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It didn’t make sense. In fact, nothing about last week made sense to him. Yes, having his girlfriend, Astrid, by his side, and playing soccer with Charlie and the boys did, but in honesty, not completely.
There he sat, practically naked, apart from a robe and a towel around him.
He felt off, like after he regretfully tried Charlie’s homemade beer.
Except he hadn’t tried anything new, he still participated in the same sporting group from the past few years, still dated the same, cheerful girlfriend since his first year out of high school.
At least nothing new until now, but even this couldn’t exactly count as it wasn’t completely up to him to be here.
He still didn’t exactly understand why he was here, but he was, just as Astrid had made him.
This happened a lot actually, especially when it came to people telling him who he was.
It was like he was stuck in a cycle, like a clock was. How it always went in one direction, never experimenting with the other way.
He felt manufactured, fake in a way, just like the clock’s choice.
Nothing felt off, but nothing felt right.
This feeling of nothing making sense hadn’t just sprung up last week either. It had been there for as long as he could remember. Possibly even as long as he’d played sports with Charlie since the first day of high school, the same day they met.
Had this thing been there his whole life? Like soccer had been.
But why? Why now?
It was seemingly something everyone asked when they got a headache. A feeling that made everything else feel wrong, just like his stubble did against his neck.
It’s what made him decide that having a beard was not him, but there he was, sitting in the receptionist lounge awaiting his appointment, with something of a beard.
He thought of Astrid, the girl who drove him here, gave him a kiss on the cheek for a goodbye, the one who scheduled the appointment.
The memory of her lips, all pursed with concern for him, as they babbled about him.
“Go, please, I can’t stand you like this…you’re stressed. I don’t like it” Astrid had said, all worried with a frown of uncertainty across her face.
“A masseuse? You think letting another woman massage me will do the trick?” he had replied, which was a question he still held now.
There was a silent pause, as if Astrid knew he was right.
“I’m booking it, and you can’t say anything against it” she had started firmly.
What happened to them?
They were so happy before, but now everything was tense between them, just like how his body felt around her…around Charlie.
“Harvey Trout, your masseur, Sean, will take you now” waved the receptionist across the room from Harvey.
Her pearly white smile somehow managed to beam across at him.
Harvey blinked in disbelief, but not at the receptionist’s amazing teeth, but at what she’d said.
“She must’ve made a mistake” thought Harvey, to himself, as he stood up from his seat.
The receptionist didn’t bat an eye as he adjusted the towel around his groin through the robe he still wore.
“This way please” she smiled as she extended out her hand in the direction of a door.
‘Sean Yetting – Masseur’ read a silver sign that was nailed to the door.
Just as reluctantly as when Harvey tried Charlie’s beer, he obliged. Still sceptical of what he was walking into, and if it’d even help his problem, Harvey decided to go through with it, just like the beer, even though that ended up leaving him bedridden for weeks.
The past week certainly hadn’t made much sense to him, but this did. It was clearly a mix-up…just like Charlie’s concoction.
Then Harvey thought of Astrid and when he told her the story of the beer. Her pretty, bubbly smile still lingered in his mind. It really made her crack up.
“If going through this makes her happy, then so be it, and wait ‘til she hears that I ended up with a male masseuse” he thought, as he pushed back the door to the masseur who awaited his arrival.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Harvey?” waved Sean, with a gentle smile spread across his face.
“Yup, that’s me, but I doubt that I’m at the right appointment” replied Harvey with a shrug as he closed the door behind him.
“What would make you think that?” frowned Sean.
“My girlfriend booked me in, maybe she accidentally put me down for who she has” suggested Harvey, who expected this to be exactly the case.
“Girlfriend, huh? Well, she didn’t. And even then, where would the mistake in that be?” questioned Sean, who showed no fear in expressing his confusion.
“Well…I mean, you’re just a…you know…” hinted Harvey, unwilling to come right out and say what he thought.
“A man? Well we don’t assign the masseuse based on the client’s biological gender” admitted Sean, who picked up on exactly where Harvey was trying to go.
“Biological gender? This dude’s specific” Harvey thought to himself.
Then it clicked.
Astrid had obviously set him up for a male masseuse for what he said right before she booked the massage appointment.
Harvey, looking like a total dunce, finally realised that he was just standing there right in front of Sean thinking to himself.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like an ass. I’ve just been feeling so off” explained Harvey apologetically.
Sean sighed, it was as if he could relate to how Harvey felt.
“It’s fine, we all have those moments. Maybe I could help you with yours right now?” he nodded as he directed Harvey’s attention to the object that sat in the centre of the room.
