Page 42 of The Key Holder

Most of Dylan’s possessions were as lucky as he was; they were relatively unscathed. All but two of his books had been on the bookshelf in the far corner, and most of his clothes were in his now-battered dresser. It was the scattered belongings that were wetter and harder to find. We worked in silence, punctuated only by our grunts of effort and the occasional crunch of debris underfoot. Whenever I found something of his, I’d hold it up and he would tell me where he wanted me to put it.

“Should I clear out my bathroom?” Dylan asked.

“It’s up to you, but probably. Until everything’s back to normal anyway.”

We used his empty suitcases to pack up his books and clothes, then I hauled them up to my room, which was now our room, followed by the empty bookcase. Together, Dylan and I carried the dresser up the stairs, after taking each drawer separately first.

"Looks like most of your clothes are okay," I commented.

Dylan nodded, while surveying our progress. "Yeah. It's mostly the little stuff that got buried or smashed."

I’d uncover items, brush off dirt and bits of wood, and hand them to Dylan, who would then sort them into one of three boxes we’d scavenged from the shed. His laptop, thankfully, had been on his nightstand, and by some miracle had avoided any damage.

"Huh, I forgot about this," Dylan said, his voice muffled, as he pulled a small, dusty shoebox from under what used to be his bed. "My old photo box."

After getting off his hands and knees, he brushed himself off and opened it, revealing a jumble of faded photographs and what looked like magazine tear-outs. My curiosity piqued, I came over to glance over his shoulder. Most of them were childhood photos, snapshots from his past life. Then, my eyes landed on a series of items at the back of the box.

My breath hitched. There were photos from summer vacations past, from years ago when Dylan was a teenager.

They were pictures of me.

Shirtless, on the old dock, muscles flexing as I posed for the camera.

Bent over and toweling off after a swim in the lake, water dripping from my shorts, the fabric clinging to my ass.

Bare-chested, leaning back in a camping chair, a beer in my hand, sitting around the fire.

Clippings from the Olympics, from gymnastic competitions before I was even a coach. I wondered where he would’ve even gotten those.

The photos were candid, some taken from a distance. Photos I didn't even know existed. Photos Dylan had taken.

A sudden, fierce heat bloomed in my chest and shot straight down to my cock.

He'd kept them. All these years.

The memory of finding him masturbating on the bed, surrounded by my underwear, huffing one of my used jocks, flashed through my mind. I could no longer deny that I’d seen his long-standing attraction to me in his eyes before and chose to ignore it. This was physical proof. These photos were a silent testament to a history I had never fully acknowledged, feelings I’d only recently begun thinking of reciprocating.

Dylan, oblivious to the implications of his find, was sifting through the clippings. "Oh, wow, this is from when you were on the cover of Men’s Health, remember?" he said, holding up the centerfold from that issue that featured a younger, leaner version of me at the gym. "I used to look at these all the time."

He looked up then, meeting my gaze, and a faint blush crept up his neck. The implication, unspoken, hung in the air. He used to look at them. All the time.

And now we were face-to-face and he was looking at me.

The all-too-familiar tension seemed to shrink the room. My gaze dropped to his hands, to the box of images of our family and of me, then lower, to where I could see the faint outline of the cage beneath his sweatpants.

How could I have been so oblivious?

After we had taken care of his belongings and cleaned up his room, we had the rest of the day to relax. With Dylan taking a nap—in my bed—I used the last of my phone battery to google what he was wearing. And after doing plenty of research, I realized I was pretty vanilla when it came to sex.

But neither him nor I had said a single word about it since I had seen him naked.

It was a very kinky elephant in our room.

In the days after the storm, I stayed busy trying to settle into our new routine. The insurance agent had come and gone, and our power was back. The tree, debris, and broken furniture had all been removed and an appointment with a recommended roofing contractor had been set for next week. A new bed frame and mattress for Dylan were ordered.

Everything was normal…except he and I were sleeping in my bed every night, and I’d blown two loads a day watching chastity porn.

In the shower, in the middle of a run through the woods, in the bathroom. It felt like whenever I had a few minutes alone, I was jacking it.