When Sickness Strikes

The First Time

It was a dreary Saturday morning and the guys were sitting in the living room of the mansion they shared, about to start the first Hobbit movie for their highly anticipated Lord of the Rings marathon. They were all wrapped up in their blankets with Isaac and Noah cuddled up on the loveseat and Luke and Ezekiel, Zeke for short, sitting on opposite ends of the big couch.

Luke and Zeke glanced at each other with knowing looks in their eyes. Isaac and Noah didn’t even seem to notice that they were wrapped up in each other’s arms. They had been best friends since birth and every time they were in the same room, they were glued together. The other guys used to tease them about it, but they were so used to it by now, that teasing them had lost most of its fun.

What Luke didn’t know, was how desperately Zeke wanted to be able to do that with him. Zeke had been in love with Luke since their freshman year of college when they were assigned to be roommates. Growing up, he thought that there was something wrong with him because he had never been attracted to anyone, but the minute he laid eyes on his roommate, he knew there was no one else for him. He quickly realized that this was a serious problem since he was pretty sure Luke was straight. In the years that he had known Luke, the other man had never been in a relationship, but he saw no indication that Luke could be attracted to him, so he had resigned himself to a lonely life of being in love with his best friend.

Zeke pressed play on the remote and settled in to enjoy the movie. About 45 minutes in, Luke began to squirm a little and Zeke thought he heard a strange bubbling noise coming from under Luke’s blanket. He didn’t say anything and soon enough, Luke stopped his squirming.

A few times throughout the movie, Zeke thought that he heard some more noises coming from Luke’s stomach, but he couldn’t be sure, so he kept quiet. When the first movie ended, he looked over at Luke and noticed that his friend had fallen asleep. He thought about how strange that was. In all the years he had known Luke, he had never seen him fall asleep during a movie. Just as he was about to reach over to wake him up, Luke’s stomach let out a low gurgle and a very loud and wet sounding fart was heard throughout the room.

Luke woke with a start and his face turned a deep red. He threw the blanket off himself and shot out of the room and up the stairs. Zeke looked over at Isaac and Noah who both wore equally shocked expressions. The four of them had known each other for almost 10 years now, and none of them had ever heard Luke pass gas. They had jokingly discussed the possibility of him being a robot.

Zeke suddenly felt very concerned for his friend and made his way up the stairs after him. He stopped just outside of Luke’s bedroom door, where he could hear soft moaning intermixed with sniffles, coming from within. He knocked gently on the door and then slowly opened it when there was no response. Luke was lying on his stomach on top of the covers, with his hands underneath his shirt, pushing on his extremely bloated belly. He looked up when he heard the door open and Zeke could see the pained expression on his tear stained face.

Zeke walked into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, being careful not to jostle it too much. He placed a hand on Luke’s back and rubbed slow circles as he attempted to comfort his friend. When Luke finally regained his composure, he rolled onto his side with a wince.

“Hey man, wanna tell me what’s wrong?” Zeke asked as Luke gave another wince.

“My stomach really hurts... I have these horrible cramps.” Luke replied, wrapping an arm around his protruding stomach.

“I think I might know what’s wrong. Will you let me try something?” Zeke asked with an encouraging smile.

“I’ve never felt anything like this.” Luke said with a whimper as another cramp hit. “What are you going to do?”