A chiropractic table, that Harvey assumed, they used for both massages and chiropractic appointments.
A small thought flashed through his mind. Was he really going to do this…and with a guy?
“For Astrid” Harvey though, as he let out an exhale and unrobed before Sean, leaving nothing, but a small, white towel wrapped around his groin on him.
This felt so gay. And as much as Harvey tried to stop being homophobic, he couldn’t help such a thought right that moment. This Sean dude didn’t even seem gay so at least there was that, then again, the guy seemed more than happy to rub him – another dude! – down.
“Fuck these thoughts, this is why people in high school hated me, I was an arse and I still am” thought Harvey, as he blinked aggressively as if it’d crush these thoughts right in their steps.
Harvey lifted himself onto the table, choosing to lie down on his stomach, which housed a set of respectable abs.
He couldn’t bare to go through this as he watched another man circle his body as he got felt up.
Another disgusting thought…
At least if he didn’t see anything else another one wouldn’t appear in his mind.
“I’ll just run a quick check up all over, just to see where you may need dire massaging” announced Sean as his voice practically danced around Harvey, who face was planted into the cushioned area, showing no sign of backing out.
Before Harvey could even let out a grunt of approval, Sean clasped Harvey’s right shoulder, immediately noticing the severe tenseness within.
“You’re stressed” whispered Sean, sounding exactly like Astrid.
It was as if Sean believed that anything above a whisper would bring all the stress on Harvey’s shoulders crashing down.
Maybe Sean was right, but Harvey could that another feeling was right.
As much as he refused to believe what felt so right, deep down he knew it was Sean’s touch.
He’d never felt something so soothing. Like the gentle breeze that always tickled his skin as he rested after each soccer practise each week.
What was it?
What made this masseur’s touch so…calming?
With the calmness, brought weariness.
Harvey waved back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness as Sean silently caressed every inch of his back.
Losing the fight to unconsciousness, Harvey dipped into a deep sleep as Sean worked his magic hands all over his stressed, confused body.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Everything was a blur until he got home from the appointment with Astrid. The two had barely said ‘hi’ to each other. It felt off.They felt off.“Harvey? You’re not seriously mad at me, are you?” Astrid frowned as she slumped a grocery bag down onto the kitchen bench.The same bench that the two had happily, but still tediously, spent building together during their first week in the new apartment that they’d bought together.It was their first house together. Their first ‘big’ step as a couple.A still dazed Harvey smiled at the memory.“Harvey?” repeated Astrid.“Yes Astrid?” Harvey replied, with each word somehow being a burden to speak.“Are you mad at me?” rehashed Astrid in another frown.“No” admitted Harvey through a sluggish shake of his head.His mind was wandering. But to where?And why?He still had yet to even find out these simple answers, let alone what seemed to strike him most.Astrid, unaware of said mind blank in Harvey’s head, sighed as she sifted through their grocery bags.“Did we really forget to get the chicken?” exclaimed Astrid as she grew so desperate to find the chicken in one of the bags that she began carelessly tossing every other item out.Astrid’s complaint had struck Harvey, and his mind flicked back to him. He focused on what was going on.“Babe, it’s just chicken, look at everything else we still have” insisted Harvey.“Just chicken? It was the centrepiece of our dinner!” snapped Astrid rather violently.Harvey knew Astrid was dedicated on set goals, but even she was normally more flexible.“Let’s just get some take out” shrugged Harvey through a forced smile.“Don’t tell me you seriously forget that my parents were coming over for dinner?” gasped Astrid, who already knew it to be true.Harvey’s confusion was painted in dead black and white. There was nothing to hide that he’d forgotten about tonight. And Astrid had read him like a book.Speechless, Astrid stormed off to their bedroom.Harvey didn’t chase after her, just like her, he could read what she was about to do.Call her parents. “Hi mum! Listen, sorry, but Harvey and I forgot about our dinner plans with you and dad. We may or may not have already gone out for dinner at this new fancy restaurant around the corner…Reschedule?” lied Astrid in such a perfectly sewn way that she could’ve probably written a whole book on the lie and still have gotten away with it.Harvey fell back into the chair he’d been standing in front of the whole time. Sometimes this life was just too much.There was a quiet click from the door as Astrid remerged from the bedroom.“I hope you’re happy, I hope you’re really happy now” hissed Astrid, who although could bury a lie well, couldn’t do the same for her feelings.“What do you mean by that, Astrid? You don’t think I went out of my way to avoid tonight’s dinner, do you?” suggested Harvey, who seemed to believe this as the truth.