Chapter 1 – Chapter 1

Part One

In March 2025, I returned to my hometown — St. Louis, Missouri — for work and a family wedding.

I was born in South St. Louis in 1975 and named Jeremiah. When those two things collide, it is likely you'll be haunted your entire life by Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World," a song that started with an anecdote about a bullfrog named, you guessed it, Jeremiah. It was where my parents had found my name.

It was also where my parents had found my nickname, initially Bullfrog and then, disappointingly, not Bull — a very cool nickname — but instead Frog and then Froggie, neither of which was cool. I mean, Froggie was the hoarse kid on the The Little Rascals, for God's sake.

It was a March Monday, and my work was just north of Forest Park, on a hospital campus. I had driven over that morning, and had spent the afternoon defending a deposition. It was a long, arduous day.

When we finished, I decided I'd eat — alone — at Cunetto's, on The Hill. If you don't know, The Hill is St. Louis' Italian neighborhood and home to great, neighborhood Italian joints. Cunetto's was one of the best, although it's reputation meant it was more known and less neighborhood.

To my surprise and dismay, Cunetto's was closed on Mondays, so I pivoted to Charlie Gitto's. My dismay would not last long, as you will read.

I claimed a seat at the bar, received a menu, and ordered a Chianti. The couple to my left was well into their meal, and the chair to my right was empty. Like me, the guy two chairs to my right was gay and alone. But, he was not hot, and I don't do not hot. I did not attempt to engage.

During my second glass, the chair to my right filled. When I looked, I could not believe my good fortune. The man filling the chair to my right was delicious. I pegged him at 35-40 years old, so 12-15 years younger than my 50 years.

I also pegged him as impossibly handsome, his brown hair parted on the side and off his forehead in a wide swoop, his eyebrows thick, his eyelashes long, his nose roman, his mouth showing a slight overbite, and his chin strong. I surreptitiously snapped a picture in profile and texted it to my husband, Charlie.

"Hot guy alert," I captioned the text.

"Holy shit," Charlie responded. "Where are you?"

"The bar at Charlie Gitto's," I responded. "He just sat down. OMG, he's so hot."

"He is. Reel him in and take pictures and videos," Charlie urged.

"I'll try," I answered.

My new friend (I hoped) was not only ruggedly handsome, he was also a bit restless. Distractingly so. Leg bouncing. Fingers drumming. I wondered if he was on something.

He caught me watching him in the mirror behind the bar. He turned to me, held out his hand, and said, "I'm Bryan. I think we're about to have dinner together."

I was taken aback by how he reacted to clocking my attention. Normally, it resulted in a slight turn away, a view of a shoulder blade.

His hand was rough and strong. I thought, "He works with these. He's no office schlub."

He ordered a whiskey, got it, and downed it in one fell swoop.

"Boom!" I said. I couldn't help myself.

"I need to simmer," he answered, ordering another.

"Really? Why?" I asked.

"Long story. I might tell you later, depending on how dinner goes." He finished that sentence by raising and lowering his eyebrows multiple timestimes, in that hubba hubba way.

I introduced myself as Jeremiah, not Frog or Froggie.

He immediately singsonged, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog, he was a good friend of mine, I never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink some wine, he always had some mighty fine wine." I wasn't sure he got the lyrics exactly right, but he nailed the tune.

I groaned and leaned forward, like I was going to wretch.

"You've heard that before?" he asked.

"No," I answered, tongue firmly planted in cheek. "You're the first. Is it a real song or did you just make it up? If the latter, you're so creative. You should write songs for a living."

He knew I was fucking with him.

We each ordered chicken parmesan and settled easily into conversation. I told him I'd grown up here, I was in town for a week of work and weekend wedding, and my husband was at home with our kids. Note: We don't have kids. We have two cats — Ella and Louie — but we call them "the kids."

He told me he was in town dropping off his son at his son's mother's, his flight home to Jacksonville had been cancelled, and so he had an unexpected night in St. Louis.

I was disappointed by the mention of a son. I was hoping he wasn't straight, although I knew it was highly unlikely there'd be three gays in a place like this during Happy Hour on a Monday night sitting next to each other at the bar. The Hill is ultra-macho, as you might suspect from an Italian neighborhood.

"How'd you find this place?" I asked.

"I googled 'great Italian restaurants St. Louis' and this place hit," he answered.

I love Google.

We were now both angled toward each other. I asked about his son, and his face lit up. He was four. His name was also Bryan, but they called him Dos. His mother was hispanic, she acceded to the gringo name, but wanted him to have a hispanic nickname. Dos lived with his mother, who had moved him to St. Louis after Bryan One divorced her.

