Author’s note:
This is the sequel to Hey Nurse – Connor’s story – posted January 21. This story below will be more meaningful if you read Hey Nurse first. To find it, click on my name up above and scroll down a bit.
This is also the finale; all the Connor and Jake stuff I could ever want to tell has been poured into this one. Thanks to those who encouraged (even demanded!) this sequel, and I hope you enjoy Jake’s side of their story.
– Paul L.
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Connor & Me — Jake’s Story
June, 2019
Restless, waiting. I look down again at my boarding pass and my New Jersey driver’s license. Full name: Jake Alexander DeAngelis.
Compared to me today, my face in that photo looks so young. Clean-shaven, boyish, closeted gay jock, age 19. Four short years ago. Short… but jam-packed, and transformative.
“Now boarding Delta flight 447 to Denver, Colorado…”
I rise slowly from a seat in the waiting area of Gate D11, JFK Airport, New York City. My heart is beating and there’s a lump in my throat. This flight out to Denver is a big deal. I’m like a circus acrobat who has just let go of his own trapeze bar, and is now throwing his own body into the air for two long seconds. Or four long hours, in my case. That other trapeze bar needs to appear, in perfect timing, as promised. I trusted, I let go, I leaped… and my existence now depends on it.
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September, 2014
I think almost everyone gets at least a small crush on big blond Connor Forsgaard from Iowa. Everyone, no matter how straight you are. Connor is that appealing, that magnetic. He is one of those cases where a really good looking person is so damn nice on the inside, too.
And when I first met him, the crush came strong. It dug into me and it almost hurt sometimes, to be near him, but being near him was fun and it turned me on and it was all I wanted. All under the guise of being friends, “bros”, teammates. Keeping it light, keeping it chill, dude.
Yeah, that was hard.
Connor is 6 foot 3 (192 cm) and, I’ll repeat, he’s big and blond. To say Connor is blond, is like saying Mount Everest is tall. Even his eyebrows and eyelashes and all the little tiny mini-hairs on his forearms and shins: pale-golden blond. He is of pure Swedish descent, with that remarkable Nordic coloring: the platinum blond hair, the vivid blue eyes, and perfect peachy-rosy colored skin that somehow gets beautifully golden-tan in the summertime.
That radiant, smiling, oversized blond-haired suntanned muscle boy who had just arrived at college, like I did. That’s who I met on September 2, 2014. Yeah, I memorized the date. As people do when they’re in love.
He was 18, I was 18 too. We became friends, as part of the brand-new freshman class joining our university football team. I’m a fairly good player but not great, and I barely made the team. I felt lucky but ambivalent about it, not sure it was wise for me to even be on the team. Because it can be intimidating to be the runt of the litter. And because unlike most of these guys, I’m an A student with a quick mind, full of plans and thoughts and ideas. There’s more going on with me, besides football.
And because… I’m gay.
I was not ready to use the word, then. I knew I was feeling sex urges and feelings toward other guys, though. That was undeniable. And it never felt more undeniable than that night, the night after our very first football team meeting and orientation. There I was, alone, in my bed, in my brand new college dorm, away from home for the first time.
And as I lay there in the dark, my mind was buzzing and brimming full of desirous thoughts about several of my new football teammates I’d just met. The handsome Jamari, dark and handsome with a hundred dreadlocks, proud lion-like facial features, phenomenal muscular development, and a serious air that occasionally burst into a smile bigger than the moon. The plucky fun-loving redhead Jimmy, with his freckled face and mischievous eyes and unusually cute round butt that I tried not to stare at.
But most of all I was thinking about that blond boy, the big tall one with the easygoing smile and steady, natural confidence. Connor Forsgaard. “Where ya from, Blondie?” somebody asked. “Iowa” he said with a smile.
I glanced across the roster sheet at the end of orientation, eager to know his full name and his assigned jersey number (41). I memorized the quirky spelling of his name, with those two a’s. Scandinavian, I guessed, and he sure looked it. Connor’s accent when he spoke, was regular ol’ heartland, Middle America. It was easy to picture him growing up in the middle of vast golden cornfields, their stalks all swaying in the blue-sky flatland winds with the added sounds of barnyard animals in the background.
I’m from New Jersey, so that was my imaginary version of Iowa. And in my imaginary version of Connor that night, fantasizing about him, he was hauling hay and riding a tractor and feeding the animals, shirtless and strong and gorgeous in the hot July sun.
In reality Connor grew up in a middle class suburb of Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city. His teenage life wasn’t all that different from mine. Except that when we met, he showed up with that simple, natural, straight-boy authenticity; no deception, probably not even capable of it. In contrast, I was multilayered and passing as straight, but hiding secrets. It was 2014 and we were 18, still kids really. I would begin to discover more honesty and authenticity, my own kind, when I met Adam (more on him in a moment) and then started to come out to my friends at age 20. Connor was one of the first I came out to, and he took it well.
Ha ha, “he took it well” would come to have a whole new meaning, further down the road.
But it all started simple enough. Football team, freshman year, and all the male bonding that goes on when you’re spending time together training hard, joking around, forming a tribe. We all got close, like brothers, and I’d like to tell you there was all this palpable and intense male/male sexual energy everywhere, in our team life together… but, honestly, besides me and my private thoughts, I don’t think so. At least not in a big way. Maybe some of them. Homo-attraction was latent but present in Connor, that’s for sure. But most of these boys… I think they really were, and are still, straight.
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I haven’t said much about me, looks-wise. I’m Jake. Today it’s June, 2019 and I’m 23 years old, soon to be 24. Today I’ve got a full dark beard and a furry chest and belly. The chest hair and beard were already starting to come in full and thick when I arrived at college, and I was shaving daily. The next year, when I was 19, I had a strong urge to try to get into the gay clubs on the other side of town, and see for myself what that scene was like.
So I found a source for a fake ID, and I grew my beard out for the first time. It worked: me at age 19 with the beard on my face, I looked like a dude who was easily 21 or 22. I’m mostly Italian by ethnic background, dark hair and dark brown eyes, handsome face, medium-tall at 6 feet 1. My body is very strong and fit, I’m into health and fitness and nutrition. I work out like it’s a religion. Gym/weights three times a week, heated yoga classes twice, and running twice, 7.5 miles each run. No exceptions, no excuses. I actually love it… and I love the results, the proof that it works.
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So that freshman year, 2014-2015, I was excelling at my classes, and hanging out in the back of the pack on the football team. I loved it in some ways but I was always filtering what I said, trying to be sure I presented as straight. I remember commenting on a large-size bikini-chick poster in my teammate Jared’s room, in front of a half-dozen of us football dudes. Jared saw me looking at the poster, at the image of her body for a few seconds. “You like that?” he asked.
I grinned. “Sure do. See right there… see the way all those little droplets of water run real slow, down her tits? Perfection.”
He laughed, sharing the moment. “I like the way you think, bro.”
And inside I felt the ambivalence of having passed another little test, and having deceived my friends. Getting a little too good at it. Losing track of what total honesty even is.
Around that time, I was starting to hook up with boys online, but I was deeply closeted and scared that it would eventually leak back to all my comrades on the football team. So I usually chose boys who weren’t University students. I discovered quick that if you’re a bona fide jock, age 18 or 19 with a good body and handsome face, and you advertise as a top… you are in high, high demand. You don’t need to try that hard. I had boys begging for repeats, months afterward. I wasn’t even sure the sex was that great, most of the time, but it was good enough and it helped get my mind off my teammate and friend. The humpy, adorable blond Connor.
He was emerging as one of the top 3 football players in our freshman class, and in December, toward end of football season, at an away game, Connor intercepted a pass that flipped the game around and we won. No one cheered louder or harder than me, Jake, over on the team bench, watching my friend and crush get his first big Hero moment. Surges of adoration were pumping through me. And that’s when I knew. I knew that boy had a path to pro football, and maybe even fame and wealth, for real. Connor didn’t fully believe it until much later. But I foresaw it all, right then and there.
