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| Part 2 by Castgimp |
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| "So," I said, "what's the damage?" "They don't know Mikey. I think it's broken. They x-rayed it twice andcouldn't find a fracture. It was this little hospital in Nashua. I don'tknow how good they are. They said we should get an MRI when we get back tocampus just to make sure. Coach says it's just a deep contusion of thebone. It hurts like a sonofabitch. Here, help me get undressed." He was still wearing his uniform with the singlet and tight shorts we wore when wecompeted. He lifted his hips and pulled his shorts down over his bum. Igrabbed them and pulled them carefully down for him. He pulled his rightfoot up and through the leg. I put my hands in the opening at the bottom ofthe left leg and tried to expand it as wide as I could to ease it over thethickness of his bandaged ankle. He lifted the ankle up off the mattressand I pulled his shorts off, barely touching the fabric of the elasticbandage. Even so I could tell that I hurt him. He sucked in his breath asI pulled the pants free. "Oh Jesus Mikey." He pulled his singlet up off over his head, revealing his hard chest anddark pointed nipples. He was sitting on the bed in just his jockstrap now.I found myself suddenly hard as a rock and stared anew at the beauty of hisnearly naked body and was moved almost to tears for the second time in oneday. I wanted to scoop him up in my arms and hug him and protect him fromthe world. He looked so vulnerable with his ankle bandaged and his prettylong toes peeking out from beyond the edge of the tan wrapping. He hitchedhis thumb under the waistband of his jockstrap and pulled it down over hiships and butt. I grabbed the elastic and pulled it down over his legs andoff his feet for him. "If you think you can stand sleeping next to me asripe as I am, I'm not even going to try to take a shower tonight," he said,the exhaustion and strain from the day evident in his voice. "I'd sleep next to you any which way Joey. You know that." I was feelingsuddenly emboldened. "I know you would Mikey. And I appreciate it." "Here, scoot your butt up and let me pull down the covers so we can get youto bed." I was able to pull the bedspread and the covers out fromunderneath him without jostling his ankle very much. I covered him withjust a sheet. He said the blanket would be too heavy on his ankle. Iturned the light out on his side of the bed and walked around to my side. Isat on the edge of the bed and turned my light out too before I startedgetting undressed. I was still rock hard. I had hoped my erection hadn'tbeen too obvious in my blue jeans, but I didn't want him to see me nakedwith my poker sticking straight up and dripping precum. Not tonight. Islid my jeans down and my t-shirt off, and then I pulled my underwear downand quickly slid into bed, pulling the sheet up over me and rolling all theway to the outside edge of the bed. We always slept naked. We always had,ever since freshman year. And Joey had certainly seen me with an erectionhundreds of times before. But tonight my hardness embarrassed me. Tonight,for the first time, I understood that my hard-on came at least in part fromthe fact that I was in love with Joey. I was also beginning to realize thattonight's hard-on came in part from the fact that Joey had hurt his ankle.The sight of Joey walking in the door on crutches with his ankle wrapped inan elastic bandage had made my cock jump in my pants. Now, to be sharing abed with him, knowing that he was in pain, that he couldn't get out of bedand walk on his ankle even if he wanted to, was almost more than I couldbear. I was hoping that he would fall asleep quickly so that I couldquietly get out of bed and jerk-off in the bathroom. I knew I couldn't fallasleep until I had ejaculated. I listened for the rhythm of Joey'sbreathing to change. Instead, after about ten minutes, I heard Joey whispermy name. "Mikey?" "Yeah?" "You asleep?" "No." "Mikey." "What." "Hold me." "What?" "Hold me Mikey." My heart was pounding in my head and I could hear my bloodpumping in my ears. Slowly I rolled over toward the center of the bed,careful not to roll onto his ankle. I reached over with my right arm andlaid it across his chest, my hand resting on his tit. He brought his handup and laid it on top of mine. "I think my ankle's broken Mikey. It feelslike it's broken. And no one will believe me." "What's it feel like?" We were both whispering. I could feel his heartbeating in his chest. "It's hard to describe, but it's like I can feel there's a bone broken. Ithurts different than anything else I've ever felt. It hurts worse. It sortof throbs and burns. It hurts worse if I move it. It's a sharp, deep pain.It just feels like the bone is broken. I