I had almost avoided the entire ordeal. I had pulled myself away from Ted’s foot, which at that point had ground a wet spot through my shorts. I remember seeing the small dab I had left on his heel, like a shiny smudge of olive oil. I had clambered further up the bed and was just jamming my elbow into his buttock, humming with potential but certainly not past the point of no return, when Ted cried out, “come on, get in there hard, fucker!”   

It was not him.  He could hardly wrap his lips around the consonants when he uttered it. But it had ignited a searing heat in my center anyway. I remembered seeing myself yank my shorts down, feeling my throbbing cock mash against him, yet almost floating above myself.  I had since tried to tell myself it wasn’t me in that moment, either…like I had no choice, no power to pull back, no say in the matter. But the truth is I had been at least present enough to decide not to pull his shorts down. Present enough to think that was somehow a line I couldn’t cross, arbitrary though it was. 

A series of groans had started coming from Ted as I began to slide up and down in the groove of sticky nylon I had forced between his cheeks, like I was pumping old organ bellows. My hand still digging into his ass cheek, I pulled myself back and forth, pushing as far into him as the thin material of his shorts would allow. When I finally came, I remember crying out, something I had never done before. Ted was face down in his pillow and had fallen silent.  My pale, shimmering ecstasy had pooled in the crevice I had pressed between his legs, one stray streak over his left cheek like a shooting star.  A cosmic moment. 

We never spoke of it. Ted had been in such a stupor that the following morning he completely bought my story that he had changed out of his clothes himself.  And I had silently tortured myself that I had basically raped him.  And had completely lost myself to the rapture of doing it. 

I opened the door with a flourish and Ted turned to survey me. He smiled, and I basked in it. “Well there he is!”  He used a mocking tone one might use to coax a child from behind the curtains. He walked around in a thorough inspection, brushing off my shoulders and tugging at my sleeves.  

“Too short?” I asked. 

He stood back and I felt his eyes travel up and down me. “No,” he decided after a moment. “I think we’re pretty good to show Celia.”  He turned my shoulders so that I faced the triptych mirrors.  I must say, I did look pretty good. Polished, like onyx. And Ted hanging back over my shoulder was the perfect accessory, I mused. “Just one minor adjustment,” he added as I took in the reflection. “Let’s do up that fly, shall we?”  He reached around and fumbled for the zipper, his hand entering the slot in the trousers. He gave me a squeeze.  I could see my own eyes widening in the mirror as I watched him grin.  “It’s been quite a while since the last time I got mixed up with what’s in those pants,” he murmured. I whipped around to face him.  We were close enough that I caught the scent of mint on his breath. He winked and smoothed my pocket square. “Let’s get out there for approval, okay?”

***

Several weeks later, I found myself on the veranda of a little bistro that had been selected for the rehearsal dinner. Everything about it was quaint—irritatingly so, knowing it had been all been orchestrated by the bride-who-smiled-toothlessly, from the light-twined grapevine arbor overhead to the long, narrow trestle table adorned simply in white linen.  I sat across from Ted and Celia and next to the maid of honor, a girl named Brenna, who was the type of person who seemed to have done it all before everyone else, knew the best way, had all the connections, and all the while clobbered everyone in her vicinity with her overwhelming ginger-peach scent. 

Ted and I hadn’t had a moment alone since we emerged from the fitting room that afternoon. And even if we had, I don’t know what I would have said to him. I had spent the last four years trying to move past what I had thought was the unthinkable only to find that Ted had known of my lapse in self-control all along. Perhaps had allowed it. Welcomed it?  I flashed an obligatory smile at a joke Brenna cracked about people from New Jersey and prodded the salmon on my plate as I stewed. Why was I here?  Why did Ted pick me to be his best man?  

As I glanced between the drippy tapers at the couple-to-be, I saw Celia clutching Ted’s arm.  She did that a lot, I had noticed. Almost as if she felt the need to stake her claim to him again and again. Ted’s eyes flashed in my direction. It was brief—the slightest linger—but I felt it like a discharge of static electricity as it passed over my face.  

And that’s when it became clear. 

I had not been alone in my infatuation, had I?  Having me stand beside him tomorrow was Ted’s way of admitting that. Maybe it was, in a small way, a last attempt for him to clarify the unspoken connection.  To have a last hurrah. 

When the only the kale garnishes were left on plates and glasses inevitably began to ring with forks and spoons, I backed my chair from the table, stood up, and faced the music. I glanced around, seeing the earrings and necklaces reflecting the candlelight, the painted lips, the expectant eyes.  Celia simpered from across the table. I don’t know what Ted was doing. I hadn’t brought myself to look at him. 

“I guess this is my part of the show.”  I smiled self consciously.  Painted lips smiled back. “I honestly had no idea why Ted asked me to stand with him.”  A few titters. “We were great roommates in college. Never fought. Perfected the tuna fish and ketchup sandwich.”  Affected gasps of disgust swept down the table, mingled with chuckles. “But it isn’t about me tonight. It’s about Ted.”  I finally looked at him and found him gazing at me. Fucking gazing. “I kind of messed up big once, and Ted…well, he was there. It’s my turn.”  I locked eyes with him. “I’m glad that I have this chance to be there for him tonight. And tomorrow.”  I raised my glass amidst sighs and appreciative murmurs. “To Ted and Celia.”  My sentiment was echoed and the glasses rang against each other over the linen runway.

