As the boisterous chatter of the swimmers was chambered into muffled echoes, Dave and I looked at each other, unsure of what else to say or do. The sunlight reflecting off the pool seemed like it should be making noises of its own as it shimmered and bounced around the room chaotically, occasionally striking us in the face.
I was torn between inviting him to go with us-- which I knew he wanted to do-- and having to share my precious little time alone with Jerry. After all, I'd only had Jerry back for slightly over twenty-four hours, and his parents would be home by the weekend, so I felt justified in being greedy. But, I understood Dave's need to talk, to be with and get to know us. Countless memories of my past yearning for friendship, inclusion and acceptance flooded my mind, and I knew I would give in and share Jerry with him, even this soon. Besides, I was very excited to be gaining a new friend.
We shuffled sideways to the aisle and started up the steps. Dave got to the door on the landing and turned to me as I stepped up to face him. He reached out and drew me quickly into a tight embrace, whispering in my ear, "Thanks. Thanks for... listening."
"I'm really glad we met, Dave." I returned his hug and added, "And I'd really like us to be friends, y'know?"
He released his grip a little and tilted his head back to look me in the eyes. "That'd be... really cool. It's so great to know there's at least two other guys in school I can be, like, myself around." He looked down between us and released the hug. As he stepped back, he seemed almost embarrassed, looking at the floor, "Man, I don't think you know how big a load off my mind talking to you about all this was, Danny. There's so much I wanna talk about with you." Still not looking up, he mumbled, "I hope you really mean it... `bout bein' friends, for real." He looked back up into my eyes.
I saw real need for assurance in his eyes. "Sure I mean it, Dave. I mean, I know we just barely met `n all that, but I really like you already, and Jerry's already told me he likes you a lot too."
His face lit up, "He did?"
"Oh yeah. I was kinda freaked out about this morning, the way we met an' all, cuz... I didn't know where you were coming from, y'know? I asked him what he thought and he told me I should be nice to you, that you're a really cool dude."
He beamed back at me as we stepped through the door, "He said that?"
I smiled reassuringly at him. "Yeah, he did."
It looked like he was picturing Jerry saying that, like it made him so happy to hear, but then a scowl overtook his delighted features, "Yeah, but, he doesn't know I was... you know, in love with him. That might change how he..." He trailed off.
"Dave, I don`t think that's gonna make him like you any less. Hell, I would think he'd be pretty damn flattered by it, y'know? I know I would be." I blushed a little, but said what I was thinking anyway, "I mean, who wouldn't be flattered if someone as good-looking as you was in love with them?" He blushed a little too, and I decided to get off that particular subject, "Anyway, I know he'll wanna be friends with you. He told me so. I know he'll want all three of us to be friends."
That seemed to really make him happy, so I went ahead and said, "I dunno if he has anything special planned for tonight, but if he just wants to hang out... You wanna come on over his place with us? His parents won't be back till the weekend."
"That'd be cool!" He beamed again and put his hand on my shoulder till we started downstairs.
We walked to the parking lot and sat on the nose of my car to wait for Jerry. We mostly just made small talk about mine and Jerry's twin Camaros and school. But he did say he was still a little nervous about how Jerry would react to him now. I tried to reassure him, but honestly didn't know myself.
"Uh, Danny... I wanna..." He started looking all around like he was worried someone might hear us, though the closest people in sight were at least a hundred or more yards away from us. "I wanna tell Jerry... I mean..." He stammered as he tried to figure out how to say what he wanted to.
"What?"
He snickered and said, "Well I guess unloadin' all that on you kinda made me wanna do it more. The thing is... I feel like I gotta tell him myself... about me... about how I was... in love with him, you know. I want him to hear it from me, ok?"
"Well, sure, Dave, ok. I got no problem with that." I didn't really understand what he was getting at.
"It's kinda like... if I say it to him, I'll be able to show him I'm over it, y'know? Like, if I don't say anything, you'll probably talk to him later about it and he might think I still have, you know, those kinda feelings for him. That might make him, like, uncomfortable or something. I don't want that kinda shit in the way. I want him to know I just wanna be his friend now."
I nodded in understanding. I looked at him and tried to get past the beautiful green eyes and good looks, to see the person he'd given me glimpses of in the short time we'd talked. It wasn't that I told myself I was objectifying him or anything, it just kind of occurred to me that I should feel, or sense, him somehow. Maybe I was trying to do something like what Celia did naturally. I thought everyone should have at least a little of that in them, and I knew I had some of it with Jerry already-- I got a lot from Jerry's eyes. Anyway, I liked the feelings that came through Dave's eyes to me.
After a moment, we settled back on the car and got lost in our own thoughts. We were facing into the sun, toward the Administration Building, and I turned my head back to the Athletic Center on impulse. A second after I did, Jerry came sauntering out and headed toward us, looking all scrubbed and gorgeous with his hair still damp, moving in that confidently relaxed way that guys in peak physical condition do; a kind of lanky strutting that made my tongue hard.
He had on the same nicely faded Levis he'd worn all day, but had donned a loose wifebeater, the kind with the extra large armholes and way low neckline, so you could see his pecs flexing as his arms swung in sync with his stride. My ass got hot and tingly against the sparkling blue metal of the hood, and I unconsciously, ever-so-slightly, moved it back and forth as I drank in the mouth-watering sight of my man approaching.
I wanted so badly to jump up and down like a kid and yell, `Just LOOK at that gorgeous, amazing, sweet, wonderful guy walking toward us! HE'S MINE AND HE LOVES ME!' Of course, I knew it would be downright cruel to say anything like that right then to Dave-- even without the jumping up and down part.
When he was about thirty yards away, Dave muttered, "Damn, he's got it bad for you," as we craned our necks around and watched Jerry radiate that killer smile and keep my eyes locked in a tractor-beam the rest of the way to us.
As he rounded the front of the cars, giving my thigh a quick, furtive squeeze, he broke the spell and looked at Dave, wearing the smile he reserves for everyone else, "How's it goin', Dave?"
Dave sputtered a little, "Uhma, uh... good. Uh... looks like Coach decided to keep you in your position, huh?"
Jerry looked at him quizzically, so Dave explained what he'd overheard the coach telling Randy Blake. Jerry wasn't too surprised. He knew he had been performing way below his level lately, and the coach had `talked' to him a couple of times. He was glad he'd pulled it out at the last minute before the final meet, and heaved a sigh of relief.
When all that had been talked out, there was an awkward silence. It was getting more uncomfortable by the second, so I felt like I needed to say something to get the tension out there and deal with it.
"Uhhh... Dave and I talked a lot while we were up there." They both looked at me.
"I saw that." Jerry looked back and forth between us, unsure of what to say, "So..." He seemed pretty relaxed about his impressions of what he saw though, and seemed like he was expecting something positive; which I thought was a good sign. "Uh, what'd y'all talk about?"
"Umm..." I looked at Dave, unsure whether he was wanting to go into everything right then or wait. I regretted bringing it up right then, castigating myself for more or less putting both of them on the spot like that. But Dave didn't seem fazed by it and jumped right in.
"I came out to Danny," he declared with no hesitation whatsoever. Jerry raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything. Dave let it soak in while he considered how to say the rest. Then he continued, obviously struggling with it, keeping his eyes fixed on the asphalt, "Uh, I told him how I, uh... I told him I'd been, uh..." He was blushing furiously and his breathing became labored, but he was determined to get it out, "... in... in love with you since forever." he blurted the last part out in a fast mumble, like a child confessing to his mother or priest or something. Then he quickly added, finally looking up at Jerry, "But I'm over it now... now that I know how in love y'all are."
Jerry looked kinda stunned. It was still so strange, for me, to hear someone else talk openly about anything gay at all-- in a positive tone, that is-- let alone to hear someone else acknowledge our love and his, in the middle of the parking lot at school. And of course, Jerry had the added `stun factor' of Dave declaring his recent love for him-- not just the lust he'd already been aware of-- face to face.
