Engines and Lace
Chapter 4: My First Boy — The Craigslist trade at my dorm door. That night began the story I’d keep writing for years.
This is Chapter 4 in the “Engines & Lace” series. The previous chapters can be found here.
The first night, we met on Craigslist. Back then, it was the easiest way to find closeted men. A few vague posts, coded words, and suddenly I had him standing outside my dorm. Hoodie pulled low, Timberlands unlaced, eyes darting like every step across campus might expose him. He slipped inside fast, like just being seen in the hallway was a risk too big to take.
He wore sweats, maybe gym shorts layered underneath, no underwear. Freeballing. Swinging heavy—HEAVY—with nothing holding him back. The bulge sat bold and thick, pulling the fabric tight in a way that left no room for doubt. By the time the door clicked shut behind him, I knew exactly why he’d answered that ad.
We didn’t kiss. Trade like him didn’t kiss. That was too intimate, too close to naming it. But I didn’t need his mouth to know what he wanted. The outline in his sweats told me enough. When I pulled his dick free, the weight dropped in my hand. Thick, long, veined, already hard. My breath caught, but I didn’t hesitate. I dropped to my knees and swallowed as much as I could, lips stretched, spit spilling down my chin.
His balls swung low underneath, big and full, brushing my chin every time I took him deeper. I loved them, sucking them into my mouth, licking around every curve, kissing slowly like I was worshipping the weight he carried there. He groaned low, the sound breaking out of him like he’d been holding it back for years.
His hand found the back of my head. At first, it hovered, hesitant, like he didn’t know if he was allowed to take control. But instinct won. He pressed me deeper, stuffing my throat full until I gagged around his size. My jaw ached, spit slicking his shaft and coating my lips, and I kept going. This wasn’t awkward. This wasn’t rushed. It was precisely what he needed—sloppy head, balls drained, a release no one else in his world could give him.
It wasn’t long before he wanted more. The first time he fucked me was still on campus, in my dorm bed. I’ll never forget how my body fought to take him. He was thick, unrelenting, stretching me wide while I bit the sheets to stay quiet. This was long before I ever touched poppers, before I knew how to loosen myself up for a dick that size. He didn’t slow down or care much. He couldn’t. He pounded me, his grip tight on my hips like I was nothing more than a hole for him to use. And the truth was, I loved it.
That became the routine. He almost always came to me…my dorm room, later my off-campus apartment. He never invited me into his world. That wasn’t an option. It was me who opened the door, turned the music up low, played host while he slipped in and out like a ghost. If I had roommates, we moved quiet, careful, making sure the walls didn’t talk. But once the door shut, any restraint disappeared. He’d bend me over whatever surface was closest—the bed, the desk, the floor—and fuck me until I was dripping with his cum.
Patience got me further than pressure ever could. Each time, he loosened a little more. Silent thrusts turned into grunts. Hesitant touches became routine. He stayed trade through and through—masculine, guarded, speaking only when necessary—but his body confessed everything. His dick was fluent, and I was the only one allowed to translate.
I learned the choreography quick: how to set the room right, how to keep the music low, how to make sure the bedframe didn’t squeak where roommates or neighbors could hear. I folded my life into tiny, practical routines when it was time—fresh towels on the chair, a lamp angled just so, a playlist that could mask the worst of us. It became stupidly satisfying, the way the little things made him stay a minute longer, how the click of the door behind him felt like permission. When he would bust, he came hard and fast; when he left, he left quieter than any of us deserved. Those gaps, between his arrival and his disappearance, are where I learned how to make myself indispensable.
And there were language lessons, too, but not the kind you’d expect. The trade taught me how to read silence: the tightened jaw that meant he wanted rougher; the hand at the back of my head that meant keep going; the single word dropped like a hammer—mine—that reshaped every small motion after. I kept little trophies of those nights: a white tank top he’d tossed aside after stripping down, the faint smell of him on a pillow. They were stupid, small things that held whole encounters in their seams. Years later, when the firehouse came, the rituals followed…only the setting changed. The lessons from those first, sweaty nights in my room turned out to be the rules I’d obey long after the dorm lights dimmed.
Leaving town should’ve been a clean break. New city, new friends, new men. But boys like me don’t forget men like him. And men like him don’t walk away from the one who gave them their first taste. He told me once, whispered like it slipped out against his will, that I was his first boy. After that, he repeated it again and again, years later, each time he came back.
And it wasn’t just a throwaway line. Being his first meant I’d marked him the same way he marked me. I was the door he walked through when he finally let himself taste what he’d been craving. Every time he reminded me, it felt less like confession and more like a vow—that no matter how many bodies he took after mine, I’d always be the one he measured them against.
He could try to bury it under girlfriends, partners, drinking, and work, but the truth was simple: I was the first boy he ever split open, the first he ever nutted in without fear, the first he kept returning to long after it should’ve ended. That kind of first doesn’t fade. It stains. And deep down, he knew it. That’s why he always came back.
The title was mine forever. And in a way, so was he.