don't know how else to describeit." "What did the doctor say?" "He said the exam was inconclusive. He said the x-rays were negative. Hesaid it wasn't sprained. The ligaments are all fine. He said it could be acontusion, like Coach said. He said if we wanted to be sure we could get anMRI. I still think it's broken. I think I broke my fucking ankle thisafternoon Mikey." "Don't you think they could tell if it was broken?" "I don't know. The doctor made me try to walk on it. When the x-rays cameback negative, he wanted to see if I could put weight on it. I tried. Iput my foot down on the floor and then I started to shift my weight ontothat foot." "What did it feel like?" "I felt a sharp pain. It was like when I landed on it coming off the ringstoday. Right in the center of my ankle joint. It was a shooting sharppain. When I pulled my weight off it the pain eased up. I can rotate itOK. And there's no swelling." "Maybe it's a hairline fracture, or a stress fracture, or whatever they callit. Maybe it doesn't show up on the x-ray." "Maybe. I'm going to get that MRI. I gotta know what's wrong. I gottaknow if my ankle's busted. We're going to the nationals is three and a halfweeks Mikey, and I'm going to compete. Broken ankle or not, I'm going tocompete. That landing today didn't hurt so bad I wouldn't do it again. Ina way if it is broken that would be good. That would mean I know what itfeels like to land on a broken ankle. I guess it can't get any worse thancoming off the rings and landing on a broken ankle. Cause if it is broken,I think I broke it on the vault. When I nailed that landing, I felt ashooting pain in my ankle. That's when it happened. When I came off therings it was already broken. If I landed on a broken ankle once I can do itagain. It's like I already know how bad it is. I hope it's broken Mikey.I hope my ankle's broken. I've always been afraid of breaking my ankle, butnow if it's broken, I know what that feels like. A broken ankle heals. AndI guess I wouldn't be afraid of breaking it again. I think my ankle'sbroken Mikey. I hope my ankle's broken, in a way. I hope I'm right. Fuck,Mikey, a broken ankle isn't so bad. I already landed on this fucking brokenankle once. I can do it again. I can fucking break my ankle again." He was rambling. He was also making me so hot I couldn't stand it. Hearinghim talk about his broken ankle almost made me come. I still had my hand onhis chest. My hard-on was buried in the mattress. All I'd have had to dowas shift my hips a little bit and the slight friction of the sheet againstmy engorged cock would have brought me off in an instant. And then in thesilence of that hotel room I heard the sound of Joey's hard-on slappingagainst his belly. Without thinking I slid my hand down from his chest,under the sheet, and wrapped my hand around his straining cock. He suckedin his breath, and I slowly began to move my hand up and down the length ofhis hard dick. His hips started to slowly move up and down, grinding withthe movement of my wrist. "Oh yeah Mikey," he murmured, "Mikey, Mikey,Mikey." I rolled to my side, releasing my own painful erection from thesheets. Suddenly Joey's hand was on my cock and we were jerking each otheroff and almost immediately we were both exploding gobs of wet sticky semenand groaning and bucking our hips in two violent straining orgasms. And then it was over. The whole thing probably took less than sixtyseconds. We were both so hot and worked up that the mere touch of the otherperson's hand on our cocks was enough to push us immediately over the edge.It was the first time I'd ever been brought off by anyone other than myself.Coming like that with Joey's hand on my cock while I was jerking his hardprick was the most delicious and wondrous thing I'd ever experienced. Andit felt like the most natural thing in the world. Holding Joey's cockseemed to me as absolutely natural as holding my own, only more so. I movedmy head over so my face was just above his, and I kissed him on the lips.His mouth opened to mine and our tongues touched for the first time. The next day was tough. Joey was in a lot of pain most of the day, and wehad to travel. We woke up wrapped in each other's arms, and crusty withdried jism. I was afraid our morning might be awkward together, but itwasn't. Even after we were both awake we lay in bed together for awhile,enjoying the warmth of each other's bodies. We both needed a shower beforewe could possibly board the bus. I showered first, and then we managed toget Joey into the shower balanced on his crutches. I had to help him outover the edge of the tub, and help him get dry. Then it was my job to wraphis ankle again to protect it for our trip. Holding his foot in my hand itwas hard to believe he was really injured. There were no outward signs ofan