The Shy Boy With Big Feet
The kid in the apartment across the courtyard looked too young to be living on his own.
Nineteen, maybe. Eighteen at the youngest. One of those lucky bastards who'd probably still get carded at thirty. Curly brown hair. Jade-green eyes. Lean build. Not huge, not gym-rat muscular, but hard and toned in a way that suggested he actually used his body instead of sitting behind a desk all day.
And the kid had feet like a damn professional basketball player.
Size thirteen.
You noticed things like that when somebody spent half their life stomping around the apartment complex in oversized skate shoes.
At first, I didn't know much about him.
Hell, I didn't know much about any of the neighbors.
I was a forty-two-year-old accountant with more gray in my hair every year and a fresh divorce hanging around my neck like an anchor chain. I kept to myself. Went to work. Came home. Paid bills. Existed.
The kid and I would cross paths once in a while.
Maybe at the dumpsters.
Maybe out in the parking lot.
Maybe coming back from work or the grocery store.
We'd exchange a quick "hey" or "how's it going."
Nothing special.
But every time he smiled.
A shy smile.
The kind that appeared for a second and disappeared just as fast.
He seemed like a good kid.
And like me, he didn't spend much time with the other tenants.
That got me wondering.
Because there was something strange about it.
A friendly kid that good-looking ought to have people around all the time.
Friends.
Girlfriends.
Boyfriends.
Somebody.
But nobody ever showed up.
No crowds.
No parties.
No groups of people his age hanging around.
Just him.
Always him.
Eventually curiosity got the better of me.
One afternoon I asked him about himself.
That was how I learned about Brayton Rourke.
Apartment 9B.
Website designer.
Worked mostly from home.
Lived alone.
And yes, he was shy.
Painfully shy.
He also told me he was gay.
Not dramatically.
Not like he was making some big announcement.
Just matter-of-fact.
Like he was telling me his favorite color.
He explained that he'd been looking around on dating sites, not because he expected to find love, but because he was hoping to find somebody he could relate to.
Somebody like himself.
He didn't have much faith in it, though.
Growing up with only his grandmother had left him awkward around people his own age. Parties weren't his thing. Bars weren't his thing. Social scenes in general weren't his thing.
Honestly, most people exhausted him.
What he wanted wasn't romance.
It wasn't hookups.
It wasn't even a relationship.
The kid wanted companionship.
Friendship.
Somebody to hang out with.
And apparently that was harder to find than he'd expected.
Most people saw a handsome young guy and wanted him for reasons that had nothing to do with friendship.
The kid wasn't bitter about it.
Just disappointed.
Which was somehow sadder.
He'd spent nearly his whole life living quietly with his grandmother.
When she passed away, she'd left him enough that he could keep a roof over his head.
An apartment he could afford.
Nothing more.
No large inheritance.
No big family waiting in the wings.
No support network.
No relatives worth mentioning in the state.
And almost no friends.
Listening to him felt a little like looking into a mirror.
Different circumstances.
Same loneliness.
So I told him the truth.
If he ever needed somebody to talk to, he could come find me.
I wasn't exactly booked solid these days.
Since my divorce, I'd become something of a recluse myself.
Most evenings I sat alone in my apartment watching old movies and pretending I preferred solitude.
The truth was, Brayton and I had more in common than either of us expected.
Neither one of us had much interest in dating.
Neither one of us cared about nightlife.
Neither one of us fit in particularly well.
So we started hanging out.
Simple as that.
A movie here.
A conversation there.
Then another movie.
Then another.
Before long the kid was spending half his evenings in my apartment and I was spending half mine laughing at his terrible observations during whatever movie we happened to be watching.
It felt like having a younger brother.
A strange thing to discover at forty-two.
The days didn't feel quite so empty anymore.
And despite how the kid looked, despite how handsome he was, despite the fact that he was openly gay, I honestly didn't think of him in any romantic way.
At least I didn't think I did.
I'd spent fourteen years married to a woman.
Fourteen years.
The idea seemed ridiculous.
Then came that afternoon.
Bright fall sunlight pushing through the apartment windows.
Jaws 2 playing on streaming.
Forty-two-year-old me.
Nineteen-year-old Brayton Rourke.
Just another movie day.
Or so I thought.
The kid came through the door carrying the faint smell of asphalt and autumn air.
He'd skateboarded back from the mall.
Not unusual.
The kid practically treated that skateboard as a second pair of legs.
Without a word, he dropped onto the sofa beside me.
Then he kicked off his massive sneakers.
Size thirteen monsters that landed beside the coffee table with a pair of heavy thuds.
