Gary and Andy Train (TorC V) by Derkx

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Gary and Andy Train
(Ticket or Change? V)
by Derkx

I met Andy, the red-haired god, at the wedding of Jim, my state police colleague, and Matt. Andy worked at Matt’s office, in his department. Andy and I had an instant can’t-keep-hands-off rapport that actually hindered our becoming friends. We were both fearful of a volcanic one-night lustful encounter that would end in ashes the next morning.

Jim and Matt brought us together again and provided the opportunity for Andy and me to learn more about each other â€" our backgrounds, our histories, our interests. We decided that friendship was possible after all between Trooper Gary and Businessman Andy.

It was a good friendship that evolved after that. We spent a lot of time together. We couldn’t help touching a lot but we avoided real intimacy. Until . . .

One weekend Andy stayed over instead of driving back and forth to my loft apartment in Melton. When I was undressing from my uniform, Andy tried on my uniform shirt and asked how he looked.

"Like an impostor," I said. "A very sexy imposter, but still . . ."

The incongruity in his appearance was his hair, which was much too long for a pretend state police trooper. Andy confessed that he’d been looking for a good barber to get his hair cut like mine.

"You want your hair cut like mine? A crew cut?"

"Yes. Maybe I could go to your barber, Gary?"

I told him I cut my own hair. Then he asked if I would cut his.

I did, savoring the beautiful brick-red locks that fell. (I saved them. "Maybe I can knit a pair of hirsute hosiery," I told Andy. "Furry red socks.")

While I was showering off the hairy bits that had been shaken onto my chest, Andy tried on my entire uniform, from the underwear out.

"Very convincing!" I said. He looked like a real trooper. With the dark blue fabric, the red stubble showing below the stiff-brimmed cap, and his molasses eyes under thick, dark eyebrows, he was stunningly handsome.

I put on his clothes, then he switched from my uniform to the casual clothes I’d been wearing the previous two nights. After dinner we went out for a walk solely for the purpose of appearing in public wearing each other’s clothes. It was exciting, feeling like we’d traded our skins.

It was inevitable that Andy would move in with me. It was too impractical for him to commute thirty minutes to work just to get a lower rent. Besides, most of the savings was eaten up by the cost of extra fuel. I invited him to move in. He agreed, as long as he could pay me the rent he’d been paying at his place.

I took the money, which wasn’t really much. (Andy had no idea what even a single bedroom rental in a shared apartment would fetch in my up-and-coming neighborhood.) It went towards my mortgage payments. Not far but it helped. In my mind, it could be considered an investment in Andy’s future.

By then Andy and I had crossed some line that was far beyond friendship. The clothes-trading was part of it. The greater truth was that we were totally incapable of keeping our hands off each other. It wasn’t entirely a sexual matter, not totally brainless lust. It was an unfathomable affection. Even in my bed (because Andy never did sleep in the other bedroom) we would sometimes lie innocently together, pressed as closely as possible for maximum contact in our nakedness.

We controlled ourselves in public. A quick, casual kiss was okay. Nonstop pawing at each other would be unappetizing. We couldn’t do much about the intimate glances we shared. (I loved his molasses eyes; mine were only icy blue but he didn’t mind.)

Did we still wear each other’s clothes? Of course! When Andy had unpacked, we went through every article of our wardrobes.

"Is this the last, Gary?" Andy asked as he buttoned up the tunic of the uniform from my final military college. He looked damned fine in it, as he did in all the others. Andy did not have a any sort of military orientation but he sure could wear a uniform! He has was still in a crew cut like mine, which suited his appearance.

"That’s it," I answered. "We’ll have to get something custom-made for you. Royal Guard maybe?"

"No. There wouldn’t be any appeal because it wouldn’t have been yours first. It would lack your Gary-ness. I need your pheromones engrained into the fabric."

We took photos, lots of photos, which we didn’t share with anyone else. Because he didn’t have any uniforms in his wardrobe, except his well-worn, faded jeans, I didn’t have as wide a variety of his clothing to wear. He had a lot of holey clothes, having never thrown anything out, no matter how thread-bare. He didn’t have embarrassingly trendy outfits from his college days. He did have a lot of T-shirts and a number of V necks which showed some of his lustrous chest hair but didn’t dip below mid-sternum.

There was, however, an interesting collection in his wardrobe. Andy had been on swim teems, high school and college. He had an arsenal of swimwear. Full-body wetsuits, long-legged board shorts and jammers, square legs, practice suits, racers, tights, briefs, drag suits. They were all shapes, all colors, all designs. As part of our swaps, I had to pose in all of them, no matter how skimpy. I was especially glad then that we did not share these photos with others.