Jerry dropped his gaze uncomfortably, glancing at me for my reaction and back down to the bumper of his car beside mine. What do you say to something like that? How are you supposed to react when someone tells you they've been in love with you-- and tells you in front of the one you love now? The afternoon sun was pretty intense, the humidity was high and there was not even a hint of a breeze. Dave and I had already been sweating, and Jerry was now as well.
"I see," Jerry mumbled.
He just didn't know how to respond to that. For that matter, neither did I, still, after hearing it just a short time ago. He looked at me again, with a question in his eyes that I had no answer for. I tried to silently tell him to wait it out; that Dave would clear it up shortly. Dave, of course, knew it was awkward as hell, but he wanted to be the one to tell him. I admired his guts.
"Hey, Jerry, sorry, man. I know that's making you uncomfortable. I just... I had to get that out in the open, over with and out of the way, y'know? I told Danny all about it, cuz I wanted to get past it and move on, be friends, y'know?" He stood up and extended his hand for a formal handshake.
Jerry looked a little confused, but took his hand and let Dave shake. Jerry got a very serious look on his face.
"Uh... Look, Dave..." he shuffled around uncomfortably, glancing at me every other second. From the tone of his voice, I was afraid he was going to say something like he didn't want to be around him then, or something along those lines. I was relieved and surprised when he continued, "I want to apologize for how I treated you, man," he tried to measure his words, "I've been learning just how big an asshole I've been, for a long time. I've been seeing it real fucking clearly these days." His eyes and tone were apologetic and full of sincerity. "I mean, I've been a self-centered asshole to everybody in my fuckin' life for so long... I'm..." It was Dave's turn to be thrown off kilter. He never expected something like this. "I'm tryin' to make up for it. I need to apologize to a few people... definitely to you," he said as he looked Dave in the eyes again. "I was so scared of everything... I just didn't know what to..."
Dave stepped closer and cut him off reassuringly, "Hey, Jerry, no need to apologize, dude." He put his hand on Jerry's shoulder and squeezed. "I know exactly what the problem was. I went through the same thing, man. The situation was kinda reversed for me a couple a years ago, when I couldn't admit to myself I was, `like this'." He glanced around automatically, like all of `us' do when we talk about this. The rest of the swim team members were trickling out of the building and heading to their cars; none of which were close to us, but all within sight.
"There was this really awesome dude named Drew, at my school in San Antonio, tryin' to get me to open up." He frowned and lowered his gaze in shame, "Man, I was really turned on by him, but I was so fuckin' cold to him, cuz I was so scared of anyone findin' out... scared a myself, I guess... before Wayne..."
He looked back up at Jerry, trying to sound positive, but you could still see the pain in his eyes, "Shit man, you treated me great compared to how I did him. I'm just sorry I can't go back to San Anton' and apologize to him now-- and someday I might. He deserves an apology. I don't, man. You weren't mean to me. You were just scared; and I know real fuckin' well what that feels like."
He smiled warmly at Jerry, "Anyway, I wanna start from scratch, ok? I want you to know I'm over..." His eyes darted around, but came back to Jerry's, "what I felt for you. I'm really happy for y'all, an' I want us all to be friends."
You could practically feel the air lighten around the three of us. A slight breeze even kicked up, and most of the tension evaporated in that moment.
Jerry looked him in the eye and said, "Still... I am sorry for how I treated you, Dave. You're a really cool dude, and you deserved to be treated better than that. I wanted to be friends with you, but-- I was just too scared. But like-- I've changed." He considered that for a second, then laughed aloud at the understatement, and Dave and I both laughed too.
We all had smiles happening then and Jerry looked off into the distance, "Still blows my mind when I think about it all..." He glanced over at me, smiled introspectively, then went on, "Really, though. I mean, Danny's opened my eyes to... everything." I watched his body language as he relaxed and could see the happiness in his features, and that made me very happy.
Then I looked at the two of them standing close, facing each other, and pictured them together, like if I'd never been in the equation. Now they would have been a stunningly hot couple! Magazine cover quality. I felt a pang of jealousy at Dave's good looks and body, a surge of jealousy at just the thought of Jerry and him together in love, and then a little surge of pride-- and luck-- that Jerry chose me anyway.
I chuckled inside at my juvenile little thoughts; but then I wondered, `Does that kind of thinking change when you get older? Probably not. I mean, from what I see in movies and books I read, adults think these same types of things all the time.'
I was pretty sure I would always be covetous of him and jealous of any perceived threat of an interloper. But I already didn't sense any kind of threat from Dave at all, and that was good, especially considering I knew he had been in love with Jerry. In fact, I was surprised at just how comfortable I was around Dave in such a very short time, and that was good.
"Yeah, man, I can see you've changed," Dave said seriously, studying Jerry's face. "You damn sure look happier than I've ever seen since I've known you. But man, I really was getting worried about you these last few weeks, dude. I kept wanting to say something to you, but didn't know what to say or how to say it, y'know?"
Jerry cast his eyes down again and spoke quietly, "Oh man... that was really fuckin' rough... the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my whole life." He looked back up with a slight, sardonic smile, "But I figured out a lotta things during that. I had a lotta time to think... and like, face myself, y'know?" Then he mumbled, "Made me see what an asshole I was... especially to Danny. I was a fuckin' monster to him... just a real fuckin' monster."
"Hey, that's all in the past now, Jerry," I interjected. "Like Dave said: Now we just gotta get past it, right?" I looked to Dave for a confirmation.
Dave took the hint, clapped Jerry on the back and cheerfully said, "Right on, dude! And look at it now: You got Danny, and you got a new friend too!"
Jerry smiled a mile wide and said, "Man, I am a lucky mother fucker, ain't I!" We all laughed and Jerry gave me a look that made me brace myself on the hood. I forgot Dave was there for a moment, unconsciously spreading my knees as I stared back into heaven. God, what he could do to me with just a look from those brown eyes.
I stood up and made a grand gesture, "We're all lucky mother fuckers, aren't we?"
Hell, if we hadn't been in the school parking lot, we probably would have done a fucking group hug or something equally perky, heh heh. We got in our respective cars and headed out of the parking lot.
Convoy! Two Camaros and a Pinto, tooling through sedate Friendswood, all blasting ZZ Top's, LaGrange, on the radio at insane decibels through our open windows, honking at each other and doing donuts in intersections. I'd never had friends-- much less a boyfriend-- to do anything like this with. Hell, I'd never had a car before either; so to do this in my primo beauty, my sexy Camaro, was just a dizzying high.
Then Jerry and I had fun teasing Dave, by racing from stop sign to stop sign, leaving Dave farting along in his Pinto, trying to catch up. He was laughing and waving his fist defiantly out the window at us when he'd catch up; only to be left in the proverbial dust for another three blocks.
Did I feel on top of the world? HELLLL YES! My euphoria was impossible to contain. Much like last Friday with Ty on the Seawall in Galveston, I felt like a regular teenager, doing regular teenager things, for the first time in my life. Alive. Part of something. "Teenager With Friends." You couldn't have taken the silly grin off my face with a Black & Decker belt sander.
Once we got to Jerry's, we decided to go swimming first, since we'd all gotten sweaty. We got to the gym room and that awkward moment came.
"Uhhh..." Jerry fidgeted, "Swim suits. I, uh..."
Dave blushed slightly and cautiously asked, "Uh... do we need `em?" He looked out at the pool and the tall stucco privacy fence surrounding the yard.
Jerry looked at me, back to Dave and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it's not like you `n me ain't seen each other naked a million times in the locker room. Uh, what about you, Danny? You cool with skinny-dipping?"