“Why wouldn’t you? The last time we had dinner with them you wanted to gouge your eyes out! You were that bored, and even they started to notice!” cried out Astrid as she flung her hands up into the air as if this was the do all and end all of life.“Woah, woah, last time was different Astrid, you know that” pleaded Harvey as he rubbed his temple in frustration as if fighting to be heard.“Was it really? Huh? Tell me how it was” frowned Astrid as she crossed her arms and stood before the still seated Harvey.“Last time, I…I” trailed off Harvey.Something was choking him up. Something he tried to bury.Something he couldn’t bury, because he wasn’t as good of a liar as Astrid.“Say it!” demanded Astrid.“I…I’m…I can’t” refused Harvey as he stood up from the chair.Astrid burst into tears as she fled back into the bedroom that was meant for the both of them.If this was just the tip of the iceberg for stepping back a few steps in a healthy relationship, then this was going to be a hard fall for Harvey.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was the following Saturday after Harvey’s appointment. The conflict that had emerged between Harvey and Astrid after the appointment was still ripe and unresolved.Harvey slammed his foot into the ball as it tried to pass him.For some reason Harvey didn’t feel any more stressed after the argument with Astrid.He felt oddly good. Like they needed it.Their relationship had been sailing smoothly. Even Charlie admitted his jealousy for their ‘chill’ relationship.The ball skidded across the freshly wet grass and up to Charlie, who was playfully shoving another player around out of boredom.Harvey gazed over at his best friend, whose pearl white smile was a beacon from even meters away.Charlie was strong, stronger than Harvey by far. He benched too much for Harvey to count ever day. Everything about his body was to be admired, even his sweat complimented his physique.And it didn’t even end there. Charlie’s charismatic and magnetic personality always kept people wanting more of him. From the very first day they met, Harvey knew that they’d be together forever. Maybe not as friends, but as…“Dreamerboy! Is someone in there?” called out Charlie as he teased Harvey from afar.Charlie must’ve noticed the frozen, dazed state that Harvey had been in as he secretly thought about his best friend.Harvey ran over to his best friend as their coach, from the sidelines called out for a water break.Everyone shifted for the sideline as Harvey reached Charlie.“Wait” requested Harvey as he gripped his best friend’s shoulder.“Yeah dude?” smiled Charlie as he waved off at the coach to go off without them.“Listen, we need to talk” admitted Harvey, who felt weird even saying it.Charlie’s baby brown eyes sparkled at Harvey. He felt tingle go down his body just from looking at his best friend.“I heard about your argument from Astrid, and look, you two are going to be fine. Even the best relationships have hard times” reassured Charlie, who had a knack for assuming what Harvey had to say, and even though he assumed wrong most of the times, Harvey couldn’t help to find it charming.Too charming.Feelings buried deep down with the stress started to bubble up inside Harvey. Overwhelmed, desperate, and anxious, he couldn’t control himself.Unable to think any further, Harvey leant in, grabbed Charlie by both the back and side of his neck and kissed him.Tingles shot through Harvey’s body, a sense of regret, a sense of lust and even desire.Charlie’s lips were everything he imagined them to have been even after all these years. Soft, but still firm enough to enjoy pressing against them. His aroma, a flower with a streak of jazz, enveloped Harvey.“Hey, woah! Practising for Astrid? I wouldn’t put it past her to critique something as simple as a kissing technique” brushed off Charlie with smirk.As if possessed, Harvey snapped back to his dull self.“Obviously dude” he lied with a chuckle.“Yeah, well, you were pretty good. Time to drench my lips in anything to get the gay out. Shame I don’t have my special homemade beer here or I could just erase it from my memory, am I right my dude?” snickered Charlie, who came of rather mean for once in his charismatic life.Harvey said nothing and nodded.“But honestly, if you weren’t a guy my man, I’d totally tap that and go back for seconds, see ya!” admitted Charlie as he dashed off to the sideline to get water.Harvey only watched on as his crush friend, in all his handsome, sexy, and desirable beauty crushed his literally crush for him in seconds.Then it sunk in.The thoughts, the stress, the feelings.All things he had.All real.All not a part of his life, not his real, genuine life.He refused to believe what Charlie truly meant to him.Refused to accept who he really was.But he knew deep down, he was…“Anything, but gay” Harvey spat in such a suppressive manner that painfully dulled his mind.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Harvey pushed the door back, taking in the sweet aroma of the room.
He could smell Sean’s odour still lingering around the walls of the room. It was a weird smell that Harvey could only describe as something similar to a metal pole.
