Soft & Stone

Chapter One

"

Luz, do u think I could stay at your dorm the next few days? thought my key card would work, but I'm locked out till Monday after all

."

In between one mind-numbing session of ResLife training and the next, I'd checked my phone to find this unexpected text from Stone. My fellow RAs and I were the only ones already moved into campus, three days before the fall semester began to do some orienting and prep. I vaguely remembered talking with Stone a month or so ago, him mentioning wanting to come straight to campus from his internship in Houston, rather than spending a few days at home first. Knowing what I did about what home was like, I didn't blame him, but I'd warned him all the same that he wouldn't have access to his room if he came beforehand.

"

Hey, man! No problem, looking forward to seeing you. Wrapping up these sessions, meet me outside Ollins Hall in an hour

?"

I certainly was looking forward to seeing Stone, and had held onto a lingering curiosity throughout the summer about what it would be like to reunite in the fall. We had struck up a surprising friendship the previous spring after being paired together as peer editors for each other in a poetry class we were taking. Prior to that, I'd known of him for the two things most of campus knew him for ---- his ferocious athleticism and his devout Christianity. He'd been one of our top lacrosse players his first three years here, but at the end of his junior season he blew out his knee and had to give up his victory lap this coming year. He'd also stood out for his habit of Bible reading in the cafeteria and the ensuing aversion to our campus's party scene and hookup culture, much to the dismay of many.

Given that I was an art major concentrating on watercolors rather than weightlifting, and even more so that I'd recently made waves in our claustrophobically small college community for being one of the first students to come out as nonbinary, I didn't anticipate hitting it off with Stone when we were paired up. Meanwhile, I'd learn later, he just as much worried I'd written him off as a bigoted meathead, which I guess I sort of had. It didn't take long, however, for either of us to discover an unexpected kindredness ---- starting with a mutual love in an indie band hardly anyone else had heard of, an appreciation for Ocean Vuong's poetry, and a shared leaning towards waxing philosophical. I'll admit, in the end, my biases far exceeded his, but they were totally dismantled as the semester went on. I was blown away by his talent with the pen, and he likewise appreciated my contributions. After a few weeks, he asked if I wanted to get together outside of class to talk more about our process, and we hit it off from there.

We ended up hanging out once or twice a week the remainder of the school year, grabbing meals in the caf, meeting up for hikes at the nearby trails, even doing some poetry readings at my dorm room once or twice. In the end, I wasn't just surprised how much I liked Stone as a friend ---- I was surprised how much I liked him as a something more. For as long as I can remember, I've had crushes more fleeting than a winter's golden hour. A warm bloom of infatuation rises to the surface, and before I've even fully noticed, it's already begun its descent. I knew when a beautiful girl or a handsome guy is attractive, but that was about the whole of it. When I found myself taking an Intro to Queer Studies course my first semester, I immediately latched onto "nonbinary" ----a perfect descriptor for my lifelong ambivalence towards my gender identity---- and only as the class went on began to wonder if asexual also fit for me. Although I enjoyed jerking off as much as the next person, I was pretty content with that alone, and lacked much desire for anything else.

That began to shift with Stone in the picture. I knew from the jump that he was a particularly hunky specimen. At 6'2, it sometimes felt as though he towered over my thin 5'6 frame. He had All-American good looks: a chiseled jawline dotted with a close-cropped beard, thoughtful green eyes, and a particularly luminous, ornery grin that kept alive a youthfulness in his face. Thick, stick-straight sandy blonde hair covered his head. And his years as an athlete had earned him a lithe body charged with metallic strength. His usual tees revealed biceps hugged tight by the sleeves and pecs that noticeably pressed against the fabric, but the first time I really noticed his physique was when I got a chance to truly see it.

We'd ended up back at his dorm after a hike and Stone was drenched in sweat by the end of it. He asked if I minded if he swung through the showers before dinner, and before I could even respond he'd peeled off his shirt and slid his shorts to the floor. I drank him in. Thick coils of muscle ran across his taut frame ---- six defined ridges on his abdomen, arms tight with strength, and his marvelous chest protruding out before him, smattered with a dusting of hair and each pectoral dotted by a perfect copper nipple. His wide shoulders narrowed to a trim waist, beneath which stood strong, muscled legs. He was a sight to behold. A blazing sight that had overwhelmed me so that I'd hardly noticed that he'd already slung a towel around his narrow waist, dropped his briefs, and headed out to the restroom.

