Contents

The Story

Final Thoughts / About the Author

LOVING A STRAIGHT BOY

A SHORT-SHORT STORY

JOSEPH LANCE TONLET

Also by JOSEPH LANCE TONLET

TEASE AND DENIAL SERIES

Grif’s Toy

Wes’ Denial

BROTHERS LAFON SERIES

Brothers LaFon: Crucial Lessons

QUILLON’S COVERT

(With coauthor Louis Stevens)

LOVING A STRAIGHT BOY

Published by Joseph Lance Tonlet

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2018 by Joseph Lance Tonlet

(rev 09.10.18)

ISBN: 9780463962039

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CREDITS

Edited by Men in Ink - https://www.men-in-ink-edits.com

Cover Art by Karrie Jax - https://www.karriejax.com

CONTENT NOTIFICATION / DISCLAIMER

This book is a work of fiction that contains explicit erotic content (which may include: heavy verbal denigration, orgasm control/denial, forced chastity, physical abuse, dubious consent, etc.), between adult men, and it is intended for mature readers. The acts may be immoral, illegal, and/or unsafe. The author utilizes these acts for dramatic purposes. Readers should not deem the acts contained within as moral, legal, and/or safe. Do not read this if it’s not legal for you. All characters, locations, and events are works of fiction. Resemblance to actual people, places, and/or events is purely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To all who’ve found themselves in love,
despite knowing better, I understand.

Peace,
JLT

LOVING A STRAIGHT BOY

“I suck newt nuts,” I moaned while toeing the leg of our coffee table. “I mean, he was right there, waiting for me to say something, and all I did was stare up at him like a…like a brain-damaged eel, or something.”

A deep chuckle came from the other side of the sofa. “Did you know—”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

Every time he started out a sentence with ‘Did you know,’ he was preparing to spout some inane bullshit only someone absurdly adept at memorizing completely useless facts could.

Like most times, he chose to ignore me. “—there are over four hundred varieties of eel?”

I kicked the table leg. “I despise you.”

He chuckled again. “We both know that’s a lie.”

And we did too. There was no point arguing that. We’d been BFFs since kindergarten. Then, all through grade school, junior high, high school, and now college. I couldn’t remember a time without him in my life, and I didn’t want to. “I want a new best friend.”

“And that’s a lie too.”

He was curled up on his side, watching some sports thing on ESPN, knees pulled up to make room for me at the other end, while his feet rested against my thigh. They were tanned, with strong square toes, neatly trimmed nails, and soft dark hair dusted the tops. Just like the rest of him, they were perfect. When he flexed an ankle, the unconscious act both irritated and unnerved me.

“Hate your feet,” I moronically blurted out.

His eyes didn’t leave the television. “No you don’t.”

Sighing, I tossed my head onto the sofa’s back. “Just wanted to get laid. Hell, would’ve even settled for a hot-as-fuck kiss.”

“First true words you’ve said since you got home.”

I didn’t respond, and when his look finally drifted my way, it teased a path down the back of my neck. For years, regardless of what physical distance separated us, his simplest of gazes had done that to me; made me feel as if his breath was right next to my ear…next to my neck…next to my…everything. Those looks caressed me, held me, strengthened me, consoled me, and they endlessly fucked with my mind. Dammit, I wasn’t just horny, I was lonely too. And those two things never mixed well with his company.

The sofa rocked as he shifted onto his back and spread his legs, now bent at the knees. “Come here.”

I swallowed and rocked my head side to side. “Can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No. I’ll just make it worse.”

He did a sit-up, way too damn easily, and said more insistently, “C’mere,” then pulled me back down with him.

“Please….” The protest died on my lips as my cheek landed on his bare chest. “Want you so bad.” Jeez, if I had a dollar for every time I’d uttered those words to him.

A familiar hand ran down my spine and then back up. “I know you do. I know.”

And he did know. He’d known since we were teenagers when I’d first confessed my undying adolescent love. He’d taken it then, just as he had every time since, with a mix of humbled good grace and perverted self-satisfaction.

Toying with the dark hair on his chest, I broke an unspoken, but well-understood, rule and thumbed the even darker disc of his nipple. Swiftly, his hand landed on mine, trapping it between his palm and the beat of his heart. “Tonight I just wanted….”

“To be wanted,” he finished for me.

I nodded. “Sure. But to be fucked senseless too.” My head gently bounced up and down with his short laugh.

“Why didn’t I say anything to that guy? I knew what he wanted. Why didn’t I just….”

“Because—”

“No,” I cut him off. “Don’t say it. Tell me about your date tonight with Beverly.”

“It’s Bethany, and it was nice. We went to that new Chinese place, the one on 53rd Avenue.”

“S’pose to be good.” I nudged my cheek against his chest, candidly relishing the strength beneath the firm ridges and pronounced dips; this I knew was allowed. “Did you let her suck you?”

