I didn’t get home until after 2 and didn’t get to bed until almost 3:30 it was worth it.
I visited an acquaintance / friend last night. I had the nicest time and shared intimacy with him that is often rare between two men regardless of their orientation. Perhaps due to this intimacy I’m inclined to think of him more as a friend and less as an acquaintance now.
My friend has recently been through a life changing event. He experienced a Patellar tendon rupture while playing volleyball.
He’s been through the surgery to repair the damage and as we talked I realized that he had been through this whole mess pretty much on his own. He’s had one or two friends that looked in on him during the initial phases of the injury and recovery. After that, essentially he’s been on his own. He’s healing nicely, still wearing a brace but the mobility of his knee is pretty good albeit slow and careful.
As we talked he mentioned that immediately after the injury, In between his thinking “GOD that hurts” and “But this is my good leg” he also had the depressing thought that all of his travel plans for the summer were shot to hell.
He’s also found that he had more than a few “Fair Weather Friends” With him out of commission several folks have simply vanished. Not the least of which was a model he’d been seeing that was pushing for a relationship after only a few dates. This person was oblivious to how life altering it is to one moment be playing volleyball in the sun, and the next to be hobbling around on crutches. Or how depressing it is when you’re facing at least one surgery and a fairly long recovery time, with the possibility of NEVER being back to normal.
A couple of days ago my friend broke it off with the model, the hell of it was that he wasn’t sure that the model was really out of the previous relationship anyway.
His birthday is within the next week. I asked him what he’d like for his birthday.
He said “some cuddle time. To be touched and held for just a little while.”
Dinner was over, the bill paid, wine glasses empty, it was time to take him back to his place. He’s pretty mobile but slow. I held doors for him, helped where I could and stayed out of the way when it looked like he was handling things ok.
There’s this really fine line between helping someone with an injury and just being in the way. That line varies by individual, terrain, situation, and type of injury. It’s never inappropriate to offer a helping hand to anyone.
If you offer to help… have the grace to accept that your offer may be turned down and not take it personally.
My friend was grateful to be home. It showed on his face. Even though he seemed to feel that he needed to entertain me as his guest. I wasn’t comfortable with him trying to be a good host…
So I sent him to his room.
Then I went to the kitchen, found a nice bottle of wine, two glasses, an ice pack from his freezer, and joined him in his room.
I don’t know if I’m unique in this, but another mans bedroom is a sacred space. Off limits, unless you’re invited in. The other thing about a mans bedroom is that his scent, (no not stinky stuff) is strongest there.
Each man has a very unique scent. Some pleasant, some not so much… however all are unique. My friends room and scent were pleasant. Despite his recent injury and subsequent recovery process his room was comfortable and neat.
His personal scent was clean, spicy, with a light touch of musk (not the cologne kind) and earthy. These scents are indicators that reach me on an instinctive level about a mans general health. Personally, I’m always suspicious of anyone that wears really heavy colognes and if their room or home reeks of it then I’m really put off.
He was lying on his bed wincing a bit as he settled in. He’d taken off the brace but still had his shoes on and was out of breath from moving in unnatural ways to protect the knee.
He smiled when he saw the wine, and grinned when he saw the ice pack. If he’d been a dog he’d have been wagging his tail and panting.
I started to hand him the pack, but he asked if I’d position it. He really looked tired I suspected that an earlier physical therapy appointment, his day, and dinner had really taken a toll on him. He closed his eyes and breathed a big sigh when the cool pack touched his knee.
I poured the wine and handed him a glass, then helped him get his shoes off.
While next to him on the bed with my wine, we talked about life, the universe, everything. He talked about the model, the strangeness of the short lived relationship, and the confusion he felt about the models desire to take the relationship beyond casual so quickly.
I think he’s happier to be out of that relationship than he’s willing to admit. He’s also perhaps a little regretful because after all it was a model, He’s a guy, and like most of us he’s primarily visually oriented. After all we all like to know we’re with the hottest person in the room.
My friend is a muscular massage therapist. (A REAL massage therapist, not one of those butt rub twinks that wants to jerk you off for $120 calling it a massage.)
I thought about his birthday request and that he’s a massage therapist and came to a decision.