I blushed and averted my eyes. I didn't answer as fast as I needed to, I guess, because Jerry said, "Well, I think I can find shorts and..."
I blurted, "No! I'm ok with skinny-dipping. I just..." I blushed even more and looked away, fidgeting. I was sure when I saw Jerry naked I'd get an erection. It was just an automatic, involuntary thing. And I was sure I would get one at seeing Dave too, `cause he was just hot. There was no denying that.
Jerry must have read my mind. He laughed, held his index finger up and announced, "And everybody's allowed one boner!"
We all laughed the tension away and proceeded to strip down.
Well... I did get a boner, and so did Dave-- and yes, he had a very nice big dick, probably seven thick inches or better and beautifully shaped, tapering sharply at the small corona-- and Jerry filled out pretty full, arching out, but not sticking straight out.
It was kinda funny, too, seeing my smaller body, in the wall of mirrors beyond the Nautilus machine, hardon pointing up at a forty-five degree angle, next to Dave, middle sized, with his middle sized hardon sticking straight out, next to Jerry, much bigger, with his much bigger dick arching out, but aiming down still.
We all subtly and silently acknowledged the sexually-charged atmosphere without saying anything else and flew out the glass door, a blur of running, flailing, laughing and yelling fleshtone out to the pool, doing cannonballs into the water, and I wracked my balls when I hit, but not really bad. We started horsing around immediately, dunking each other-- well, them dunking me and Jerry dunking both of us.
I have to say, it was really strange, playing around in the water, our dicks still either hard or semi-hard much of the time, climbing all over each other, but with all of us trying to not pay attention to them, was... a somewhat surreal experience, funny in a way. Without being sexual, but with all of us being gay, it felt like a kind of male bonding thing, or something like that.
I got tossed around like a beach ball between the two of them, and loved every single second of it. I couldn't stop laughing. I had never been the focus of attention among guys for `rambunctious' fun. It's just hard to express how little things like that, and the drive over, made me feel so... normal, connected to a life I saw others taking for granted.
Both Jerry and Dave had always been a part of groups and teams and had friends everywhere they'd lived, so I don't think they got nearly as big a thrill out of it as I did. But, that it was our little `club' where we could all be open with each other, made it special for all of us in that way, regardless.
And I kept my erection the longest, being tossed back and forth between two hot studs like that, their strong hands all over me... And Jerry kept doing little things, copping little feels and playing with my ass under the water, knowing it was keeping me hard. He kept laughing about it. And my hand `accidentally' brushed Dave's semi-hard cock a couple of times, and vice versa, and he pressed it against me numerous times.
I was in seventh heaven when they'd come together, laughing as they manhandled me in the middle and pressed their muscular bodies against me. At one point, I thought, 'This is just too fucking wonderful! I must have died and gone to heaven!' I laughed so hard I almost got sick.
I was amazed at how un-selfconscious I was about my hardon. I'm absolutely sure I would have flat-out died of embarrassment in the same situation only a short time ago.
We all worked up a mean appetite sloshing all that water out of the pool, so Jerry ordered a couple of large pizzas after we got out. Then we rinsed the chlorine off in the tiled shower room that would always remind me of `that day', my fear and shame, my tears, the first time Jerry embraced me, reassured me and made me a whole person.
Jerry quite nonchalantly soaped my back and held me against him to rinse-- knowing damn well I would throw another rod! Dave tried to keep his back to us, alone under his showerhead. I tried at first to wiggle away from Jerry and give him 'Not here and now!' looks, but he snickered and reeled me back to him like he was determined to be relaxed and open with our affection-- I guess since this was the only person in the world we could display affection in front of-- but I felt like it was rubbing it in to Dave. Well, I gradually relaxed and went with it. Dave had already seen me hard plenty, so that was no longer a big deal. So I soaped Jerry's back and his front... from his lickable neck to his sexy ankles and feet. Made my day. Got him hard. Got a wide-eyed stare from Dave when he saw Jerry fully hard like that.
I was in awe when Jerry paid the cute pizza boy with a credit card. I knew his family had plenty of money, of course, but it wasn't about having money. It was about the symbolism of having something like that. I had just never conceived of a guy still in high school having his own credit card. It seemed so much more adult than... well, it just seemed all grown up. Of course, I was looking forward to the `evils of credit', as my dad called it-- even though he and Mom had two each.
When we finished wolfing down the pizza, as crudely and sloppily as teenagers could possibly do, I remembered to call and tell Mom I wouldn't be home for dinner; which was already on the table. She was surprisingly understanding and calm about it, just admonishing me to be home earlier than last night. Dave said his mom was at work, and he never had to call her to check in anyway, saying, "I'm eighteen. Fuck her." Jerry made us each a drink and we went up to his room to smoke a joint.
As the buzz settled over us, we talked about swimming, then school and our public outing. Of course, Dave wanted to know what had happened. So Jerry and I took turns explaining the whole thing. I was pleased with myself. I didn't get very emotional at all during the telling. I came close to tearing up a couple of times, but didn't. It helped me to go through it once again, too, as there was a whole lot I was still digesting.
And it helped even more to hear some of it from Jerry's perspective. Just the way he told it showed me how seriously he took it, how seriously he regretted how he'd done things until yesterday. An interesting observation I made while listening to him was-- and this was conjecture on my part-- that he thought of coming to his senses and coming after me as a sign of maturing and becoming a man. And I guess to defy your mother that way is a sign of the breaking away from the `womb' type thing, which is part of becoming a man.
Dave was enthralled with the whole story, and just thought it was the most romantic thing he'd ever heard, especially when I told him about last night; but he felt sorry for Tyson. I told him how guilty and bad I felt. He had one class with him, so he knew who he was. He said he thought he was sexy as hell, but had assumed he was totally straight, and Tyson wasn't at school often enough for Dave to have ever had a chance to get to know him anyway. And of course, Dave ran mostly with the jock crowd, which Tyson viewed as his natural born enemies in the food chain.
Then Dave told us about his life, as the alcohol and weed made our tongues a little looser. He looked at me sitting in between Jerry's spread legs on the loveseat, leaning back into his chest, balancing my drink on his denim-clad knee. He had his left hand down under my arm, up under my tee shirt and resting on my stomach, rubbing around subtly. I was running my fingers through the hair on his forearm, basking in the warm loving feeling, thinking life just couldn't get much better than this.
"Well, my dad's in Oklahoma, I think. I haven't seen him since I was twelve. He's just a fuckin' drunk redneck. Of course, so's my mom; but she's alright most of the time."
I asked, "Are you out to her?"
He laughed loudly-- should I say `He guffawed'?-- and rolled his eyes, "Oh, BIG time!"
"Ju got some `splainin' to do, Lucy," I did a bad Ricky Ricardo and they both chuckled just enough that I didn't feel like a complete dork.
"Well, y'all probably ain't gonna believe this, but here goes..." He settled back in the chair at the model airplane table, took a long drag off the last of the joint and stretched it over to me. "Remember when I said I was cold to that guy, Drew, back in San Anton'? Well, maybe three months after that, my mom was seein' this guy named Wayne. He was a lot younger than her. She was like, thirty-four, and he was twenty-five, and a really, really good-looking cowboy-- and he really was a cowboy, too. He used to ride the rodeo circuit all over the country," he nodded his head to underscore the point.
"My mom's pretty good looking, but I still don't know how she got a dude as hot as him." His eyes went unfocused for a moment as he pictured him, "He was barely taller than me without his boots on, six foot, but he was way bigger than me all over-- real fuckin' strong and muscular. He had real short black hair and the most amazing blue eyes, and the biggest... hands." He blushed and fixed his gaze on the F-14 fighter jet on the desk in front of him, absently toying with the tube of glue beside it.
