Lukas washed himself with a loofah. But he didn’t just wash himself. He scrubbed every part of himself. Scrubbed between his fingers and his toes, behind his ears. Let water run into his ears, and cleaned them out with a washer. He scrubbed the crack of his arse, scrubbed his genitals, scrubbed his arms, legs, chest, back, stomach, neck and face.

When he steeped out of the shower his skin was glowing pink.

Matthew had never felt so clean.

And he smelt like lemon. That lemon-scented soap Lukas used. And the pine smell in his hair.

He felt like he was Scandinavia.

Lukas thought this was funny, the idea that he smelt this nice, that he smelt like Scandinavia, which was the ad for the shampoo.

He looked at himself in the mirror, and smiled. He supposed he did look okay.

No wonder he always looked so clean, Matthew thought, if he did this every day.

‘I am clean,’ Lukas said.

Lukas hung his towel up and opened the top drawer of the vanity. He found what he was looking for. A plastic bottle of something. He pulled it out and unscrewed the lid. It was an eye-dropper.

He pulled it out, full of liquid, and squirted it onto the skin above his groin, rubbing it in quickly, and then he picked up the hand mirror that was on the counter-top and looked at the patch of skin where he had rubbed the liquid in.

He was expecting to see, what? Hair growing? The liquid was supposed to make hair grow, and Lukas was looking as though he expected to see at least a light fuzz of hair there. Had seen some yesterday, hadn’t he? And yes, there was maybe just a light blond fuzz growing there. About a millimetre long.

It was working.

Lukas picked up the eye-dropper and rubbed some more in, and then he lifted each arm and rubbed some of the liquid onto the skin under his arms. He lent forward over the vanity, holding one arm up, and trying to see under the fluorescent light if there wasn’t any hair growing there. He checked the other one.

There was almost nothing, as far as Matthew could see. Maybe some of the same blond fuzz, but it was almost invisible.

Lukas screwed the lid back onto the bottle. He put it away and walked out into the hall naked. He walked into his sitting room, and into his bedroom, and opened the top drawer in his chest of drawers.

It was wide and deep and it was filled with jocks, all of them tossed in together. All of them the same kind of little boy’s jocks, faded and threadbare thin. There was about a hundred of them.

Lukas picked a pair out without even looking and pulled them on. He closed the drawer.

Matthew wanted to see them, wanted to see what they were like, and Lukas looked down, frowning at his jocks, trying to see what they were.

They were the Spongebob ones, having a big Spongebob Squarepants on the front of them. Aside from this, they were pale blue, supposedly water.

Lukas looked at how small his gear was in them. His dick had shrunk to the size of his thumb, and he was ashamed of this, hated how small his dick and his balls were, though he didn’t seem to think anything of wearing Spongebob jocks when he was an eighteen year old.

He turned around, looking for his cords on the ground. The ones he had worn yesterday. He was going to put them on.

Don’t, Matthew thought.

Lukas frowned. He had to get dressed if he was going to go downstairs and have some breakfast.

Don’t, Matthew thought. Stay up here. He could do that, he supposed. He didn’t have to go down and have breakfast now. He wasn’t really hungry.

You’re not really hungry.

Matthew wanted him to go into the studio, so he could see himself in the mirrors, and as Lukas thought of the studio, he thought of dancing. He could do some dancing, he said to himself. He hadn’t had any proper exercise in days.

Lukas bent down and pulled out the bottom drawer in the chest. There was a leotard there. A pale green one. Faded, like all of Lukas’ clothes seemed to be. And Matthew recognised it as the same green leotard Lukas had worn as child when they had done dancing together. Matthew had his own somewhere, in the bottom of a drawer in his closet.

Lukas wondered if Matthew still had his leotard, if he ever wore it or danced. Lukas didn’t suppose he would, though he would like to see what Matthew looked like in it now. Lukas had a picture in his mind of Matthew’s gear, bulging in his jeans as Matthew sat at the back of the boat on the day that had gone out on the lake. Matthew’s thighs, so curved and powerful, and his packet, which was so big. Lukas had wanted to bury his face in it, to get down on his knees and feel the soft warmth of Matthew’s cock and balls through the denim.

He picked out the leotard, shook it out and put it on the bed. There was no way he was going to fit into that, Matthew thought. It was way too small. It was meant for a kid.

Lukas slid the Spongebob jocks over his arse, his thighs, his knees, and let them fall to the floor. He kicked them off and picked the leotard up. It probably was getting too small for him, but he liked it like that. He sat on the edge of the bed and threaded his feet into the legs of it and then he stood up and pulled it up to his waist.

It was so tight.

He bend his shoulders and threaded his arms through the straps, standing and straightening himself out so the waist of the leotard came up his sides. The back of it slid up into his arse crack. The groin of it grabbed his gear and flattened it, stretching his balls upward.