“Would you like for me to give you a massage? I’m completely unskilled but I’ll do my best.”
He looked at me and without hesitation said “Yes, that would be very nice.”
I helped him out of his clothes and then got out of mine. Skin cleans easier than clothes, especially if you’re working with lotions or oils. It’s not like he hadn’t seen me naked before. I’ve subjected myself to his “Tender Mercies” (aka screaming like a school girl) on several occasions.
As I started working on his neck and shoulders he just groaned. He told me that I was one of the few people he knew that had ever offered to massage him. I suggested that people were intimidated and fearful that he would be judging their technique because he was a professional CMT. I kept working on him asking if I was hurting him.
He groaned, as I rubbed the tense muscles following his spine and the boundary between his trapezius and deltoid. “That’s nice..”
Slowly over the next couple of hours with breaks for occasional refills of our glasses and swapping out his ice packs, I worked as methodically as I could down his body. I was using what I remembered from being on the receiving end of good massages and my personal training experience to target his over used muscles.
Realize, that having an injury which affects your ability to walk puts stress on many muscles outside the injury because they’re called upon to work in unusual ways. It’s a natural part of your body protecting the injury site and trying to redistribute the load so that your injury can heal.
I went to go get him another ice pack. When I came back to the room he was reclining with a big smile. “That was nice. I had to roll over ’cause my body doesn’t like being in that position for too long. I can’t even sleep face down.”
I put the new ice pack in place and crawled onto the bed beside him. He pretty much bear hugged me and told me thank you. We talked for a while about more of life, the universe, and everything while I worked on his pecs. After I’d done all I could I just laid down beside him.
We were quiet for a while. Just two men, relaxed, no masks, no fear, no expectations, no demands. Listening to each others hearts and breathing on a warm summer night, somehow this time was as healing to me as I hope it was to him.
After an indeterminate time, he groaned.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh there are some flexibility exercises I still need to do. Would you help me?”
“Of course, you’ll need to walk me through what I need to do.”
So I helped him with the exercises mostly as a spotter and sometimes as a brake when his muscles gave out.
After his exercises we held each other for a while longer. I was gently caressing him, drawing the occasional sigh of contentment.
I was also enjoying a bit of one of my recently discovered / admitted to kinks. I was enjoying “serving”. It was emotionally satisfying for me to serve, help, and comfort this man.
A while later he invited me to join him in a shower, we bathed each other cleaning the lotion, and sweat off each other, again enjoying the intimate peace between us.
Standing there in the shower watching me while I washed his legs and gingerly cleaned his swollen knee he gets this big grin and says “I’ve got some great chocolate ice cream, you want some?”
“Of course!” Hey I’m a sucker for good chocolate! The only thing I like better is sorbet…
While we were munching our well after midnight snack. He commented about how nice it was to have spent the time together the way we did. The intimacy was just what he needed.
Many people that he works with or socializes with are about sex. Admittedly, I can see why. My friend is a big handsome guy. He has always been an athlete and that lifelong habit shows in every aspect of his body. He’s got a bit of a body builders physique and well… god was generous in other ways too.
We were talking about the difference between just sex… (Usually fun), Intimate loving sex… (Fucking great), and Intimacy which we both agree is all too infrequent.
The problem seems to be that intimacy requires vulnerability. You can’t be intimate if you’ve got your guard up. If you’re having a casual fuck you’re likely to be somewhat guarded eve as you pump your load out in a gut wrenching orgasm. Casual fucking is fun don’t get me wrong, but by it’s nature, it’s not very intimate.
Even in relationships there are times when you just don’t want to be vulnerable. The trouble seems to be that we habitually keep our guard up even with those that we should be intimate with. We forget how to be unguarded and completely honest with each other.
I suppose that’s why the time last night was so special.
For several hours I was able to be completely myself, at peace, and had the pleasure of sharing that with someone else who was equally unguarded.
It may never happen again with him. It could have been simply that he was forced to be vulnerable because hes injured. It doesn’t matter why, it’s a memory that I’ll always appreciate.
I’m going to have to be more open to the possibilities too.
Now that I’ve had a taste…. I want MORE.
