The Night the Denver Cub Stayed Late

I killed the overheads at ten and Iron and Elm dropped into that thin emergency glow along the rubber floor. Snow ticked the glass on Walnut Street. I was thirty-one, two years on nights, and everybody else had cleared out except the guy in row C. Reed. Thirty-three, thick through the chest and softer through the belly, dark hair on his forearms. He sat on the bench in compression shorts, towel around his neck, like the closed sign had never been written for him.

I stopped in the doorway with the keys biting my fist.
- We're shut. I already killed the lights.
- Yeah. I saw. He looked up, and that half-smile crawled under my skin the way it had for three weeks.
- Give me five. Or don't. Your call.
- You always say five. Then I find you still dripping in the showers.
- So come find me. He stood. The shorts hid nothing, and he did not bother to fix them.
- You watch me rack weight like you are counting sins. I am done acting like I do not notice.

Heat climbed my throat. The bay smelled like rubber mats, chlorine drifting off the lap pool, and the clean salt coming off his skin.
- I could lose this job.
- Then lock the door and quit talking about the job. He stepped in until the damp towel brushed my wrist. His voice dropped, plain and steady.
- I am a grown man. So are you. Say no and I get dressed and gone. Say yes and I put my mouth on you until your knees quit.

I threw the alley bolt. It cracked home too loud in the empty building. When I turned he was already walking, shorts shoved to his ankles and kicked aside, that broad hairy ass shifting like he had never doubted I would follow. I followed. The shower bay still held heat from the last cycle, tile slick, one bulb buzzing over the drains. He faced me with his cock heavy against his thigh, chest hair damp and curled, belly soft under my palm when I finally set a hand on him. He let out a breath he must have been saving since the first week I badged him through the turnstile.

His mouth found mine before I had anything left to say. He tasted like mint gum and the cold metal of the fountain. Stubble scraped my lip. I got both hands into the hair at his nape and he made a rough sound into the kiss, crowding me back against the tile, all that weight and heat. His cock dragged hot along my hip. I wrapped a fist around it and felt it jump, thick in my grip, the head already slick. He bit my jaw, gentle and sure, and shoved my work polo up. Cold air hit my stomach. Then his tongue on a nipple. Then the flat of his hand pushed into my waistband and closed around me, calluses rough, stroke slow.

I kicked my sneakers off and left jeans and briefs in a heap on the dry bench. He went to his knees on the wet tile and took me in, lips tight, tongue on the underside, then deeper until his nose pressed my stomach and his throat fluttered around me. I braced on the tile and knotted a hand in his hair. Spit shone in his beard. He pulled off to breathe, stroked me slick, and sank down again, eyes lifted, cheeks hollowed, until my thighs shook. One last slow pull and he let me go, a string of spit breaking between his lip and my cock.

He planted his forearms on the bench and looked back, mouth wet. I spit into my palm and worked him open with two fingers while he pushed onto them, hairy thighs spread, tight and then giving. Hot inside. I curled until he jolted and his cock dripped onto the rubber. He hauled my hip in. I lined up and pushed, slow, the stretch dragging a groan out of both of us. Cold tile under my toes. His body warm and full around me. I held until he rocked, asking with his hips, and then I moved.

I fucked him steady, then harder, one hand on the soft meat of his hip, the other spread over the hair low on his back. Each thrust knocked a raw sound out of him that bounced off the tile. Sweat ran down my spine. I reached under, found his cock leaking, and stroked him in the same rhythm, thumb sliding over the slick head. He clenched so hard my sight went bright at the edges. I drove deeper, hips snapping, the wet slap of us filling the empty gym, his thighs trembling, every pulse of him trying to keep me there.

He came first. I felt it in my fist, thick pulses, heat striping the bench and his own wrist, his hole gripping me in rhythmic pulls that dragged me over right behind him. I buried myself and let go, spilling deep, forehead dropped between his shoulder blades, mouth open on the sweat-salt of his skin. My legs shook through it. I stayed inside until the last twitch faded and the bulb's buzz came back into my ears, stupid and ordinary. Snow still ticked the front glass. Somewhere out on Walnut a plow scraped past, and the sound felt like it belonged to another city.

I eased out slow. He shivered, laughed once, and straightened, chest heaving, that half-smile gone soft. I took the towel off his locker hook and wiped him down, then myself, shoulders brushing in the quiet. My keys were still in the jeans on the floor. Outside, Denver shone with streetlight on the snow. Inside, the gym smelled like the two of us, and I already knew I would be late killing the last light tomorrow night.