The Keysmith

Chapter 1 Gabe sat on his duct-taped couch, Xbox controller in hand, while his friend readied a line of painkillers on a glass table. It was the typical Saturday night in Salem, Oregon, for the two twenty-year-olds. They'd planned on going out, meeting people, or raising hell, but invariably they ended up doing the same thing as the weekend before. “You need to get out more,” Jason said. He quickly tapped a restaurant rewards card on the table, slicing through the brown powder. “You've been single for, like, a year. Get out there, man.” Jason slid the powder into a line, and then repeated his slicing motions. “Ten months,” Gabe replied defensively. “It's hard meeting people. I hate the bars, and the clubs are just guys screwing each other in the bathrooms.” “Which is bad because?” “Because I don't want to f**k some stranger in a dirty bathroom. Guess I'm weird like that.” Gabe paused the game as his character got pummeled, digital blood spewing from the masked mouth. He grabbed his rum and Coke off the table and took a heavy drink. It wasn't diluted as the ice hadn't melted yet and he shuddered. Jason always made the drinks too strong, but he never told his friend to change his recipe. “You need some action to break you out of your funk,” Jason said, his blue eyes staring at the drugs on the table. “Build up your confidence, and then you can get back into dating. Maybe you can land a doctor or a lawyer or something.” “I'm not going to f**k a stranger,” Gabe said. “Just drop it, all right?” “What if he's not a stranger?” Jason raised his head, casting a cocky expression Gabe's way. “I'm not going to f**k you, either.” Gabe thought back to the month they'd tried going out in high school, three years before, and nearly killed each other over concert tickets or some bullshit neither of them could fully remember. “I'm not talking about me, Jesus. Well, maybe me and someone else?” Jason bent down and snorted a line off the table. He leaned back up and sniffed the air, rubbing at his nose. “I've been talking with Brad a lot. I think he's curious.” “That's a bad idea,” Gabe stated. He eyed the line waiting for him and licked his index finger. He scooped it up and then sucked it off his finger. It was bitter and he gagged slightly. He took a big swig of his rum and Coke and forced himself not to retch. Jason called him a little girl for not snorting, but there was no way he was going to give himself a brain tumor just to get slightly higher. Eating the s**t sure did the trick for him. “You didn't have gym with Brad, did you?” Jason asked. Gabe shook his head. “Man, he's like eight inches and thick. You'd f*****g choke to death trying to handle his monster.” “So?” Gabe's own member twitched at the prospect. He always thought Brad, straight and goofy, was handsome, but he never gave him much thought sexually. That was usually reserved for the soccer boys who paraded around their high school field shirtless. “So we've been talking and I think he's more than a little interested,” Jason revealed. “In what?” “In naked fun time with us. And you know I have a straight boy fetish.” Jason grabbed the Xbox controller and unpaused the game. “I really wouldn't mind bobbing on his apple. That doesn't sound right…” “I guess it wouldn't hurt to hang out, smoke a bowl, and see what happens,” Gabe said as he adjusted his crotch. He didn't remember Brad well from school, but he certainly remembered him from recent parties. He usually had some decent looking girl on his arm, but that didn't mean anything anymore. “You can set it up, or whatever.” “Nice.” They played games for a few hours until Jason passed out on his hand-me-down chair. Gabe pulled up f*******: on his laptop and checked out Brad's page. He was their age, dark-haired, thin, a cigarette in his mouth in most pictures, and a humorous air. They'd only had a few classes together in high school, but they'd been to the same parties and he thought Brad was cool enough. He pictured a thick d**k in his black jeans and wondered what it would feel like in his hand, or mouth. He thought about Brad f*****g his girlfriend and wondered if he would be rough and manly giving it to either of them. Gabe considered his track history. He had been in a steady relationship for over a year before he walked in on his boyfriend wearing high heels and getting worked over by three frat boys with silly tattoos and hats on backwards. Since then, he'd been enjoying the use of his right hand in his empty apartment. He watched Jason snore on the recliner, a cigarette dangling between his fingers. Gabe plucked it out of his friend's hands and put it out in a can of beer. He pictured his blond friend trying to choke down Brad's thick c**k, and imagined how it would be to lean in and help him lick the shaft, their tongues intermingling around Brad's warm flesh. Jason's pale skin was a sharp contrast to him. He was half Latino, half Caucasian with olive skin and short brown hair. Gabe stepped into his bedroom, flipped the light on, and collapsed onto his bed. He wouldn't admit to Jason how much he enjoyed Brad's f*******: page. He fell asleep with his hands wrapped around his hard d**k and images of Brad's well-toned, slightly hairy chest flashing through his mind.