His fingers ran absently through the hair at the back of my neck. “Just like you know her name is Bethany, not Beverly, you also know she won’t go down on me.”

“I’d go down on you.”

I felt him nod. “I know.”

I’d gotten over any humiliation I felt toward begging him years ago, the same way he’d gotten used to me begging. “Please,” I whispered, “please let me.”

“Shh,” he soothed.

We were both still for a while, but when I couldn’t take it anymore, I finally asked, “Did you fuck her?”

“Yes,” he answered, still petting the back of my neck.

“In the ass?” God, I loved picturing him pumping in and out of some chick’s backdoor. Not because I had any particular aversion to girl-bits, but because it was the only time he went bareback, and the thought of him leaving his cum in someone made me so hard, it hurt. But he knew that too.

I briefly shifted, trying to give my cock some room without touching myself in front of him, or having it inadvertently brush any part of his body; both were unspoken rules I’d never break again.

The rules. There were so many, but they all basically boiled down to one: no touching in places he didn’t want me to touch. It’d taken years of ‘dancing around’ to get a firm handle on exactly what he’d allow. Because, heaven forbid, he just come out and say aloud what I could and couldn’t do. Most times, like with the nipple graze, he’d simply stop me. But other times, when the ‘infraction’ was worse, he’d gently untangle us—without any acknowledgement of the reason why—while acting completely normal. The one time I’d been stupid enough to grind my cock against him, he’d backed off and enacted an unspoken, unbearable, months-long, moratorium on physical contact between us. When he’d finally pulled me back in late one night, while watching the 70s thriller, Stranger in the House, I’d quietly promised, “I won’t do it again.” His only response had been an equally quiet, “Okay.”

“Yeah, in the ass,” he said. “Thought of you when I pulled out. Knew you’d ask. Knew you’d love hearing I left my nut in her.”

I whimpered again. “Pleeeease, let me—”

“No.”

His rejection, just like always, was patient, and delivered with incredible, sincere gentleness. Sometimes I truly wished he’d just be mean to me; yell at me, scorn me, or even hit me. But that wasn’t him. He loved me like one best friend loved another, but no more. He’d made that abundantly clear years ago. Well that and that I’d never know the feeling of his cock in my ass, or anywhere else for that matter.

But that wasn’t the complete truth; it was just a version of the truth we spoke aloud. However, behind it laid a shit-ton of unspoken truth. Like the fact that best friends didn’t tease one another. Or the fact that straight men weren’t supposed to covet the affections of gay men—and they certainly weren’t supposed to exploit those affections for their own pleasure. And he did exploit me, didn’t he? Or did he? No, best friends didn’t engage in whatever the hell it was we did. It was miles away from normal, but it was our normal.

I wasn’t even a little surprised when he asked, “Got a stiffy?”

I was sure I’d never figure out what he got from knowing, but, at times like these, he always asked. And, to be honest, I’d long ago stopped trying to understand. It was yet another unspoken truth; he liked knowing I was boned-up, but he didn’t want to see—or feel—any evidence of it.

“Yeah,” I answered, allowing my eyes to fall closed. “I’m hard.”

His hand resumed its lazy trace up and down my T-shirt-clad back, then he nosed the top of my head. “Smell good. New shampoo?”

I nodded.

“Mango?”

“Papaya.”

Breathing him in, I could tell he’d showered after coming home; not because he smelled like soap, but because he smelled like himself rather than “Beverly”. He never used body wash, or deodorant, or cologne. The distinctive scent he wore was all him. And now that I was in his arms, I willingly immersed myself in his scent. Breath after breath, inhale after inhale, I took him in. “You smell really good too. Always do.”

He squeezed my hand, still resting on his heart. “You okay now?”

I nodded again. “Yeah.”

After a small pat to my knuckles, he brought his fingers under my chin and tilted it up to look in my eyes. My gaze darted to his lips, so fucking close, yet so untouchably far away, before I brought them back to his.

“I’m glad you didn’t give it up to some random dude.”

And that right there, the rarely spoken truth of how he earnestly valued my virginity, was why I hadn’t acknowledged the guy who’d been so obviously interested in me tonight. His words, perhaps because of their rarity, opened my soul and laid it bare. “It’s yours. Nobody’s but yours.”

Those thick fingers slid along my jaw, circled my nape, and brought my cheek back down to rest on his chest.

“Wanna watch the rest of the game with me?”

“No,” I whispered. “I’m just gonna lay here and think about you inside me.”

His fingers found the scruff of my neck again, and nothing but the kindness of understanding showed in his reply. “Okay.”

He reached for the remote, dipped the volume down a couple notches for a commercial, before laying it back on the coffee table. When his touch rested on my back, I asked, “Will you ever let me?”

“Probably not,” he said peacefully. And although he’d seemed to aim for the same casual tone, when he asked, “Will you ever let someone else?” there was undeniably something more there.

