October, 2018

Ming Lim loved waking up in Michael's arms. It was his third favorite feeling. Number two was that first push into Michael's body, feeling his ass clench around him. The first, of course, was cumming in Michael's body: mouth or ass it didn't matter.

Michael would fall asleep so innocently, his back spooning to Ming Lim's chest, legs entwined. At some point every night, however, he turned into a wiggle worm or an octopus; his arms and legs grabbed and twisted around any available body part. That night, while they slept, somehow he had curled up into a ball between Ming Lim's spread legs, head resting on the other's groin. This was a new position for them both and not entirely unwelcome: simultaneously arousing and slightly uncomfortable.

Careful to keep Michael's head covered (light was almost the only thing that would wake the younger boy up; even police cars and fire trucks with blaring sirens had failed to accomplish that), Ming Lim wiggled his way out from Michael's grip and moved the inert body until it was, more or less, laying stretching out in the bed, blanket bunched at the waist. Ming Lim gazed appreciatively at the long legs bared to his view and swallowed a sudden spurt of saliva thinking about what was hidden behind the loose boxer shorts. "It's your fault that I'm doing this, you know," he whispered and gently pulled the boxers off.

He'd only managed to deep throat a fully erect Michael once, by accident. The younger man had thoroughly enjoyed it, cumming almost immediately. The older one would have enjoyed it a lot more if he hadn't gagged and almost thrown up. He was able, however, to get the entire dick into his mouth in a flaccid or even a semi-flaccid state and loved to feel it harden and lengthen in his mouth. With the whole dick squished into his mouth, its head twitching in eagerness to slip into his throat, his lips tight against the base, Ming Lim inhaled deeply: soap, sweat, musk, yeast. He loved this scent that was uniquely Michael's. With one hand braced next to his lover's hip, holding himself up, he let the other glide up and down a taut thigh before sliding down to cup and gently roll Michael's balls. He'd read a porno where the woman bragged that not only was she able to deep throat a huge cock, she'd also managed to open her mouth wide enough to get a ball in, too…. That had to be complete fiction; he'd tried, and failed, more than once, to open his dick-filled mouth just a little bit more, so he could lick a pushed up ball. Michael's length was nothing to be ashamed about; his girth was more than enough to make one's jaw hurt. Ming Lim pulled back and let his mouth and hand switch positions. He firmly but gently sucked first one ball into his mouth, then the other, switching back and forth while his hand lazily rubbed the now fully erect dick.

"Suck me," pleaded a sleepy voice from the blankets. "Stop teasing."

"Is that any way to say good morning?" Ming Lim grinned and swirled his tongue around the head.

"Fuck me," the blankets groaned as they flipped off to the side, exposing the rest of the naked body underneath.

"Don't worry, I will." Ming Lim was much better at giving head than he'd been the year before. His hand and mouth worked in harmony pulling, massaging, kneading, and sucking until Michael was audibly panting. "Cum for me," he ordered.

"In me," the younger one begged.

"After." He increased his efforts until the boy underneath him was biting his hand to muffle his moans. The head suddenly swelled up and spat out its cream; Ming Lim swallowed as best he could. Still, some spilled out; by the time Ming Lim came out from the bathroom with a warm wet cloth to wipe it up, Michael had pulled the blanket over his head and was asleep again. Ming Lim looked down at his own dick tenting his boxers and sighed. "He put you into this state in the first place, and now he's going to sleep it off. It's either my hand or you gotta wait." When after a few minutes his dick was still uncomfortably hard, Ming Lim sighed and went into the bathroom to shower and take care of it. Stupid roommate got me all hard and didn't even stay awake long enough to take responsibility for it!

By the time Michael arose for the day, Ming Lim had showered, eaten both breakfast and lunch, had a couple of hours of violin practice, and studied for several classes. "Um ungry," the younger boy whined, rubbing at his growling tummy.

Ming Lim looked up from his economics book, "Next time when I wake you up, stay awake."

"M'ungry," the other whined again. "I want Mexican."

"You'll have to go by yourself. I have a dinner date with Lina tonight. There's a new Thai restaurant that just opened; the reviews are really good." Seeing his roommate's mouth starting to droop (he was absurdly cute when he was hungry and not yet fully awake), Ming Lim offered, 'Go shower. LimGe will make Sandi a peanut butter sandwich."

"Fluffernutter," the grouchy one ordered. "Lots of fluff."

The elder shuddered at that order. Peanut butter on a very occasional occasion was almost tolerable. Peanut butter and fluff was disgusting, and yet Michael could eat two and sometimes three of these overly sweet and incredibly gooey sandwiches at a time. (On white bread, of course, because why add any nutritional value to this lunch?) He made two of them while his lover showered, and had no problem resisting the urge to lick off the knife. He did, however, wipe it off on the side of the plate knowing that Michael would want to use his fingers to sweep that mess into his mouth as a dessert. And knowing that he himself loved to watch Michael licking the sticky fluff off his fingers. It was erotic as Hell.

