Swimming to Freedom Read online

  Despite the weather, though, Brandon wanted to get the job done and be rid of that weight hanging around his neck, so he pushed on. While he didn’t complete the entire thing, he got more than half of what was left. One more good trip outside later in the afternoon and he would be done. But it wasn’t going to happen at the moment because his muscles ached from shoveling on top of his efforts in training. Practically crawling, Brandon returned to the house to grab something for lunch before lying down to read. And that was when and where he promptly fell asleep.

  Chapter 4—Interrogation

  THE FOLLOWING morning there were a few other swimmers at the pool when Brandon and Joel got there. One of them was someone Brandon recognized and knew of, even though he didn’t personally know him. He was a competent swimmer but certainly was not world-class material.

  The other swimmer was a new guy, someone Brandon did not recognize. Brandon couldn’t help but look at the man since he looked like a glistening god as he rose from the water and walked slowly toward them, one hand going to his head to sweep his black, wet hair from his eyes. The man had a swagger that came with looking as good as he did.

  Whoever he was he had it all. Upper body strength that came from swimming, lower body development from the same, but he also had abs and pecs that would make any man envious. He practically rippled as he moved. Brandon tried, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. All he could do was stare. He was lucky he didn’t drool.

  It turned out the guy wasn’t walking toward them so much as he was headed for the water fountain located behind them. Still apparently in his own personal training zone, all he offered was a casual “Hey,” as he passed by to get a drink before heading back to the pool.

  As he slipped into the pool, Brandon kept an eye on the stranger and his gorgeous, golden body. He wanted nothing more than to run his hands over that body, followed by running his tongue right along the same area. He wanted to lick the two perky nipples sitting proudly on the guy’s smooth, hairless chest. He wanted to nip and nibble at them to see what that felt like, to see what they tasted like, to see how they responded to the stimulation. He wanted it all. But he knew he couldn’t do any of it. His fantasies were just that—fantasies that would have to remain locked away inside his mind forever.

  One impediment to his fantasy ever becoming reality was that the focus of his attention was a real honest-to-goodness adult male. He wasn’t a teenager like him and Joel and the other guys on the swim team. This guy was a full-grown and hot as blue blazes adult. He had a man’s face, a man’s intensity, a man’s body, and a man’s muscles. And Brandon would have sacrificed just about everything he had to be able to feel that body, to run his hands over it slowly, softly. He wanted to explore all the different parts of it, to check out every nook and cranny. He kicked himself for not checking out the guy’s crotch when he’d had the chance, but he’d been so taken by the sight of everything above the waist that the idea had completely slipped his mind.

  Shoving his fantasies to the back of his mind, rearranging his mutinous dick as discreetly in his Speedo as possible, Brandon put his head down and went back to swimming laps. There were times when training was good for something. In this case, for taking his mind off the god of a man who shared the pool with them now.

  Brandon did allow himself one indulgence. When he saw the stranger getting out of the pool—damn, but he had one fine-looking ass—Brandon gave him a few minutes before deciding he needed to take a quick trip to the locker room himself. He’d find an excuse once he got there. But for the chance to see the man without his swimsuit on, Brandon would come up with some plausible excuse.

  Inside the locker room, he stopped and listened carefully, but there were no showers running. Okay, so his man wasn’t that far into the postswim process. Brandon walked into the main body of the area, which was basically a big box of a room. But damn! The guy wasn’t there. Where was he? Brandon couldn’t have missed him. He couldn’t have changed, dressed, and left that fast.

  But then Brandon heard one of the urinals flush and knew where the object of his lust had gone. He decided he should pee as well, so he turned and headed in that direction, hoping the stranger had stopped there on his way to the shower. He wouldn’t, after all, leave without showering. Everyone who swam in the pool had to shower afterward to get rid of the chlorine smell. There was nothing worse than feeling and smelling your skin covered in all the dried chemicals used to keep the pool sanitary.

  From the urinals Brandon was able to see into the showers, and… bingo! There was the guy in all his glory, and what a lot of glory he was. Brandon took advantage of the man holding his head back and allowing the water to cascade over his body to take in the full view, to soak it all in.

  There was no disputing the fact that the man had a great body.

  “Can I help you with something?” Brandon suddenly heard, the voice pulling him from his reverie.

  He shook himself free of his fantasizing and looked around. It was the man he had been staring at who spoke to him. Oh crap. He was looking directly at Brandon.

  “I’m sorry,” Brandon said quickly. “I’m sorry, but my mind was a million miles away. Was I doing something weird? Please tell me I wasn’t. That happens to me sometimes,” he deliberately babbled. “I get an idea in my head, and my mind just runs with it, regardless of where I am or what I’m doing. If I was doing anything stupid, I’m sorry.” He tried to look apologetically toward the naked stranger.

  “No,” the man said with a smile that just about made Brandon weak in the knees. “Not to worry. Not a problem. I do that too sometimes.”

  Brandon wanted to turn around and leave, to flee, to run at top speed to get the hell out of there, but he was frozen in place, which was bad because the hot naked guy was walking directly toward him. For all Brandon knew, the guy was going to punch him in the face for having the balls to stare at another guy, him in particular.