What I didn’t foresee, what I didn’t dare to dream, was what would unfold between us. I basked in little crush moments, that first year. I remember one Sunday late afternoon, NFL playoff games. We were all crowded onto sofas and chairs in the apartment of some juniors, watching the game and having beers. I nursed my one beer (I actually dislike being drunk) but the boys were knocking them back, and I remember the feeling of Connor’s arm and body next to me on the sofa as we all watched the game. Connor’s three main modes are playing football, eating a lot, and sleeping a lot. And his body is unusually thick and warm all over, it generates heat like a furnace. I sat there just feeling the glow of heat radiating from Connor’s body into mine, side by side on the couch, our bare arms touching. He just sat there drunk and happy, him watching the game and me pretending to have the same simple focus. I glanced down and noticed the spread of dark hair across my forearm muscles, contrasted with the baby-smooth skin of Connor’s with those little pale blond mini-hairs that caught the light of the room, glittering gold. Yeah, I was swooning over him, over every part of him, no question about it.
In spring semester 2015, I took two of the same classes as Connor, and it brought us closer as friends. One class was English literature, and I offered to “help” write his papers. Written papers were the grade basis of entire class; there were no sit-down tests or exams. What gradually fell into position was me working creatively on my own paper and getting an “A”, then easily knocking out a lower-quality “jock paper” for Connor, different font and different vocabulary level, and earning him a grade in the “B” range.
In my fantasies, Connor would come to feel massive gratitude for me for all my paper-writing. So much gratitude that we’d dive into bed and have all kinds of sex. I knew his naked body by then, from enough glances in the showers and locker room. And there wasn’t an inch on it that I didn’t want to touch, lick, taste. I was becoming quite a top in my online-hookup activity, and was constantly fired up by one ultimate sexual fantasy: big smooth muscular blond Connor with those huge meaty legs up in the air as I fuck him like a beast, pounding him and blasting my seed deep inside him.
In reality I wrote all his English papers, got him a B, and got no nookie whatsoever in exchange. But he did really appreciate the deal. And he was happy to take two more classes with me in Fall 2015, the first half of our second year.
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November, 2015
There is a lot more to tell you about me and Connor. The friendship got stronger and the love thing began in January of 2017, when Connor got the flu and I nursed him back to health, and fireworks went off between us. I’ll tell you about that. But some credit is due to Adam, from the winter and spring one year before.
I was 19, still feeling like a boy, but newly beard-faced, newly armed with a fake ID. The club and bar scene didn’t do much for me but I went on Scruff (online hookup site) and put up a profile with my new bearded look, to see what happens. I got a lot of interest but didn’t feel it in return, in most cases. But the real surprise was hunky, 36 year old Adam.
Adam seemed intensely into me, and we chatted late at night and he seemed to really care about me, seemed to feel a connection that was not usual. And it got surprisingly personal and deep, as we typed back and forth late into the night. He was age 36 to my age 19, and that was a huge age difference from my perspective. Adam was muscular, very fit and handsome, and he was a photographer / massage therapist / dog walker and probably three other things. An interesting gay-male patchwork of livelihood. He told me how much I reminded him of himself at 19, way back in the year 1998. Adam sent me a pic of himself from that time, and it was true, he could have been my brother. Similar athletic build, handsome face, dark brown hair and eyes.
We chatted more online over the next few nights, sharing more and more about ourselves, and eventually Adam coaxed me into letting him treat me to dinner and talk more in person.
Until then, I had said sex was overrated. I’d done it with boys, quite a few boys, and collectively I’d rate sex with boys as a mix of rushed and hot and lame and good and weird and awkward. I thought I was getting pretty good as a top, mechanically speaking, but I was not exactly sensual. I was not yet fully “in touch with my own body”, as Adam would phrase it a few nights later.
Adam was my first time having sex with a full-grown man. Not just a man, but a man who was a possible future version of me in his handsome looks, his strong hairy body. Adam was very erotically alive, sensual, physically confident. Being in bed with him was sometimes warm and tender, and sometimes amazingly hot, primal, animalistic. I never thought I’d get so into the smell and taste of a man, the way I did with Adam. He brought out that raw hungry side of me for sure. Adam was a love maker and a lust maker, and in November 2015, Adam fucking woke me up. He turned me on, tapped into deep sexual urges that I’d been carrying in me for years and years, and still hadn’t really unleashed. He coaxed that leash off me, and I just went BOOM.
At first Adam was encouraging a role-play thing, between us, where he was my “Daddy Bear” and I was his “cub” or “son.” I tried to play along but it just felt weird and contrived to me. Nothing against fetishes and role playing but it wasn’t my thing at all, it wasn’t what I was craving. I said maybe we’re not a match. But he asked me to communicate what I did want instead. And the sex between us was so fucking lust-fueled, and better and better every time. It was my first time really fucking a MAN, a strong handsome real man, and it confirmed how much I love being a top.
So I did. I communicated. I spent a few days writing it out and I sent it to him. The part I wrote that really touched Adam’s heart was this:
“I know I’m young. I want you to pass on to me what you know. Share it, give it, don’t dominate me like we’ll never be equals. Be like a guide to me, a role model. Be a lit candle that lights my own, and then the two of us are two lit candles. I don’t know if we will have something that lasts. Maybe not. The age difference is big, I know that. But Adam, you have the power to change my life in some ways and that’s really why I am writing this to you and not just saying goodbye.”
We lasted six months, November to May, and in the middle of it Adam convinced me to quit football and focus on my secret dreams I’d been afraid to say out loud, afraid to take real steps toward. Medical school, career as a doctor, and gradually coming out and becoming a proud gay man. Adam would hug me and say to me in that low sexy voice, his beard stubble grazing my ear,
“Jake, you are a prize in this world. You’re one in a thousand, you strong smart sexy boy. I just fucking adore you. You’re gonna become somebody exceptional. I don’t know if you see it yet, but I do, every moment that I look at you.”
And over these months my confidence surged upward another 1%, and then another 1%, and another… permanently. Adam impacted me profoundly, on many levels. Jake the boy became Jake the man.
And his lit candle did transfer its flame to me, like I’d asked, more and more. Adam taught me plenty that winter and spring. How to kiss much more sensually. How to quick-clean an entire apartment in 90 minutes. How to throw – or take – a truly great fuck. How to make somebody breakfast in the morning. How to express love and gratitude, and conflict, and complicated feelings. And his massage therapy training, how to work on somebody’s muscles and give him relief and healing; Adam taught me the basics of that too.
All of it has gone on to serve me well.
Adam, it’s now 2019 and you just turned 40. You’re now living in warm sunny Los Angeles with your new guy, Mike. You two look great together on Instagram. And I’ve already told you, in person, how powerful a change you were in my life. But I’m telling you again. I can never thank you enough.
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April, 2016
Two months after I quit the football team, I was still close friends with Connor because of our two classes together and me writing most of his papers. And because I was still plugged into the football crowd, and we all really did like hanging out together. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do about next year’s housing. Part of me wanted to live alone and do what I wanted, start to really come out as gay, not just the closeted jock who was having sex with older Adam on the other side of town. And part of me was still longing for the guys and for Connor personally, and wanting to stay near him somehow.
Lots of the football team were members of the three or four football-heavy fraternities. Mostly it was split by race, reflecting our team’s racial makeup: the white football frats and the black ones. Connor was like an honorary member of both the two white football frats but he hadn’t actually pledged. He was on the verge of changing his mind for next year, and pledging, but I didn’t want him to. They drink way too much, keep crazy hours. They fail their classes and seem proud of it… frat life can get messy, sloppy.
I told him “Man… try to understand something: everybody loves you, Connor. Everybody. You can walk into any of those frat parties and have a great time… and then you can go home to peace and quiet when you want. Stay focused, bro. Don’t end up all wiped out for practice and more importantly the games. You might not believe it, Connor, but you are pro material. NFL, for real. You see what some of the top draft picks are getting right now, multi-year contracts. Millions. That could be you, in a couple years.”
He raised a big beefy arm and laughed. “Crazy talk.”
I smiled. “Crazy world. Those dudes making millions today: who were they, when they were halfway thru college? They were you. Doing all the footwork, getting better and better, focused on their team and on their game. I’m fuckin’ serious, 41. Go on, visit the frat life, cherry-pick the good stuff, but don’t get sucked down into it. Eyes on the prize.”
