It was Monday, June 15th, and the kids had already been out of school for three-and-a-half weeks. A lot had happened already that summer, and I felt as though our family was expanding and getting closer, all at the same time. Seth was a new foster son, of a sort, and he was fitting in beautifully. He had brought Cody into the mix, and he was a real delight. He was handsome, intelligent, well built, and extremely personable. The biggest surprise, though, was Seth himself. When I thought about that pitifully homely kid we had met at Mardi Gras and compared him to the Seth that had been at the breakfast table that morning, I almost couldn't believe it. He had had some plastic surgery since we had seen him, and he had told Kyle in an email that it hadn't worked. Well, Seth was dead wrong. It had improved his appearance enormously. Gage had taken him for a "make over" the second day he was at our house, and that was truly the touch he needed. He still didn't hold a candle to some of the other ones in the looks department, but his looks were just fine. Rick and Justin had wasted no time in putting together a work-out program for Seth. He was still very thin, and it was way too early to see much difference, but it must have been having an effect on his self-confidence. He carried himself better, more upright and less dorky, for lack of a better term. He looked like an ordinary kid. A thin kid, to be sure, but an ordinary thin kid. That was a big change. It was fun to watch the other kids deal with him and relate to him. He worshiped Kyle. Kyle knew it, and the rest of us knew it, too, but Kyle never gave him an inch. He didn't pay any more attention to Seth than he did to Tyler or Cody or Brian, but he inspired Seth. He made him want to be like him without saying a word about it. "You know Seth wants to be just like you, don't you," I asked Kyle on Sunday, when we were on Dune Island with Monte and Terry and some of the others. He shrugged. I didn't know how deeply to dig with that. "Aren't you going to respond to me?" "I don't know what to say, Kevin. I just have to be myself, you know? If he wants to be like me, then let him. I don't know what that means, exactly, but I can only be myself, you know? I don't know what else to do." "Have you noticed changes in him since we first met him," I asked. Kyle coughed out a laugh. "Yeah, quite a few," he said. "Just keep doing what you've been doing, okay," I said. He looked at me long and hard. "Do you think those changes are because of me?" "Yes," I said. "I think you've been smoking crack cocaine, Bubba." We both laughed, and that was the end of it. * * * That Monday night, some of us were in the den watching a Braves game on TV. Seth and Cody were either up in Seth's room or out in the clubhouse, I didn't know which. Justin wasn't interested in the game, and he was playing with Trixie. She was loving the attention, of course. Brian was there with us, but he was reading one of his summer-reading novels for school. Kyle and Tim were watching the game, more or less, but they each had books they were supposed to be reading over the summer for school, too. Rick was in my arms on one of the sofas, his body in the V of my legs and his head on my chest. He was pretending to watch the game, but he was dozing in and out. It was about seven o'clock. Jeff and Tyler came in. "Hi," I said. Rick stirred enough to say "hi," too, as did the others. Their coming home was really of no consequence, and that's the way everybody treated it. "Can we talk," Jeff asked. It was only then that I saw the worry on his and Ty's faces. "Yeah. Turn that off, Bri," I said. The remote was closest to him. "What's on your minds, guys?" "It's my roommate," Ty said. "He caught us tonight. About an hour ago." "Caught you . . .," Rick said. "Kissing, Rick. Ty and I were kissing in the living room of their apartment, and he came in unexpectedly. He got pretty pissed off, too. He called us fags and homos, real creative stuff, you know," Jeff said. We all smiled at his sarcasm, but we also knew it was potentially a very serious situation. "What exactly did he say," I asked. "He said we were disgusting and he didn't want to be around us," Ty said. "He asked me if I took it up the ass and if I spied on him in the shower. He'd probably been drinking. He hangs out with three other guys, and they pretty much drink every night. That's why I didn't worry about what we were doing. He's never home before ten, at the earliest." "Do you think he's the kind that would out you to your superiors," I asked. "I honestly don't know," Ty said. "I really don't know him that well. He posted an ad saying he wanted a roommate. I needed a roommate, so that's how we got together. We're not social friends at all." "What could happen to you," Rick asked. "I could be discharged. He caught us engaging in homosexual behavior, and that's definitely grounds for discharge," Ty said. "What if you quit first," Kyle said. "Could you do that?" "I could, but I'd have to out myself to my commanding officer," he said. "I'd probably get a general discharge, and my parents would want to know what the hell that was all about. I'm not out to them, and, frankly, they wouldn't take the news that I'm gay well at all." "How much longer do you have in this enlistment," I asked. "Just another year, and I've been planning on getting out and going to college then," he said. "One of the main reasons I joined the Coast Guard in the first place was for the educational benefits. I'd lose those, I'm pretty sure. I couldn't afford to go to school without them." "Do you think he'll kick you out of the apartment