Jase laughed. “I love baseball,” he said. “I’ll take you to a game next time. But this is the place where I go when I’m feeling homesick for Alaska. The minute I walk through the doors, I feel a sense of peace I can’t find anyplace else in the city.” That wasn’t totally true. He didn’t mention this to Luis because he wasn’t sure how it would sound. But when he was with Luis, he felt the same sense of peace. He wasn’t lonely anymore and he didn’t long for home. With Luis beside him, he felt like he was home.
When they went inside, Jase didn’t tell Luis he’d been responsible for starting the entire foundation that made Alaska Frontier possible. He felt slightly guilty about it, but he didn’t want to ruin a wonderful day. He wasn’t sure how Luis would react to his mid-life experiment. He did, however, take Luis on a detailed tour, explaining everything they passed. Luis listened closely, absorbing all the little details. For the first time since Jase had met him, Luis wasn’t talking nonstop and explaining something to Jase.
In one of the photo exhibit rooms, a pure white square of a room with shiny white floors and tall ceilings, Luis stared at pictures of the Alaskan landscape. He pressed his palm to his chest and said, “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. Is it really that spectacular in person?”
Jase smiled and nodded. “It’s even better in person,” he said. “There’s no way to truly describe it without seeing it firsthand.”
“I’d love to go there someday,” Luis said. “There are people who are either summer people or winter people. I’m more winter than summer. One of my favorite nights of the year is when they push the clocks back in the fall. I love when it gets dark at five o’clock in the afternoon, and I can’t wait for the first snowfall.”
Jase stared at him for a moment and laughed. “Then you’d love Alaska,” he said.
They spent a few hours walking through the building and Jase continued to explain the exhibits. When it was time to leave, Luis suggested they walk back to the Upper West Side. “I’m not trying to be cheap,” he said. “I’ll pay for a cab if you don’t want to walk. But it’s such a nice day, I hate to waste it.”
Jase reached for his hand and pulled him across the street. “I don’t mind walking. And we can take as long as we want. But only under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to hold your hand the entire time,” Jase said.
At first, Luis lowered his chin and he blushed. Then his eyelids went up and he said, “I’d like that,” with a soft, gentle voice.
They crossed to the West Village and stopped in a few shops to browse. By the time they went into one small men’s clothing store on Bleecker Street, they were feeling giddy. Luis nodded to a couple of salespeople on the floor. The salespeople were young gay men with short dark hair and tight clothes. They nodded back and addressed Luis by his first name. Luis turned to Jase and suggested they try on a couple of pairs of jeans, so he grabbed a handful from a rack without looking at the sizes and he pulled Jase into the fitting room.
When they were inside, Luis pulled two jock straps out from beneath the jeans and said, “I grabbed these jocks on the way in. Let’s put them on and see if we can leave the store without being caught.”
“But that’s stealing,” Jase said. He blinked and stared down at the jock straps. One was bright green and the other bright orange. There were small price tags on the waistbands. Each jock strap was forty dollars. “And they’re expensive, too.”
“I’ve shopped here before,” Luis said. “And trust me, I’ve spent a small fortune overpaying for jeans and other things. Last week I spent two hundred dollars on a plain black T-shirt that probably wasn’t worth more than twenty.”
“Why?” Jase asked.
Luis shrugged. “It makes me feel good,” he said. “And the salespeople talked me into it.”
Then he unzipped his pants and kicked off his shoes. “They owe me now. Besides, I’ll come back this week and spend more money on more clothes. They’d probably give me both jock straps without thinking twice if I asked for them.”
Jase shrugged and unzipped his pants. When he kicked off his shoes, he accidentally fell on top of Luis and they both started to laugh out loud. They were in one of those small fitting rooms designed for one person instead of two. There were skimpy half doors and the two salespeople out on the floor could see their upper bodies, but not their legs. While they continued to laugh and strip, the salespeople gave each other looks.
Luis removed his underwear first and threw them at Jase. Jase watched him put on the bright green jock strap without blinking. He looked so adorable Jase wanted to go down on his knees and chew the green fabric.
But Luis reached out and snapped the waistband of Jase’s underwear and said, “C’mon.
It’s your turn now. Take them off and put on the jock.”
So Jase pulled down his underwear and put on the bright orange jock strap. He pulled it up so fast part of his dick stuck out of the pouch. When Luis saw it, he reached down and pulled the orange fabric with one hand, and with the other, he grabbed Jase’s semi-erect dick and gently packed it into the pouch. His fingers held the shaft so lightly Jase’s balls jumped.
“We’d better get dressed and get out of here,” Jase said.
“Why?”
“Because if you touch my dick again like that I’m going to have to fuck you right here in the fitting room.” He pointed to his crotch and smiled. “Look what you did. I’m getting all wooded up now.”
“It’s not my fault you’re always horny,” Luis said. He smiled at Jase’s erection. “You need some self-control. You have to tame that thing.”
Jase smiled and squared his shoulders. He moved forward as if ready to pounce. He looked to see if the salespeople were still watching them. They were on the floor, pretending to talk to each other, but Jase knew they were waiting to see what would happen next. “Go head,”
Jase said. He was whispering and his voice was deep and serious. “Pull my dick out and put it back in again. Do it just the way you did before…real light.”
Luis punched him in the chest and laughed. “Get dressed and stop being vulgar. We’ll both get arrested if you don’t stop. And I have no intention of going to jail.”
When they were dressed, they shoved their own underwear into their pockets and left the fitting room wearing their bold new jock straps. Luis handed the pile of jeans back to one of the salespeople. He smiled and said, “Nothing fits right today. But I’ll be back next week for something else.” Then he lifted his chin and walked out of the store.