And then, partly due to my actually believing what I was telling Connor, and partly due to my unending and private lust for him, I went on a mission to find the two of us an apartment. A place of our own, near the stadium, for next year. The thing about Connor is he’s two people: a fierce fucking warrior on the football field… but agreeable, compliant, almost passive, off the field. He pretty much just does what he’s instructed to do, guided to do.
I was fired up on all that great man-sex and motivational talk I was getting from my man Adam, across town… and so I took the wheel of this situation. Just a week later, I was showing Connor around the rooms of a good-enough apartment that I’d found. Two bedrooms, low rent, a 5 minute walk to the football stadium and training gym.
“My own room, in a house! Right HERE, down the street from the field and the gym. Jake, how did you find this, it’s awesome.” Connor was beaming with delight as he walked around inside the apartment. He seemed not to know there were quite a few apartments like this, if you seek them out; he’d been watching most of his friends follow the fraternity-pledging treadmill.
I coaxed him further. “Also I know you aren’t big on housekeeping, I’ll take care of all that. Comes natural for me.”
He blurted out a big loud “YES” before I could suggest we think it over. That night I lay awake, on fire with thoughts of me sharing an apartment… all next year… with big beautiful blond Connor Forsgaard.
Connor: one of my best friends, and the straight dude I was hopelessly in love with. It felt good to dream. To dream of at least a dozen sexual fantasies. Like, for example, me and big naked Connor showering together in our new bathroom, soaping each other up all over, me running my hands all over his slippery smooth soapy muscles. And then I’m sliding my long thick rock-hard dick up his big round smooth jock butt and fucking him deep. I’m grabbing onto Connor’s thick broad soapy-wet V-shaped back, fucking him with real depth and force. He presses both his strong arms against the shower wall and moans deliriously with each thrust from me.
It felt good to dream.
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October, 2016
In reality, it was nice living with Connor, but not always ideal. He was seeing this girl, Caitlin, who was gorgeous but seemed perpetually unhappy and always hassling him, giving him a hard time. I jealously hated when she came over. And I was immersed in pre-med studies, was no longer taking classes with Connor and writing his papers for him, so we were both under more academic strain than usual.
And he really was a total slob, day to day; I did everything. Dishes, countertops, floors, bathroom, you name it, I did it. I never complained because I still was all full of desire for him, and this was at least something I could give to him.
But it didn’t seem like life was going to turn out anything like my earlier sexual fantasies about us, and those fantasies gradually simmered down. Partly because I was going online and inviting boys over to get fucked, when Connor was at practice or at classes. That helped; sometimes the sex was good, even great. Through last year’s time with Adam, I’d become a top who knows what he’s doing. Most times, when I was giving it to a guy who came over, he fucking loved it. And it kept me from pining for Connor too much, day to day.
I got careless one day, though, and when Connor came back to the apartment unexpectedly, I was watching some gay porn and was just about to whip out my hardening dick and jack off to it. He came bursting in, I scrambled to close down my laptop screen, but he saw.
We talked about it two nights later, me and Connor, and he was more OK about it than I’d feared. He said of course we’re still good friends, and he doesn’t think any less of me. Whew.
I didn’t quite lie but I didn’t quite tell him everything. I was afraid. I told him I was only “starting to explore stuff” and “figuring it out”. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Connor I’d been secretly 100% gay for years, during our entire friendship. I was afraid of what he’d think if he realized that when I coaxed him into getting this apartment with me, I knowingly did so as a gay dude.
As it turned out, Connor learned a month later (from our asshole next door neighbor) that I was sometimes having sex with boys in our apartment when he was at practice or at classes… and he didn’t freak out about that either. He had some natural discomfort but he didn’t freak out.
I’m much more honest and authentic today, now that I’m a few years older. It has taken time, mistakes, and practice. But back then, I was sometimes full of layers and deceptions and tactics, and this was one of those moments. But most important, Connor listened to me saying I was, quote, “maybe more attracted to guys, I don’t know…”, and he was kind and supportive about it. And that’s all that mattered to me. Our friendship endured.
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January, 2017
Connor was having a great season on the football team, up through Christmas break. No injuries, and he was increasingly being recognized as one of the team’s best players.
But then in mid-January, a few weeks after we were all back from winter break, he got the flu. It was pretty bad, fever and exhaustion. Connor is one of the most robust and healthy people I know, so it was almost a shock for me to see him like that. And I can’t help it, must be the Italian in me, but if I love you and you get sick, I will move mountains to take care of you and try to help you get better. And that’s what I did. I took on that flu, and helping Connor get over it, for the next several days.
It got to the point where Connor stopped calling me Jake and started calling me Nurse. “Hey Nurse” he’d say, whenever I knocked on his door or went in to check on him. I’d usually find him laying there sick and feverish and half asleep or totally asleep, with his computer still playing a movie or TV show that he was too tired to actually watch.
I brought him food and drink around the clock, and did whatever I could think of to get him better. I wasn’t personally worried, I always get a flu shot, and I learned Connor usually blows that stuff off, hadn’t taken it seriously. And besides, his girlfriend was a no-show, she wouldn’t even visit him while he was sick. “She has a thing about germs and not getting sick…” he said with a shrug. He wasn’t so sick that he needed the hospital, but he definitely needed a friend to help him eat and drink enough. And, ok, it’s true I went even further… I changed his bed sheets, did all his laundry, aired out his room, stuff like that.
Connor surprised me on the 4th day, when he was starting to get better. The surprise happened early afternoon, right after I put him back into his own bedroom and bed, all clean and fresh. Not just the bedroom but his body, too; I had just made him take a shower and put on new clean clothes. I remember he paused, getting back into his bed, and he thanked me “for everything”. He seemed to really mean it, an unusually strong look of gratitude in his pale blue eyes looking up into mine.
But what happened next, wow. He was falling asleep in his bed and I was offering to go make him some lunch later on. And then, drifting off to sleep, he answered when I asked “I’m gonna go now, be back soon with lunch… you’re all set for now?”
Connor raised an arm beneath the covers, gently patted the bed thump-thump-thump, and he murmured, his voice sleepy and low and barely audible, “…iwannaholdyou…”
I thought maybe I misunderstood, but the gesture from his hand matched his words, so I said, “You mean, like… I get in the bed with you?”
He slowly nodded his handsome blond head up and down, and again the hand raised itself and patted the mattress right next to him, softly… thump-thump-thump.
Lord God in heaven. My heart was instantly beating like a drum, excited. Trying to stay calm on the surface, I kicked off my sneakers, lifted the comforter and sheets. I slid my own not-exactly-small body in there next to Connor’s. He moved over to give me more room, and his arms pulled me into an embrace. He was wearing the oversize cotton sweatshirt and sweatpants that I gave him, to make sure he stayed warm, and I was in regular casual clothes.
His arms and his whole body felt so fucking good wrapped around me as we “spooned” in his bed. Big, warm, mmmm. Connor’s chest, pressed gently into my back, filled and emptied with each breath, slow and sleepy, as his big thick arms held me. He began to snore very lightly, like the purr of a big cat. I was trying hard to stay still. I felt so crazy-alive and excited by the feel of him, and the fact that we were doing this at all.
I could not resist trying to get the most out of it. As he held me, I gently nudged my butt back into his crotch as we lay there. We had layers of clothing on. I nudged a little more with my butt, and in his sleep, still snoring gently, he held me a little tighter and burrowed his crotch into my butt a little more in response. And, yep. Even through the clothes I felt his dick. HARD. I could feel it, as our breaths rose and fell in rhythm. I was rock hard too.
Then I had a funny thought, how most of my Connor fantasies had been of me being the top, and now here we are at last, but it’s like the opposite setup, his dick pressing on my butt. This whole moment seemed so hot and surprising and kind of funny to me, and I tried not to chuckle out loud but I did, a little – and it woke him up. His body suddenly held itself still, and he made a confused mumbling sound.