A comforting feeling set in as Harvey instinctively approached the chiropractic table. Feeling rather relaxed, Harvey removed everything, but his towel, with little refusal unlike last time.
Although Harvey wasn’t prepared to know himself more, he still knew what kissing his best friend was still worse than getting rubbed down by another dude.
Harvey’s standards to his sexuality seemed to be crumbling even more with each passing day since his first appointment here.
Even his stress had been lifted – and it wasn’t exactly because of the massage itself – and yes, even though his stress was back, Harvey knew Sean would be the one to help.
Harvey had even lied to both Astrid and Charlie about his whereabouts. He claimed to be visiting his parents, but he was far from home.
Why he lied to the two closest and most important people in his life was still a mystery to even Harvey himself.
Why did he need to hide the fact that he was getting a massage?
Was it because Astrid would think he’d get it from a guy again, and by his own choosing?
Or was it because he didn’t want Astrid assuming he wanted to go back for a massage from a female, something that Charlie would consider a ‘proper’ massage as it involved nothing ‘gay’.
Harvey hated the thought of those two thinking he was gay.
He was barely a homophobe and yet it made him uncomfortable.
“Charlie probably thinks I’m into men now, fuck sake. Why am I such a weirdo?” grunted Harvey to himself with his face still buried in the chiropractic table.
“Someone seems more enthusiastic this time” chuckled Sean, who up until now, Harvey had no idea was even nearby – apart from his smell obviously.
Harvey must’ve been thinking too hard to himself and ignored Sean’s rather heavy footsteps.
“Just ready” downplayed Harvey with a sigh.
His comment made Sean chuckle again.
“Wow, even this dude thinks I’m gay for him” thought Harvey, within the privacy of his own mind.
Without warning, Sean rested his hands soothingly against Harvey’s back. The touch of the masseur’s soft palms tickled his spine.
“Still stress, I see” commented Sean politely.
Harvey let out a relieved sigh as if he’d been in dire need of that ever since he left the last appointment.
“You know, I didn’t expect to see you back here, with me at least, you seemed rather tense even when you left” admitted Sean, whose calming voice echoed against the room and left a hungry shiver for more in Harvey’s mind.
Harvey had nothing to say, he knew Sean was right. He even felt bad to leave Sean on such a bad note. Maybe that’s why he was back, to set things right?
He certainly couldn’t start right at Astrid, she’d melt any approach he even dared to try within seconds. And Charlie would probably run for the hills if he saw Harvey coming, not daring to be kissed again.
“You’re not falling asleep on me again, are you?” teased Sean as he gently poked one of his fingers into Harvey’s back as if to test him.
“No, you were just too good, I didn’t see it coming” blushed Harvey awkwardly, to which he was grateful that Sean couldn’t see.
“Wow. A smart ass, huh?” commented Sean sarcastically alongside another poke to Harvey’s back.
Harvey didn’t expect Sean to reply like that.
Like a flirt.
He felt like he’d just done something wrong.
His body started to shut up and stiffen. He felt exposed, tortured and guilty all at once.
This didn’t feel right. The touch of Sean wasn’t working.
Harvey’s face went hot with fluster. His cheeks burned as his mouth contorted in an upset manner.
Sean went quiet, even his steps stopped making any inch of a sound.
“Sorry…too far?” apologised Sean after he cleared his throat.
Sean’s voice still pulled at Harvey. Helping him back out of discomfort and back into the realm of comfort.
“I’d like some oil” requested Harvey, who’s mouth spoke without any second thought.
“Oh, no problem” acknowledged Sean with the same smoothness in his voice as before.
Harvey’s muscles relaxed with each word Sean spoke from his mouth.