After the football game blow up, Ming Lim and Wang Lina came to an agreement: they would have a date once a week to get to know each other. As it turned out, now that she was no longer clinging to him like plastic wrap, she was quite pleasant to hang out with. However pleasant the conversations may be, though, they had almost nothing in common. Books, music, movies, art, college courses: they discussed them all, and his interests simply did not align with hers. The only commonalities they had were their overbearing fathers, a love of good food, and, he suspected, but never confirmed, a crush on Michael. His roommate was the topic of her conversation far too often while her roommate was never mentioned.

The Thai food was as good as the reviews claimed. If Michael was here, Ming Lim thought, he'd be egging us on to eat as hot as possible. None of them were able to eat more than a moderate spicy heat in comfort, but Michael enjoyed trying to see how spicy he could handle. His phone ringing distracted him from his thoughts. "It's my mother," Ming Lim told his date. "I'll just take this outside." Once outside, he answered, "Good morning, Mother."

"Hello, son. It's afternoon, here, actually. I'm in Los Angeles. There's an absolutely divine trench coat in the shop; you will look so good in it. Shall I have them send it over for an early birthday present? I'll send you a picture, wait a moment…."

"I don't need another coat, Mother. Please don't send it. Actually…. If you want to get me a birthday present," he glanced in the restaurant's window to see Lina playing on her phone and then looked away. "I was thinking of taking a trip over the Christmas break. Maybe go down to the theme parks in Florida. Disney or something." Michael had only been on a plane once, to go to CalTech. With the younger man's eighteenth birthday coming up, he had thought that a trip to the theme parks, just the two of them, would be nice.

"You want to go to Disney for your birthday? That sounds like a great idea. Why don't you take your roommate? It's boring to go to amusement parks by yourself."

Here came the hard part: getting his mother to pay for Michael while thinking it was her idea in the first place. "Michael can't go. His family can't spare the money to send him…. It's pretty expensive. I can go with Wang Lina; I'm sure her family can afford it."

"You can go with who?" his mother practically screeched into the phone. "You're not even properly engaged! Taking a trip together? No. Absolutely not." There was the reaction he was hoping for. "It's bad enough that you're living in the same house. No." She took a deep breath. "Don't you worry about a thing for this trip. Of course we'll pay for your roommate. Will you need two rooms or one since you already share a room?"

And there was the offer he was hoping she'd give. "One room is fine, Mother. Are you sure you don't mind paying for him? You've never met him, and Father… doesn't seem to like him very much…."

"It's your birthday present. Of course you should take who you want to spend the time with. Except for a girl. I will not allow that. At least not until you're properly engaged and even then I'd prefer you wait until after the wedding."

Ming Lim looked back into the restaurant. "I promise you, Mother, I will not take a trip alone with Wang Lina or any other girl unless I'm married to her." I promise you, Michael, I will do everything in my power to not marry Lina or any other girl. He thanked his mother profusely for the present, and listened as she talked about her shopping trip. Lina was smiling at the waiter; it looked like she was asking him to pack up the remainder of their meals. She was a nice girl; it wasn't her fault that they had no common interests…. It certainly wasn't her fault that he was enamored with a man.

Ming Lim tossed a take-out container onto the desk next to Michael's hip. "Here. Eat."

"I ate already," Michael lied.

Ming Lim smiled at the lie. "I could hear your stomach growling all through my dinner." Slight exaggeration. But he had known that his roommate had not eaten dinner. "It's shrimp pad thai; eat before it gets soggy."

Michael scooped up the box and started eating a shrimp with his fingers. "How did you know? I've been jonesing for this since you left, but I didn't want to interrupt your date."

Ming Lim shrugged. "Use the chopsticks." Michael stuck his tongue out like a three year old, but he did break apart the wooden chopsticks before practically inhaling a mouthful of noodles. "Why didn't you eat? I thought you were going out for Mexican?"

"In wan oh sef," was approximately what came out of Michael's food-filled mouth. He swallowed and repeated, "I didn't want to go by myself." he licked a bit of sauce off his lip. "Sometimes it's just a bit hard, you know?"

"What is?"

"Every teenager knows the person they're dating is for 'right now' and most likely not 'forever'. I know, deep down, that even though I want to stay with you forever, we probably won't feel this way in a few years. Real life simply isn't like some fairy-tale where you fall in love at sixteen and are still madly in love a hundred years later. Some days are just hard, you know? Knowing that I'm your 'right now' and your 'forever' is sleeping down the hall? It might be easier knowing that we're eventually going to break up if she wasn't here. I could at least have the fantasy…. I know it's a fantasy; you have to go back to China and they're not exactly welcoming of the LGBT community…. It would be a Hell of a lot easier if she was a b-jerk." He could taste soap in his mouth from almost using that dog-word; Eleanor had literally washed his mouth out with dish soap the one and only time she caught him saying it. (Which was better than what she had done to Matthew's friend who referred to his ex by a female body part; she had kneed him, hard.) "But she's not a jerk…."