I said, gently, “Hey there. So uh… you can hold me some more, or I can go…”
And Connor asked me, “how, what —why am I holding you?” I told him this was at his request, he’d asked me to. He was very surprised to learn this, but he kept on holding me, as we were. With his warm strong arms, his hands resting along my chest, the whole long thickness of his body at rest alongside mine…. and that hard dick, nudged along my butt. I didn’t want the moment to ever end. I was hoping maybe he didn’t either.
After a long minute, he said “Ok, I’m good.” I gently slid out of his arms and got up, and my cock was pointing straight out in my sweatpants, and it looked fucking HUGE. I laughed out loud and walked fast toward the bedroom door before he could see it. My big dick still pulsed with arousal and leaked precum like a faucet as I went to work in the kitchen, making Connor a sandwich for lunch.
All that day and night I could not stop replaying that encounter between us, in my mind. It had felt so fucking good. I was full of longing, please please can we do that again.
I had no idea that it was just the warmup, for what was about to come.
Connor rebounded fast from the flu, and two days later he went right back at it with the football team workout. Apparently he’d had a fight with his girlfriend or something, and he pushed too hard at the gym even though he was still a bit weak from getting over the flu. When he came home that night, he was limping and moaning. “Shit, that was brutal” he said. “My legs… fuck, I did too much.” I was in my room an hour later when I heard a loud crash – Connor had gotten up from the kitchen table and his leg muscles just buckled and he fell right down onto the kitchen floor. I came out into the hall to see if he was okay… and ended up offering him a sports massage.
I swear, my motives were genuine enough that I really did want to relieve his muscle soreness. And I had some beginner massage skills that I’d learned from my ex, Adam, the year before, and had tried out on a few hookups with great success. But, yeah, part of me also was jumping at the chance for my two strong hands to touch Connor’s body, touch him in a new and more intimate way.
Connor hesitated at first when I offered a therapeutic rubdown. But an hour later, there he was, at my bedroom door. Tall and humpy and gorgeous and blond, and sore all over from the waist down… saying Yes. I was hoping so bad that he would. I’d spent the past hour warming up my room with my portable heater, and watching some YouTube sports massage videos that focused on the legs. I was ready.
He came in wearing just a T shirt and some boxer shorts. “Hey 41.” I liked to call him by his football jersey, sometimes. “Come on in, lay down on the bed, face down. We’ll do your calf muscles first.”
Connor was so relaxed, and it felt great to use my advanced-beginner massage skills on his body. I could feel his thick, beefy leg muscles were strained, sore, and very warm. I told him to take off his shirt so I could use some oil, and he did. I’d never actually felt his body before, and it felt so fucking beautiful, so thick and smooth and strong. My hands were providing relief to him but they were also falling in love.
Fortunately he kept his eyes mostly closed and didn’t seem to notice the fucking huge erection in my dark blue shorts, as I worked on him. I knew how hard those lower body workouts were, from my two seasons on the team… and I knew his butt had to be deeply sore too. And I’d been lusting after that big round beautiful jock ass for years now.
I just told him “I want to work on your butt” and began to slide his boxer-shorts underwear down.. and he was fully compliant, at ease. He even used his hands to help me get the underwear off. And then, wow. I got to massage and celebrate Connor’s phenomenal, spectacular, big strong perfect butt.
I used plenty of oil and really worked deep on him, and he fucking loved it. He began to moan softly, uncontrollably, as I dug my strong oiled-up hands into those two huge warm soft mounds of muscle, squeezing and stroking and kneading them. I was in heaven.
The massage ended at a moment that seemed natural, and I could not resist bending down to gently kiss Connor on the shoulder. He smiled softly and just lay there, so at peace. I left the room, to let him get himself together.
Then two nights later, he’d had another hard workout… and he came to me this time, asking for another healing massage. I grinned and said, “You sure can.” And I noticed a certain spark of eagerness in Connor’s blue eyes, this time.
This time we just got right to it. We had him laying there bare-ass naked from the start, and he said “Let’s do this — bring on the oil.” And this intense animal urge just came over me as soon as my hands began to oil up those big round butt muscles again, feeling their thickness and beauty. I wanted so fucking badly to just spread that big strong ass and put my face up in there and make love to Connor’s hole, lick it, taste it.
And after I worked on him some more and noticed his dick was rock-hard this time… I went for it. I told him “Close your eyes and let me do something…” and he did, and I took off my shorts, we were both naked now, and my two hands gently spread that butt open and I just nuzzled my face right on in there, beard first, tickling him, then my tongue came out and I really went up in there, deep as I could, almost fucking him with my long wet sensual tongue. Fuck, he tasted so good, such a turn on. I wanted more and more, and I fucking took it, purring and growling with lust as I rimmed him with wild, sloppy, wet juicy enthusiasm. Connor was shocked and just as turned on as I was, he’d never had any experience like this before.
From there we went into full on man-sex, me taking the lead, and he seemed fascinated and intensely turned on at every step, every new thing we did, every sensation he was feeling. We sucked each other’s dicks, and Connor’s tasted so good in my mouth. I was so eager to taste his cum… that didn’t exactly happen, that first time, but what did was even hotter.
I wanted to fuck Connor so fucking BAD. I turned him back to face-down on my bed and I climbed onto him and started fuck-humping his butt, my big hard dick riding along it, not penetrating him, just humping. But with all that oil, and we were both so fucking horned up, I really started humping him intensely, like I was really fucking him, and I started talking dirty into his ear, holding his whole body in a big strong vice grip with my arms, and my hips just going SLAM, SLAM, SLAM, humping Connor’s big smooth warm oiled-up butt.
That’s when I learned about Connor’s nipples. Impulsively I grabbed and tugged his muscle-tits while I was humping him, and oh my God, he went fucking crazy. I’d had no idea he was that sensitive. I’d located Connor’s “ON” buttons, for sure! His hips began to buck with hunger against my hard thrusting cock, and now both of us were actively fucking.
And when I was about to come, I got greedy and I just had to do it. I grabbed my dick, found his hole, and I slid the head of my dick right on into Connor, taking his virginity. FUCK, it was so hot. I only put the first few inches in, and he was stunned that I did it. But he took it with ease, and we were fucking for real. So fucking incredible. And I lost control seconds later and blasted deep into him, I must have shot six or seven thick jets of my semen deep up in there. The surge of orgasm went barreling through my whole body and I fell onto Connor, crazed with lust, still fucking him though my dick had now emptied everything I had to give.
I lay on top of Connor for a moment, both of us breathing hard and deep, drenched in sweat and oil and amazement. Finally I slowly pulled out, feeling that delicious warm hole clinging to my dick as I slid out. And I said ““Fuck… I swore I wasn’t gonna do that with you… but I had to.”
We took turns scooting into the bathroom to clean up, and then we dove back into my bed. I will always remember the way Connor turned the tables then, taking me in his arms and pinning me down in my bed. He looked down deep into my dark brown eyes, and his own eyes were full of hunger and delight. His smooth face danced along the texture of my thick beard as we kissed softly, tenderly. And he broke the kiss and said, “Jake, my god. What you just did with me, man. Fuck. I don’t – I never thought – I can’t even say words for it….”
I just looked up at beautiful Connor Forsgaard, post-orgasm, and I smiled. And I said…. “I know.”
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
February, 2017
Things just exploded, sexually, after that. I could not get enough of Connor, and he was down for it often enough to keep me happier than I’d ever been before in my life. Kissing, canoodling, fucking, and just laying in bed talking and holding each other. Connor joked “You only love me for my butt.” I laughed and made a loud “Oink” pig sound and said ‘Yeah it’s true — so remember that, next time you’re squatting heavy in the gym, and I want you to crank out two more reps, fuckin’ blast that butt, and do it just for me.”
Truth is, his butt was in the Top 10 reasons but there were so many more. I loved his full thick chest and those crazy-sensitive pink nipples of this, that I could tug on whenever I wanted a fuck, and more often than not he’d instantly be up for it. I loved the way he smiled and kissed me at the same time, his deep blue eyes expressing an incredulous delight that this was happening at all. I loved the big confident lazy way he sprawled across the entire sofa, watching TV. The gentle quiet rhythm of his big-cat snoring, when he was really tired. I could go on and on. I learned a word, “besotted” – that was me, in love and lust.
