RESOLUTIONS (Part 3): a Coach Rick story for the new year

My train was late getting into Penn Station because of the snow, but I had been texting Jimmy to keep him updated. We had agreed that this would just be a quick gift exchange on the street, so I could do an immediate turn-around and catch the next train home. Covid had really kicked my ass.  I thought it was gone, then the rebound, then all these lingering symptoms.  I hadn't been into Manhattan since before Christmas.  Here we were, in the last week of January. 

I walked through what can be aptly called the ostentatious grandeur of the Moynihan Hall and continued on through the Food Hall. A group of men around 28-32, Jimmy's age, were having drinks at The Irish Exit, presumably waiting for their trains.  It looked more like they wanted to hang for hours -- devil may care about any snow storm. They were in no hurry to leave each other.  I paused, looking at them, clearly such a tight group of buddies.  I wondered if things would ever reconcile for Jimmy--if he'd ever be able to bring sports, his life, his college friends, and his family somehow into balance with his obvious and overwhelming desire for dad dick. 

I smiled for a moment looking at these lads, imagining how they might look in some of my favorite undies and playwear.  The tallest, with the long hair, would look awesome in the yellow and black Jockmail Mesh Jockbrief.  I'd love to see the shortest one with the curly brown hair in the red Aussie Milk Silk Low Rise Brief. But then there's the hottest one, the one who looks like Jimmy.  It was easy to imagine him in the No. 15 College Wrestler Singlet. 

As the Aussie Milk buddy patted him on the back, I wondered if he, like Jimmy, might be hiding a secret.  Then, right there, while looking at that good looking 32 yo, I suddenly wanted to be fucking Jimmy.  Not just fucking him. I wanted to be giving him the perfect fuck, in spite of having just come through Covid, in spite of still feeling like shit, in spite of where this was headed.

I continued through the Hall, up the escalator, imagining that perfect fuck . . . 

It would start, of course, with him sucking me through a jock or really great pair of briefs. He loves whites, so probably the white Jockmail camo mesh.  He'd wet up the mesh pouch really good and get my coach/dad dick raging. Then I'd slip the pouch under my balls, so my cock would be fully exposed, and move to a mouth-fucking position we discovered, maybe even invented, which we call Two Bridges.  Jimmy's leather sofa is the perfect size for Two Bridges. He gets situated on the ground with his back to the sofa, but then leans back on the center cushion, bridges up, and maintains that bridge for a good three minutes -- effortlessly, might I say, because of those god damn, bulging lacrosse thighs.

But Jimmy's is not the only bridge in this architectural wonder. 

Oh, no. I go into one, as well.  I get my size 12 feet on one arm of the sofa and stretch out my body, push up style across the length of it, with one arm on the other sofa arm, and one arm extended in a one-arm push up, supporting myself on the cushion below me.  Jimmy guides my cock into his mouth and then the Olympic love games begin. 

Jimmy loves seeing my abs as I rise up in the fuck, almost pulling his favorite lacrosse stick out of his mouth.  He loves me coming down again, jabbing repeatedly at the back his sweet throat, fucking that sweet, jock boy mouth so good, just the way he likes it . . . 

I arrived at the Ninth Avenue doors and looked outside. The snow was really coming down.  I put on my hat and gloves, tightened up my scarf, and situated the gift bag inside my letter jacket so the snow wouldn't destroy it. A gust of frigid air hit my face as I opened the doors and headed uptown. The snow was cold and wet, but, honestly, felt good.  And I continued thinking about the perfect fuck, that most perfect of perfect fucks I'd like to be giving Jimmy, right now  . . . 

Next, I would suck him.  And I mean suck him good.  Readers who already know me know that I rarely suck, but, when the desire is there, it's one of the signs that lets me know the guy is becoming something important to me. And here's the God's honest truth about Jimmy:  I'd suck Jimmy all fuckin' day, my head twisting and diving on that thick, juicy jock son cock, its size so close to equaling mine. 

All. Fucking. DAY I would suck that fucker. 