"Are you jealous?"

"I get that you need to stay in the closet, and I'm really okay with staying there with you.… Hell, yeah, I'm jealous! I want to be able to hold your hand outside this room. I want Matthew to make eeww noises when we look at each other during family dinners. I want to be able to tell everyone that you're my boyfriend. I just really hate knowing who's going to be in your bed for the rest of your life." Michael ducked his head down and concentrated on filling up his stomach. When he was finished chasing the last of the noodles around the take-out container, he asked, "Is it 'after' yet?"

"Hmm?"

"This morning. I wanted to have sex. You said 'after'." The younger man slid off his desk and pulled off his shirt. "So is it 'after' now?" One hand slid around his pecs and abs, while the other fiddled with his belt.

Ming Lim looked up from his laptop, all thoughts of the birthday trip he was planning draining out of his head. "You are so sexy," slipped out of his mouth. "Strip for me," he begged.

Michael grinned and tugged the belt end tightening it against his slim waist until the hook popped out of its hole. "You like what you see?" He started easing the belt through the pant loops. "Show me how much you're enjoying this." Ming Lim's fingers were shaking as he started unbuttoning his shirt. He got about halfway down, and suddenly tugged it out of his trousers and pulled it off. What had started out as a request for a strip tease turned into a race to see who could get naked first. Ming Lim won as he removed his trousers and boxers and then his socks; Michael tried to remove his socks with his jeans and ended up falling in the process. A few seconds later, a mattress was thrown onto the floor and Michael's back hit it almost immediately. "I want you," he moaned as a condom-covered cock slid into his body. "Let's get tested."

"Can we talk about that later?" Ming Lim begged.

"No. I want to feel you. I want to know what this is like without a condom in between us. My birthday present: that's what I want."

Ming Lim paused rocking his hips. "You want to us to have sex without a condom?"

Michael wrapped his arms and legs around his lover and shifted his hips in an attempt to get the other to move again. "Yes. I want to feel you. Just you. In me."

Ming Lim smiled broadly. "Then we'll get tested. No condoms." He resumed a slow glide in and out of his lover's body. "I want that, too. For my birthday… I want the fantasy. You, me, open and free in public. I'm taking you to Florida for a week over break. Just think: a huge bed to make love in at night, and I get to hold your hand in public. For one week you and I can pretend this is 'forever' and not just for 'right now'." The slow glides sped up. "It will be amazing. Out and proud during the day. Making love all night long. No condoms. We can be as loud as we want. No mattresses on the floor." Below him, Michael's body jerked and spurted as he came. Ming Lim dropped his head to his lover's sweaty chest and pumped hard and fast until he, too, jerked out his release.

Exhausted and panting, Ming Lim got up to deal with the condom and get a wet cloth to clean themselves up. He paused while wiping up his belly, seeing something odd: somehow, the younger man's body was completely clean… and so was the bed. "Michael? How did you manage to get all your cum on me? And none on you?"

July 1980

The ten year old Lan Qinyang skipped happily through the garden behind Uncle Ning. Her mother had said this uncle had a puzzle for her to try to solve. It was okay if she was unable to solve the puzzle; most people couldn't, including her mother. But she was to try her best. Regardless of whether or not she solved the puzzle, she was never to discuss the puzzle with anyone other than Uncle Ning and Uncle Lan. Not even her mother or father.

Wen Ning led the child into a pagoda and set a candle on the table there. "I'm going to light this and you see if you can make it go out for me. Lan Qinyang took in a deep breath. "You can't use your mouth, little one. Only your mind and your hand." He made a gesture and had her copy it. "After I light the candle, make that symbol with your hand and use your mind to make the flame go out."

"Why can't I just blow it out, Uncle?"

"It's a test, XiaoYang. I haven't found anyone who can do this in centuries."

Lan Qinyang laughed. "You're funny, Uncle!" How could Uncle Ning be centuries old? He was so much younger than her mother! But she obediently made the hand movement and mentally 'told' the candle to stop burning. Of course, the candle kept flickering merrily.

"Try again, little one. Focus on extinguishing the candle."

This time, Lan Qinyang stared at the candle hard before making the hand gesture. Nothing happened. "Uncle Ning, minds can't blow out candles."

"Of course they can," Wen Ning chided. He twisted his hand, and the candle's flame died. "But only a few people can do it."

"Magic?" the child gasped.

Wen Ning shrugged and lit the candle again. "I suppose you can call it that. We called it cultivation. Some people are born with what we called a golden core. That core gives us the ability to manipulate spiritual energy. This test is to see if you have one. Watch closely." He repeated lighting the candle and putting it out several times. "Now you try."

Lan Qinyang was quite certain Uncle Ning was playing some sort of trick on her. But she was an obedient child who loved this uncle, so she concentrated on repeating his actions exactly as he did them.

The flame flickered a few times. Then died out.