I can’t say, looking back, that we were exactly equally in love with each other, fifty/fifty… but I sure the hell was, and Connor seemed really into it whenever we were together. Being with another guy sexually and intimately was brand new for him; I tried to remember that. I’ve already had years of this, he hasn’t.
And those last few weeks of football, the team made it to playoffs and Connor had two more “Hero moments”. And this time, it got the attention of a few NFL recruiting scouts. Connor didn’t know it at first, but they were talking with the head coach, and eventually he was taken out to dinner by agents from two different pro NFL teams.
It was like a big light finally came on in his head. “Holy shit! The New York Jets! They’re not the best team, but, they’re the NFL! Talking to ME.”
I just nodded and smiled.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
April, 2017
Connor, off-season, was training harder than ever in the gym, and he kept on getting bigger and stronger. He was now fully awakened to the realization that next season held his entire fate, as a college senior and potential pro athlete.
The two of us were still going strong but there were some bumps around the closeted/out thing. I was wanting to be more out and honest about who I am. Connor was new to it all, and had become fiercely protective of the idea of his future pro career. He wanted to stay deeply and absolutely closeted about our new love. “I just, you know, Jake… this is new for me and if people find out, you can’t reverse that, it’s a one way thing… there could be some bad consequences…”
I had never seen even a trace of fear before, in Connor. But it was there now. His whole life and identity used to be straight, simple, uncomplicated. Now fear itself and a lack of honesty were new elements in his world. Part of me felt guilty for introducing them. And it’s true, for Connor in particular, the stakes were high and added a lot more pressure to his dreams, his life goals. He and I both knew it: there were no “out” NFL players. Zero. And there were reasons for that.
So I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked, when I walked into the party. I had said I wasn’t coming, I had a ton of chemistry and statistics homework to plow through. But then it got to be after midnight and I was so jealous of the guys all having fun. So I showed up as a surprise.
And when I walked in, after I’d greeted several friends, way across the room I saw Connor making out with a girl. Not just a social kiss, I mean sucking face. I stood and stared in shock. I realized I couldn’t cause a scene and reveal the rip of jealousy and blow Connor’s world apart. I mean, I could, but I held it together and tried to act natural. “Hey guys, what’s going on?” I said to some friends nearby. I said it with a smile I hoped was convincing. But across the room Connor and the girl were still hugging, groping, kissing hot and heavy. My stomach began to churn, like it was on fire. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my cell phone, and stared at it as if it contained some shocking new emergency. “Oh shit, that’s crazy – sorry, guys, I need to go.” And I raced out the door. Connor never even looked up from the girl, he never saw me.
It was a hard and painful conversation, between us, the next day. Connor was fumbling. “It didn’t, like, it didn’t really mean anything, whatever you might have seen… I was just, I don’t know….”
“You ‘don’t know’. Do you know if you’re still into me, or are ya straight now? Huh? ‘Cause if you’re gonna fuckin’ go back to women just tell me RIGHT NOW.”
“Jake, you’re yelling at me and waving your arms like a crazy person, I can’t talk to you like this…”
“Yeah well, I’M ITALIAN! I’M FUCKING UPSET! I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU! DEAL WITH IT!!!!” I was yelling even louder and waving the arms even crazier, just because he didn’t want me to, and I was filled with rage and hurt. I ended up leaving and going to a movie, then a second movie. I came back four hours later, and Connor had left me a note:
“Not ready to talk yet. I do love you but it’s complicated.”
It stayed complicated. We went through cycles of doubt and kind of breaking up, and then cycles of love and horniness and diving back into bed and fucking like animals and kissing like newlyweds. Then another cloud of doubt would come, usually from him, and we’d cool it again. Then get horny or romantic or both, all over again, before too long.
The roller coaster of this, it was emotionally exhausting. I loved that big blond adorable lunkhead as truly and deeply as ever, but I no longer trusted that we were headed into a future together, Connor and me. And it was fucking hard to know how to even handle the here and now, even just the day to day, living together, with all this desire and lack of trust mixed together.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
December, 2017
So here’s what happened, Connor and me, in the first half of our senior year.
We decided back in June, to not live together anymore. So now Connor was in a different apartment with some football buddies from one of the frats, and they lived like pigs in total squalor. I lived alone for the first time and I hunkered down into medical school preparation, studying harder than ever. I filled up my time as best I could, with studies and working out and meaningless sex with random guys from online, because when it got quiet and still, I just ached for Connor so fucking bad.
I wondered, do you ever get over a love like this? Ever?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
March, 2018
The two pieces of big and life-changing news happened within a week of each other. First, Connor texted me:
Got some news
can we talk ?
The two of us had stayed in touch a little, but mostly not. It was too painful for me, and I assumed Connor was finding it easier to either be straight again or play it that way superficially, with his eye on a pro football career. I had heard he was one of two football team players who had just taken time off from University to do some intense, expensive, pro-football type of training camp, they call it “pre-Combine” .. and then the real thing, the NFL Combine. That’s the major event where all the would-be NFL draftees gather in one place to perform the same measurable actions, they sprint like hell and block/tackle like hell, and performance data is assessed and the pro team select their rookies.
And Connor kicked ass at the Combine, and so it came to pass. The news: Connor Forsgaarrd had been drafted, an NFL rookie, a one-year deal with the Tennessee Titans, and he’d be moving down to Nashville right after graduation in May.
It didn’t shock me that it happened, I’d imagined for years that it would. And yet, hearing the specific details… it got me all emotional for him and for our lost love, all over again. We talked for a while by phone, and I congratulated him, heartily and honestly. On the phone you don’t see another person’s tears.
The very next week, came my news. I’d been accepted into the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. I was thrilled. Med school! NYC, Manhattan! ME! I told my family first, and my favorite professor who’d written my main recommendation letter… then I texted Connor, and he called me right back.
We talked again, and this time he was warmly congratulating me. “Wow Jake. I always knew you were super smart and could do anything you want. Fuck, man, you’re gonna be a doctor! Save people’s lives and stuff… that’s so awesome, Jake, I’m so proud of you.” We talked some more, and it felt good.
There was a pause… and then he said “Jake – I was thinking – – never mind.”
I asked him some more about his upcoming move to Nashville and joining the Tennessee Titans for real. I teased, “So, the money… did they give you a million, or what?”
He laughed. “I don’t like to talk about that stuff, y’know, but it’s gonna be out there on the Internet, so… yeah. One point sixty-four million, actually.”
“CONNOR! Oh my GOD!”
His laughter fell into my ear, through the phone. “I know, crazy, right? But, yup. For one season.”
“Like, what do you even DO with all that?”
He laughed again. “I started making a list and it’s kind of random. Save most of it, ‘cause with pro football you never know how long the ride lasts. Give some to my mom and dad to pay off their house. Buy a cool car… sporty but enough room for a big guy like me. And wherever I live, down in Nashville, I’m gonna hire a housecleaner!” We both laughed. I noticed a new maturity in his answer. “Save most of it, ‘cause you never know…”
Somehow that conversation, natural and full of shared excitement and kindness, rekindled all the feelings. All the memories. All the love and all the fucking LUST. I had been doing better, not thinking about Connor so much, but now, BAM! For the whole next week after we spoke, he was back, big and strong and beautiful as ever… taking up all the prime real estate in my brain.
And I kept remembering that moment when he said “Jake – I was thinking – never mind…” Is there even a 1% chance he was wanting what I was?
I lay awake in the dark, late at night, wishing for me and Connor. Wishing we could forget everything that got all complicated, and just have a fucking love-and-sex affair for the next two months before we have to go our separate ways.
The thought wouldn’t let me go. I sat down one morning and wrote Connor a long-ass three page letter about all of this. I didn’t send it. I reread it the next day and realized, Jake, ha ha, you overbearing Italian, that’s a LOT of words to hit somebody with.
But I kept thinking it. Wanting it.
