Both Ways

And? Anything else?

It was like reading 'Dracula' with all references to blood, fangs and anything else too unsavoury for polite company cut out.

The whole point of rimming a guy, as far as I was concerned, was to enjoy the powerful intimacy of having erotic contact in the most private and personal way possible. Such an experience demanded a whole swathe of striking, vivid and unambiguous adjectives. These guys were going to be having sex together – passionate, expressive sex using each other's bums – and words like 'aromatic' and 'fragrant' simply wouldn't cut it for me.

Having said that, I came across an occasional story which went too far in the other direction, and an author could sometimes find himself, for my tastes at least, overstepping the fine line between eroticism and distastefulness. For me, there would be no appeal whatsoever in putting my face near a guy's unwiped backside and so any descriptions of rimming which included faecal associations in any of their variants was an immediate turn-off. From what Cameron had told me, I knew that some men must enjoy that level of seediness, but not me.

I didn't expect a guy to scrub away all traces of his own scent back there and smear himself in perfume – after all, if I wanted to smell flowers, that would be a pretty unlikely place to start sniffing – but nor did I want to discover when I pressed my face to him that he smelled like a toilet.

There had to be a happy medium between the two extremes, but very few of the stories I was reading through were willing to commit themselves to where exactly that was.

"His hole had a funky, nutty smell to it," was the closest I could get, in a story about a college student whose curiosity got the better of him when he was undressing his drunken roommate. "It tasted bitter, like dirt would taste," the story went on, "but the fact I was licking his arsehole was such a turn-on that I didn't really care."

"When Steven pushed his tongue into Nathan," another author related in a story about two guys who had met in a subway station, "he found his companion tasted musty and metallic." Metallic? I wasn't sure about that. On both occasions I'd done it, I hadn't noticed any similarity to sniffing a handful of coins.

"His butthole smelled rich, ripe and cheesy," was the description in another story. That didn't sound right, either. Too fungal to be erotic.

"When I pulled his briefs down, a delicious waft hit me, as if straight from the sewer." No, no, no. Mark well and truly overstepped.

The computer made a pinging sound. A reply had come in from Debbie. That was encouraging.

She'd have to wait, though. These stories were far too interesting.

I clicked the back button a few times to see what other categories the archive had on offer.

Rejecting 'Ass to mouth' (I'd followed such links before when looking for rimming movies and found the content wasn't at all what I'd expected it to be), I clicked on 'Bisexual'. I wondered if any of the stories in this section would touch upon my own predicament of being faced with meeting up with both a woman and a man.

I found that most of them, however, revolved around guys getting together for sex with both a woman and a man at the same time. While the idea was intriguing – I wondered, actually, why it hadn't occurred to me before – I was looking for something that related more directly to my own situation.

After a few minutes, I found a story about a young guy called Declan who worked in a bank and who had always dated girls. He went to gay clubs because he preferred the music (yeah, right) and there he had met up with a friendly young man called Reece. Reece started coming back to Declan's flat after clubbing and the two of them would chat into the night about the many bands, TV shows and films which they both liked. Soon Reece was staying over on the settee, and Declan would take lingering looks at his friend the next morning as he slept, wondering whether Reece was interested in him sexually and curious about what it would be like if they experienced intimacy together.

He thought back to some of his girlfriends – especially a girl called Charlene who had been special to him – and found himself musing, with Reece splayed out on his couch wearing just a t-shirt and his briefs, how a night with this gay man would play out.

"I wondered how Reece would differ in his expectations of me," Declan pondered in the story. "With most of my girlfriends, what I call 'full sex' (but what the books would probably call penetration) was pretty much a given. With Reece, would it be the same? Women, especially Charlene, like to be the more submissive partner during sex. Would Reece be more assertive; would he try to take a more dominant role with me?"

It was an interesting question and one which I had been wondering about myself.

"Perhaps Reece would, during foreplay, expect me to do the same things with him that I like to do with a woman. He might want me to finger him the way I sometimes start out by masturbating a woman. But with Reece, without a pussy down there, I was faced with having to work a finger in and out of his backside."

Declan didn't disclose whether the prospect of fingering his friend's arse appealed to him; I suspected for many straight men, the idea would fill them with revulsion. For my part, I was very attracted to the idea of masturbating a man anally during the early stages of our sex, although how I would pleasure him down there without a clitoris to guide me was something I'd have to figure out by trial and error.

"Would he pump himself against my hand, the way that a woman would?" Declan wondered. "Or would the rhythm be left to me, to choose how quickly to work my fingers back and forth in and out of him? Perhaps he'd want to finger me at the same time; maybe that's what two guys do together."

Plausible idea, Declan, I thought, but it doesn't seem likely. After all, it's not something you see men doing together in porn movies. I remembered the librarian telling me that I shouldn't base my expectations of what men do together on what I see in porn – which was good advice, albeit haughtily given – but in this case I felt porn was likely to be a pretty reliable mirror.