I found myself drifting back to that image as the weeks went on, surprised to find my attraction toward Stone not just lingering, but expanding. I was gutted when he landed a last-minute internship on the other side of the country, uncertain if our burgeoning friendship would stand the test of a summer apart. To my surprise, he'd reached out about once a month to catch up, and now, back on campus, I was the first person he'd thought to crash with. Granted, I don't know how many other RAs he knows, but I was glad that he'd thought of me regardless. Really, we had gotten close quite quickly. He'd found his friendships with the other LAX guys tenuous since his injury, and relayed that they hardly had the capacity for the kind of depthy musings and vulnerable sharing we had settled into. So, yeah, I was excited to see him for a host of reasons. Definitely to catch up and enjoy some time together, but also to see, well, if the strangely persisting feelings would flutter around inside me again after the time apart.

/

In short, they did. Even from yards away, I felt my stomach churn when I spotted him leaning against the brick wall of my building, facing downward into a book. I approached quietly, enjoying my unseen sighting of him, the golden sun lighting the copper of his hair. During one of our calls, he'd mentioned putting in hours at the gym as one of the only ways to pass the time, and it showed. Although he'd maintained his more supple, lithe physique, there was some added bulk ---- his chest, especially, seemed to nearly burst through his shirt, and his legs looked sturdier than ever.

Eventually, he heard my nearing footsteps, and sprung towards me with a beaming grin. "Sup, Luz!" he called out, pulling me into a hug. I couldn't help but savor even these two seconds being wrapped in the hard heft of him. "Dude, your hair!" he said next, acknowledging my biggest physical shift since he'd seen me last. I'd always had a messy tousle of loose black coils, but I'd let it grow this summer into a drooping tangle parted down the middle. Stone playfully ran his fingers through it, wrapping a strand around his pointer. I felt my face flush ---- two years younger than Stone and substantially smaller in height and frame, I couldn't help but feel bashful, even a bit silly. Although he was just a college senior, he was such a man, and I deflated a bit realizing as he practically gave me a noogie that I was of course just a kid in his eyes.

After dumping his backpack in my room ----the rest of his stuff still inside his car---- we went into town to grab dinner, arriving back a few hours later. Getting to reconnect fact to face had been better than I expected. We were both eager to review the different poetry collections we'd read over the summer, which gave way to deeper conversations. I'd shared with him about asking my dad to start using "they/them" pronouns for me, and how surprisingly cool he was about it. In turn, he recounted the awful weekend he'd spent at his dad's for the 4

th

of July, souring what was supposed to be the respite of his grueling summer as an intern. Hours had passed before our waitress gently nudged us out of the booth. Arriving back at my room, we yawned in unison and laughed. He'd woken early that morning, driving most of the day, and I was embarrassingly exhausted from the day of trainings after a summer of sleeping in and doing little else, so we agreed to head to bed, him on the futon crammed beneath my lofted twin.

I showered in one of the single stalls on the first floor, not minding the extra distance from my room for the privacy it offered. I couldn't resist gifting some extra attention to my dick, sudsing it up and imagining what it would be like if Stone's hands were the ones patting my balls, gripping my shaft, toying with my soft, silken head. And then I laughed, genuinely laughed, at the thought. Stone was an utter specimen of masculinity, the epitome of manhood. And I was quite literally an example of someone trying to run from their own. It wasn't that I minded having a cock, or that I wished I could be a girl ---- I just wanted to not be a body at all. To be energy, or spirit, or ghost instead. And so the idea of doing something as embodied as, you know, hitting the gym...it made me cringe just thinking about it. Which, as you might imagine, showed. As I finished dragging the barred soap across my nakedness, I grimaced at my scrawny body. My chest looked the same as it did when I was fifteen, my arms as undefined as ever, my thin torso revealing the hint of a ribcage rather than abs. Most of the time I didn't mind being such a waif, but it seemed that alongside this new flame of lust for Stone was a twin candle of shame at how completely opposite I was to him.