Finally I texted Connor and asked if we could chat on Snapchat. We used to do that, back in the hot/sexy days, when he was at an away game and we missed each other. He texted back, “yeah I’d like to” and that night, we did. And I told him “Can you sit back a couple minutes, I want to write something longer in this chat, just wait for it” and he said “ok”.
And so I composed a three-paragraph distillation of the long-ass letter that said, summarized, “I still get so turned on when I think about you, and I know life is sending us off in totally different directions, so I was thinking, maybe we can just get together and have a sexy good hot love affair type of thing… just for now, in this slice of time, between now and graduation?”
I sat and typed and typed. I sat back and re-read it; it was good. Honest, full of compliments and expressed desire, and not too messy or melodramatic. And with a tap of a fingertip, and my heart pounding and pounding in my chest…. I sent it out into cyberspace, and Connor began to read it seconds later.
A minute later he sent a reply: “reading”
Three brutally long minutes went by as I sat there, staring and praying at my laptop screen. My heart was pounding. Little trickles of sweat began to roll down the sides of my face, down into my beard, making it itchy.
Then the reply:
Jake wow I got drunk 2 nights ago and almost sent you the same
but mine was more blunt lol
I stared at the words and I could feel my whole face bursting into a shocked grin. I typed back:
No way really?!
So then… what was it? I want the blunt drunk message 😀
Send it
Come on, you know you want to
Another long slow minute went by.
Then, it arrived with a bang:
JAKE DEANGELIS U HOT SEXY FUCK. I WANT U INSIDE ME RIGHT NOW
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
May, 2018
The text came right on time, around 9:45pm. “just landed, will take cab, be there @11 or so”
Connor, coming home from his second trip down to Nashville. It all was really happening. I was looking for apartments in New York City and getting ready to become a full time medical student in September. And Connor was about to start playing pro football.
And these past two months… fuck. They were our hottest, most delicious, best ever. We’d pulled it off, Connor and me – we’d managed to create this temporary and private love bubble around the two of us, and in that bubble we unleashed all the good stuff.
I’ll never forget the first night of this new thing we were in. It was the evening after he’d texted me his sexually blunt request. And I made good on it. Hours later, Connor had come over to my solo apartment, he was back in my bed, and I was balls-deep inside him, giving him the best fuck I knew how to deliver. He was writhing in overwhelmed ecstasy and urging me for more, more, more. I actually fucked him twice that night, and one more time at dawn when we awoke, spent and sore but still insatiable for more of each other. More and more. Even sleeping, dreaming, our two big thick bodies were wrapped and squished into each other, fully enmeshed.
Connor’s body, damn. I had heard stories about pre-combine NFL-style training and the intense stuff he’d been doing, but when a man takes off all his clothes and you see all that brute strength and power, alive in the flesh… it’s hard to describe the feeling of awe and arousal this did to me, seeing what Connor had built himself into. He’d slowly grown another inch taller these past two years, and now he stood before me at six feet four (196 cm), and his body was even stronger, thicker, harder. His midsection, formerly baby-smooth and a mix of muscle and boyish softness, was now these powerful, chiseled layers of beef. And a new dusting of pale-blond hair was finally starting to appear across his broad thick chest muscles and form a golden-furry little trail down between the ridges of his abs, down to his crotch. His massive shoulders looked even bigger and wider, like he could lift a fucking car up off somebody if he had to. Even his facial features, his jawline, had this new full-grown masculinity to it. I stood there awestruck and said “Connor, wow!! I mean, you’re still you, but these changes… fuck! I can’t believe it, what you’ve done.”
He grinned. I was naked too, and we stood looking at each other, excited, about to dive into my bed and go at it. “You’re lookin’ real good there too, Jake. I thought you were studying all the time now, but it looks like you still never miss a single workout. And your dick, man… so fuckin’ big and perfect. Just like I remember it.” It was true.
If I were to draw a pie chart of how I spent my time, mid-March to mid-May, it would look like this. A big wedge of that pie chart would be sleep. Another big wedge would be pre-med homework. And the next two really big wedges would be the time my face and my dick were spending in Connor’s glorious big round blond ass. That’s how much hot, passionate, intense, bed-shaking sex we were having. Every night, and quite a few mornings too. We knew it was all going to come to an end soon, and that added a go-for-it intensity to it all. All I had to do was reach over and flick one of his sensitive little man-nipples, or kiss his neck and nuzzle it with my beard, or even just give him “that look” with my dark brown eyes, and it would be Game On, all over again. Again and again and again. Like nothing else mattered in all the world. And I knew he was feeling it too, even more than before.
We flipped it around once in a while and Connor would fuck me, and I was digging that more than I ever did before… it was hot being pinned down and fucked by this massive, beautiful man, and his dick was just the right size for me, not so big. I loved it when he’d lose control and breathe hard and heavy and shoot his seed into me. I began to understand the powerful turn-on that “bottoms”, guys who love to get fucked, feel when it’s happening.
But I was still mostly a top at heart. And the ultimate heaven for me was that moment I’d be fucking Connor, me moving inside him strong and thick and deep, and I’d start to feel the chemistry of orgasm rushing, rising, in my body, unable to hold back. That moment, me exploding deep inside Connor’s warm eager fuckhole and him just loving it so much. The ultimate. I swear if I died tomorrow I could say I’ve done it, I’ve experienced the sexual ultimate: fucking Connor. I’ve reached the highest and I’ve touched the sun.
Connor’s cab pulled up to my apartment at just after 11pm, like he estimated. He and his luggage got out, and he came to the door, came inside, and we just grabbed onto each other and kissed and kissed. “Welcome home” I said. But this time it just went on and on forever, he didn’t want to stop holding me tight and kissing and kissing and kissing, his mouth so hungry on mine, his big huge arms keeping me held tight in the embrace. I kept on kissing him right back and hugging, but I began to realize this was different. Finally after like ten minutes he softened and let me go.
“I can’t, Jake. I can’t do it. You have to come see me in Nashville, we have to figure out somethin’.” Tears were forming in his eyes. The first time I’d ever seen big strong Connor cry… ever. “You’re all I thought about. You. The whole fuckin’ flight home, the whole taxi ride just now. I can’t do it, Jake. I can’t go down there if you’re never gonna be with me, ever again.”
I jumped back into his arms and, yeah. I was crying too.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
August, 2018
My first trip down to Nashville, a few weeks ago, to see Connor in his new world…
It didn’t go well.
I tried to remind myself this is high stakes for him, he’s a rookie, it’s intimidating, and all of that. But it was harder than I expected. His new apartment felt alien, disconnected from him, like it wasn’t actually his. The furnishings had all been selected by some manager-type person on the Titans, and it all looked pricey yet cheap, and a paid housecleaner came to keep it neat.
And Connor himself, he seemed tense and distracted. “It’s hard, ya know. I don’t know if I’m gonna fit in here.” He said that it was all feeling a lot more corporate. That some of the players were cool and friendly, but some were arrogant, entitled, had really bad attitudes. There was a feeling that “we’re just work horses.” A constant awareness that you could be benched or terminated or traded to another team, anytime, “no hard feelings, man.” He said it wasn’t the same culture as college football, the team, the sense of a rock solid tribe.
Sexually he was half into me but half tired and distracted. We did it a couple times but I could tell he had a lot on his mind and it included a lot of doubt.
At the end of my visit, he said “Jake… I don’t know. This is a real straight culture here. I can’t let anybody know about us, ever. And I don’t know… it’s all, like, harder than I thought. Not sure what I want to do.”
We chatted online a few times and Skyped one night after I came home, and Connor seemed the same – more anxious than usual and not sure what he wanted to do about us. I decided to not get all emotional on him this time, but just give him space. But inside, my heart was sinking. And I was feeling angry. Like, how many times am I gonna get jerked back and forth?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
October, 2018
I tried to move on. Medical school at Mount Sinai in New York was intense from the moment it began, and I let it absorb a lot of my mental energy and my time. I swore I wasn’t going to become a beaten-down student with no life; I was going to carve out time to go out and see lots of the big city’s finest and most famous sights. It didn’t happen much on my own, but then I started dating Arturo.