Lukas had to reach down and fiddle with his gear to get it to sit right, making big, gawky, stretching movements with his legs, stepping wide, to get the leotard to ride up his legs and sit comfortably. The bottoms of the legs slid up to his calf muscles. The straps on the front sat in between his nipples because the body of it only covered his torso.

Matthew felt weird. It felt strange to have everything compressed like this. The thing was tight around his abs, around his groin, around his arse, and the straps were tight over his shoulders. Lukas’ little nipples were hard and dark. Matthew put his hands up and touched them, and then rubbed his fingertips over his chest and felt down inside the leotard at the sides. He pulled his hands out and rubbed them over his stomach. Felt around and felt how tight his arse was in them. His cheeks were like tight little buns. He put his hands down between his thighs and rubbed there, bringing his hands up, he smoothed them over the tight little package that was his gear. Lukas had folded the cock down, so it was sitting on top of the balls. It was a little curved package, compressed under the tights so that it felt hard.

Matthew could crush these nuts. Could cut this dick off. He could go down to the garage now and put the lot of it into the vice, crush it in the vice and then saw it off, if he could stand the pain. He would wake in his bed and Lukas, Lukas…

Lukas wondered what he was doing. He had been standing in his room dithering. He had his hands on his groin and he had been thinking, what? Something about Matthew? He didn’t remember.

He shivered.

And walked down the hall to the studio at the end.

There was a sound system against one wall, the shorter of the two walls without windows. Lukas hit the power button. He pressed play.

Matthew heard the music start and recognised it instantly as The Nutcracker Suite. Ironic.

Lukas walked to the bar along the main wall of mirrors and put his right foot up on the bar. He straightened it slowly, and then bent forward with his head and his hands until his forehead was resting on his knee, his hands wrapped around his foot. He held the position, until he became comfortable, and then reversed it.

This was the one thing that Matthew had been good at when he danced – the stretching exercises. The teacher said he might have made a gymnast, but not a dancer. She had said he had no grace, which had annoyed him, seeing he was good at sports, but he couldn’t dance. He had to admit that.

He hadn’t been that bad, Lukas thought. It would have been good if he had kept going anyway. Lukas would have liked it. He liked thinking about how Matthew and he had done ballet together. Liked thinking of how Matthew had looked in his leotard.

There was a brief flash of Matthew, as a twelve year old. In his pale blue leotard. A beautiful boy, in Lukas’ mind. With golden brown hair and a wide smile, laughing eyes. Curvaceous thighs, and a hard, firm arse. Big gear. Too big for a little kid that age. Lukas wanted to lay his head against Matthew’s chest and feel his arms around him.

He loves me, Matthew thought.

Lukas frowned. There was no way Matthew loved him.

He pulled his leg off the bar and slid his feet wide apart, keeping his legs locked. He reached down and touched the ground in front of him, and moved his legs farther apart. Slowly, he inched his legs farther and farther apart until he was sitting on the ground, split-legged.

Matthew had been able to do this also, he remembered, though he didn’t think he could do this now.

Lukas turned, put one leg out behind him, and one leg in front, Matthew feeling his little packet of gear sitting on the hard, wooden floor. Lukas balls were so tight – his sack was so tight, with the cold. It felt like his balls were going to go up inside his stomach. The pressure of the leotard wasn’t helping. Matthew felt like, if he leaned forward a bit, and got Lukas’ balls trapped underneath him, he could press them up inside himself.

Lukas liked the idea, and tried it. Leaning forward, he pushed his balls back underneath him, and then tried to sit up again. His balls were trapped there, as he came up into a sitting position, and he held it, with the weight of his body on his balls underneath him.

It did feel good, Matthew had to admit. Kind of.

Lukas sat up a bit more and felt his balls bobble underneath him, and pop up at the front.

He liked the feeling of danger, Matthew realised, liked the feeling that his balls were going to be crushed. Though he didn’t really want this to happen.

Lukas changed his position, reversing his split. He did some upper body stretches, and then he started to dance.

At first, he fell. Not once, but twice. This was Matthew, Matthew realised. He was interfering. Afraid of Lukas’ leaps. Not able to follow his turns. Not knowing what he was about to do, Matthew put him off time and again. Slowly, he learned how to simply relax and not interfere, though it was frightening. It was like being in a body he had no control over. Being along for the ride.

Finally, Lukas fell again, landing hard on his arse, and sliding along the floor. He had had enough. He got up, his breath heaving and sat on the bench. The leotard was all rucked up into his groin. Into his arse. It was uncomfortable. Matthew didn’t know how he could stand it.

‘You have to put up with it,’ Lukas said.

He leant forward, putting his forearms on his thighs, and breathing deeply. What was he going to do all day?

We could go up the coast today, Matthew thought. He didn’t have anything to do.