  But rather than punch him, the stranger stuck out his hand and smiled. “Hi, I saw you practicing out there. I’m Xander.”

  Brandon took the hand, marveling at the firmness of the shake, trying desperately to keep his eyes focused on Xander’s face, or at least anything from the waist up. That proved to be surprisingly not that difficult because Xander had a mesmerizing appeal. Brandon couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  It took every ounce of focus he possessed to come up with something to say, but Brandon did it. “Are you training for something? Are you going to compete?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t swim professionally,” Xander answered with another of his killer smiles. Brandon sure was a sucker for a good smile.

  “You looked good out there,” Brandon said.

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. I swim to keep in shape. I like to run, but it gets to my knees, and besides, there is no way I’m running outside on the snow and ice with the temperatures so damned low. I used to try, but then I said, ‘fuck it’ and switched to swimming.”

  “I hear that,” Brandon said, chuckling lightly in agreement. “You’re up before most people,” he observed.

  “I like to get a good forty minutes of swimming in before I head to the hospital to start my shift. When I go on duty, I’m there for too long and don’t have the energy to even think about swimming or exercising at the end of the day. And besides, there are so few people here in the morning that it’s perfect.”

  “You’re a… what? A nurse? A doctor?”

  “I’m a surgeon.”

  “A surgeon! Wow. So you save lives every day,” Brandon gushed.

  “No, although my ego sure likes it when you say that,” Xander joked, once again gracing Brandon with a huge smile. “Sorry, don’t mean to cut you off, but I’ve got to get finished and get out of here. Hate to stop a good conversation, but I’ve got a full calendar for today. Maybe we can talk more another morning?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’d like that,” Brandon said, hoping he wasn’t sounding too pathetic and needy.

  “Good deal,” Xand
er said.

  The mere touch of the man’s hand and those long, nimble fingers would have been like a lightning bolt straight to Brandon’s crotch, so Brandon gave one final glance at Xander and then turned to head back to the pool and back to work. He had taken a break, and he wasn’t allowed such things. But Xander had been worth it.

  THE NEXT morning when Joel picked him up to head to practice, Brandon was barely awake. When his alarm had gone off, he rolled out of bed, peed, threw on his sweats, shoes, and outdoor wear, and stumbled out the door to meet Joel.

  Had he been more alert, Brandon would have noticed Joel was a little more pensive today. The music was playing, but even that was issuing forth from the speakers at a significantly reduced decibel level.

  “So this week has been good,” Joel said, which was perfectly reasonable. “I’ve had a chance to see a whole different you, a whole new side of you that I didn’t even realize was there.”

  “Okay,” Brandon responded slowly and cautiously, not having a clue what Joel was talking about. “You mean without my dad around?”

  “Yes, but that’s not all. I’ve just gotten to see more of who you are, things I’d never noticed before. Without him around, you let your guard down a little and do some things that you don’t normally do.”

  “Nobody really knows the real me,” Brandon said in a moment of weakness, instantly cursing himself for having said too much.

  “What do you mean?” Joel asked.

  “There’s just a lot to me that no one knows about, stuff that no one will ever know about.”

  “So you’ve got secrets?” Joel asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Dude, we’ve all got secrets, but nobody’s got secrets that big. You’re a high school student in the middle of nowhere. You can’t have secrets that big. What’d you do? Kill somebody?”

  “What? No!” Brandon objected strenuously.

  “There, you see? Nothing that big and bad. We’ve all got things we don’t want anybody else to know about, things that we’re embarrassed about.”

  “I’m not embarrassed….” Brandon started to explain, quickly stopping himself. He would not and could not tell anyone about this because it was like his father said, once something was out, it stayed with you for life.

  “Yeah? Go on,” Joel asked.

  “No. Some things just need to stay secret.”

  “Okay, so we ruled out you killing somebody. Let’s see, what’s next? Did you rob a liquor store?”

  “No!”

  “Rob a grocery store?”

  “No, I’ve never robbed anybody or any place.”

  “Okay. Didn’t think so. So, do you torture small animals for fun?”

  “No.” Brandon was quickly tiring of this interrogation.

  “Big animals?”

  “No.”

  “You rape somebody?”

  “Good Lord, no!” Brandon protested. “Dude, enough. Stop with all the questions. I’m not telling you.”

  “I haven’t got it out of you yet, so the game must continue. Let’s see, do you keep voodoo dolls of your father and gleefully shove pins into it?”

  Brandon didn’t immediately answer, because the idea gave him some momentary pleasure. “No, but you may be onto something there.”

  “Okay, we’ve narrowed the list down considerably. Did you steal a car and go joyriding, getting arrested during your joyride?”

  “No.”

  And then he heard a question he had absolutely never anticipated. “Are you gay?”

  Brandon’s head snapped around to look at Joel so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. With his eyes wide open, Brandon simply stared at Joel for a moment. Even though he was cold, his head was suddenly wet with sweat. He blinked rapidly.

  “What?” he croaked out.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? Got it out of you easier than I thought I would,” Joel declared gleefully.

  “What? No… why… what do you… no… just…,” Brandon babbled for a moment.