Arturo, the sexy and seductive graduate student from Colombia. He was in some ways the anti-Connor. Shorter than me, slender, dark and hairy, and completely “out” as 100% gay. He had the most tantalizing Latin American accent when he spoke. He had money, too. I was a first-year med student in debt, and he insisted on taking me out to dinner, to concerts, things like that. It was exciting… but I’m mostly a top, and that translates to personality as well as sex. So for me, Arturo paying for our fun dating life, I don’t know… something about it made me kind of uncomfortable, to be honest.
But Arturo was the most sensual kisser I’d ever known. And his long thick juicy uncut latin dick (definitely bigger than Connor’s and even a little bigger than mine) was so hot, I loved sucking on it and playing with it. And he loved the way I fucked him. Arturo wrote me a poem one time, and gave me a metal-and-stone necklace another time. And this is how a few months went by… and I kind of felt like I had the whole “romance/relationship/sex” box checked off, taken care of, for now. I wasn’t thinking about Connor so much. And, like I said, medical school was intense, I had a fucking TON of information to learn each week.
I tried not to pay a lot of attention to Connor’s first year on the Tennessee Titans. Every so often I’d get curious and I’d search news on him. It seemed like he wasn’t getting much opportunity, as a rookie, to play that often. He did have a few highlights though, and made the news a few times. I watched a bad-quality sports interview where they asked him a few stupid questions right after a game, and he was tired and the mic was crappy-sounding and the overhead lighting was horrible. I laughed to find myself getting angry, actually yelling at my computer screen – “You dumb clueless fucks, he’s ten times better looking than this! And your microphone is cheap-ass! And you got him when he’s totally exhausted.”
I guess I still had some leftover pride, in being Connor’s ex. Whatever that was worth.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
January, 2019
Happy fucking New Year. Arturo dumped me, like the flick of a switch from hot to cold. The day after Christmas.
The interesting and sad thing about it is, my gut feeling was right. All that time with him, I had the sense that he was, like, “performing” love and sex, not actually feeling it for real. Does that make any sense? So when I poured my heart out to the acquaintance who introduced us, she said, “Oh wow…. I’m so sorry. And you should probably meet Brent.”
Brent was a nice enough guy. He and I had a coffee date and compared notes. He’d dated Arturo half a year earlier, in the springtime. “So he wrote you a romantic-sounding poem, right?” “Yup.” “Took you to a jazz-lounge concert?” “Yeah.” “What was his nickname for you?” “Boo Bear.” “Heh heh, mine was Boo Boo. I guess you got ‘Bear’ because you have that thick beard.”
Sad… Yet funny. And now Connor was back on my mind again. Vivid, explicit memories of us, how we were last spring, right before graduation. My face nuzzling up in his huge round sexy butt, tasting the delicious animal taste of him. My heart jumping a little with excitement when he walks in the door with that easygoing smile. My hands patiently folding his clothes one by one, fresh and warm and clean from the laundromat dryer a few blocks away. My dick deep inside him, his big beefy legs in the air and wrapped around my hips, his blue eyes full of longing as I pump and pump that dick deep on into him.
I would have cleaned that bathroom and washed those dishes and done everything for Connor, would have done it for the rest of my life, and not just because he’s so fucking gorgeous and the sex is good. But because I loved him so fucking much. Because unlike Arturo, Connor is REAL. We might be done now, and who knows, maybe he’s with a woman now down there in Nashville, living the straight life in the pro football world. I hear he’s been a breakout star for the Titans lately, and I saw him in the sports news last week, there was an amazing pass he caught and a touchdown he made.
But back before we graduated, when we were just us, those really good hot sexy times, Connor and me… there is no doubt the love was absolutely fucking real. For him, and for me. I know it was real. This is important to me. I’ll go to my grave saying it, I swear.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
February, 2019
My old friend Jimmy, the cute funny wisecracking redhead from our college football days, tagged me and a bunch of others on Facebook. “Check this out. Connor HAHAHA”
I clicked. And my eyes widened and I laughed just as Jimmy did. It was a list-article from some women’s magazine, “10 Hot New Single HUNKS From the World of Sports!” and three of them were pictured on the magazine cover. Connor’s photo was in the middle, and the photo was so retouched he looked gorgeous but fake, like a tall blond artificial wax-museum replica of himself. I chuckled and shook my head, thinking how I have candid, everyday-life pics still stored on my phone – Connor stretched out sleeping in my/our bed, Connor eating a Sunday brunch I made for us, Connor shirtless and flexing his bicep really hard as a joke, Connor bear-hugging a mutual friend. And each of my private pics of him has a natural, amateur authenticity that makes them way hotter than whatever the magazine got.
Clicking further to read the bit they wrote about him (he was #4 on the list), it was pretty funny. “Likes: Candlelight dinners, long walks on a beach in the moonlight, puppies, and letting a woman know how beautiful she is.” Hilarious. Who wrote that shit and how much did they get paid?
Connor and I hadn’t communicated at all in two months, but I couldn’t resist texting him:
Hey. Saw magazine. Do the puppies interfere with the candlelight dinners? LOL
Then I sent a second message:
But for real, how are you? Busy up here in NY, but good. & if you were here you’d be eating half of this –
and I snapped and sent a pic of the simple home dinner I’d cooked for myself. Roast chicken drumsticks all perfect-brown with herbs and salt/pepper on them, and rotini (pasta) with four or five different chopped fresh veggies and a homemade red/olive oil sauce.
I didn’t hear back for hours. The Superbowl was weeks ago and Titans didn’t even make the playoffs, so Connor had been a month in post-season now, I figured he ought to be around. So I started to worry that I overdid it, and maybe sending him the photo of my dinner was too much.
But not to worry. Later that night, I got a fusillade of replies:
HA HA HA that article!
I really miss u Jake
that tasty looking dinner photo sure got to me
come visit again real soon
Oh hell.
A minute later, I was checking flight availability and prices on Kayak.com.
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March, 2019
“So there was some dizziness. And a ringing, in the ears. But it went away?”
“Yeah. Went away in the next hour.”
“You never went to the hospital, got it checked out?”
“It’s not that easy, Jake… if it’s a bad one and I don’t report it, obviously that’s a big problem, major medical risk. But if I do report it, there’s like this whole… official concussion protocol thing. They watch you a lot more. They don’t let you play as much. I wanted to play. It didn’t seem that bad. I was okay… I think. And you know what, I had a real great year on the field.”
We were cuddled in bed, naked, together, late Saturday morning, down at Connor’s automatically-assembled apartment in Nashville, Tennessee. And he was much more into me, now, than the first time I flew down here and he’d been full of stress and doubt. He seemed kind of better now, but the apartment still didn’t feel like a home for him, at least not to me.
I was down there for another weekend with Connor. All to ourselves. He was living a deeply, deeply closeted life, playing for the Titans. A couple of weeks ago I was here with him, and he introduced me to a few people as “my friend Jake from college.” But now, this next visit, he didn’t want anybody to see me and start wondering why I had come back again so soon.
So we just stayed in, most of the time. And we drove far away, to secretly go out to a restaurant and a movie.
Connor was admitting to me about a mild concussion he’d taken, three months ago, back in December. He didn’t tell the coaches or medical staff, at the time.
I hugged him really tight and kissed his neck. “Oh babe. I’ve tried all this time, I’ve tried to not worry about you, man. But –”
He laughed “But you’re Italian, I know, I know…”
I nuzzled and smooched his face. “But – I was going to say – but I always will worry. No matter what happens. As long as you play football, I’ll always be a little anxious for you. Always praying that you come to no harm. That you get to live a long and happy life, after all this.”
“Thanks Jake. I mean that. It helps me a lot to hear it. Sometimes down here, you know, it’s a real different world. I’m not sure anybody out here is, like, really lookin’ out for my own interest. My parents and my family are, back in Iowa. And you. But, like, nobody here. I mean if I stop performing at a certain level, for any reason, then that’s it, I’m useless. And if you’re useless, you’re gone.”
We had plenty of sex that weekend, staying in as we did, and it was still warm, hot, good, connected… yet it all felt tinged with some sadness, for me. We were caged in this apartment, like two big caged animals at a little zoo that nobody comes to. And then I was going to fly back home to New York and wonder if he even wants me to come back down here again… or not.