"Anyway, he was kinda down on his luck and looking for a job." He took a drink, raised his glass as if to toast and smirked, "Well, he was more into partying than lookin' for a job, really. So he started living with us and just hung around. Most of the time he'd go with Mom to work at the bar, cuz she'd buy him beer; but sometimes he'd stay home.
Well one night, he got me drunk and started coming on to me, like, wrestling around and grabbin' my ass and rubbin' my stomach, real playful like and stuff. I was laughing so hard and like, teasin' him back, y'know? And like, I was still all hung up about my sexuality, but... he was turnin' me on so much..." He shook his head and smiled dreamily at the memory. "He was just so fuckin' sexy!"
He sat forward in the chair and got an intense look on his face. "Then, he was holdin' me from behind, like pressing his body against me, an' he was mostly hard, or like, really filled out-- which on him, in those tight jeans, was pretty damn noticeable." A smile creased his lips. "And he could tell how turned on I was. I mean," he blushed a little, "I couldn't really hide it, y'know? Then... he kissed me, right here," he pointed to just behind his left ear, "and said he'd been hot for me since the first time he saw me. Maaaan... I just... gave in and went with it, y'know? He just took me by the hand and made it all seem ok. He made me feel... good about it, and... Well, one thing led to another, and we ended up... you know."
"No shit?!" Jerry exclaimed. Even knowing it was coming, it was still kind of a shock to hear him say the words. "With your mom's boyfriend?!"
"Yeah, no shit. It blew my mind too. But what really blew my mind, was how great he was to me. He was so gentle and, loving to me, ya know? I just didn't expect anything like that from this-- this cowboy. I mean, he was so rough all the time, an'-- you know, macho. I mean, I watched him kick this big fucker's ass one night outside the bar-- and the guy couldn't even get up for awhile-- but Wayne didn't start that fight. Anyway, he made my `first time' a really awesome experience. I mean, it hurt an' all at first, cuz he was so, uh, big... but he made it wonderful." He smiled widely, "Man, I fell totally in love with him that night. He was so... amazing. He told me he loved me, too."
"Whoa! So what'd your mom do?" I sat forward, listening eagerly.
"Well she didn't know, of course. So, like, he started staying home a lot with me. Man, I was so in love with him... And it felt like love from him, y'know? Well, after a while, like a month, Mom started thinkin' he was seein' some other woman, and kept questioning me about if he stayed at home while she was at work, or had anybody over and shit like that. I was tellin' him everything she was sayin' and helpin' him make up shit to throw her off the trail, and everything was goin' great. Then one night..." He bowed his head and shut his eyes at the memory.
Both Jerry and I waited in silent suspense for him to continue. When he started again, he spoke very quietly at first, "She left work real early and snuck into the house and caught us... fucking, in the kitchen."
"NO WAY!" Jerry sat up with a start and nearly caused me to spill my drink all over his knee.
"Yeah, I nearly pissed on the table, I was so freaked out. I mean, I'm bent over the fuckin' table with his huge..." He was blushing every shade of red in the color spectrum and couldn't look us in the eyes. "You know, goin' at it like a couple a dogs, an' I'm like beggin' him to... you know," his thoughts fumbled. "I was bein' kinda loud." He couldn't believe he was telling these details, and obviously never had before; but he took a deep breath and resumed the tale, "Man, she freaked out, of course. She tried calling the cops and Wayne ended up havin' to yank the cord outta the fuckin' wall. She was screamin' and hitting him and breakin' everything..."
He shook his head sadly, "Wayne was tryin' to get her to just calm down, y'know? We were just tryin' to make sure she didn't call the cops. She started out the door to walk down to the 7-11 an' call, yellin' over an' over how I was only sixteen, and how could he do somethin' like that to me. I followed her and kept telling her I would swear to the cops he never even touched me. I told her I would cut my fucking tongue out of my mouth before I'd ever say anything to cause Wayne any trouble! So she finally dropped calling them after I grabbed the fuckin' phone right out of her hands, right there in front of the 7-11. I mean, we wrestled with each other, y'know? And we're yellin' at each other the whole time, an' all these people were goin' in an' out of the store..." He shook his head again, with a pained look on his face.
I pictured this All American-boy-next-door perfect looking guy walking sideways to face her, arguing with his freaked out mom as she marched determinedly, telling her he would cut his tongue out before he talked to the cops, and then wrestling the phone away from her. I believed him implicitly, but the scene was just so incongruous with the image I had of him, it was hard to collate it in my head.
"Then this poor dude comes out of the store an' my mom starts yellin' crazy soundin' shit at him about that fuckin' cowboy fuckin' young boys in the butt, tryin' t' get him to go kick his ass, not makin' a lick o' sense, an' the poor guy takes outta there like he's runnin' from some psycho!" We all laughed.
"Then she gave up on all that and started telling me to get the fuck out of her house if I was a faggot." He chuckled, "I guess she didn't want me stealin' any more of her boyfriends."
Both Jerry and I asked at the same time, "What'd you do?"
He laughed, "I followed her back home and told her I goddamn sure would not get out! I told her I wasn't a faggot. I told her this had just kinda happened, but that we were in love now; so then I said maybe I was a faggot after all! I told her I was the one who asked him to fuck me, and I was..." He laughed some more, "Man, I was so scared and confused... shit. I was mainly freakin' out that he might go to jail because of me. I loved him so much." He shook his head and blinked rapidly.
"I mean, lettin' a minor boy suck your dick and fuckin' him in the ass can get you some serious fuckin' prison time in Texas, y'know? Don't even matter if the boy begged for it." He blushed again, but was obviously getting more comfortable with talking about it.
"Anyway, when we got back to the house, Wayne was gone. Just gone without a fucking trace in his rusty old Ford pickup. We never saw or heard from him again." He shook his head sadly. "Someone at the bar she worked at told Mom later he went to New Mexico; but someone else told me he went to Colorado. I would've ran away and followed him," he nodded his head, "but I didn't even know what state he was in, let alone what city."
He sounded so sad, "Man, my fuckin' heart just broke. I fuckin' cried for months. I blamed Mom for runnin' him off. And I still haven't forgiven her, really. I tell myself I wanna forgive her... but I can't." He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and kinda shuddered.
"Then we moved here." He glanced briefly in our direction and his eyes were laced with tears. "But I mostly got over Wayne when..." He rolled the F-14 back and forth on the table, studying its movement, "Well... when I met you, Jerry."
He sniffed and wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve, apologizing for the tears, "Sorry `bout that. So anyway, nowadays, Mom don't give me no shit about it all; but she told her new boyfriend here all about it and he keeps sayin' shit like, he wants to `make me a real man' and shit, askin' me if I wanna be a girl or somethin'... fuckin' idiot. I don't know what the fuck he means by all that, but I can't stand him. He's just another dumb fuckin' drunk redneck, spendin' his life hangin' out in honkey tonks like Mickey Gilley's club."
"Wow. Man, that must've been really hard on you, dude," Jerry said quietly. "But at least she didn't kick you out on the streets."
"Like I said, I wouldn't let her," he chuckled. "I just told her I wasn't leavin'. After a couple a days, she just kinda let it drop. We never just talked about it at all." He looked at Jerry, "It's kinda like that thing we read in class a couple a months ago, remember? Ya got this big white elephant sittin' in the middle of the room and everyone's tryin' to act like it's not there and not talk about it, y'know? So we don't-- `cept when dickhead says somethin' about makin' me a `man' or some shit and I tell `im to fuck off."
Just then the doorbell rang. We all looked alarmed at each other and didn't move. It rang again. I stood up so Jerry could, and he went to the closer of his windows and looked out front.
"Oh FUCK! It's Brenda!" He went white as a ghost and jerked away from the window. "Oh shit! What the fuck do I do?" He looked at me, then Dave. The doorbell rang again.
I panicked, but tried to project calmness. The best I could come up with was, "Well, she knows you're here, and knows someone else is here, with three cars out there. So ya can't pretend you're not. Does she know my car, or Dave's?"