I threw on an oversized t-shirt and baggy boxer shorts and headed back to my room, surprised to find Stone standing in the center of it wearing a pair of black briefs and nothing else. I knew that plenty of guys slept that way, if not in less, and after a lifetime of lockerooms Stone had no reason to think twice, but I'd assumed that my queerness would maybe prompt a boosted modesty. Apparently not. I gave myself two seconds to stare, comparing this image to the one after the hike I'd spent all summer recalling. As I suspected, his chest had definitely grown meatier, looking ripely swollen with strength. He'd gained some color over the summer, but not much, his skin just a shade darker than the milky white of my own. Despite feeling like I was crossing a line, my eyes traveled downward, noticing the bulge in his briefs, obscured by the dark fabric but certainly there. I shot them back up, taking in the shock of dark hair wilding from his armpit, exposed as he raised his phone to the ceiling. "Finally! The service in here sucks," he said with a laugh.

I began to make my ascent to my bed, a new challenge as I'd never had a lofted bed before. It required a step up onto the nearby dresser, and an awkward collapse into the bed below. I laughed, explaining the absurdity of it and showcasing for Stone, but he took it as a challenge. "Luz, my friend, I think you might be exaggerating a bit. What you just demonstrated may have more to do with your impairments in the coordination department. It doesn't look like it would be that difficult."

"Easy for you to say! Your sleeping on a futon resting safely on the floor. Trust me, it's harder than it looks," I shot back without realizing it would, of course, ignite Stone's competitive streak. Before I knew it, his muscled frame had risen to my eyeline as he crouched on my dresser. And then, with a grin, he made the leap, aiming for the foot of my bed but misjudging the angle. Suddenly, there was Stone, everywhere. On top of me. In his underwear. My face was pressed up against his marbled torso, right at the solarplex. It was sensory overload: wisps of chest hair tickling my forehead, the smoothness of him against my arms, his furry legs tangled with mine, and of course the wild weight of him bearing down to smother me. It was suddenly the hottest experience of my life, but I couldn't breathe.

In an instant, his glorious, crushing heaviness was lifted, though the bed was too narrow for our legs not to stay nearly interlocked. "Sorry sorry sorry sorry!" he sputtered, pulling his hands to his face and laughing. "I guess I stand corrected." He brought his hands down, and our eyes aligned with just a few inches separating our faces. A beat passed, and then another. I had no inkling as to what he was thinking, but the reality of the moment seemed to be dawning for both us. Stone had just collapsed on top of me, and now lay by my side, the only thing between his bareness a tight pair of briefs as our legs brushing against each other. The moment felt pregnant with...something. Maybe if I'd had literally any experience with romance prior to this, I would have discerned if it was sheer awkwardness or something more, but of course, I didn't.

"Technically, you

lay

corrected. And in my bed! Get outta here dude!" I said, pained to send him away but not knowing what else to do. I allowed myself one gift from it, though, extending an open hand out against him for a playful shove, hoping he wouldn't feel the heat radiating through me as I felt up his exquisite left pec, feeling his nipple press back gently against my palm, allowing my fingertips to savor for a fleeting second the powerful fleshiness before withdrawing, trying to hold the memory moments later as I watched him withdraw to the futon below.

Chapter Two

It was hell trying to fall asleep, playing through the events of the day: being wrapped in Stone's solid embrace, the hours of conversation at the restaurant, the startle of his stunning nearly-naked body, first in my room at all and then, unfathomably, all over me...if only for a second of accidental awkwardness. I ached to relieve myself, but I couldn't risk it with Stone snoring (snoring!) below me, so I just tossed and turned and tried to summon a sleep that finally came. I woke with a few minutes before I needed to head out for another day of training and was disappointed to see the futon empty below me. Stone's bible and journal sat atop my desk, evidence of his devotional time while I slept, and next to it a sticky note reading "

headed to the gym. text me when ur free! P.S. holy bedhead, bud!

"

I glimpsed at the mirror, blushing at the birdsnest of tangles that my restless rotations through the night had created. Quickly, I ran my fingers through, resolving it into a still-messy but more maintained sea of waves. As I did, I realized that Stone must've taken a moment to witness me as I slept, and a warmth rose in me as I wondered what he saw. Brushing the guilt aside, I briefly opened and scanned his journal to the most recent entry, noticing my name. "

And God, thank you for Luz, who's taken me in for the weekend and happens to be snoozing above me as I write this. I've never been able to find a friend quite like them, and I'm excited to get to spend this time together before the semester begins. Please bless our time and our friendship. They're special, and I'm so glad to have them in my life."