We'd both be wearing white, 'cause you know? Two bridegrooms, ready to consummate? He'd be in one of my faves: the white football lace-up.  I'd hold him down on the sofa and give him some of the mouth-to-pouch treatment that he so dutifully and relentlessly tortures me with. I'd get him fucking moaning, then unlace that beautiful jockstrap with my teeth.  And I would suck his fucking lacrosse cock. 

All. Fucking. DAY, I would.

That's how bad with this guy.

When he could truly take no more, I'd stand him up, turn him around, getting one of his legs up on the sofa, his big glutes begging for me to squeeze, massage, and slap them, which I will do, repeatedly asking if he is a good boy and if he's sure he's a good boy [slap]. I'll reach under and pull his big frat cock down and back toward me, using the pouch itself to secure that lacrosse stick back towards me--no easy feat, considering how hard that fucker gets.  I'd stare at that cock,  now shiny and covered with my saliva. He's a Gold Star Gay, this one -- no pussy has ever touched this cock and probably never will.

But my lips will. I kiss it, and he moans.

I'd give him long, full-handed strokes, as my lips and tongue kiss and lick his nuts.  I can't say enough about his nuts. They've driven me Cuckoo for Coconuts since my first taste of them.

I'd squeeze that cock so firmly, pulsing my fist, signaling my ownership, then lick  between those beautiful nuts and his ass, tracing the space with my thick tongue, perfectly prepping this stud, making out with his hole, getting ready to work it like a pussy . . .

I waited at the light at 34th, with the snow coming down. A bus roared past, sloshing already-dirtied snow into the gutter . . . 

I'd then get Jimmy doggy-style on the sofa with his ass up high, pushing his head down to the cushion, prepping him for the entry.  We both love this part beyond being able to talk about it. He gets insanely worked up when I get one leg out to the side, so I hike one foot up and get it on the other side of him on the sofa, then keep the other stabilized on the floor as I get ready for the entry.  

I lube myself up, looking down at him, taking him in. There is such a sweetness about him in this moment.  He's no longer Brad or Jimmy or a lacrosse stud or his family's troubled black sheep.  He's just my boy, my son, and for the remainder of this fuck, my boy will be free from all that shit he can't resolve. He's an extension of me, literally, extending three feet from the base of my pubes to his head, with his broad, muscular back inspiring me.  It's cliche to say, but we're one, in this moment, and I, myself, am made whole from all that's ever plagued me. With my eight inches buried to the hilt, I leave behind all that ever held me back, the years of trying to figure out my cock's pull to both men and women, the shame I'd felt in the locker room, and the sometimes out-of-control search for a hot guy to suck me, sometimes within hours of fucking pussy.  With Jimmy, he's everyone I've ever wanted to fuck, male or female.  The possibility of his love has always promised to be everything I need or will ever need again.

That's how strong with this guy.

The stoplight turned green and the walk sign appeared.  I crossed 34th and continued uptown . . . 

I'd fuck him so slowly at first -- long, easy strokes -- opening him up, getting his slide going, so he can accommodate and ease into the coming pounding, which will be the strength and full athletic pressure he loves and needs.  Then I'll give him another Coach Rick signature move, one of my favorites, and one of his.  I'd take my big foot off the sofa,  lifting it high, then place it carefully on his sweet jock boy face. He's got a foot fetish, this one, and my size 12 on his face drives him fucking crazy. I tell him words that make him whimper.  I remind him that my big foot has had its home on so many playing fields and courts, in cleats and high tops, in wrestling shoes and running sneakers. I'm mindful  to cover as much of his face and neck as possible, from my toes, underneath to my sole, and back to my heel. His high-pitched moans, as I do, are always nothing short of magical. I swear I begin to touch Heaven when I hear them. 