"I don't think so... but I don't know for sure."
"Um... I know she's seen me in my car," Dave said, obviously a little rattled as well.
The bell rang yet again. Jerry showed resignation in his face as he slowly walked to the bedroom door. He turned and looked at me, "Well... I knew this was coming. She wants to know what's goin' down." He looked nervous and agitated, "Man, I don't know how to explain this."
"You want me to come with you?"
He debated with himself for a moment, then aloud, "Well... shit, I dunno. Maybe you should be there. I dunno, man." The bell rang again and he jumped a little. "Tell you what; I'll take her in the library, and you hang out in the bar and listen. If I think it'd be a good idea for you to come in, I'll come get you. I mean, I just don't know if it would help or hurt for you to be there. Anyway, I'll go let her in."
Jerry went downstairs and I suggested Dave just hang out in his room while I felt the situation out and tried to decide what to do with myself. I went out to the landing and stayed back where she couldn't see me. The landing made a bridge across the inside end of the foyer, which was two storeys tall like the whole open dining and den area, so I stood almost directly over them. I could hear her voice, all filled with concern, worry and aggravation.
The foyer was long, with the formal living room opening off of it to the right. Then the bar, library, craft room, an office, the gym and the master suite, were all to the left down a wide hallway after it, formal dining straight ahead, and the stairs were to the right, with the den, kitchen and all that beyond them. Jerry herded her into the library. I crept down the stairs and darted into the bar.
I couldn't hear a thing, so I snuck back into the hall and stopped short of the doorway. Brenda was obviously very anxious, and chattered at a fast clip about nothing for a couple of minutes. Jerry didn't say a whole word, just `uh huh' and other grunts of agreement. All of a sudden she just asked him,
"What happened yesterday with Danny and that other guy?"
Jerry was silent for a long time.
When he finally spoke, I could barely hear him, so I crept closer to the edge of the door. "We need to talk, Bren'." More silence, then, "I don't know how to explain all this. I don't know how to tell you everything that's happened with me... and Danny."
"Don't you tell me it's true. Don't you even dare tell me it's true, Jerry Loring! Don't..."
"Well whaddya wanna hear? I need to tell you the truth, Brenda. You deserve to hear the truth." He paused a moment. "God, this is harder for me than..." Then he mumbled, "Man, Brenda, I never wanted to hurt you... I love you."
She started crying as she spoke, her voice getting louder with each word progressively, "Do you, Jerry? Do you love me? Do you love that little queer, too?! ARE YOU QUEER, Jerry?!"
"Brenda, don't..." Jerry sounded miserable.
She shouted, "ANSWER ME! ARE YOU QUEER?!"
"Brenda..."
I knew what he was doing, how he was standing, his head hanging low; I could just picture it. It made me so sad. Not just because of what was happening; I felt sadness at how dignity is snatched away from anyone being confronted for being gay. I stared off down the hallway and the realization plowed through my head that in any place in the world, at any time, anyone coming out had to accept that they would probably be called degrading names and their very right to exist would be called into question. I realized, `That's just the way it is.' How can people be so heartless? Easy.
I risked peeking around the edge of the door and luckily, she was facing mostly away from me. She stepped over to the large desk and extracted a kleenex from the crystal dispenser, dabbing delicately at her eyes.
"So it's true. You are queer," she stated flatly. There was a heavy silence for a moment, then she started toward Jerry, crying and pleading, "You CAN'T BE! You just can't be, Jerry! What about all we've done? What about all the times you told me you loved me? What about all the other girls you've..."
"Brenda... I'm so sorry... so sorry," he said quietly, shaking his head slowly. "I never meant to hurt you. I don't even know how to explain it to you. I don't really understand it myself. All I know is," he looked to the ceiling, "how I feel about Danny, how he makes me feel. I can't describe it any other way than to just say... I'm... in love with him."
"NO!" she yelled angrily, waving her hand emphatically. She just wouldn't accept it. "NO! You just CAN'T BE A PERVERT, Jerry! It's SICK!"
Jerry spoke in a barely audible voice, just above a whisper, "I know you think it's wrong, sick, an' all that... but it's not, Brenda. It's not."
"I don't believe you. You're just doing this to get back at your mother! But, but-- there's other ways, Jerry!" She yelled again, "I LOVE YOU! Isn't that enough?" Her volume lost steam a little more with each question, "Isn't that good enough for you? Don't I make you happy?" She reached out and put her hand on his chest, and her last question came out as soft pleading, looking up into his eyes, "Don't I... keep you satisfied?"
I felt a bit guilty, or weird, because I pictured him fucking her. I pictured the ecstasy on her face as he drove into her, her moaning and pleading as he filled her up and did what Jerry did: take her to the stars. What she was saying just brought the images up in my mind. I couldn't help it. Who would be willing to give him up without a fight?
He stepped into her and gathered her in his arms. She didn't resist. She lay her head on his chest. "I know it's really hard to understand, Brenda. I fought with myself all this time, trying like hell to make it not be true. But it IS true. It just is. I don't know how else to say it. It hurts me to hurt you like this... but I can't deny it anymore. I don't want to." He rubbed his hand reassuringly up and down her back.
He spoke softly down into her ear, "I love Danny. It's as real as any love that ever was. Can you believe that and understand just that part of it at least? I don't expect you to understand it all... Just understand that I love him more than I thought I would ever love anyone in my life?"
I listened to them, as silently and unobtrusively as I could. I cried tears of sympathy for her, for her loss, for her confusion, for her hurt. But I mainly cried tears of incredible joy at hearing what Jerry was saying about our love. I was tingling, bursting with pride and love.
He'd done it. I hadn't expected a moment like this to come so soon; but he had declared our love in no uncertain terms, and declared how beautiful it is, directly rebutting her attempts to degrade us.
I stood there thinking to myself that I would do anything for him. I WOulD go to the ends of the earth for him. I WOulD die for him. I WOulD kill for him. I would do anything, anything at all for him. I wanted to jump into his body and be part of him. I wanted to shout from the highest mountain and write his name across the sky: `I LOVE JERRY LORING!'
Sorry, I get carried away, a lot. Oh well. It's just that, that IS what I was thinking, and I'm telling this the way it happened. It didn't seem sappy or clichéd at the time. It gave me tingling rushes from head to toe.
Brenda's voice brought me back. It was a person in agony, barely able to put her thoughts together. "It's sick! It's wrong! You CAN'T be queer, Jerry!" She was pleading more than declaring, "Look at you! You aren't a sissy!" This revelation was just tearing the fabric of her existence, confusing and scaring her. "You're the strongest, most manly guy I know! You just CAN'T be queer, Jerry! You can't love that ... that..." words failed her.
"I'm sorry, Brenda. I'm sorry I hurt you. I never meant to." He had such agony in his voice, trying to focus on letting her down softly, letting the rest of her comments about us go.
She looked up at him and pushed herself off of his chest, seething with anger and hurt. She stomped her platform heel on the thick carpet and screamed at him, "I HATE YOU! YOU'VE BEEN LYING TO ME ALL ALONG! YOU'RE A FUCKING PERVERT AND I HATE YOU!"
Jerry bowed his head and wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. I wanted to go to him, but thought it would make her even more upset. I didn't know what to do. I knew for sure I shouldn't say a word. Nothing I could possibly say would help anything. I was peeking around the door and pulling back every little bit, every time she moved, afraid she'd see me. Her lips were trembling and she looked around, for what I don't know.
She must have caught a glimpse of me peeking around the door, because she cleared her throat and said, in a remarkably calm voice, "You can come on in, Danny. I know you're out there."