He stretched out like somebody settling into his own living room.
Totally relaxed.
Totally comfortable.
The way people only get when they trust someone completely.
A faint trace of sweat lingered from the skateboarding trip.
Not enough to be unpleasant.
Just enough to suggest he'd spent the afternoon rolling through the city while the rest of us sat indoors staring at screens.
He knew I didn't care.
By then we'd gotten comfortable around each other.
Comfortable enough that neither of us felt the need to pretend.
The movie started.
Brayton grabbed a handful of popcorn.
Pointed at the screen.
And immediately began criticizing every decision the characters made.
The kid had seen the movie at least a dozen times.
Maybe more.
And somehow he still treated every viewing as an opportunity to roast everybody involved.
I laughed.
He laughed.
The shark attacked somebody.
Brayton made another sarcastic remark.
And somewhere during that ordinary afternoon, while sunlight faded across the carpet and Jaws 2 played in the background, I found myself looking over at the kid beside me.
Not because of his looks.
Not because of his age.
Not because he'd kicked off those ridiculous size-thirteen shoes.
But because I suddenly realized how important his company had become.
That realization hit harder than anything happening on the television.
The apartment didn't feel empty anymore.
The silence after work no longer felt endless.
And for the first time since my divorce, I couldn't honestly tell myself that I preferred being alone.
Because sitting there beside Brayton Rourke, I knew I didn't.
But this time I’d caught a whiff of his sweaty socks. And for some reason the odor caused my penis to harden quite suddenly.
I ignored this … or tried to and continued watching the movie.
We watched a movie, inhaled an irresponsible amount of pizza, and got absolutely wasted on wine coolers. At least, that was the official story. Personally, wine coolers had never done much for me. I could drink four or five of the things and all I'd get was a faint buzz and the urge to make poor decisions involving extra cheese.
Brayton, however, apparently possessed the alcohol tolerance of a Victorian child.
The kid polished off three bottles and immediately departed for another dimension.
Normally our movie nights consisted of sitting around, watching dumb action movies, and knocking back cans of Bud Light like respectable amateurs. But this time we'd decided to change things up with some Bartles & Jaymes. I figured we'd get the same mild buzz wrapped in fruit flavoring.
Brayton reacted as if we'd skipped straight past wine coolers and handed him a jug labeled WARNING: Appalachian Family Recipe. After bottle number three, he was blotto. Not tipsy. Not buzzed. Not pleasantly relaxed.
Blotto.
His eyes went glassy, his words started wandering off in the middle of sentences, and he looked like a man trying to remember how gravity worked. If you hadn't seen the empty wine cooler bottles sitting on the table, you'd have sworn he'd spent the evening guzzling moonshine behind a barn with a group of suspiciously friendly opossums.
Meanwhile, I was sitting there wondering how a beverage that tasted like carbonated fruit punch had managed to hit him with the force of a freight train.
"Wow, kid … you’re drunker than a raccoon in a liquor store bathroom!" I said, laughing. I hauled Brayton off the sofa, cradling the limp, almost senseless nineteen-year-old in my arms and heading for the doorway that lead to my bedroom.
I tried walking the kid down the hallway when it seemed like Brayton was coming to his senses. He was at least semi-conscious when he began to speak. He reminded me that he once told me that I could “have him”. And that he wouldn’t think it was weird, and that he hoped I wouldn’t think he was weird for making the offer. He just couldn’t purposely involve himself in something that his grandmother wouldn’t have approved of … unless he had SOME kind of excuse.
But I couldn’t just “take him”. I needed some kind of green light so that I wouldn’t feel like some lecherous cad in the morning.
“You’re too helpless to stop me from doing whatever I want with you, you know…”
He laughed drowsily, “Yeah, I know…”
“So I’m just going to have some fun with your feet.”
“My feet??” He said, outraged. His voice was both slurred and drowsy and upset when he said, “You can do more than that, bud! I don’t mind! I mean, if I pass out or someeee…”
And he did pass out!
And so, after slinging the unconscious boozehound over one shoulder, I made my way down the short distance to my bedroom. I paused at the door, resting the unconscious kid on his feet and propping him against one of apartment 4’s seemingly paper-thin walls while I used one hand to flick the light switch.
Laying Brayton out on my bed, I drank in the sight of the helpless handsome boy before me.
Seizing his ankles, I thrust both of the kid’s socked feet towards my face, moaning with pleasure as the fragrance of salty sweat wafted into my nostrils. Then I pulled the sleeping boy’s socks off and placed the soles of his bare feet on my cheeks. I just dug the feel of his cool, smooth soles resting on my cheeks. I kissed those soles for a good long while… I even took the time to kiss each one of his beautiful toes. Just kissing the slumbering youth’s toes turned me on to the point where I had to direct my attention elsewhere or risk blowing my load in my pants right then and there.