Maybe Matthew would ring him. He imagined it. No. Matthew would probably be at Christian’s, or with some of the other guys, Brad or Drew or Nathan, or at Tom or Joel’s place. Lukas thought of them with resentment, these strong jerky guys who had been pricks to him for years. Some of them weren’t so bad. Drew and Nathan weren’t so bad. Matthew wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t like the rest of them. He was fucking – beautiful. Lukas felt like crying. He closed his eyes. And tears came into them. He was so fucking alone.

‘You’re such a fucking faggot,’ he said.

Behind him, in the corner of the room, there was some gym equipment. A couple of ropes, for climbing, attached high above his head in the ceiling. Two of them, because one had been for Matthew. A wooden frame, attached to the wall, meant for scaling it. A pair of parallel bars. A small trampoline. He could get onto the parallel bars. And crack himself properly. No fucking around. Really crack himself like he deserved.

He tried not to think about it, didn’t want to get hard yet, wanted to pretend that he was just going to use the parallel bars, and it was an accident. He took some long, deep breaths and got up again. He took a swig on his water bottle and looked at the parallel bars as though he had just seen them, just thought of them, and should do some more exercise. Some upper body work. He ran his hand over his chest. Thought about how he needed some upper body work, as though he had an audience.

He put the water down and walked over to the bars.

Matthew wanted him to pull the leotard out of his arse, out of his groin, where it was all rucked up, but Lukas ignored this. It was like he wanted it like that. He mounted the bars and swung back and forth gently, getting his feel for them. And then he started. He swung his legs up in front of him and hooked his legs over the bars, throwing his whole body forward and gripping the bars again at the other end. He turned, and repeated the movement in the other direction.

And then he surprised Matthew by swinging himself up into a handstand. He wanted to change on to one bar, but couldn’t do this. He swung down and mounted the bars again.

Matthew hadn’t thought he would be this good. From the look of his shoulders and his arms, you wouldn’t think he had the strength to do what he was doing, though his body was light.

Lukas swung for a while. Crab-walked up to the other end, turned, and crab-walked down. He was getting prepared for what he was going to do. His dismount? Something about his dismount.

He performed another handstand, trying to make it as perfect as possible, trying to hold it for as long as possible, and then he let himself swing down again. He was imagining applause, like he was at the Olympics or something, though he only wanted one person watching him. Matthew. He was imagining what it would be like if Matthew was there watching him. And he was imaging Matthew standing in the room, with his big gear stretched tight in his jeans, watching Lukas in his leotard, and thinking he looked good, looked sexy. Though he wouldn’t. Lukas tried to tell himself that he would. That he would find what was about to happen sexy, if Matthew was there. He was there watching. Lukas swung his body back and forth a couple of times, preparing for the dismount. He was almost out of breath, but he was trying to work up the courage to what? to miss when he threw himself over the side so that his legs landed either side of the bar. So that he fell on his nuts, and cracked them hard.

He was afraid he’d bust a nut, one or both of them, but he told himself it didn’t matter, that’d it’d be an accident, that it wouldn’t happen. Matthew was there watching him, in his imagination. Lukas would be hurt on the ground, cradling himself, and Matthew would be offering him comfort, have his arms around Lukas’ shoulders and be comforting him while Lukas watched how hard Matthew got in his jeans, like when he had the padlock on and Matthew had been hard in his jeans, hadn’t he? Lukas was sure he had been.

Lukas threw himself up with a final swing, threw his body to the left, like he was going to dismount over the side. He caught the heel of his foot on the inner side of the bar and couldn’t believe what he had done. There was no way out of it. He fell straight-legged onto the bar from the height of a metre or so, straight onto his nuts, his cock and his nuts caught squarely in the centre of the bar. He felt the breath knocked out of him, collapsed onto the bar hitting his chin, and slid off sideways onto the mat, trying to grip the bar with his hands still but letting go, falling, and lying there, cradling his nuts.

He tried to breathe, blinking. Had tears in his eyes. His legs rose up to his chest, and he thrust his hands down into his groin, feeling his nuts, trying to feel if they were okay. They felt soft. He couldn’t tell with the leotard on. He peeled it over his shoulders and pushed it down, imagining Matthew there again, now, helping him.

‘I think they’re crushed,’ he said, imaging he was speaking to Matthew. He arched his body up and peeled the suit down over his arse, onto his thighs. ‘Can you see if they’re crushed?’

He imagined Matthew nodding okay, and then felt down with his hands. He was hard now. He imagined his hands being Matthew’s hands. Imagined Matthew being cruel, feeling his balls roughly, squeezing them hard. He started to pull himself with one hand, precum covering his cock, and felt with his other hand, squeezing hard.

Matthew squeezed the balls hard. As hard as Lukas wanted him to.

He tugged on Lukas’ cock.

And came.