I noticed my mouth had fallen open into a wide grin. The warmth continued to rise, and spread.

/

We'd met up that evening for a quick dinner after my sessions, which had finally come to their end, and opted to go for a long hike afterwards. Stone had introduced me to the trails last spring; they'd been his favorite place to run before he screwed up his knee, and I was floored by the vistas they offered. With time to spare, I'd decided to bring a canvas and some paints with me, and we sat at the peak as the sun set so I could paint an abstract rendering of its slow, gloried descent.

"I could honestly watch you do that for hours. You're seriously so good," he said from behind me as I layered a golden yellow onto ruddy red.

I looked over my shoulder, smirking at him. "Believe me, man, I know. This ought to grace the halls of the Met by the end of the night," I took on a hoity-toity tone, meaning to mock the self-indulgence of my art, but he interpreted it as me mocking him instead.

"Shut up, Luz. I mean it. You're really good. I love that you don't just paint a sunset. You're capturing the, I dunno, the essence of it. The spirit of it." He paused, and I looked back at him again. "I think that's what you're really good at. Seeing the spirit of things. Like, for instance, it was so easy for you to really see me, you know?"

"Ah, well, you seem to be forgetting that I actually assumed you'd be an asshole, remember?"

"No, yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. It took, what? Three days and a conversation about

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

for you to get over that. For you to see me differently. There are people I've known for years who haven't been able to do that, you know." He paused again, swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Look, I'm just saying, I appreciate you, and I'm really glad we found our way into this friendship."

Marbles filled my mouth as I tripped over a response. It wasn't that this kind of sincerity was unheard of for either of us ---- we'd both offered a heartfelt affirmation to one another every now and then, though I tended to struggle to receive it. Suddenly that difficulty had become dialed up by a hundred in light of this new ocean of feeling forming inside of me towards Stone. Finally, I just looked down, muttering, "Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Stone, I hear you," in a squirrely voice.

"C'mon, don't make it weird!" he shouted, launching towards me and ruffling my hair as I shrunk into him, smiling.

We made our way back a little later, the trail lit by the last dregs of daylight, and upon getting back to my room, he raised his arm and took of a whiff of his pit. "Shit!" he shouted, "I. Am. Ripe!" He wasn't wrong. It had been a sweltering late August evening, and Stone tended to sweat easily to begin with. His shirt clung damply to his torso, and a musk emanated from him. The thing is, I really didn't mind. I was enamored with this expression of his maleness, the way it seemed to be screaming from his skin as a murky, sour stench. As I stood there, breathing him in, I realized he'd said something I'd missed in my reverie.

"Wait, huh?" I stammered.

"I asked if you were ready to hit the showers?" he asked, his voice steady as ever. Of course that was no big deal to him after years of athletics, just as hanging out in his briefs wasn't last night. But I'd never in my life had to endure a moment of public nudity, let alone with someone I'd become enveloped with lust towards. My heart thudded in my chest, torn between desire and dread. Obviously, the thought of getting a glimpse of Stone in his utter bareness tempted me...but it involved exposing him to my own. All my life, I'd tried to avoid the excruciation of being seen in my body, slouching in one pile of baggy clothes to the next. Now, all of a sudden, that would quite literally be stripped away, and I'd be left with nothing but my own nakedness ---- a body I've never felt at home within, with its long scrawny arms and nearly sunken chest, bright white skin tight against bone, flat belly above a dark shock of pubes --the only hair to grace me below my crown-- with my dangling dick beneath.

And that mess of me all laid bare next to Stone's sculpted statue of manness, no less. It wasn't even that I wanted to look like him, to embody the pinnacle of male he did. I wanted to not look like anything at all, and beside his body, I didn't want the imperfections of my own singing in the sharp contrast. And yet, even as these thoughts swarmed my mind, in the moment at hand there was Stone grinning as he sniffed the other armpit, tufts of hair poking through the sleeve. There was Stone lifting his sweat-soaked shirt from the hem, giving it a yank to get it past his heavy chest. There was Stone, bending at the waist to step out of his gym shorts, eliciting in me a need to risk seeing what was beneath the briefs that remained until the towel encircled him and they no longer did. "You ready?" he asked with utter nonchalance, clueless to the maelstrom he'd set off inside me mere moments ago.