Finally I couldn’t take it. I sat up in the bed, looking down at Connor’s long thick muscular body and his handsome face, and looking around at the bad carpeting and sterile blank white walls all around us, and I said,
“I’m having a hard time with this, man. A real fucking hard time. Connor – can we talk?”
He said, “I know. You deserve better. I know that. And, oh Jesus… Jake. I don’t know how to tell you this, but… some things are about to pop.”
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April, 2019
It actually happened the very next day, at 2pm in the afternoon. The day after I flew back to New York.
Connor Forsgaard was traded to the Denver Broncos for what was, to me and to most of us, an astounding, jaw-dropping, insane amount of money. A four-year contract of $34 million, and a signing bonus of $7 million.
Now, I knew in the abstract sense that this was happening in the world. This is the shape and size of top-tier NFL player compensation. But when you know and love somebody, and it all started when neither of you had much cash in your wallet… and then two years later, BOOM, it’s just this supernova explosion of sudden wealth. It is a surreal thing. Exciting, but destabilizing.
And I didn’t have a fucking clue where we stood, anymore, Connor and me. I texted and called a few times, he didn’t call back. Or he eventually texted. “Crazy times man. Crazy.”
I kept slogging on through my first year of medical school, and I doubled down on going back to the gym, working out. When I thought of Connor, I lingered in the past, the warm hot sexy past, and I had trouble locating him anywhere in the present. 41 used to be his jersey number. Now it’s the number of millions of dollars coming to him, these next four years.
I am six feet one and most people in the world see me as big and strong, I can bench-press a lot of weight… but at that moment I felt so small. Small, and probably forgotten.
And I figured I need to get a better grip on my own future, now. Solo.
Jake A. DeAngelis, M.D., or I will be, come the year 2022. Tall, brown/brown, bearded, muscular/fit, handsome. Currently single. Available.
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May, 2019
At the end of April, I got some tragic news. A really good friend of mine and Connor’s, from our college football team was killed in a car accident. Jimmy, the cute fun-loving redhead. Age 23, just like me.
It made me sad and reflective, the realization that we all die and it’s probably when we’re old, but it just might happen sooner. You never know.
I texted Connor. “Got the news about Jimmy. Thinking of you.” This time he texted me right back. “Same.” And he sent a heart symbol.
And when I went to sleep, starting that next night, very different dreams of me and Connor began to come to me… over the next week or two.
One time we were two giant fish, with fins and tails, swimming underwater, and we could breathe and explore the reefs along the bottom of the sea.
Another time we were back in our old apartment and we had told everybody about our love and they all threw us a big party, but it rained and thundered really hard… but so what, we just decided the storm was awesome.
And another time we were older, like in our 30s, and we were in a big comfy home with hardwood crossbeams and lots of windows and a big staircase, and it was late evening and I was reading a bedtime story to two small very-blond children, gorgeous little kids… and they looked a lot like Connor.
To wake up alone, from these dreams, was painful and cruel. But I am a lot like my Italian grandma on my Dad’s side. And Grandma told me once that at certain points in her life, she’s been shown some true things in her dreams. She said, when the dreams start coming and coming back again, in clear symbols and signs, you best pay attention.
And it came. May 10. Connor texted me:
Jake hi can I tell you something
I texted back, “Hey C. Of course. Anytime”
He continued:
been holding it for two weeks now
I really want to fly up to ny tomorrow and tell you in person
Oh my God. I want to believe it but I don’t dare. The dreams.
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Connor landed at LaGuardia the next morning, and I canceled everything, and he took a taxi to my one-man apartment on the Upper East Side.
I’d been through so many ups and downs with this guy by now, and I had no definite idea what he wanted this time. But, the dreams. And it was urgent enough that he flew here, to tell me.
When Connor walked in the door, we just hugged and hugged and hugged. I got him some Gatorade, handed it to him with a playful wink. Gatorade was what I kept making him drink all the time, two years ago, when he was getting over the flu and we first fell in love. He winked back at me, smiled big and wide, and he said: “Hey Nurse.” And my heart skipped a beat in my chest.
We sat down on the sofa and he told me why he’d come.
“Jake, okay, so. I’m not as good with words as you… but here it goes. I been thinkin’ a lot about life and death stuff lately. We both got that news about Jimmy two weeks ago, right. Yeah. Well, around the same time, one of my coaches had a fatal heart attack. And – this is hard for me to say – just a week before that all happened, Mom – Mom got diagnosed with cancer. It’s in two places. She’s uh… she’s probably gonna be OK – I mean, we hope, but – there’s gonna be chemo and radiation and stuff, and – well – we don’t know…”
“Oh jeez… Connor…” I couldn’t help it, I had to interrupt him with a full-on hug, the two of us on the sofa.
He sniffled hard a few times, hugged me even tighter and said “Can I just say the rest of it like this, like, hugging you?”
“Yeah. Whatever you need.”
Connor stayed burrowed in the embrace of my arms, and me in his. My fingers stroked his thick spiky pale-blond hair. I felt all that heat radiating out from his body like it does. And he went on to speak, soft and low, right into my ear.
“So all of this made me face it… and it’s like… it’s like my heart busted wide open. This is it, this one life, you know? …and it’s gonna end. And so: I love you, Jake DeAngelis. I love you and I want you to come out to Denver and be with me… and I know that means like leavin’ medical school and everything… but I love you Jake. I love you more than anybody in the whole world, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. This is it.
“I already talked to the Broncos head coach about it, I asked for a one-to-one meeting with him. And I looked him in the eye and I told him. I said, two things I need to tell you, Coach. One, we just learned my mom is real sick and I might need to go home a couple times, not sure when. He said, ‘of course, family comes first when it’s that serious, just give us your best.’
“Then I said, second, I don’t want to make a big media splash or cause any distraction for the team but I love a man and I want to invite that man to come to Denver and live with me. I told him that, Jake. And I got scared… ‘cause he just said nothin’ for a long half-minute. But then he said to me, ‘Connor, we are countin’ on you. You gotta do whatever it takes to be the best damn football player you can be. And if that guy is gonna get in the way, then don’t do it. But if that guy is gonna make you a better player, then you go on and you bring him on out here, and we’ll make it work somehow.’ Coach said that to me, he said it right to my face. So you can say no but, Jake, I came up here to ask you please, please say Yes. Come live with me, Denver and everywhere, from now on. You and me. Jake, I love you. Okay now I’m repeating myself… so, that’s it, I’m done with words.”
We fucked for a long time that night. It was physical, spiritual, profound. Our bodies were both wanting, badly, to merge. To confirm everything his words had just offered.
I kept on fucking Connor in slow motion, kissing him, holding his big powerful body down, penetrating him to the hilt and just giving him total love. And he just looked up into my eyes, taking each slow deep thrust of my cock, and he kept on whimpering softly like he was a big huge puppy-dog, once in a while murmuring my name. “mmf!…. mm!….ohhh god Jake….”
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June, 2019
“Now boarding Delta flight 447 to Denver, Colorado…”
I rise slowly from a seat in the waiting area of Gate D11, JFK Airport, New York City. My heart is beating and there’s a lump in my throat. This flight out to Denver is a big deal. I’m like a circus acrobat who has just let go of his own trapeze bar, and is now throwing his own body into the air for two long seconds. Or four long hours, in my case. That other trapeze bar needs to appear, in perfect timing, as promised.
I just broke a rental lease in New York City. I just withdrew from one of the best medical schools in America. I’m selling all my furniture. The man I’m traveling to and for, he bought this plane ticket for me, first-class. He wants me to look at real estate with him, out there. He talks about beautiful big houses, with mountains in the background. Colorado.
What a path it’s been, from a just couple of years ago when our world was simple. When he got the flu and I took care of him the best that I could. Hey Nurse.
Connor, I love you so much, I’m actually crazy enough to fucking do this. I’m coming out there to you. I’m your man. I’ve taken the leap, I’m in mid-air right now.
Catch me. Keep me.
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