I jumped and blushed all the way to my bare feet, then went ahead and stepped around the corner on wobbly knees. I looked at them, standing a couple of feet apart. Brenda's tears were streaming down her cheeks, making the rouge and foundation run. I thought I needed to be here, but really didn't want to be. I knew that she would hate me as the one who stole her man, no matter what else happened.
I remembered a Donahue show about a married man coming out to his wife about his male lover, and the point that stuck in my mind was when the wife said she could handle another woman, because she could compete with her; but she didn't know how to-- simply could not-- compete with a man. I felt so guilty, and I felt just horrible for her.
She looked at me through her tears with unblinking disgust. She looked rapidly back and forth between Jerry and I, obviously picturing us `together'. I guess it hit her head-on then, and her disgust momentarily shifted back to him.
She screamed at the top of her lungs, making Jerry start back a step, "FUCK YOU, JERRY LORING! JUST FUCK YOU!" She reached behind her and knocked the fancy Parker pen set and the crystal tissue box off the desk with a swipe of her hand. The crystal broke into three neat pieces on the granite base of the pen set.
"You make me ill. I can't believe I ever loved you! A fucking pervert!" She whipped her head around and pointed her inch long purple fingernail at me with venom in her shaky voice, "And YOU! You made him do this-- this-- this sick and evil s-s-stuff!"
Jerry literally jumped in between us, anger flaring in his face, "BRENDA! You leave him alone!" It was her turn to step back, and her eyes went wide. She apparently thought he wasn't going to call her on anything she said, and didn't expect him to stand up for me. "He ain't done nothin' to you, and he didn't make me do any fucking thing! I'm the one who went after him!"
She bowed her head in defeat. Jerry's features softened and he reached out and held her shoulders. He held her at arm's length and she angled her head down and rested her cheek on his wrist. She sagged in his grip and sobbed loudly. He drew her back into his body and rocked her again.
"What do I do now, Jerry? What do I say to people? How do I...?" she pleaded as she looked up into his reddened brown eyes.
He sobbed too and hugged her tightly, "I d-don't know, Brenda. I really don't know. I just want you to know I never meant to hurt you, and I do love you. But I'm in love with Danny. I'll do anything I can to help you... but I'm just not in love with you now." He whispered down into her hair, "I'm sorry, baby, I'm really sorry."
I didn't want to see this. I did not want to be witness to her pain. I turned and started for the door. Jerry croaked, "Danny... don't leave, please."
I looked back over my shoulder and saw that he really needed me to stay. I stopped and slowly turned to face them again. He rocked her gently in his arms, looking over her head at me with tears in his eyes.
Words deserted her. She could only cry into his chest, soaking his tee shirt, smearing makeup all over it. I stood helplessly a few feet away, glad she was facing away from me.
After a couple of minutes, she pulled away from him and sat on one of the settees-- the same one I had sat in 'that morning' while his mother twisted his head-- looking down at the floor, looking lost. All our intermittent sniffles were absorbed by a thousand titles on perfectly ordered books that would never recount this scene.
I glanced from Jerry to Brenda and did a slight double take. I was witnessing a remarkable transformation, in vivid detail. I watched her go from that hopelessly lost look, to calculating her options in relative calmness, accepting the situation she knew she couldn't change, and trying to figure out how this new reality fit with her picture of herself and the world around her.
When she spoke again, looking at her purse as she looped the thin strap around her finger, it seemed she was thinking aloud, "I already threatened Sharon to stop her from talking. I've got something over her head that made her shut up. Now I'll make her go even farther. I'll think of something." She looked up at Jerry, "You aren't gonna... tell everyone about this, are you?"
Jerry looked intently at me and it took me a moment to figure out what he was silently asking me. Then I shook my head `no'. He gave me a defiant look that said he would declare it to everyone, if I wanted that. My heart swelled again, and sped up significantly.
"No, not if no one pushes us," he said to her, still drilling my eyes. "I mean, if everyone leaves us alone, we don't need to say anything to anyone at school."
"Oh my God, does your mother know?" A kind of terror filled her eyes.
Jerry moved toward me and put his arm around my shoulders. I loved that he did, but was very uncomfortable with Brenda's gaze now fixed on me. It was like she was quantifying me, while talking to Jerry.
"Well, yes and no. It's a long story..." He gave my shoulder a squeeze and winked at me. I looked up into his eyes and told him how proud I was of him and how much I loved him.
"Well, either she knows or she doesn't, Jerry. It's not like she would..." she trailed off.
"She found us in-- uh, found out about us, and freaked out. She really messed with my head about it and that's when I tried for the last few weeks to convince myself I wasn't in love with him. You were there; you saw how fucked up in the head I was."
"Oh, I knew something was very, very wrong." She nodded her head, then snorted ironically, "But I can't believe I never saw this coming. I thought it was another girl, hah!" She shook her head and looked up, "I mean, y'all completely stopped... being together; I didn't think anything was going on there, and I just couldn't imagine you doing..." She looked down, "...anything like that."
In that moment, it almost seemed like she was more embarrassed that she hadn't snapped to `us', than anything else. She jumped back to the other subject.
"And, I know how your mother can be. She treated me like some kind of trash from the moment I met her." She glanced at me and added, matter-of-factly, "And I'm not trash. I gotta tell you, babe-- uh, Jerry-- that's something I won't miss." She laughed a bitter little laugh.
"Yeah, that's one of the things I hate about her. Anyway, as far as she knows, it's over between Danny and me. I just finally got the balls-- um, got the courage-- to go get Danny back yesterday, and she don't know about that yet. She's in Florida with Dad. Anyway, that's why I say she does and she doesn't know."
"Well... look, Jerry," she faltered, trying to decide how to say what she wanted. "I don't want... I can't stand the thought of..." She looked around hesitantly. Then she just blurted it out, "Everyone's gonna think I turned you homo!" I almost laughed, but contained myself. Jerry didn't respond.
Then she looked like she was ready to make a business deal, "Look... if you promise you won't be open about it, I can make Sharon even spread something in the opposite direction. I know something about her that she would just die if everyone knew, so I know she won't dare talk. I mean, what I know... I think she would actually kill herself if it got out," she said smugly, but with maybe a hint of caution.
"Wow. Ok, then." Jerry looked at her guardedly, like he was seeing a side of her he never knew existed. "Uhhh, we already talked some about it and decided it would be smart to keep it quiet for this last bit of school. So, as long as no one else says anything, we'll keep a low profile. But Dave said he already heard something..."
"That's who that little green car belongs to! Dave Hansard! I knew I'd seen it before. Where is he?" She raised her voice, "Have you been listening too, Dave?" There was no reply.
I spoke for the first time, my voice cracking, "Dave's u-p, up in Jerry's room. He's cool with everything and won't say anything to anyone. We can trust him."
She looked at me, re-appraising me, like she was seeing me as a real person for the first time-- not that she had any respect for me, but just like she could acknowledge in some way to herself that I had all of a sudden had a big impact on her life. I wasn't supposed to be able to do that. I was supposed to be one of those fringe people who quietly and dutifully adored the beautiful people.
She was smart enough to know people in any `station' in life could impact her in the right circumstances; but she never expected something this intimate and personal coming from me-- stealing her man-- and I swear I saw a glimmer of appreciation for what she considered my coup, a little acknowledgement that I'd won this game, that I didn't even know I was playing with her. Check and mate, y'know? Now it was time to cut her losses.
"Anyway, how about... will you..." She blushed a little through her already reddened features. "If you'll keep this quiet... The thing is, I don't wanna have to find another..." She fidgeted and finally just came out with it, "What I'm proposing is: How about if we just pretend we're still together until school's out? Just do at least some of the things we've always done at school, like walk me to some of my classes, and... you know... just maybe, once in a while, for appearances... kiss me?" She took in Jerry's somewhat stunned reaction and backed up a little, "Well, maybe not kiss me, but, the rest, just to keep everyone thinking nothing's changed?"