Bryan One was a cargo ship captain, a job I had never contemplated. He was based in Jacksonville, spent six weeks at sea moving cargo around the world, two weeks on land, and then six weeks at sea again. Back and forth, back and forth, the life of a Bedouin.

When he was on land, he flew to St. Louis to get Bryan Two, had him for a week in Jacksonville, and then returned him to St. Louis, before he, himself, returned to Jacksonville.

"That sounds exhausting," I said.

"I love that kid," he answered.

Bryan One and Maria had met ten years prior. He had warned her about his time at sea, but she had assured him she could handle it. I could understand why. I'd commit to almost anything to be the object of Bryan One's affection. It had only been an hour, but I could already tell time was good to him, he was one of those people who got more and more attractive the more time you spent with him. He was already one of the most attractive people with whom I had ever spoken, and the passing minutes only improved his standing.

I had also noticed his body. Like his hands, it was rough and strong. Veins rippled in his forearms, his chest pressed through his Polo, and his jeans were tight around his thick thighs. Whether through hard work, the gym, or both, Bryan One was stacked.

Maria's assurances had been hollow. Not long after Bryan Two was born, Bryan One discovered Maria got fucked a lot while he was at sea.

"And I mean A LOT," he emphasized.

He anticipated my next question. "Not once," he answered. "I'm not built for that. Plus, there's no time for it. The crew is really small. We're very busy when we're not sleeping."

"What did you do when gone for six weeks?" I asked.

"I have great hands," he answered, simulating masturbation, eliding past any sort of embarrassment.

He also anticipated my next question. "I don't know and I don't want to know," he insisted. "I love that kid, and it would not make a whittle of difference if a test said I was or I wasn't. He's as mine as he can be."

I was entranced.

I also had no idea what a whittle was.

I was intrigued by his job. I asked him how he had gotten into it, and his face lit up again. "My uncle had a boat," he said. "When I was a little kid, it was the only place I wanted to be, on the water. When I was old enough to think about what I wanted to do when I grew up, the only thing I thought about was being on the water. I thought about the Navy and the Coast Guard but ended up going to a maritime school and qualifying for a cargo ship, worked my way up, and now I'm a captain, the youngest one in our company. I'm not really a people person, so I Iike that we have a small crew and no passengers."

Not a people person? The guy had been talking my ear off for the better part of two hours.

I ate half my order. He ate all of his and then ordered dessert and ate that.

"Do you have a tapeworm?" I asked.

"No," he answered. "Nervous energy. I'm never still. I'm like a perpetual motion machine. I'm also worked up," he added, an oblique reference to his earlier need to "simmer."

I knew perpetual motion machines did not exist. I had started college as a physics major.

Long after our plates had been cleared, Bryan One remained at the bar, which was not normal straight guy behavior. Usually, even when they are chatty, they eat, pay, and go. Bryan One kept ordering us wine and kept talking away, and I began to wonder. I had mentioned my husband, so he knew I was from the other side of town.

At ten, we got our checks, paid them with credit cards, but did not move to move on. We stayed in our chairs, talking away.

At ten-thirty, it was clear we were going to need to move on. The restaurant was emptying out, and the staff was cleaning up.

"What's next for you?" I asked.

"I gotta head back to the airport and figure out a place to stay," he answered. "My flight is at 7:15 tomorrow morning, so I think I should stay close to the airport. I haven't booked anything yet. When they canceled my flight, I searched for food, and came straight here."

I was staying at the Cheshire, in Clayton, not close to the airport. Whenever I could, I stayed at the Cheshire. I loved the bar there, including that it served yards of beer in long, thin funnels.

"What about you?" he asked.

"I'm at the Cheshire, in Clayton," I answered. "It's got a great bar. I was going to invite you for a drink."

I looked him right in the eyes as I said that. I wanted to see if there was even a hint of fear or revulsion or trepidation.

"Sounds great," he answered. "I still haven't simmered. I'll put it in my phone and meet you there. Cheshire, you said?"

I drive like an old man. He was in the bar when I got there, a glass of wine in front of him and a glass of wine waiting for me.

He asked about my career, and I told him about how I was winding down my life as a lawyer. He asked about my husband, and I told him about Charlie. He asked about my family, and I told him about my hardscrabble upbringing, and about how my life had transformed since. Unlike earlier, I was now talking his ear off while he listened and smiled.

"He's really beautiful," I thought to myself.

