i hate the ice bath. jon loves watching me pretend i don’t.
after every saturday match with the men’s rugby club i climb into the plastic tub behind the clubhouse and sit waist-deep in water that feels like being stabbed. the rest of the team clears out. jon stays. jon stands over me with a stack of warm towels from the dryer, grinning like the sadist he is.
“you could skip this,” he says.
“recovery.”
“you’re visibly dying.”
“athletic excellence.” my teeth are chattering so hard it comes out in pieces.
he kneels on the wet concrete behind me and puts a towel around my shoulders and then his hands, big and warm, on the back of my neck. thumbs in the knots. i close my eyes and a noise comes out of me that i’d deny under oath.
that’s the real ritual. not the ice. the hands afterward.
week after week, jon works the tension out of my shoulders. week after week, i stay an extra five minutes after everyone’s gone, long after i’m thawed out, and he doesn’t point it out. he just keeps rubbing. his thumbs go down my spine. his palms spread across my back. there was a saturday in october where his hand slid around my ribs, just for a second, and i swear to god i almost came in the tub.
i started wearing the thin grey sweats on purpose. i knew what the wet cotton did. i’d climb out of the tub with my dick visible through the fabric, half hard from his hands, and walk to the bench like i didn’t know, and jon would look at the wall and say something about the team schedule in a voice a full octave too casual. every saturday i went home and thought about that voice. i thought about his hands. i jerked off in the dark with the heater ticking and told myself it was recovery.
the saturday after that, he stopped.
“do you want me to stop pretending this is about recovery?”
i opened my eyes.
“no.”
“no what?”
“don’t stop pretending yet.”
he laughed in the back of his throat. “coward.”
i caught his wrist before he could pull it away. my fingers were still pruned and pale on his tan arm.
“fine,” i said. “i like it when you touch me.”
“better.”
he kissed me with me still shivering under two towels, my lips numb, his warm. it tasted like coffee. he held my face with both hands like he was thawing that too.
“my place,” he said into my mouth. “now. it’s ten minutes.”
“locker room’s right there.”
“i’m not doing this on a bench where coach changes his socks.”
fair.
locker room · post-ice-bath, steam rising
he ran the shower hot when we got there. not scalding. just enough to bring my hands back to life. i stood under it with the water pounding my shoulders and the heat sinking into my bones, and jon got in behind me with his shorts still on and put his palms where they’d been that afternoon.
same hands. different room. no teammates. no excuse.
“better?”
“yeah.”
his thumbs pressed into the base of my skull and my eyes rolled shut.
“good,” he said.
something happened low in my stomach. i must have shown it, because he pressed closer, and i felt him through his wet shorts against the small of my back. he was hard. as hard as i was.
i opened one eye. “don’t.”
“don’t what?”
“sound pleased.”
“you’re literally thawing.”
“very athletic.”
he laughed and shut the water off before the bathroom turned into a steam room. we got out. he wrapped a towel around my waist. i sat on the edge of his bed with the towel tented and he knelt on the floor in front of me and started drying my calf. slowly. like it mattered.
i looked down at him. “that’s not necessary.”
“i know.”
his hand moved up my shin. past the knee. the towel dragged over the inside of my thigh and i stopped breathing.
he stopped at my knee. looked up. his hair was wet and dripping on his shoulders.
“where do you want me touching you?”
i swallowed. the tough guy act tried to come back and died halfway.
“higher.”
he smiled. “good.”
his hand slid under the towel.
shower stall · water running, raw nerve endings
he wrapped his fingers around my cock and my whole back arched. i’d been half hard for an hour and his palm was so warm. i was so cold, everywhere else, so cold, and the heat of his hand was the only real thing in the world. he stroked me slow. patient. the same patience he used on my shoulders. no rush, no show.
i watched him for a while. then i looked away, and he stopped.
i looked back. “what.”
“you like being watched too.”
my ears went red. “apparently.”
his smile softened. “pretty.”
“absolutely not.”
he moved his hand again and my objection turned into a breath.
“pretty,” jon said, and ducked his head and put his mouth on me.
i grabbed the towel. i grabbed the bedspread. “you’re abusing recovery protocol,” i managed.
“documented side effect,” he said around me.
his mouth was so hot it felt like the opposite of the tub. wet, tight, slow, tongue sliding under the head and then all the way down until i hit the back of his throat. his hand worked the base. his other hand pushed my thigh wide and i was falling apart, hips lifting off the bed, one hand in his wet hair and then both.
he took me deeper. i said his name a lot of times. i said fuck. i said “oh my god, jon, the way you,” and then nothing, because my brain had been wrung out like one of his towels.
when i got close he slowed down. almost stopped.
“don’t. don’t stop.”
he pulled off with a wet sound. his lips were red. his hand kept moving, lazy. “i want to be inside you.”
“yes.”
“you’ve been cold all day.”
“i’m not cold.” i pulled him up by the hair and kissed him hard. “jon. i’m so not cold.”
he got me on my back with a pillow under my hips. he worked me open with spit and two fingers, then three, patient the whole way, slow and thorough, my knees up around his ribs and my toes curled in the sheet. when he finally pushed in i felt every inch of him, thick and hot, spreading me, and the heat sank into me like another shower. i groaned, long and low, and he stopped with his forehead on my shoulder, shaking.
“move,” i said.
he moved.
slow. hands under my shoulder blades, the same hands. he rocked into me with a long roll of his hips that made the headboard tap the wall, and i wrapped my legs around his waist and met every thrust. i was so warm. my fingers had finally stopped aching. he kissed my neck, my jaw, the corner of my mouth, whispering “pretty” and “good” and “look at you,” and i believed him. i believed every word.
he reached between us and took my cock in his fist and stroked me in time with his thrusts. my breath broke first. then the rest of me.
i should mention the cold thing. i’d been numb for hours, hands, feet, everything below the waist, and now the blood was rushing back in all at once and every touch landed twice as hard. his mouth on my collarbone made me gasp. his stubble on my inner thigh made me swear. he’d turned my whole body into one raw nerve and then he’d put his cock inside it.
i came with a shout, white all over my stomach and his hand and the sheet, my whole body clenching around him. he swore into my shoulder and pounded into me, harder, two, three more, then stilled with a deep groan and came inside me, hot and heavy, shuddering all down his back.
afterward i lay across the bed with the damp towel still twisted around one hip. jon pulled a blanket over me, tucked it up under my chin, and then pulled another one over that.
i opened one eye.
“recovery?”
“obviously.”
i pulled him down under the blankets with me. his skin was warm all over. i put my cold feet on his calves and he yelped.
“that’s assault.”
“documented side effect,” i said, and grinned into his chest. he smelled like shampoo and chlorine and sex, and i buried my face in his neck and stayed there while the rain started against the window, warm, finally warm all the way through.
the next saturday jon put an extra towel beside the tub before i’d even arrived. folded it, set it on the stool, and stood there with his arms crossed like he hadn’t been waiting twenty minutes.
i looked at it.
“recovery?”
he smiled.
“obviously.”
i got in the ice. i did not complain once.