What the fuck?! I never saw that coming! Whoa! There was a long, tense silence as we took in her `proposal'. To me, it seemed wrong, or deceitful, at first glance. But then it kinda... started looking like a good idea. Jerry looked at me for a long moment, and I gave a tentative nod. I felt like this was actually the best possible thing that could happen, given the circumstances. I didn't like the idea of acting out a charade, but I found the alternatives a whole lot scarier. We were only talking another month and a half or so.
Jerry nodded hesitantly, furrowed his brow and said, "Well, maybe... that might work. I mean, we don't want the attention either. If you can get Sharon to keep her mouth shut, it just might work. But ya know, there were a few people who saw what happened... but we're willing to give it a try." He cocked his head at her, "You sure you would be alright with something like this?"
"Well... If I do find someone else, then we'll just `break up' as far as anyone else knows. But I`m going to college, and... if we're not together anymore... It'll be..." She waved her hand dismissively, "Well, I guess we'll see what happens. So, can I count on you for this, Jerry?"
"Yeah, I think so. As long as Danny's ok with it, I'm ok too." He looked at me questioningly and spoke to me, "It definitely would make the last of the school year a lot easier to deal with. We could concentrate on school, and not on dealing with shit from... you know." I nodded again, more enthusiastically.
While Jerry was speaking to me, Brenda pulled out her compact and checked to see how bad her makeup looked. She decided it would need way more than she could do right then to fix, put it away and said, "Good. Ok." She shoved her tissue in her purse and stood abruptly. "I've got to go." She started for the door.
Just before she turned the corner, Jerry said, "I'm sorry, Brenda."
She left without responding.
Wow! What had we just witnessed? Was that just good acting until she figured out she couldn't win him back? I mean, I had really felt sorry for her, like she really was in love with him and her heart was breaking. Then she just mutated in front of our eyes so rapidly into this other person.
It called into question everything about her in my mind. I wondered at her tears. Again, Wow! I couldn't figure her out at all. But, she obviously wouldn't cause any trouble for us, since that would cause her to `lose face'; and in fact she would help keep our cover better, with this `act', than we could possibly do on our own. I felt like this was all probably a good thing-- at least I hoped it would be.
Jerry and I just stood there, still pretty stunned, looking at each other, trying to take in what had just transpired. As solemn as I felt, I was also on the verge of busting out laughing. It had just been too fucking bizarre.
We called Dave down and lounged around the den for a while, relating some of the scene to him; Jerry and I discussing the things she'd said and done and our reactions. Dave was blown away by how it had gone. He said he'd heard her yelling, but couldn't make out the words. He was amazed at how she'd done her about-face, but pointed out how lucky we were that she went in this direction instead of freaking out and telling everyone we were queers, like all of us had been afraid she would.
We both understood how fortunate we were. We both knew, without having discussed it very much, that we obviously had enough shit going on in our lives, that we didn't need the tremendous strain-- and actual probability of danger-- in our lives that being out at school would bring. If Brenda would do this act, and could get Sharon to even counter the gossip from yesterday's incident, there was a real chance we could avoid that certain hell.
We talked it out extensively, analyzing everything that had happened till we were down to long periods of silence. Along about 9:30, after two drinks and the earlier joint, I was getting sleepy. Dave seemed to be winding down too, and could sense we needed some alone time, so he said he was going on home. We walked him out to his car and he drove away. We raced back inside, frantically stripping away our clothes while we bounded up the stairs, laughing as we fell repeatedly. Jerry actually nipped at my heels, and goosed me too.
We almost made it to his bed, but I tripped and went down on my hands and knees just short of it. Jerry scrambled up over me and growled in a deep, sexy voice, "Mmmm, I like you in this position."
I peered back over my shoulder and taunted, "Oh you do, huh?"
"Oh yeah." He rotated his hips, rubbing his rapidly filling cock all over my butt. "Know what I wanna do to you right now?"
I replied coyly, "Welllll, why do I get the feelin' it's exactly what I want you to do to me, right now?"
"Is it?" He licked the back of my neck, then nibbled his way to my earlobe, "Ya think so?"
I shuddered and my breath grew shallow. "Ohhhhhh... Yeah, I think so." I ground my ass up into the now iron shaft, running tip to root over my flexing and clenching ring and back again.
"Well... I don't know..." he said between nibbles and kisses, "I think you might hafta be a little more specific. I'm not a hundred percent sure if you're thinking of what I'm thinking of," he teased, thrusting his groin against my ass a couple of times, rocking me forward. "I think you need to tell me just what it is you want me to do to you; see if it matches. Be specific."
I grinned with much lust. I could rise to that challenge. I was feeling a lot more at ease with expressing my love and lust for him in private, after last night. I was feeling playful at the moment, "Welllll, you got this really big thing hangin' down between your legs, y'know, and I was thinkin' maybe, just maybe, it might be cold and lonely and you might be wanting to put it somewhere hot 'n tight." I craned my head back up to him and breathed heavily, using my most sultry voice, "It just so happens, I got somewhere hot 'n tight that's just the right fit for that thing you got. Made for it... Fits like a glove. Does that match up in any way with what you were thinking?"
He angled his face down to mine and gently bit my bottom lip, tugging at it, breathing into my mouth. "Mmmmm." He stretched it, then let it slip from his teeth and muttered, "Totally read my mind. I have a feelin' it won't be cold and lonely for long. But... don't you have another hot and wet place I can put this thing between my legs in besides just that one? Not that that one's not heaven as it is!" He grinned a playful one, "But, you know what they say about variety..."
I salivated like Pavlov's dog. "Welllll, that did cross my mind, too. What I meant to say was: Wherever you wanna put it, is where I want it. You know, try one then the other; see which one makes your thing spit up first." I had to laugh, but stifled it quickly. "I love it any way I can get it."
He snuffed his own chuckle and whispered, "I know it would make my thing spit up in both tight, hot, wet, places." He brought his left hand to my lips and rubbed his fingers around, darting into my mouth and sliding back out slowly. "So you love it, huh?"
"Yeeeahhh," I moaned.
"You wanna kiss it?" he whispered just behind my ear. His cock twitched against my ass.
"Yeah, I'd love to kiss it," I gulped, and my own cock lurched.
He came around in front of me on his knees and took his hardness in hand, swiping it across my lips and all around my face, smearing precum everywhere, raising my temperature, and my heart rate even more than it already was.
"Go ahead, kiss it, Baby."
Squeezing the base in his fist made it swell up extra rigid, losing the outer sponginess it normally had when hard. I gave the blood-gorged, dripping helmet a slick and slow, lingering kiss, sliding my lips from the top around to the side in the precum so I could look up into his face without losing contact.
"He likes that," he grinned down at me. "You wanna kiss his buddies?" I chuckled at that, and so did Jerry.
"Yes I do, but can I lick `em too?"
He held his cock up to his belly and tilted his pelvis up to display his balls better. "Yeah, you can lick 'em too, and suck on 'em, an' pull on 'em... They like that."
I looked up into his eyes, "So, you like it when I pull on them?"
He grinned and nodded, "Oh yeah. I love it when you pull on 'em with your mouth. You do it juuust right."
"Mmmm, I love doin' that too. 'Course, I need more practice, though. You know..." I feasted my eyes on the hairy jewels, "...makes perfect, 'n all that."
He grasped my head in one big hand, guiding me to his delicious nuts, grinding my face in. "Yeah, practice, practice, practice."
About an hour later, we lay in a sweaty, heaving, tangled heap on the floor, trying desperately to catch our breath, muttering curse words and ohmygods, drained of a couple of loads each and limp. After several minutes, our breathing leveled out and I began to doze. I woke with a start when my head started to roll off his chest. I propped myself up on my elbow to look at my handsome man. He looked kinda sad or melancholy, even though he smiled at me when I raised up.