injury. His high arch and the chiseled features of his ankle wereunblemished. There was no swelling or discoloration. It seemed to me aperfect foot and ankle, and, I learned with a mix of horror and fascinationas I playfully ran my finger along his instep, one I would have like to beable to lick and lap and play with all morning. He was still veryuncomfortable, and jostling his ankle about was clearly very painful. AfterI had helped to get him dressed and get his ankle wrapped back up, he kissedme square on the mouth, as if we had been kissing each other for years, andthen we made our way to the parking lot to meet everyone else.Thus began the real ordeal of the day. The bus ride made Joey veryuncomfortable. The other guys let Joey and I have the back seats so that hecould put his ankle up and stretch out. The bus was a real clunker,however. It felt like there were no shocks at all to buffer the ride, andeach time we ran over uneven pavement we were jolted in our seats and Joey'sface contorted in real pain. I put his ankle up on my lap to try to givehim some additional cushion and to try to absorb some of the bouncing forhim, but I don't think it really helped. We didn't talk much on the ridehome. Every once in a while after a particularly bad jolt Joey wouldactually cry out in pain. "Ow! Jesus, my ankle. Fuck that hurts." By the time we got close to home even Coach had begun to doubt that Joeywould be healed in time for the nationals. It was more than four hoursbefore we were back on campus. Joey and Coach headed straight over to themedical center, and I took our stuff back to the room. For the second timein two days I found myself lying on top of my bed and waiting for Joey tocome home. I couldn't think of anything else to do with myself besideswait. I had lots of studying to do, but when I tried to focus on my booksmy mind kept returning to Joey and his ankle and the wonderful night we hadjust spent together and our horrible bus ride home. I had fallen asleep and was startled to wake up to the sound of voices inthe room. Joey was standing in the middle of the room leaning on hiscrutches talking to Peter Weis, the president of the fraternity. "You takecare Joey. If there's anything you need, anything at all, just let meknow." "Thank-you," Joey said as Peter was leaving, "I'll be fine. I'll be out ofthis thing in three weeks." I sat up and saw that Joey's ankle was encasedin hard white plaster. "Shit Joey did you really break it?" Goddamnit if I wasn't hard again. "Yep. I was right. It's fucking busted. The MRI they took revealed anon-displaced fracture of my left talus. That's the little bone right atthe base of your ankle, right under the tibia and fibula. They sort of rideon the talus. The doctor said it was a compression fracture. I landed sohard on my fucking ankle that I cracked the talus. I didn't break it cleanthrough, so they didn't really have to set it. They just put this cast onto keep it immobile so it can heal. He said I was pretty lucky. A fracturelike this usually heals in three to six weeks. He's going to take the castoff in three weeks." "So what about the nationals?" "Are you kidding? They're not for three and a half weeks. I'm there.We're going to Dallas, Mikey." "What did coach say?" "He said we'll see." It was in many ways the happiest three weeks we spent together. His brokenankle seemed to free Joey up. He was free with his body and his emotions.We kissed often, and spent hours in bed exploring each other's bodies.Sometimes we would just lay next to each other in bed, my finger lodged upinside him, his cast resting against my ankle, both of us hard, but withoutthe need to bring each other off. I would have been happy to walk half a pace behind Joey and watch him moveon his crutches for the rest of my life. Sometimes he would fall asleepnext to me and I would lay awake for hours just staring at his cast and hislong beautiful toes sticking up out of the end of it. With his ankle trulyimmobilized by the rigid plaster, he was in less pain, and we were free toengage is fairly rambunctious sex. I guess it was the fact that we wereboth twenty, and that we hadn't really ever had much of a sex life withanother person before, but we were insatiable. Joey was an eager andwilling bottom and I couldn't get enough of his butt. He would hoist hisankles up over my shoulders and I would plow his sweet ass with his heavyplaster cast scratching my back and I thought I had died and gone to heaven.We also worked hard those three weeks. Joey was convinced that he was goingto Dallas and was going to compete in the nationals in December, and no onewas going to tell him differently. We spent six or more hours a day in thegym. He did everything he could without being on his ankle. He lifted alot of weights, working on his