The “random dude” tonight was far from my first opportunity, and likely wouldn’t be my last, but the future outcome would conceivably be the same. Quiet truth, part of the private devotion I’d long ago pledged, is what I answered with. “Probably not.” Lifting my head, I broke a rule for the second time that night when I put my lips to his chest. “Only you. I love you.”

He eased my head back down. “Okay.” But after a few beats, he perplexingly continued on with the rarity of voicing the generally unspoken, “You know I love you too…just not the same way.”

Filled with emotion, I nodded again, then eventually managed a low, “I know.”

His thick arm tightened around me, then his nose brushed the top of my head again. “Good.”

When he moved to turn the volume back up, I burned with embarrassment at the request I was about to make. And that, in and of itself, was crazy; I’d told him, lying in this very position, countless times over—in explicit detail—all the things I wanted to do to him, and all the things I wanted him to do to me. But this, what I was about to say, was different. It felt more raw, more personal, more real, and more frightening than any words ever uttered between us.

“Will you…sometime…kiss me? Not tonight,” I stammered self-consciously, “or even this week, or month…I mean, I’m not asking for a timeframe, or anything.” His chest stilled, and even though I was filled with overwhelming shame, I inched on faintly. “I just…. Once. Just once.”

The arm he had wrapped around me, the one I always took such conflicted comfort in, felt overly heavy, like the weight of it would somehow crush me.

Long silent moments followed, moments where I wondered if I’d just ruined everything. When he finally answered, the inconceivable uncertainty in his voice broke me. “If I can’t, will you…?”

I knew what he was asking, what he feared, but would never say. Turning my head, I pushed my nose into the space between his pecs, unable to choke back the sudden tears spilling from my eyes onto his chest. “I’ll never leave, and I’ll never give it to anyone else.”

“But tonight…that dude, you wanted him.”

“No,” I breathed. “I wanted you. I only want you. Please,” I whispered and squeezed my eyes tight. “I just want to know what it feels like. Once. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted you to be the first, the…only.”

His body slowly relaxed under mine, and the confidence I loved so much returned to his voice. Somewhat playfully, he drawled, “Okay. Once. At some point.”

My wet face, still pushed into his chest, split with a smile. “Thank you.”

With mock annoyance, he grunted, then pulled my head back down.

What started out as a shit evening had, miraculously, ended up being the best damn night of my life. The smile was still plastered to my face when I pushed a bit further. “And after the kiss, you’ll put your dick in me?”

He bumped up the TV’s volume, not even bothering to pick up the remote, just pressing its buttons from where it sat on the table, then pushed his nose back into the top of my head and became serious again. “That’s never gonna happen. There’s only so far I can go, and you gotta find a way to be okay with that.”

Intellectually I knew this, of course I did. But it didn’t keep me from trying to lighten the mood back up. “Me, your ‘forever virgin’, huh?”

It didn’t work. “Not my decision to make.” His lips moved across my scalp with each word. “If you’re asking if that’s what I want, then the answer is yes.”

I should’ve been shocked at the admission, most sane people would be, but deep down I think I’d always known the truth. He liked me belonging to him, that hadn’t been in question for years. The unknown had always been whether I could give myself to him, and if I’d be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to belong to him.

No, I wasn’t agape that he’d suggest me leading a life of celibacy; rather, I was completely gratified by a clear proposal I never expected to hear so succinctly disclosed. Because, unquestionably, his desire, and my pending accession, would result in a long-term commitment binding us together. “Love you, so much,” I muttered through the fresh round of tears threatening to fall. “I accept.”

“No more looking for random dudes then?”

I shook my head. “No. No more.”

He relaxed again. “Okay. So, we’re good now? ‘Cuz I really do wanna watch the game.”

It wouldn’t be easy; his eventual marriage, or the kids I knew he wanted, or relocating to the West Coast—a location he’d determined we’d be moving after college—or where exactly I’d fit into the life he’d planned, but those were all things I could think about later. Smiling, I brushed a thumb over his nipple, just so he’d hold my hand again. “Yeah, we’re good. Really good.”

~ The End

Final Thoughts / About the Author

THANK YOU for reading Loving a Straight Boy. If you enjoyed your time with the story, I would really appreciate it if you took a few minutes to leave a review on Goodreads, or your favorite platform. It is especially important for me as a self-publishing author, who doesn’t have the backing of an established press. It makes the book more appealing to potential readers and helps others make an informed decision when considering a purchase. Not to mention I simply love hearing from readers!

If you’re interested in upcoming releases, exclusive deals, extra content, freebies and the like, checkout my website at http://www.josephlancetonlet.com.

Peace,

JLT =)

#PleasureThroughDenial

JOSEPH LANCE TONLET is a born and raised Southern Californian—with a twenty-year stint of living in the Midwest. He loves the laid-back lifestyle of San Diego and considers himself lucky to live where people dream of vacationing.

A lifelong reader of m/m fiction, he began his writing career one night sitting at his MacBook and has never looked back. He writes to bring the characters he dreams about to life.