He had a great smile. Someone had spent a lot of money on his teeth. They were ramrod straight and white and perfectly sized for his mouth.

After three glasses of wine at the Cheshire, I was more than tipsy and emboldened. I thought it was time to call the question.

"So, Bryan," I started. "I don't want to scare you off, but my community would crucify me if I didn't point out it's 11:30, you have probably had too much to drink to drive safely to the airport, and I have two full beds upstairs, only three floors away."

"Are you asking if I want to spend the night?" he asked, raising his eyebrows up and down again. Hubba hubba.

"Yes," I answered, as directly as I could.

"If that's all it is, then I'm down," he said. "It's late, and you're probably right about the wisdom of me driving."

"That's all it is," I answered, "if that's all you want it to be."

He did not respond to the innuendo. I took that as a positive. I thought that, if he was committed, he'd have said, "that's all I want it to be."

I paid the bill, and Bryan One followed me to the elevator and then down the hallway to my room.

Once we were in the room, we both undressed to our underwear, me to boxer briefs and him to tighty whiteys. Straight boys and their underwear.

He kept his back to me, so I couldn't see anything other than — like the rest of his body — his ass was rough and strong. "How many squats has he done?" I wondered.

"I'm going to brush my teeth," I said. "When I'm finished, you can use my toothbrush. I'm not one of those guys. It doesn't gross me out at all."

Frankly, I never understood those guys. They'll eat an ass or pussy, suck a clit or dick, or swap spit, but sharing a toothbrush or deodorant is "gross." It is an ethos that literally makes no sense to me on any level.

"Cool," he answered.

To my surprise, he followed me to the bathroom and waited beside me. While he did, I tried to keep my eyes on my own face in the mirror, but I could not. I looked at his reflection, noted his underwear were full in the front, the ridge of the head visible, and then looked up his torso. There was a trail of brown hair from his navel into his underwear. There was also a triangle of hair between his little brown nipples. When my eyes met his, he again made his eyebrows go up and down and held out his hand for the toothbrush. Hubba hubba.

To my surprise, he didn't rinse it and add more toothpaste. Instead, he took over where I had stopped and brushed his teeth and then, sticking it out, his big pink tongue. I watched him do it all in the mirror. That tongue, my God.

"Thanks," he said, handing the toothbrush back, again without rinsing it. When he turned to leave the bathroom, I put it in my mouth and sucked it clean. I felt like a pig and knew I was fucked.

We settled into our respective beds, but I had no interest in going to sleep. I wanted one and only one thing, and I thought he might, too. Otherwise, wouldn't he have turned down the invitation to spend the night?

Still, the "if that's all it is" hung over me. I didn't want to be the creep who came across as even creepier.

"Are you asleep?" he asked, after about ten minutes.

"No," I answered.

"Me, either," he said, confirming the obvious. "I'm still not simmered."

"What's on your mind?" I asked, even though I really wanted to say "I know a way to help get you simmered." A drained boy goes to sleep, and I'd have happily drained him.

"Maria," he said. "Through it all, she still gets to me. She's the only woman I have ever loved. When I returned Dos tonight, we talked for awhile at the kitchen table. The whole time, I was thinking 'God, I want to fuck you'. She's beautiful, has a great body, and really likes to fuck."

"That last part was your undoing," I thought to myself.

I wondered if this was "broaching." As in, the straight boy broaching how horny he is so he can get a gay "blow job" under circumstances he can justify. "I was just really horny."

I have never been a patient person. I don't know why anyone claims patience is a virtue. I think getting shit is a virtue. I think patience is for pussies who are afraid to go get shit they want.

I decided to try to get shit I wanted. I pulled my covers off, stood between the two beds, and directed, "Bryan, push the covers down, take your underwear off, and lay back. I'm going to blow your dick. You're going to simmer. Then, we can both go to sleep. Win win."

"Wow," he answered. "Direct. To the point. You really want to suck my dick, don't you?"

"More than I have ever wanted anything in my life," I answered.

"Jesus," he said. "It'd make me the world's biggest asshole if I tried to stand between you and 'more than anything you have ever wanted anything in your life', wouldn't it? Still, I don't know if I can. I have literally never even looked at another guy like that. I'm not sure I can get hard."

"You're such a liar," I answered. "Your dick was down in the bathroom, but it was chubbing. I'm gay. I know what a chubbing bulge looks like."

"Still," he answered. "You're a guy. I admit I enjoyed the attention tonight, but you're still a guy."