"Sorry I let your head slip," he said. "I musta been dozin' myself. But you were out like a light. I love it when you sleep with me."
"It's ok, I'm gonna hafta be getting home. I love sleepin' with you, too. It's one of my very favorite things." I focused my bleary eyes and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothin'. I was just thinking..."
After a moment, I pressed, "About what?"
"Oh... just... how hard that was, with Brenda."
"Oh. Yeah, well... I feel bad for her, even after she showed her multiple personalities," I grinned. "But, I can't tell you how good it made me feel-- not about hurting her... the things you said, about us, about how I make you feel. Telling her how much you love me." I reached over and ran my fingers through his golden brown chest hair, watching it spring back in place in the wake of my hand. "You made me... so happy... so proud." I bit my lip to keep tears from forming.
"Felt good to tell the truth." He smiled at me, then looked at the ceiling, "But I realized I did love her." He looked quickly back into my eyes and said, "Not even a fraction of how I love you or anything, just..."
I tried to sound as neutral as I could, "Are you... having second thoughts? About your sexuality? About us?"
He jerked like I'd slapped him or something, "Oh, God NO, Baby! Hell no." He wrapped his hand around the back of my head, pulling my face hard to his for a kiss, clanking our teeth together.
When we stopped for air, he picked right back up, "No, it was just so weird to... say it, out loud to her, to someone I know don't wanna hear it, an' don't understand it. And it's so weird to be... justifying our love to her. An' I think about, like, how much harder it would be, really, to tell some of the other people. And that just bothers the hell outta me, y'know? It's like, why should something so beautiful, that feels so right, be so hard to admit to everyone? Why does it make them so... mad?"
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I felt a philosophical streak coming on, "I think... `scared' is a better word. I think it's mostly just cuz they don't know anything about it, and all they get are really negative and disgusting images about it, like the ones your mom mentioned, and Anita Bryant. Like, her an' all the preachers are always saying how nasty and evil it is, so most people just accept that. I don't think they can even conceive of there being 'real love' involved. All they can see is the sex, and they're told all their lives it's disgusting. They don't really have any reason to challenge that view. Like Rachel said to me, `It's a whole lot easier to just fear and hate anyone who's different, than it is to try and understand them. It's not healthy for you, but it's easier.' And you see that in lotsa things, not just about this."
I turned my head and saw Jerry focusing intently on me. His eyes looked particularly golden, like honey in this light. He smiled and winked, "How'd you get to be so wise?"
I giggled, "Wise is not exactly the first word I would use to describe myself, Stud."
He laughed and crawled up over me on his hands and knees. "How `bout `sexy'? How `bout `handsome'?" He leaned his head down and kissed me. Then with a deep, husky voice, he asked, "How `bout `mine'?"
I reached up and grabbed his dangling meat, feeling it pulsing to life in my hand. I spread my legs, again, and purred seductively, "That's definitely the first word that comes to mind."
He leaned his head down and kissed my dick softly. "You mine, me yours."
His breath on my dick produced an instant erection. I grinned widely, "You Tarzan? Me Jane?"
He grinned back, "No. No Jane... Boy. Tarzan not want Jane. Want Boy. Boy good."
As his tongue worked hot wet magic on my erection, sending shivers through my body, I moaned, "Tarzan good. Tarzan make Boy hard."
When I got too close to cumming, I pulled him back up on top of me and wrapped my legs around him. No more words were spoken for a while. Only the sounds of love and sex and sweating bodies slapping against each other, moans and grunts, a kiss... many, could be heard for the next half hour or so. Yeah, he took me there, again.
Jerry crushed me up against the ten foot tall, carved oak doors, making them rattle as he ground his body into mine and smothered me. I kept pulling his face back down to me when he'd say `goodnight', so he had to keep saying it after each new kiss... Five times, six times, seven times...
He rasped after the last kiss, "After all that; after you totally wore me out upstairs, how do you keep getting me all fired up like this?" He ground his hips into me, pressing his hard cock into my belly through his briefs and my shirt. "What is it about you, baby?" He grinned and winked.
I chuckled, "I don't know, but if you keep doing that, and looking at me like that, we're gonna be goin' at it again right here behind your front door." I winked back at him and warned, "I'm gonna hafta jump yer bones! Or, one bone, at least," then added under my breath, "Though my butt is kinda sore. But my mouth is..."
"Yeah, you need to get on home. We have tomorrow night. Mom `n Dad won't be home till Saturday morning or afternoon." His eyes went wide and he suddenly sprang away from me and held his hands up and gushed, "Wait! Don't move! I almost forgot! Be right back," and he raced up the stairs.
Then I could hear him perform his leap down the stairs like he did last night. He flashed into view like a leaping cat and landed facing me with one hand behind his back. I loved seeing his genitals bounce around in his briefs when he landed, and loved seeing his whole body coil and freeze with eyes wide and a mischievous grin plastered on his face. He advanced on me with an affected tic in his right cheek and lips, twitching them like some psycho in a horror movie.
"I got something for you," he said ominously.
I tried to feign fear to match his little act, but couldn't erase the smile plastered on my face. He towered up within a couple of inches of me. I looked up into those playful dark brown eyes and asked warily, "What you got?"
"What you said you wanted," he grinned and held up the jockstrap he'd worn all day until swim practice.
I giggled and blushed, "You actually did it! You saved it for me!" I reached for the sweaty handful, but my hand stopped just short. My eyes darted back and forth between his eyes and the jock. "Uhhh, seriously... is that just too weird? Is wanting your jockstrap, like... psychotic, or seriously perverted or something?"
"I meant to tell you I want your underwear too," he grinned from ear to ear. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not.
"No you don't. You're just humoring me." I blushed and stared longingly at his jockstrap, "I'm such a freak."
"No! I'm totally serious! I want your underwear too!" He took hold of my hand and stuffed the jock into it, pressing my fingers closed around it. He guided my hand up and lightly pressed the sweaty elastic pouch to my nose. As I breathed in heavenly Jerry scent, he leaned down and whispered in my ear, "You just don't know how much it turns me on to picture you lying in bed, sniffing and mouthing my jock and playing with yourself inside your underwear. I mean, Goddamn, Baby, that gets me sooo fuckin' hot."
I tingled and got goose bumps all the way to my toes as I breathed in the intoxicating smell of his crotch while his deep voice made love to my ear. "Turns you on that much, huh?"
"Drives me crazy. Makes my tubesnake drool. I wish I had a picture of you like that, in your bed..."
"Brenda was right. You are a pervert!" We both chuckled.
"You're the one who asked for my jock, sniffing Booooy."
"Only sniff you, Tarzan. Tarzan make jock smell good." My already-hard cock gave a surge in my Levis. "And I will be lying there sniffing it an' playing with myself, too. So I guess I am the real pervert here."
"Guess so. Guess I just have to face the tragic fact that I'm in love with a pervert. I may even hafta start goin' to church."
"I could suck you off in the pews."
"Bless you, my son," he snickered. "I'll anoint your throat with holy cream." He opened the door, planting one final kiss on my lips, "Goodnight, Baby. I love you."
"Goodnight, Stud. I love you too."
On the drive home, the drinks and smoke-- even though the sex had used up most all of the high-- and the lack of sleep from the night before really hit me. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep for days. After so much emotional upheaval in the last two days, I was needing some quiet time.
I pulled up in front of my house at 11:20pm. I'd played the John Lennon song Jerry had played for me all the way home-- I kinda thought of it as `our song'. I felt like I could just fall asleep right there in the driver seat, but I forced myself to get up and head in.
As I walked up the driveway, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I froze and peered into the darkness at the right side of the house. There was another rustle in the oleanders.
I lowered the tenor of my voice to sound older and bigger, "Who's there?"
"Shhhh! It's just me," a voice whisper-shouted.
"Tyson?!"