I suppose a foot on the face is a bit of a dick move, but is it, really, if both of you love and want it?  I don't think of him as being beneath me, or sub to me, or demeaned by me in this moment.  Au contraire. I apply such a careful amount of pressure, and he becomes all the ground that's ever supported me. It's like my bare foot is touching every court and field I ever played on.  He is the evidence of my strength, the very impulse that has been there from my earliest memories -- to be in the game, to soar, to win, to run faster than I thought possible, to spring, god-like from Earth, in ways that make us so much more than human.  

Jimmy is all that. He makes me feel not just human.  He makes me feel like a god. 

To finish, I'd carry him to the bedroom, like a groom carrying his groom over the threshold. I'd lay him on the bed and situate myself over him, preparing to finish, missionary style.  I'd hold my cock at his jock pussy, the head pushing against his hole, and tell him to say those three words to me that we almost said a year and a half ago.  The sentence begins with "I." It moves on to "love," and it culminates with . . . 

Then I turned onto Jimmy's street. And there he was, standing in the falling snow, right there, waiting for me. 

I expected him to be further down the block, nearer his apartment.  Instead,  he was fifteen feet from me.  I stopped in my tracks. He looked so damn adorable, wearing a red, Holden Caulfield hunter's cap with those cute little dumbass flaps  over the ears.  He had a backpack over one shoulder and was holding an umbrella to stave off the snow, which wasn't helping much, because the snow was now coming down at an angle.  It was just the two of us on the whole street.  All other Hells Kitchenites were already the fuck indoors. 

I closed up the gap between us, and he was smiling so big. We stared at each other. I wondered which of us was going to speak first.  It turned out to be him.

"Why don't you just come up, Coach?  They say it might snow!" 

That charming, smirking grin. Fuck, it almost disarmed me. I wanted to change my mind.  I wanted nothing more than to climb his six-floor walk-up behind him, staring at the moons of his ass as he mounted each step ahead of me. I wanted nothing more than to execute that perfect fuck I'd just been imagining, occasionally looking out the window at this beautiful whiteness, perfectly blanketing the city.

But I couldn't.  Sometimes, the only choice you can make as an athlete is to stay the course when the game is already in motion.

"I only have a few minutes," I replied, business-like. "The next train's in half an hour." I opened my letter jacket and extended the bag toward him.  

He did a two-hand “wait” gesture, the umbrella serving as one hand.  "I've got something for you, too! " he exclaimed.  "Mine requires a song, though!"  He pulled his phone from his pocket, snow coming down all around. He pressed Play, and "Silent Night" started to fill our little enclave of the street.   

I listened for a second, thrown by it,  then shook my head and pushed the gift bag into his hand. “I can’t do this any more, Jimmy!” I said, taking a step back. 

 "Ho-oh-ly Night!" played in that tinny quality on his phone. Jimmy blinked.  “What?” he asked, staring at me, then  "All is calm! All is bright!" filled the air. 

And then my words came flying out.  The problem with being an articulate coach, and not saying what you've been needing to say, is that, when the speech pours forth, it fuckin flies.  And fly it did. "There are three books in there," I said. "Everybody should read them. There’s Maurice, E.M. Forster.  You think you’ve got it bad, an almost 30 year gay dude in the modern world? Living a stone’s throw from Hudson Yards and the Highline??  In a time when you can be as LGBTQLMNOP as  fucking Christmas if you want!?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he said. "What is  -- ?"

"It's a love story from 1913!  Forster couldn’t even publish it unless he agreed to kill off one of his characters. Or end with a suicide pact.  Angels in America, the thick one, is from the 1990’s, when gay people were dying all over the place and America wasn't giving a fuck!”

“Are you okay?”

“No! I am not okay!  I'm still feeling the effects of Covid and I'm standing in a snow storm giving this shit to you! The last one . . . A.E. Housman.  A poet everybody should read. Spent his whole life in love with his straight best friend! And he could have gone to prison in a heartbeat if his truth was confirmed. But damn did he write some great poems!”

“Sleep in Heavenly peace!” ended the first verse of "Silent Night."

I pointed to the phone. “Could you stop that, please?”  Jimmy stopped the song.  "Bear with me. I’ve memorized one of his poems for you.”