or something," Kyle asked. "He might. It's sort of his apartment. I mean, he was there first, and all," Ty said. "Why don't you plan to stay here for a few days and see what happens," I said. "Is that all right with you, Jeff?" "I already invited him to do that, Kev. In fact, we brought the clothes he'll need for the rest of the week. They're out in his car," Jeff said. "Good. Let's hope he thinks about it and decides to leave well enough alone," I said. "Some guys do have a conscience, you know?" "What's his name, Ty," Kyle asked. "No, no, no," I said. "You're not getting involved. This is for Ty to work out, Bubba." "What if he calls here," Kyle asked, the very soul of innocence. "His first name is Matt, Kyle. If a guy named Matt calls here for me, that's him," Tyler said. I wished he hadn't gone that far, but at least Kyle and his gang couldn't go looking the guy up. "Where do you live," Kyle asked, innocence itself. "No, Ty. Don't tell him. That's none of his business," Rick said. "The next thing you know, he'll be over there trying to mediate this thing, or worse." I could tell Kyle was frustrated, but he didn't say anything. I wondered what was going on in that head of his. * * * The week moved on, and Ty was a regular member of our household. We all really liked him, and he typically spent the entire weekend at our house, anyway, for the last few weeks. We had a full complement of boys there, then. Kyle and Tim seemed to be spending a lot more nights at our house that summer than they ordinarily did, and, as usual, they were a joy to have around. "I talked to Matt today after work," Ty said Thursday night, as we were eating our evening snack. "What did he say," I asked. "He apologized for getting angry at us the other night. He said he had had an argument with his best buddy and he was in a really bad mood that night. He said he'd been thinking about me almost non-stop. He said he wasn't going to make an issue of it, but he prefers that I move out of the apartment," Ty said. "Well, that's sort of a relief, isn't it," I asked. "Well, yes and no. I'm glad he's not going to make an issue out of it, but now I have to find someplace to live," he said. "Why don't you just stay here," Tim asked. "Tim, Ty's welcome here for as long as he wants to stay, but don't you think that's something he and Jeff might want to work out," Rick said. "Give it some thought, guys," I said. "I'm with Rick one hundred percent, Ty. I think we all are, but you and Jeff have to work that out." "Thanks, guys. Jeff and I have talked about it. We like one another very much, and we really care about one another. We don't really think we're ready to live together, though. I'll need to find a place," Ty said. "We understand and respect that, don't we, guys," I said. There was no response. "Don't we, guys," I said again, more emphatically. They all sort of mumbled agreement. "I wonder if my cousin might want a roommate," Cody said. "She has a roommate, doesn't she," Seth said. "Did," Cody said. "Her roommate moved in with her boyfriend last weekend." "Your cousin's a girl, I take it," I said. "Yes, sir," Cody said. "She lives in one of those little cottages out at Sunny Side. It's two bedrooms, with a real nice sleeping porch. She might be willing to share with you, Ty, especially since I know you." "His cousin's really nice, Ty," Seth said. "And the place isn't bad, either. One bathroom, though." "I could live with one bathroom," Ty said. "Maybe she'll take showers with me." "We might not be ready to live together, but you're still my boyfriend," Jeff said. "She'd be perfectly safe showering with me, that's for sure," Ty said, and we all laughed. "Do you want to go meet her," Cody asked. "She's at work right now, but we could probably talk when she gets a break." Jeff was sitting on the sofa, and Ty was sitting right in front of him. Jeff leaned over and started rubbing Ty's shoulders. "What do you think? Would you like to meet her," Jeff asked. "Sure," Ty said. "How does she feel about gays?" "I don't know if she likes all gays, but she loves my ass," Cody said. "And Seth's, too. She doesn't care, Ty. I can page her, if you want me to." "Yeah, do that," Ty said. Like most of the rest of us, Cody had his cell phone at the ready. He pressed a speed dial button and entered his phone number for a call back. "I'm glad this worked out like it did," Rick said. We went about our evening's business. Kyle, Tim, Justin, Brian, and Trixie went out to check the crab traps. Rick and I turned on the TV to find a baseball game. Seth and Cody went up to Seth's room, for what, I didn't know. Jeff had some work he wanted to do on the family Web site, so he and Ty went into the study to use the computer in there. It would stay light until close to 8:30, and the crabbers decided they wanted to swim when they got back from checking the traps. It was only seven o'clock, but Rick was already dozing in my arms. Seth and Cody went with Jeff and Ty to the restaurant where the cousin, Margaret Mitchell, worked. I wondered if her parents were big fans of Gone with the Wind, or if the name was purely coincidental. They came back in about two hours with news that the new roommate situation was a done deal. Cody had even taken them by the place so Ty could see his new digs, and everybody seemed happy and content with the way things had worked out.