I pulled off the limp boy’s shirt and had just tugged down his pants when he began to regain consciousness. He seemed confused for a moment, but then his eyes showed that he recalled his offer… and was willing and able to make good on it if I decided to accept.
My mouth teased his skin, nipping, then licking, leaving a sparkling trail of wet. And I blew on that wet skin to watch the chill bumps it created. I traced my fingertips ever so lightly overt the area around his nipples, but still avoiding the nipples that were now stiff little bumps. My tongue traced the underside of his chin, and then I worked his way down his throat and stomach.
Though twitching with pleasure, he still writhed with frustration a bit because I detoured around his stiff man-nips, then felt an uncontrolled shudder as my tongue dipped into his bellybutton.
I laughed when he reached up to hold onto the headboard as I traveled down from his navel. I had to have a go at those big, beautiful feet again. I scooted down the bed to lift each beautiful foot and kiss the fragrant soles. I played my tongue around his toes, then licked up to his ankles. Brayton was squirming now, seeing his tool dribbling precum and knowing that I had the power to make him explode like a geyser if I wished. I separated his legs, crawling up between them and then nibbling the delicate skin behind his knees. I all but attacked the kid’s inner thighs with kisses and rough bites, then finally began licking near his tool. Brayton groaned and bucked his hips, trying to get my tongue where he wanted it, but I wasn’t going to let him control this situation in any way.
After stripping myself naked I returned to his feet and just massaged those size 13’s for a while. I caressed and massaged them so well that it wasn’t long at all before Brayton had dropped out of consciousness again.
I took hold of the nineteen-year-old’s heels and raised the sleeping kid’s bare feet high towards my face. I stuck out my tongue and slid it along the underside of his toes, from the pinky to the big captain. Forcing my tongue against the crevice where the toe joins the foot, I danced my tongue along the underside a second time. Brayton didn’t have very long toes, but they were long enough … and they smelled just enough and had pristine, clear toenails. I used my tongue to trace one of those pristine clear toenails--the nail of his pinky toe, running down along the side, along the bottom, up the other side, and across the tip, which was cut straight and just back from the tip of his toe. I created a wedge and forced my warm, wet tongue between his smallest and next largest toe and wiggled it madly in between them.
It was when he began to awaken that I started nibbled his ankles. Laughter began welling up inside of Brayton as I got closer and closer to his sensitive, beautiful soles. He didn't even bother pleading; he knew that if he had me in a similar position, he certainly wouldn’t stop now.
I would tongue torture Brayton Rourke’s sensitive soles until she passed out yet again.
The next morning, I was stunned to discover that Brayton wasn't hung over.
After the way he'd crashed the night before, I'd expected him to wake up looking like he'd gone twelve rounds with a freight train and lost every single one. I figured he'd emerge from the guest room squinting at sunlight, clutching his head, and swearing a lifelong oath never to touch another Bartles & Jaymes.
Instead, the kid woke up hungry.
And not just hungry.
Bear-after-hibernation hungry.
Locust-swarm hungry.
Competitive-eating-champion hungry.
I made pancakes, eggs, and bacon, figuring there'd be enough food to feed both of us comfortably.
That was my first mistake.
Brayton practically inhaled the entire breakfast. The pancakes disappeared so quickly I wasn't entirely sure they'd existed. The eggs vanished without so much as a farewell. And the bacon never stood a chance. At one point I looked down at my plate, looked up at his, and genuinely wondered if he'd developed the ability to teleport food directly into his stomach.
We ate in relative silence.
Not uncomfortable silence.
Just the kind of silence that settles in when two people are busy replaying the same memories and neither one feels the need to narrate them.
We didn't talk much about what had happened the night before. There wasn't much point. We both remembered the movie, the pizza, the wine coolers, and Brayton's spectacular transformation from ordinary teenage kid into a man who reacted to three bottles of Bartles & Jaymes as if he'd spent the evening chugging moonshine from a mason jar.
Every now and then I'd catch him smiling.
Then I'd realize I was smiling too.
Because we both knew something had happened.
For me, it felt like the beginning of a new chapter in my life.
For Brayton, it felt like the first chapter, period.
Neither of us knew exactly where the story was headed. But as he reached for what had to be the last surviving strip of bacon on Earth and devoured it without hesitation, I couldn't help thinking it was a pretty good beginning.