Sean was the one, but in what way?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Finally, Harvey had arrived back at his and Astrid’s apartment. It was night, and his appoint with his masseur, Sean, had gone for over an hour longer than anticipated.His messages to Charlie still had no replies. A rather upsetting reminder of what his stupid kiss had done to their relationship.As Harvey stepped into the apartment, everything seemed off. The lights were in different places, the couches had been moved, even the groceries were unpacked and still on the bench he and Astrid once worked on together.“Astrid?” called out Harvey as he tossed his belongings onto a nearby coffee table.A teary, still sobbing figure whose mascara had run long ago emerged slowly from behind the kitchen bench with the groceries.Astrid.“Where have you been?” she whimpered through a sniffle.She must’ve thought something bad had happened to him, he incredibly late despite his promise to be home early.“I was with my mum and dad, remember?” reminded Harvey, as if trying to remind himself of his own lie that he’d tried to spin into existence.Astrid’s body stiffened from its frail self of two seconds ago. The two seconds before Harvey had spoken.“Don’t test me, Harvey. I know you weren’t there, I called your parents after you didn’t get home when you said you would. They haven’t heard a word from you in a month, so where were you really?” frowned Astrid as a single tear trickled down her cheek, taking some mascara with it.“I…” whispered Harvey, somehow still caught off by Astrid’s revelation.With little sympathy for Harvey’s reply, Astrid slammed her hand down against the bench, knocking an entire bag of groceries to the ground.“No! Don’t do this to me…I’ve been told about your kiss with Charlie too. Harvey, explain yourself!” Astrid demanded, despite seeming to not even want to hear what Harvey had to say.It was like Astrid didn’t want to face what she was expecting…the truth.Harvey felt dizzy, he was losing who he was.“Harvey!” repeated Astrid, now unwilling to let Harvey backdown.“I saw that masseur again” he blinked, trying to cover any possible way that Astrid could react negatively to his answer.“That man…Sean?” frowned Astrid, whose face couldn’t be read by Harvey.Was she confused, angry, sad?There was a pause before Harvey nodded. It felt the right move. The easiest move.“Harvey…how long?” mumbled Astrid.“How long what? Astrid?” questioned Harvey, to which Astrid only lowered her head to.“What?” repeated Harvey, now more confused at what she was asking over why she was crying.Astrid slammed her foot hard against their new rug.“How long have you known you were gay?” she cried out.Harvey was gobsmacked. Yes, he was massaged by another male. Yes, he kissed his best friend – another male. And yet Harvey never truly believed he was gay.But Astrid had said it, the all-powerful, all-beautiful and all-knowing girl of any heterosexual male’s nocturnal dreams. Realisation seeped into Harvey just as it just had to Astrid.He was gay…and now he knew it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It had been a week since Harvey realised, he was gay. A week since Charlie hadn’t replied to his messages. A week since Astrid had broken up with him. A week since he’d seen Sean, but for no longer.
Harvey pushed past the door, rested himself onto the chiropractic table yet again, and was even more relaxed than his last visit.
He found no difficulty in removing everything, but his towel. This time was different.
As he waited for Sean’s arrival, thoughts of what he’d say, and even do, trickled in and out of his mind.
He’d gone so long without knowing what he was doing, who he was or what he wanted.
Until Sean.
Sean was the one.
The one he wanted.
The one he needed.
Not Astrid, who apart from being a female was everything he could’ve been grateful to have had, but she was missing from his life. She had ghosted Harvey the moment she ran off with her last belongings.
Maybe she was with Charlie?
Harvey had no idea, Charlie, the charismatic charming boy he fell in love with in ways beyond friendship was ghosting him too.
Harvey was alone.
Alone with the thoughts of his newly realised to be true sexuality.
Gay.
“Hello again, Harvey” greeted Sean as he glided across the floor from the corner of Harvey’s eyes.
He was so silent.
Harvey liked it.
Sean placed his whole hands onto Harvey’s hips, somewhere he’d never gone down to before.
“I can already notice the stress building up down here” he admitted through several gentle grips on Harvey’s hips.
“My girlfriend broke up with me” Harvey blurted out, as if trying to cut the small talk.
“Maybe it was for the best?” reassured Sean as he went down to Harvey’s butt cheeks and began to somewhat knead them within his hands.
Another place Sean had never explored on Harvey’s body.
Another thing Harvey liked.
A lot.
Harvey could feel his face go hot with pleasure.
Sean really was working his magic.
It was rather sensual.
Harvey couldn’t resist it anymore. He was over not doing what he felt.
He wanted Sean.
Without a word, Harvey gently pushed back Sean’s hands and turned himself around on the chiropractic table.
“You know, there’s another way you could remove my stress…” Harvey whispered before he pulled Sean’s hand to his own crotch.
Sean’s face fell into neutral. Harvey’s body gasped in realisation that he never really figured out if Sean was even gay.
Harvey glanced at Sean’s forcefully placed hand on his crotch. At least there wasn’t any wedding ring there.
“I was beginning to believe you’d never ask, you tease” smirked Sean as he grasped Harvey’s bulge that had been restlessly laying beneath his hand this whole time.
Harvey blushed.
He was right about everything now. He was gay, Sean was gay, they both wanted each other.
Everything was right.
“I’ve been meaning to ask, what do you think about when you massage me?” asked Harvey shyly as he looked down at his crotch that Sean was caressing through the towel.
“This obviously” admitted Sean with a blush as he slowly pushed back Harvey’s towel to reveal what he was talking about.