“You’ve gotta be the most unpredictable coach on the planet!” he said, laughing nervously.

I looked at him and extended my hand, beginning the poem. “Shake hands. We shall never friends. All’s over.”

“What the fuck??” Jimmy said, looking at my hand as if I'd hit him in the gut.

“I only vex you the more I try,” I continued.

“Is this because I didn’t text you for those three days?” he asked.

“All’s wrong that ever I’ve done or said,/And nothing to help it in this dull head.”

“It is, isn’t it?  Why can’t you just say that? I'm sorry! I should have texted or called or whatever!”

“Shake hands, good luck. Goodbye.”

“Just stop this shit. Come upstairs right now!”

“I don’t mean to scare you, but here’s the deal, Jimmy!  And if you really hear me, this might save your life.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

"I ultimately figured myself out and found my way, but not until I was right around your age, also.  Almost 30.  And I'd left a trail of broken hearts, male and female, in my wake. I was putting my dick everywhere until then. And I don’t see things changing for you anytime soon.  There are four different men who I crossed paths and slept with in my twenties.  Young men who were amazing and so full of promise. Athletes, all!  With all of life still ahead of them. And, to be honest,  I could have easily fallen for any one of them. Like I could easily fall for you. They didn’t have the shame of the dad thing, like you do, but they were all ashamed in some way or other.  And here's the tough fact you need to hear:

"Only one of them lived past 45."

"Well, that's real cheery, Coach!! Thanks so much for that!"

“And will you ever call me just Rick? Or is it forever the coach and dad fantasy and never the reality? After each time I slept with Harrison -- God, what a stunning athlete he was, lacrosse player, like you! -- after each time, he made a point of telling me he wasn’t gay! 'So what?' I joked! 'I’m probably Bi!” He said nope! He wasn’t gay and he wasn’t bi.  He was straight and needed me to understand that.  But that didn’t stop him from sleeping with me and coming to me in the middle of the night and taking my dick up his ass it and loving it and then hating himself for it afterwards. Harrison. Remember the name. Died. Alcoholism. 38 years old.”

"Jesus."

"Graham. AIDS. Gifted tennis player!"

"Just stop?"

"Died not because treatment wasn't available, but because he was too ashamed to do what he needed to do.  He wouldn't even let any of his family see him before he died. Heath, though, was the most tragic.  D1 quarterback. Married a woman after getting his second Masters. Had an awesome coaching career in Iowa.  Two sons, both chips off the ole block, clearly having inherited their dad’s athletic prowess. Then, without a note or warning or anything seeming wrong to anyone in his entire fucking life, one day he put a rifle in his mouth and ended the story.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“He was 44."

 We stood for a long time, saying nothing, the snow coming down.  There was no "Silent Night" now, just the white noise of the wind and the occasional cars passing on Ninth Ave. Finally, Jimmy looked at me and said, “We'll still be friends, right?”

“Jimmy?  Have we really been friends?  You disappear for months at a time.  Where's the respect in that? And without respect, there's no point. I’ve already blocked you on all social media.”

“What?”

“I can’t look at or see or know what you’re up to, Jimmy!  All your stories and reels with your friends!  All you're doing without me?  All that evidence of how I’m just not in your thoughts?”

“That’s so not true!”

I gestured to his phone. “Bring up any post you have ever made about us. Go on. I’ll wait.”

Jimmy looked at me for a long moment, then, in a voice that seemed so close to breaking, said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

Again, we just stood, this time, not really looking at each other.  Finally, I said, "I have to catch my train. You said you had something for me, too?”

He looked at me hard, ever so lightly shaking his head.  Finally, he said, softly, “It doesn’t seem right, now.”

"I get that," I said.  "I'm sorry."  I turned and started walking. 

Jimmy shouted, sounding a little unhinged now. “I’m so messed up?  I bet you're wearing one of your precious jockstraps right now! Because you couldn't have done this otherwise!”

He was right, of course. I couldn't have. I stopped walking.  I don't know of anybody in my life who has ever gotten in my soul better than this fuckin guy. 

