Same Time Tomorrow

by The Scholar

Part 11: Can You Read My Mind?

Carl: Hey, Allan.

Allan: Morning, Carl. You're up early.

Carl: Haven't been to bed yet.

Allan: Oh?

Carl: Just got home.

Allan: You're out late, then?

Carl: LOL! I guess I am. It's 2 am here.

Allan: Yes, it is. You're five hours ahead of me and it's 9 pm here.

Carl: So, you'll be just thinking about going out, then?

Allan: Me? No.

Carl: Oh?

Allan: I don't go out.

Carl: Ever?

Allan: LOL! Well, I go to work, but I don't go out to the bars or anything.

Carl: Why not?

Allan: Got beer here. It's cheaper.

Carl: LOL! I guess it is.

Allan: You have a good time tonight?

Carl: Yeah. I met Tom in the pub and then we got a takeaway and went back to his flat.

Allan: Takeaway?

Carl: Takeout, you know, a cheeseburger and fries, or whatever it you call them.

Allan: Ah, okay.

Carl:

Allan: You and Tom becoming good friends, then?

Carl: I guess so. He's cool.

Allan: He sounds it.

Allan: Doesn't he have any other friends?

Carl: What's wrong with me?

Allan: Nothing. I just wondered.

Carl: Okay.

Allan: I didn't mean to cause offence.

Carl: It's okay, I know. I wondered about it, too, but he never mentioned any and I guess, after a while, I never thought about it.

Allan: Really?

Carl: Yeah. I mean I don't have friends, so I guess it's something I never thought too much about.

Allan: What do you mean you don't have any friends?

Carl: I don't.

Allan: None at all.

Carl: Nope.

Alan: I'm sorry to hear that.

Carl: It's okay. I told you once before, I never kept in touch with anyone after school. Didn't have a lot of people I could call a friend there, anyway.

Allan: You must have been very lonely.

Carl: Sometimes, I guess, but you get used to it.

Allan: I'm sorry, Carl, I didn't mean to pry.

Carl: No big deal.

Carl: I'm meeting him again tomorrow.

Allan: Tom?

Carl: Yeah.

Allan: That's good.

Carl: Yeah, it is. I like him.

Carl:

Allan: LOL!

Carl: I drank a lot tonight.

Allan: Oh!

Carl: Way too much. LOL! I think I need to go to bed.

Allan: Sounds like a good idea.

Carl: Before I fall over. I'm going swimming tomorrow then we're going for a drink.

Allan: That's good. Why didn't you go to bed as soon as you got home?

Carl: I don't know. LOL! I should have, I guess.

Allan: You gonna be okay?

Carl: Yeah, but I'll probably have a bad head in the morning.

Allan: Hangover?

Carl: LOL! I guess that's one way to put it.

Allan: Tom too, I suppose.

Carl: Probably. And he has work tomorrow.

Allan: Ouch!

Carl: LOL! He's a nice guy.

Allan: He sounds it.

Carl: LOL! I got his shirt.

Allan: What?

Carl: Tom's shirt. I got it.

Allan: Why?

Carl: He spilled stuff down it.

Allan: Stuff?

Carl: Some burger relish.

Allan: Yeah?

Carl: So he was going to throw it away.

Allan: So, you got it.

Carl: Yep.

Allan: You doing his laundry now?

Carl: Nope.

Allan: Then why you got his shirt?

Carl: He can get a new one. LOL! I better get to bed.

Allan: Hmm. Okay, sleep well.

Carl: Yep. Goodnight.

Allan: Bye.

Allan watched as Carl logged off and shook his head. What a curious boy. What on earth did he intend to do with a stained shirt if he wasn't going to launder it? Maybe he liked the color? Maybe it was his size? Or maybe... hmm, Allan shook his head again, his brain working to weigh up the prospect of that thought, the thought that maybe Carl was gay? Allan laughed out loud. No, not Carl! The idea was preposterous. Allan dismissed the thought immediately. Well, almost immediately. Well, after a good two hours of his brain cells returning to it as he sat naked at his computer surfing the Internet.

Carl had never given him any cause to think that he was gay. Maybe it was a British thing, this collecting stained shirts of friends. What was he thinking? Of course, it wasn't! Allan knew that. He didn't know a great deal about the British way of life, but he knew enough to know that they weren't all entirely eccentric. Were they?

Allan stood up and walked to his kitchen and took a cold beer from the refrigerator. Removing the cap he drank from the bottle's neck. He wished he did have someone to go to the bar with. Maybe he should try harder with the others with whom he worked.

Harry Mackintosh was in his early sixties, married with three kids and two grandchildren and looking forward to his retirement, talked a lot about buying a boat and sailing down the river and stopping off at places on the way. Yawn. Pete Harper was in his late forties and divorced, forever complaining bitterly about the lack of time he got to spend with his twelve-year old daughter. What the hell was he doing here, then? Geoff Walters was in his mid-twenties, recently married and had taken this job to earn some better money for him and his new bride, which was fair enough, being newly married wasn't a cheap affair and he couldn't blame Geoff for wanting to start his married life on the right footing. Mick Gallagher was a confirmed bachelor with a penchant for designer clothes and living beyond his means, always talking about his female conquests, though Allan suspected that most of those were in his imagination. No! That wasn't a good plan. Despite having absolutely nothing other than their job in common, he didn't really like them; with, perhaps, the exception of Geoff, but even Geoff went home and called his wife long distance for hours at a time.

Sitting in front of his computer Allan stared at the screen. Pictures of naked young men in various stages of undress from an Internet porn site filled the monitor, each one of them posing seductively on beds, in chairs, in doorways, in the open air, by trees, on grass, on sand; eyes open, eyes closed, hands behind their heads, behind their backs, across their chests, hands holding their flaccid organs, licking their lips, looking directly into the camera lens, away to the right, away to the left, holding and then stroking their erections, thrusting their hardness so close to the camera that you could almost count the number of pubic hairs they had. Their rear ends were displayed as they bent over chairs, sofas, walls, touched their toes, raised a leg, in fact anything to give the cameraman a better shot of the tight little holes between the cheeks of their perfectly formed buttocks.

Then there were the close-up shots of mushroom-shaped heads, some sticky with pre-cum oozing from the slit of their erections, their hands grasped firmly around their stiffened organs and then the arched back, a strategically placed finger inserted into the hole of their butts and the look of pleasure as they came; their chests splattered with the white sticky fluid, the residue dripping down their shafts and onto their hands and their pubic hair as they pumped their manhood, following through by running their fingers through the emission and placing it onto the tips of their tongues.

Twosomes, threesomes, even a whole frat house appeared to be posing seemingly unaware of a camera. One way or another they were captured kissing, playing, touching, licking, sucking and fucking. For Allan, this make-believe was all the pleasure he got and his own penis hardened as he looked at the images of the young men before him, all tanned and smiling and he wished he had someone like that in his bed.

All the time he thought about Carl. The unemployed English boy who wore odd socks, who went running and swimming and had taken a stained shirt as a trophy of his... of his what? Allan didn't know. Was Carl gay? What did he look like? Did he look like any of the images on his screen? He pictured him in his mind; what he thought he might look like and found himself absently stroking his own erection, his heart starting to beat faster as the image he had of a boy wearing odd socks and nothing else filled his mind, a smiling boy, he imagined, because he used enough of those in his chats, so he had to smile a lot. Allan smiled, too and opened his eyes. The young man that was on his screen - no more than Carl's age - smiled, too. Allan turned off his computer and then went to bed to bed to jack off.

"Carl," he said to himself. "If you can read my mind, I'm gay, too."