"Then pretend I'm not a guy," I suggested. "Close your eyes, let me do what I do, and pretend I'm the hottest chick you've ever had take your dick. I promise, it'll be the best blow job you've ever gotten. I've given a lot. I'm really good at it. When your eyes are closed, I'm Maria or whomever you want me to be. My mouth is your fantasy."

He didn't say a word. He just raised his hips, pulled his underwear down, and then laid back down, pulling a pillow over his face.

"I can't look at you when you look at me," he said, suggesting he had left the covers for me.

I pulled the covers away and was exhilerated by what I saw. Contrary to his deprecation, he was rock hard. In addition to the terrific body, he had a beautiful dick. It was probably a little over six inches, shapely, and uniformly thick. It had a bell-shaped head, and it was ramrod straight.

"If the pillow helps," I said, "keep it there. But, before long, I think you're going to want to watch me make love to that beautiful dick of yours."

I didn't start with his dick. I assumed the pillow was a boundary, so I started at his right clavicle. In order, my tongue traced over his shoulder, down his arm and back up, through his armpit, over his nipple, and down his side to his hip bone. I repeated the same path on his left side.

When I was finished, I buried my face in his chest hair and then licked down his stomach and through his treasure trail until his dick was against my chin.

I knew he was enjoying what I was doing. Every once in a while, I heard a soft moan. And felt a slight shudder.

When I skipped his dick, he reached for it. I slapped his hand away.

I tongued his left leg. And then his right.

I pushed his legs open, tongued where they met his pelvis, then his hairy ballsack and even hairier taint. I didn't know if he would let me, but I was going to try to rim him before I blew him.

"Bryan?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm more than okay," he answered, bringing a shit eating grin to my face. As an aside, that is a saying I do not get. Why on earth would anyone be grinning if eating shit?

"I need you to trust me for this next part," I said.

"Okay," he answered.

"Promise?" I asked.

"Promise," he answered.

With his promise, I pushed his legs up and back and starting licking through the crack of his ass. Like most straight men, he had not paid enough attention to that area, but I did not in that moment give one whittle, as he would have said. I tore into his asshole with my tongue as he tensed and clenched and then moaned and shuddered. I don't know if he had ever been eaten before, but I knew he would be again. His reaction was strong. He liked getting tossed.

I was ravenous. I ate him clean and then raw.

He made a lot of noise while I was eating him out. "Oh." "Oh fuck." "Oh Jesus."

Why does every expression of pleasure begin with "Oh"?

Every time I heard a noise, I doubled down, licking deeper and harder. Every time I doubled down, I heard more noise. Ebb and flow. Ebb and flow.

We were on a give and take, me giving, him taking, me giving harder, him taking harder, me giving harder. I was having the time of my life.

When I was sated (in other words, when my tongue was sore and tired), I lowered his legs and went to work on his dick.

I don't mean to brag, but — like I said — I have sucked a lot of dick in my fifty years, and I'm really good at it. I love doing it. If I was allowed to do only one thing sexually for the rest of my life, that's the one thing I would choose to do. If I was a little wilder, I'd probably staff a glory hole.

I worked his dick like a musician works his instrument, the notes rising, almost cresting, and then falling. I took him to the edge, then stopped. Over and over. I don't know how long I was at him, I just know I was interrupted by a very demanding and loud, "Dude, you gotta let me cum, you gotta!"

I thought, "I'm not going to let you cum, I'm going to make you cum."

And I did. I added my hand and started sucking him as fast and as hard as I could. I heard a couple of plaintive "oh fucks," felt his hips raise off the bed, and then felt his dick expand and erupt. I'm pretty sure it was the largest load I'd ever received. I swallowed and swallowed and it just kept coming, blast after blast. I wondered if he was trying to drown me.

I kept at him until he forced me off, rolled to his side, and curled into a ball, shuddering and whimpering.

"You okay?" I asked, my hand rubbing his hip.

"I don't know, but I will be," he said, haltingly. "You were right. That was the best head I've ever gotten. It's not even close. I'm literally shaking."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," I said, standing and making my way toward the bathroom. I needed to wash my face. I was not going to brush my teeth. I wanted to taste his cum all night.

When I returned to the beds, his underwear was back on, the covers were still off, and his head was back on, not under, the pillow.

"Thank you," he said. "I"m pretty sure I'm simmered now."

"Win win," I answered.

"If you need to get off," he added. "You can. It won't bother me if you, you know, jerk off or whatever."

"I'm good," I answered. I didn't have the heart to tell him I had shot — hands free — all over his bedspread while he was filling my mouth with cum.