Declan ultimately decided that Reece would prefer his attention to be directed towards his penis. "That is, after all, where men get their sexual sensations from and the part that we mostly link with feelings of pleasure. Our hands will probably be drawn to each other's erections, and we'll stimulate each other the way we enjoy doing it to ourselves."

He seemed relieved that his and Reece's bottoms would probably take a secondary role, being used as an occasional diversion rather than being solely responsible for their joint excitement.

He and I would have to differ on that point: for me, a large part of the fun of having sex with another man would be getting face-deep in his butt-crack and having him do the same to me. The appeal of that seemed rather lost on Declan, who would prefer to keep his dealings with Reece very much on the level of the penile.

"Perhaps we might kneel close together so we could work both of our organs as one; one or other of us grabbing both our erections side by side and pumping them together in one outstretched fist. Grinding our hips towards each other; feeling our balls slapping together. Yes, I was sure I would enjoy that."

That's when that fingering idea might prove felicitous, I thought, envisioning one guy wanking at their twinned cocks and the other using both hands underneath their balls to seek out both of their hot, moist holes. But no, Declan's heterosexual leanings directed his imagination almost completely towards how he could pleasure his erection.

"I wondered if we could rub our organs against each other's chests, the way I enjoy doing to a woman between her breasts? Would our pecs be big enough to stimulate each other's shafts? Would our chest hair get in the way?"

So Declan was hairy, was he? I wondered how he knew about what Reece had under his shirt.

"But of course," it suddenly dawned on Declan, "we wouldn't need the valley between a pair of breasts to do such things: gay guys probably do the same thing along the cracks of each other's butts. We could hump each other's from behind, taking it in turns to rub ourselves between each other's arse-cheeks."

I liked Declan's idea and could picture the two of them taking turns on each other: the bank clerk rubbing his cock so cheerfully between his gay friend's buttocks and then turning, dutifully, to let Reece pleasure himself in the same way. Declan might stay hard while the other man grunted and grinded behind him but his thoughts, I was sure, would be on how long it would be before his own turn came again.

I would love to work myself between another guy's splayed buttocks; seeing my cock-head thrusting upwards from his tight, hairy crack. In some ways it would be better than doing the same thing with a woman's breasts: with a man, you'd be able to sniff the scent of his rear as you humped him; the whiff of his backside giving an alluring preview of the stronger, earthier odours you'd enjoy when you were buggering him properly.

For my part, though, I would relish with almost the same excitement the feel of his cock sweeping up and down between my buttocks; having him humping my arse crack as we squatted together with his knees pushed between mine. Not least, I would enjoy smelling my own musky anal scent and to know that he too could not be unaware of the unique flavour my own backside was exuding as he thrust his swollen manhood back and forth inside my hot, hairy crack.

And then, when he was panting with excitement and his shaft was slick with the pungent wetness from my hairy cleft, he'd stand up and I'd turn to lick his girth; to devour the thick, earthy stink of my own sweaty bum from his cock like I was rimming my own arsehole.

Declan didn't touch on such inelegant matters but instead chose to consider how far he would go with Reece in the way of what he called 'full sex'. While he was happy to allow the other man to use his buttocks as a masturbatory aid, he was adamant that his banker's vault between them would remain secure.

"I cannot see myself doing that," he wrote. "While I am sure that Reece and I will be able to have a lot of fun together in my bed, to submit to him in that way would be out of the question."

That seemed rather a shame.

For me, rubbing our cocks between each other's arse-cheeks would like an unspoken aperitif before we committed to anal sex, the two of us trying each other out to see which way around we most enjoyed it. Declan was very particular, though, that if Reece was under any confusion about which of their sausages would end up in the stuffing, the whole thing would be off as far as he was concerned.

I glanced at the clock on the computer and saw that I should have been picking Jake up twenty minutes ago. I wasn't overly concerned: after having the misfortune to see on Facebook the way he and his mates messed around in the changing rooms after football practice, there was no point in rushing.

Feeling some disappointment that I wouldn't get to read about how things transpired between Declan and Reece, I quickly deleted my browser history.

After closing down all the programs and almost on the point of switching off the computer, I remembered to check Debbie's e-mail.

It turned out that she could meet me the following night for a meal in a restaurant she knew in Cranford if I was available. That sounded pretty good.

Even better, she had managed to swap things around and was free, as she put it 'the whole of Thursday night'. That sounded a lot more promising.

So, if all worked out as I hoped, it seemed that I'd be staying over with Debbie on Thursday and then might finally get to have a man in my bed on Friday. I might even get a kiss the following evening after our meal.

As I grabbed my car keys and headed for the front door, I thought, 'Who says you can't have it both ways?'

===

Next story: Stain Devils

===