upper body strength. He did a lot of pommelhorse and parallel bars and even the rings. He could do everything but hisdismount. It gave him a chance to work on things he hadn't worked onbefore, and towards the end, it was clear to all of us who were watching himthat his routine on the rings was stronger than it ever had been. If hisankle did heal in time, he was going to be ready to jump right back intocompetition in top form. Those three weeks passed before I knew it, and Joey did get his cast off,and despite the grave reluctance of his doctor to certify him forcompetition, we were suddenly on a plane to Texas on our way to thenationals. Even Joey knew his situation was precarious. He made a dealwith Coach that he would sit out the vault and the pommel horse and the highbar, if he could compete on the parallel bars and the rings. The dismountfrom the parallel bars was a low impact event, and it really did seem thatJoey deserved a shot at a national win. On the rings, in particular, hestood a good chance of emerging as the victor. And then there we were in the arena at SMU. My floor exercise had been asuccess-one of my career bests, and I was flying high as a kite. Joey'sparallel bar routine had been sound-not his career best, but enough to placehim in the top ten, and awesome in light of the fact that three days beforehe still had a cast on his ankle. Joey was not walking without difficulty.His ankle was stiff from being immobilized, but he hadn't really had thecast on long enough to have lost much muscle mass. He had been exercisinghis ankle religiously since the moment the cast came off, and he reallydidn't seem to have much residual pain from the underlying injury. Still,we all knew that his dismount from the rings was a risk. In fact, everyonein the gym that afternoon seemed to know that. It was unusually quiet whileJoey performed. His routine had the highest level of difficulty of anyonein the field. He went fourth. I knew his routine by heart. I could countevery single second and even with my eyes closed I would have been able tovisualize exactly where he was on the rings. My mouth was dry and my heartwas racing as I counted in my head. Kip to Maltese to press planche, shootinverted, layout whippet to cross, press Maltese, stuck layout full-out, andthen almost unbelievably, two consecutive O'Neills. It was arguably aflawless routine. All that was left was his dismount. Suddenly he wasflying and instinctively I counted as his feet spun up and over his headonce, twice, and a third time. Joey always nailed his landings. Even if he flubbed a routine, he alwayscame down with both feet stuck smack together. But this time, his feet andankles were slightly apart. As he came out of his final spin, his rightfoot trailed. His left foot would hit the mat first, as instant before hisright foot. His injured ankle would take the full weight and all the forceof his spinning forward momentum. We could all see it coming, but there wasnothing we could do to stop it. I held my breath, and time seemed to stop.It was like a car accident you can see spinning out of control ahead of you.All you can do is wait to see where the cars will come to rest. Joey wasspinning out of control, and then, in an instant, it was all over. It was ghastly. It was career ending. First there was the awful hollow popas his feet hit the mat. Then, almost immediately, before he crumbledforward onto the mat, there was his gut-churning agonized cry. And thenwhen his body had come to rest, there was so clearly and visibly thehorrible distortion of his ankle. His foot was no longer at a right angleto his leg, but instead was twisted impossibly around to the side, and theangle between his foot and the rest of his leg was now grotesquely acute. Iwas transfixed by the horror of it all, and couldn't turn away, even as Iwanted to. I also couldn't go to him. I was frozen at the side of the mat.He lay, not inert, but unmoving, gripping and clutching the mat beneath himwith his fingers and howling horribly. It was plain that he was tryingdesperately not to move. The idea of further movement was impossible. Idon't think any of us could have conceived of moving him. The imagined painin trying to move him, to help him, prevented any of us from going near.Horrified, we were afraid to touch him, afraid any assistance we might offercould only make his unbearable pain worse. We were finally jolted into action by the sudden silence that crashed overus when his violent animal shrieks suddenly stopped. Coach and I botharrived at his side almost at the same moment. He reached for us, clutchingat our clothes and skin, unable to speak. Coach and I stared at him,helpless, still afraid to touch him. Finally Joey seemed to find his voiceagain and managed to grunt out "help me . . . help me . . . my ankle . . .help me." Joey's injury turned out to be as serious as it had looked from the momenthis body came to rest on the mat. By landing on his left foot first,without the support of a healthy talus, his ankle had simply snapped withthe weight and velocity of his landing. Both his tibia and his fibula werebadly broken, and the violent displacement of his ankle joint had tornvirtually all of the ligaments in his ankle joint. His deltoid ligaments,which connect the tibia to the talus, were torn particularly badly. Thejagged edge of his tibia had actually severed his lateral collateralligament, which connects the tibia to the fibula, and had to be surgicallyreattached. His fibula was broken in three places, and had to bereconstructed using a series of screws and heavy wire.I had to fly home with the rest of the team, and hadn't seen Joey since theparamedics had scraped him up off the floor in Dallas and strapped him ontoa stretcher. Alone back in our room on campus, the sound of his agonizedhowling as they had wheeled him from the gym haunted my restless and lonelysleep. They had operated on his ankle that first night, and then again the nextday, and then they had kept him at the hospital for nearly a week. When hefinally swung back through the door of our bedroom on his crutches eightdays after his fall, I was shocked by his appearance. He had lost weight,and was visibly drawn and pale. His face looked different in a way Icouldn't place at first, and then I realized that the sparkle and luster andanimation I had always taken for granted were gone from his eyes. Theextraordinary pain he continued to endure had taken its toll. His cast wasbigger and heavier than his last one, and he moved more slowly anddeliberately on his crutches. The toes that stuck out from the end of thecast were not the long white straight toes I remembered, but instead wereswollen and purple. "Mikey," he said, under his breath, as he moved acrossthe room to his bed. "I'm all finished Mikey," he sighed as he sat downheavily. "It's all over. The doctor told me that I'm finished withgymnastics. He said my ankle will never support another landing." Hisvoice was steady and quiet, and almost flat, but there were tears in hiseyes. Before I knew it we were both crying and I was sitting on the bed next tohim and holding him and my shoulder was wet with his tears and his shirt waswet with mine. "I missed you Joey," I choked out. "I was sick worryingabout you. I don't care if neither one of us ever competes again." Ikissed him on the lips. "I don't want to be separated like that again. Idon't care about gymnastics. I love you." "I love you too Mikey," he whispered. That injury in Dallas broke Joey's spirit in a way he never fully recoveredfrom. Eventually his ankle did heal, after a fashion, though he was neverto be pain free again. He was able to walk and run, but he never was ableto do another dismount. I felt I had lost a best friend and a lover. Westayed together through the end of school the following year. And we werestill lovers, technically speaking. In fact sometimes it was only in themidst of sex that I could reach Joey at all. Sometimes late at night whenhe had his ankles slung up over my shoulders and I was plowing his ass he'dopen his eyes wide and look at me hard and the darkness would go out of hisface and he'd start to murmur in that familiar and sexy way of his: "Mikey,Mikey, Mikey, fuck me Mikey, fuck me, oh fuck my ankle, fuck my fuckingankle Mikey, fuck me." After we graduated we drifted apart. I took a job in San Francisco and hewent to law school in Boston. We saw each other off and on for a couple ofyears, and then that stopped too. But even now, nearly twenty years later,the sight of a young athlete hauling himself along on a pair of crutches isenough to bring all of that back as if it were yesterday. What I miss mostis having Joey by my side. Tonight, back at my hotel in San Diego, therewill be no one to play with my sun-touched bum. I'm afraid after all thiswriting that I am burned now in all of those places that men who go to thebeach alone get burned-- the places that you cannot reach by yourself. Myback will be crispy in the morning. I need to make my way back down thebeach to my car before the tide comes up and I can't get past the cliffs.Maybe my lovely injured surfer and his red-haired friend will come back towatch the sun set with me from their deep blue jeep. Maybe I can offer tobuy them a drink, and get them to tell me about his broken ankle. I'd loveto hear how it felt as he swam up toward the beach, knowing that sooner orlater he'd have to put his weight down on his injured joint. I'd love tofeel the weight of his cast resting against my leg as we sit and sip a beer. |
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