  “Dude,” Joel said with a smile, “chill.”

  “Please… why would you ever ask me that question? I don’t understand. Please don’t tell anybody,” Brandon said, unwittingly confirming what Joel clearly suspected.

  “No problem. But why are you so panicked about this? A lot of guys—and girls—are gay, or bisexual. You’re not the only one, you know. My older sister is gay.”

  “Please…,” Brandon started to beg again.

  “Brandon, calm down,” Joel told him. “Of course, your secret is safe with me.” Joel was quiet for a moment, still smiling at Brandon. “So you suck dick, huh?”

  “No,” Brandon said.

  “You don’t? I thought all gay guys wanted to suck dick?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I said I hadn’t done it.”

  “So you’re a virgin. No problem.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Brandon mumbled, trying to sit as far down in his seat as possible, wishing he could just disappear. “Easy for you to say. You’ve had sex before. And if I’m to believe even half of the stories you tell, there’s not many women you haven’t tried to mount in the tri-county area.”

  “So, if you haven’t ever sucked a guy’s dick, how do you know you’re gay?”

  Yet another question Brandon would never have anticipated hearing from his friend. Brandon sat up a bit in his seat, turned toward Joel and asked him a question of his own. “How do you know you want to ‘bang a babe,’ as you put it last week?”

  “Looking at a woman is what gets my motor running, you know?” Joel smiled, partly excited and partly embarrassed.

  “Same for me, just substitute a guy for your girl.”

  “So just looking at a guy gets you all hot and bothered?”

  “Maybe,” Brandon mumbled softly, still partially horrified that he was having this conversation aloud. “Depends on the guy. It doesn’t work with every guy, of course, just like I’m sure that not every woman gets you all fired up.”

  Joel was quiet again. Brandon was coming to hate those times when Joel wasn’t singing or talking because the questions that followed seemed to be the most probing and difficult.

  “So, do you get all hot and bothered when you look at me?” Joel teased. “When you see me naked in the locker room?”

  “No, of course not,” Brandon said.

  “Why not?” Joel demanded. “I’m good-looking. My mom’s been telling me that for years. I’ve got bunches of girls that want to go out with me. So what’s the problem with me? I’m not good enough for you? Is that it?” Joel almost sounded indignant.

  “Joel! Please. You’re great. You’ve got a hot body. No problem there.”

  “So you’ve checked me out. Okay, good. But why didn’t I pass?”

  “You’ve got a nice body. It’s just….”

  “Just what?”

  “It’s just that we’re friends—and you’re straight. You are straight, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m straight. I’m all into the babes.”

  “Then why are you so interested in my sex life—or lack of a sex life?”

  “I don’t want to hear the details, but I do want to know what’s wrong with me? What is it about me that you don’t like? Was it my dick? I’ve been told it’s a bit above average. I think I’ve got a nice dick. Have you checked it out?”

  Blushing, Brandon answered, “Yes, from what I’ve seen, you’ve got a very nice dick.”

  “Well, if it’s not my dick, then it must be something else. Is it my ass? I’ve heard gay guys are big into asses.”

  “No, your ass is just fine.”

  “Just fine? Is that all?”

  “It’s a very nice ass. Perfectly shaped, well muscled. It ripples nicely when you walk away.”

  “So, we’ve ruled out two things. Is it—”

  “Enough,” Brandon protested loudly. “Please. You’re hot. Just accept it. I don’t think about you… that way…. It would be like wanting to sleep with my sister
if I had one.”

  “Please, brother maybe. There is no way I’m gonna pretend I’m your sister.”

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Brandon said, squeezing his eyes shut as if to block it all out.

  “It would be so much easier if I didn’t have to pry every bit of information out of you, you do know that, right?”

  “Good Lord,” Brandon mumbled, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “So—”

  “Oh Jesus.” Brandon sank down more.

  “Hush. So if we were strangers and you bumped into me at the pool, say in the shower, where I was all naked and hot, pumped from doing laps for two hours, you’d look at me and want me then?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want to hear, then, yes, I’d look at you and want you. I wouldn’t be able to resist your charms.”

  “Good.” After a further moment of quiet contemplation, Joel asked one final question. “Have you ever gotten hard looking at me or thinking about me?”

  Brandon couldn’t blush any more than he was at that moment.

  “You have!” Joel gleefully yelled. “All right.”

  “Are you sure you’re straight?” Brandon asked.

  “Very sure. I’m comfortable in my masculinity and in my sexuality, so I can ask these questions about things I don’t know about. When did I make you hard?”

  “Please, don’t,” Brandon begged.

  “Too late. Talk. Hard. You. Me in all my glorious splendor. When? Go.”

  “In the pool one morning. You pulled up next to me and smiled at me. You’ve got a killer smile.”

  “My smile?” Joel asked, looking offended. “What? It wasn’t my dick? It wasn’t my ass? It wasn’t my rock-hard abs?”

  “Please don’t make me talk about this,” Brandon begged.

  “Dude, like that is gonna happen. Talk. You know that the longer you take the more I’m gonna hound you, so just go for it and tell me all about it.”