I had a hard time fitting my private bits into some of the briefer briefs; there was so little fabric. Andy helped but his man-handling made the task more difficult. In return for that "favor," I made Andy pose in some of his own tiny racers. I had to admit, he hadn’t lost his slender swimmer’s build.


"What’re you up to, Gary?" Andy greeted me when I came home one day.

How did he know? "What makes you think I’m up to something?"

"That incipient grin on your face."

"I signed us up for . . ."

He cut me off. Like me, Andy was a cautious man. He didn’t like being volunteered for anything without his consent. "Signed us up?"

"Sorry. I misspoke. What I meant to say was that I picked up applications for something that may interest you. It’s a triathlon. A lot of the guys at the station are planning to enter." When he didn’t say anything, I rambled on. "Triathlon. You know. Running, swimming, biking." Still nothing. "Swimming," I repeated. "Swimming?"

"When?"

I told him the date. He simply said "okay" and ran a hand through his hair, which had once again outgrown its crew cut.

The triathlon was a charity event, sponsored by local businesses and the state police. There were a few fitness fanatics who began preparing for it months in advance. Andy I had about two weeks to work together, as our catch-as-catch-can schedules allowed. We could talk when we cycled (excluding sprints) and listen to music when we jogged. I especially enjoyed the swimming. That’s when I was most distracted, admiring Andy’s fur-covered physique and his graceful moves through the water.

"Are you ready for the shave-down?" Andy asked me the night before the competition.

"The what?"

"The shave-down. For aerodynamics. And hydrodynamics. We want to give this our best performance, don’t we?"

"I’m not that hairy," I said in weak protest. "I don’t think it would make any difference."

"You’d be surprised," Andy said.

Two minutes later we were standing naked in our bathroom. "See?" I said.

"I see all right. Better than you do."

He turned on the clippers and set them to my chest, removing the light yet complete layer of blond hair.

"There!" he said. "That wasn’t so bad, was it? The razor will smooth out the stubble."

"What are you doing now?" I rebelled. He was lifting my arm and lowering the clippers.

"Aerodynamics," he reminded me.

"There’s nothing there to take off. Not much, I mean."

But he was already plowing away.

"Look," he said. Fine, short strands of hair were falling from my arm, glimmering as they caught the light. "It’s like flakes of gold floating down from the heavens."

"More likely separating the chaff from the wheat," I responded.

I couldn’t protest when he sicced the clippers onto my legs. They were my hairiest limbs; I couldn’t deny that.

I did protest when he swiped at my pubic hair. I wasn’t quick enough to stop him before it was too late. Gone.

"No reason not to take care of this along with the rest."

"I could give you plenty of reasons, starting with nicks, razor burn and itching."

He turned his honey-brown eyes on me.

"You don’t want a bush sticking out from your swim trunks, do you?"

That comment threw me off. The waistband on trunks wouldn’t ride much lower than my navel.

"Now sit," he commanded, "so I can finish the job." His hand grabbed the hair on top of my head. "We need to take this down."

"You’re not cutting my hair! You don’t know how to do the taper." I always cut my own hair and his as well.

"Relax," he said, clamping a very short guard onto the clippers. The shortest guard.

"There won’t be any taper involved. Or blending. If I remember correctly, this is what’s called a burr cut."

He turned on the clippers and put them to work. He was buzzing me down to one very consistent, very short cut all over. Yes, it was called a burr. As blond as my hair was, I’d look completely bald from a few yards away.

"What do you think, Gary?" he asked when he was finished.

I grumbled my displeasure

"Don’t growl! It looks great. All nice and even. Very aero- . . ."

". . . -dynamic. I know. It’s been a long time since I had my hair this short. I wasn’t expecting this."

It was a good haircut, I had to admit. I took over the clippers to do a little clean-up around the ears and neck. Then we cleaned up all the fall-out from my haircut.

"Next!" I announced.

I started with Andy’s head, buzzing off his grown-out crew cut to create a perfect burr cut like mine. He didn’t look as bald as me. His hair formed a crimson shadow on his skull.

"I’m going to hate doing this." I was looking at the thick dark hair on his chest that I loved so much.

He touched my arm. "Be brave, Gary. You can do this. It grows back, you know."

"Promise?"

I carried out my task and completely denuded his chest. One perk was that his nipples stood out erect and enticing on his hairless chest. Another was the splash of freckles across his upper chest.

I literally gasped when I took a first broad swipe of the clippers down one of his forearms. I was used to the ruddy hue the hair provided. Underneath, his skin was very pale, with a light sprinkling of freckles from his childhood days. His arms were thinner without the carpeting.

