thought of Marco when Bill jerked off.

“How do you know if you’re a top or a bottom?” Bill asked Waldo one night as they walked home from the bar.