"Which one?" he continued,  his voice filled with anger.

I turned and looked at him. His face was twisted with several competing emotions.  I felt so sorry for him now, especially that he was trying to hurt me in this final moment.  If you've read Parts One and Two of this story, you know I'm wearing the red Jockmail Simplified Jockstrap.  But I'm not about to tell him.  He's forfeited this game and no longer gets to know shit like that.  So I just said, “You know I do it so I can face life, Jimmy. The difficult shit. I suggest you find something to help you do the same.”

And then I turned and walked away. For a second, I thought about turning back -- to hug him, one last time.  But dammit, that could so easily end up with my clothes on the floor of his apartment.  

So I turned the corner and walked back to Penn Station in the snow. 

EPILOGUE

Because there's never just one side of any story,  Coach Rick invites you to please to take a pause, a deep breath, maybe a break, then accept this final beat, which now finishes off the story from Jimmy’s point of view. Jimmy now says . . . 

I watched as he walked away.  I thought for a moment that he hesitated, wanting to turn back. But he just kept going, turning onto Ninth Avenue, and was gone.   He was right. God, I had fucked up. I had kept him on the bench for a year and a half, and men of Rick’s calibre  -- How he'd love that I just called him Rick --  Men of Rick’s caliber should never, ever be kept waiting on benches. 

For me, it’s a lesson learned too late.

I placed the gift bag under an overhang on a nearby stoop and situated the umbrella over it to keep the snow from hitting it.  I lifted a lid of the closest garbage can and set it aside. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out a stack of 11" x  14" poster boards.  It honestly took me a long time to do them.  I was inspired by Love Actually, that scene where Andrew what's-his-name declares his love for Kiera Knightley.  What the hell? I thought. Why not do this to music?   I reached for my phone and played "Silent Night" again. I thumbed through the cards, admiring the work I’d done on each one.  I studied each one, carefully, one last time, then, one by one, put them in the trash . . . 

Card 1

This isn't carol singers. It's Silent Night on my iPhone! Haha!

Card 2

I need to tell you the truth, because it's Christmas! 

Card 3

Well, not Christmas, really. It's actually the end of January in a snow storm, but because of you're stupid Covid, here we are!

Card 4

What I need to say  . . . and I need for you to know . . . is . . . 

Card 5

I'm not perfect. 

Card 6

And I don’t mean to be mean, but  . . .

Card 7

I don’t think you’re perfect either.

Card 8

But I think you might be perfect for me.

Card 9

The main thing I need you to know is . . . 

Card 10

It may not look like it . . . 

Card 11

But I'm trying. I really am, Coach.

He was so right, I thought. Why hadn't I written "Rick"?  Why?

Card 12

And I hope 2024 is the year of Coach and Jimmy.

Rick! Or at least, Coach Rick and Jimmy.

Card 13

Merry Last Week of January!!

Card 14

I hope you're feeling better!

I placed the last card in the can and secured the lid.  I reached down to pick up the bag and noticed, for the first time, The Original inside it.   I snorted, then smiled. Of course, he would include this.  And of course, I would want to have it. Something to remember him by. I lifted it from the bag, brought it to my face, and inhaled.  I realized, all too late, how arrogant I had been. There was no scent of him. He was gone. None of that incredible musk that covered my face the first night we were together,  and I finally saw, in the darkness of the pouch over my face, the man I’m meant to be. 

He’s not the only dad out there I can get to look my way. I thought I was in charge of our fantasy. But now he was gone. And would only be fantasy. 

I closed the umbrella and stuck it in my backpack, zipped it, then hoisted it to my shoulder with a bit of flair. I let the snow hit me as I walked back to my apartment, holding the jock in my hand.  From time to time, I’d lift the jock to my face with both hands, trying desperately to inhale even a molecule of him. 

I won't tell you, yet, the other things I still do with that jockstrap.  But I'll tell you this.  I still miss the guy whose power and love I once found in its pouch.

And that's all I can say right now.