His legs, too, revealed their lean contours when I removed the profuse dark hair.

"Aerodynamics," I reminded him as I clipped the hair off his pubes, leaving a blush of stubble. "And hydrodynamics."

I had a good pile of several shades of red hair afterwards. "I really should get started on knitting those socks." That made him laugh.

We bathed. We razored off all remaining stubble from each other’s body.

When we snuggled in bed later, I noticed a difference when our arms brushed together. When they touched before, our arm hair (no matter how light or heavy) acted like feelers â€" like cat whiskers â€" transmitting our proximity. Now our arms had no such sensors. They were hyper-sensitive, as though raw nerves were meeting. It was a new kind of stimulation.

As for our new buzzed haircuts . . . Our heads met stubble-to-stubble, our hands rubbed the velvety bristle. Our bodies met more closely than ever, naked flesh to naked flesh, with not a single hair between.


How did the triathlon go? Not bad at all.

We got to the event locale early and secured a good transition spot for our changes of clothes and equipment between the stages of the competition. (Not that we had much in the way of clothing.) It was a cool morning with an overcast sky.

We walked around talking to other competitors and spectators (who had made charity donations), wearing our costumes for the first phase. That meant we were both wearing racing swim briefs from Andy’s days in college competition and nothing else. Certainly we sported no body hair. I felt very fleshy and exposed. And chilly.

"At least the chill will keep your man parts in place," Andy said. Thank god for that!

With a signal from the officiators, the 1.5 kilometer swim phase began. We plunged into a lake and Andy soon disappeared, leaving me and others in his wake.

Phase two was a 40 kilometer bike ride. I grabbed my helmet, shoes and gear from the transition area. I didn’t bother putting on a shirt. I jumped on my bicycle and began to pedal just as I was dressed, still only clad in the tiny swim suit, and let my body air-dry. (At least I didn’t have wet hair dripping into my eyes.) Andy’s bike and gear were gone, so he was far ahead of me. I almost caught up with him on our bikes. I had myself convinced that he was around each curve of the road ahead.

I could pedal at a good, fast pace without going crazy. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of the muscles in my smooth legs flexing as they pumped away. I passed a number of other contestants but not Andy.

After the bicycle trek, I dropped my helmet and started on the 10 kilometer foot race. I tucked the T-shirt through the back leg of my swim brief. (Don’t ask how I managed to squeeze it in there â€" without even breaking pace.) The sun was starting to break through. It wasn’t strong enough for me to worry about a burn. It was, however, radiating a lot of heat through soggy clouds and I was flowing with sweat.

Andy had the sweat tap on as well, when I passed him. He looked at me and quickly removed his T-shirt and stuffed in through his brief. I looked at his sweaty, erect nipples and instantly felt mine harden. I started to stiffen elsewhere as I watched the sweat pour down from the dark red stubble of his hair. My body’s reactions motivated me to speed ahead of temptation.

Finally I reached the finish line and could catch my breath without collapsing. Andy wasn’t far behind.

"Good showing!" That was Trooper Jim, my state police colleague. He was on duty and in uniform. He’d taken his lunch hour to watch the end of the triathlon. "Matt should be along in a while." He nodded towards the runners coming in behind us. I couldn’t see Matt among them.

Jim didn’t offer congratulatory "bro" hugs with our sweaty bodies. I understood. The uniform must remain pristine.

I pulled the T-shirt out from my swim suit and wiped the sweat from my body, then my head. Andy did the same.

"Nice haircuts, by the way," Jim complimented. He looked at us and feigned contemplation. He touched a finger to the center of Andy’s chest. "There’s something that’s missing. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is . . ."

"Don’t worry," I said. "I have Andy’s hair safe at home."

The triathlon ended not long afterwards. Awards were presented . . . But, hey, the event was all about charity not awards, right? Andy was given a certificate (filled in by hand) acknowledging his fastest speed in the swim portion of the competition. Matt appeared eventually. We joined him and Jim later for dinner and sharing highlights of the event, namely squirrel crossings, birds crapping, and underwater weeds.

"Andy?"

"Gary?"

It was hours later and we were in bed, casually fondling each other’s head and face. Like I said, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. His body was my body. And vice versa.

"You were a good sport about this triathlon," I said. "I know I kind of dumped it on you."

"Did you? I thought you were doing this for me because of the swimming. I love you for thinking of that."

I moved my hand down to his shaved chest, where I could already feel the dark auburn stubble struggling to emerge. "You’re such a smooth talker."

Yeah." He grinned. "But it’ll all grow out again."

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