I took my seat, not taking my eyes off Ted. Brenna commented in my ear about my little spiel, but I didn’t it didn’t register. Ted had chosen not to have a bachelor party, and he was staying in Celia’s parents’ pool house that night. If I was going to give Ted what he was owed, it was now or never. 

I slid a loafer from my foot. The chill from the veranda’s flagstones seeped through my silky sock, but tonight I was suddenly grateful that I had worn sheers.  I slid my foot further under the table, which was narrow at only three feet or so.  My toes found the hard, smooth cap of Ted’s wingtip and traced the ridged switchbacks of his waxed laces up beneath the cuff of his slacks.  I rubbed my foot against his chin and studied his face, anxious to see if he would hit. He had turned and Celia, who was forking tiramisu into his mouth, but I saw a smile play at the corner of his lips as they closed around the tines. Celia thought this was for her, but I knew better. He closed his eyes as if savoring the bite, then turned to me and looked straight at me and licked his lips. 

Ted had accepted my invitation. 

I playfully used my toe to rake his sock down his leg before lifting my foot and nestling it between his thighs. The whites of Ted’s eyes appeared all the way around his irises only for a moment before he regained his composure.  He smiled at another mindless nugget that had artlessly tumbled from Brenna’s constantly moving lips, dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, and then dropped it on his lap, giving his chair a small scoot in under the table as he leaned his elbows on the linen and folded his hands under his chin, as if preparing to steady it for the unseen forces brewing down below. 

The skin on my toes strained through the spiderweb of silken threads that sheathed them, and I could feel the bulbous growth of Ted’s excitement shifting in his pants, a beast that had been sleeping beneath the covers and was now stirring in them. I made out its silhouette, tracing the edges of his head through the layers of fabric.  Above the table, Ted let a small moan escape, which he turned into a small clearing of his throat.  He reached for his coffee cup.  I ground my the ball of my foot against the beast, which was now fully awake and insistent it be freed of its shroud. Ted’s hand gently clapped around my foot.  The warmth on his skin through my thin sock made it feel like I had stepped into a puddle of sunlight.  I paused, savoring the sensation as he fumbled one-handedly with his pants, finally letting his cock slip free into the open air.  Nestling against the bottom of my foot with a firm resolve, it traced the crease under my toes with its wet tongue.  

I curved my toes around him and gently pumped, nodding absently at Celia’s cousin down the table when she commented on how grateful she was Celia had stuck to satin tuxedos rather than going with seersucker. Ted was cradling his chin in his hands are looking adoringly at his bride-to be while under the table, my sock became sticky with his fever for my foot against him.  I felt a burning myself, knowing that I was nudging him closer to a loss of control. I got greedy, impatient, and I smashed against him, digging my heel into his balls. 

“Ho!” Ted exclaimed. Heads turned. He swiftly picked up his coffee and raised the cup.  “This is a damn fine roast,” he offered hoarsely before taking another sip. Celia shot him a perplexed look before turning to continue what I can only imagine was a scintillating discourse with her mother. 

My leg was cramping, but I could feel we had reached the final stretch.  I settled into an even rhythm, brushing my toes up and down the underside of his shaft, the thin layer of silk between us saturated with his viscous anticipation. And just then, like we had hit the eye of a hurricane, all of the conversations at the table momentarily turned away from us, and Ted and I were suddenly alone in a bubble, suspended in the oily affectation of the evening.  He looked at me, small beads of perspiration blooming at his hairline. “I’m so glad you came,” he murmured. 

I smiled. “I wasn’t. Not for a long time. But I am now.”  His legs began to jump on either side of mine, twitching like a garden hose with air pockets cording through it. A exhalation whistled from his nose and he furrowed his brow. Very close now. I leaned in. “But now that I’m here for you, I’ll have to ask that you also come when I need you to.”  

Under the table, my foot sensed that Ted had gone still. Across the expanse of linen, I could see his jaw clenched, the muscles in his beautiful face working in the soft glow of the arbor lights.  His eyelids drooped, and he faintly groaned, like a little hum.  It was the same sound he had made into his pillow that night. A surge of warmth wrapped itself around my toes. I reveled in the ecstasy I had been able to draw from him. That now ran across my skin, sliding down my foot. 

We sat and looked at each other for a minute, before I pulled back and slipped my foot—covered in him—into my loafer. Ted blinked. 

“I’ll always cum if you just ask,” he finally said. “We’re friends.”  He kicked his lips again. “And I think we always will be.”

I leaned back, savoring the gooey warm feeling inside my shoe. “You know? I think you’re right.  After your big day tomorrow, let’s promise to be in touch.”  

He smiled, and glanced at Celia. “In touch. Yes. Definitely.”  And we toasted coffee cups.