I felt like a fugitive. I wasn't, but that's how I felt. I had left home a week before, and nobody knew where I was. Not that they would have cared, or even noticed that I was gone, but it still felt weird to be in such a totally different place and totally on my own. I was in Emerald Beach, Florida, and it was around five o'clock on a Sunday evening. I had hitchhiked there from New York, and I had finally arrived around three o'clock that afternoon. The trip down had been interesting, to say the least. I got my first ride on the outskirts of Rockville Centre on Long Island, where I had grown up. It was a nice car, an SUV of some description, and there were two guys in it, who looked to be, say, late thirties, early forties. "Where you headed," the passenger guy asked me after they had stopped. "Florida," I said. "Oh, my. We can get you into the city, but you're on your own from there," he said. His voice had "queer" written all over it, but I didn't give a shit. I threw my duffel onto the back seat as I climbed in. My back was hurting pretty bad, but it felt better once I sat down. "I'm Victor, and this is Warren," the passenger guy said. "Hi. I'm Alex." "So, what's in Florida at this time of year," Victor asked. "I'm meeting up with some friends down there," I lied. "Warren and I have tons of friends in Florida," he said. "We have a condo in Cocoa Beach. Mostly we rent it out, but we spend February there every year. Where in Florida are you going?" Shit, I thought. How the fuck do I know? I hadn't planned this escape out real well. "Emerald Beach," I said. I had heard of that place because MTV had been there for Spring Break that year. I didn't have a clue as to where that actually was in the state, and I hoped they didn't either. "That's a beautiful place," Victor said. "The sand is snow white; I kid you not." "Cool," I said. I hated that expression, I kid you not. Whoever said that the first time must have thought it was funny, but it wasn't to me. It was just dumb. Warren didn't say a word, but Victor chatted like I was a long-lost relative. He turned around in his seat to talk to me. One time he put his hand on my knee, and I flinched. That made my back hurt. Shit, I thought. "Why did you flinch? I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "I know. I'm sorry. Just a reflex, I guess." "You don't like queers, do you," Victor asked. "No, I'm fine with qu . . ., er, gay guys," I said. "Are those marks on your legs bruises," he asked. He was so nice, and I could tell he wasn't interested in any sex business with me. "Well, yeah. I was in a little accident the other day," I said. It was an accident, all right. I had accidentally gotten in the way of my step-father's shoe as he was trying to kick me to death, after he had thrown me onto the living room floor. I was usually better at avoiding his kicks than I had been that time. Through the years, I had learned how to dodge his punches and kicks, but you can't always do that. I never knew why the man hated me, but he did. It had started when I was eleven, even before he married my mom. I was known in my neighborhood as the accident prone kid because I always had bruises and cuts all over me. I had gotten pretty creative in making up accident stories to account for things like cracked ribs, a broken collar bone, a couple of broken arms, and an injured testicle that almost had to be removed. That injured nut had hurt the worst. On top of that, there was the embarrassment. I mean, I was fourteen years old, for Christ sake. There I was in the emergency room with a nut the size of a small orange. It was like some kind of phenomenon, or something, and every doctor, nurse, and orderly had to come in and look at it. A good many of them touched it, too, and I would scream every time they did that because it hurt so bad. The pain was probably a blessing, though, because I would have been hard as a rock, otherwise. They ended up putting me out and using a needle to draw off the blood. I had to wear this funky little nut sack supporter thing for a couple of months. It made my dick stick out, which was fine at first. Everybody likes a little bulge down there. Then I started to get hard-ons again, and that was embarrassment heaped on humiliation with the way that nut sack supporter stuck my dick out. Sheesh! It wasn't that I was all that small, either. I was five seven, weighed one forty, and I had a pretty toned body. I mean, I wasn't a model or anything, but I looked okay to me. But Austin, my step-father, was a fucking giant. Six four, two thirty, at least. "Do you have a girlfriend," Victor asked me. "Er, no," I said. "A boyfriend?" Warren made his first human sound of the trip on that line, and he and Victor giggled. How do they know, I wondered. I was eighteen years old, for Christ sake. I knew what gaydar was, but I wasn't really gay. I was bisexual. Could they tell that, too? If they could, I wish I had met them when I was fifteen. They could have told me about being bi, and that would have saved me a hell of a lot of confusion and pain. Fifteen was a very bad year for me. I had started dating. Well, not really dating because you can't really do that if you don't have a car, but I went to school dances and shit. My next door neighbor was a year older than me, and he and I double dated for those things. After the dance or football game or whatever, we would go parking. He and his date would make out, and me and my date would make out, too. I enjoyed it, and I got rock hard every time. But I just knew that if he had changed places with my date, I would have come all over myself while I was kissing him. After those dates, I would jerk off. Instead of thinking about my date and her tits and ass and all, I would think about my neighbor. His name was Dave Levy, and he had those dark Jewish looks that I think are so hot. I had glanced at his dick a few times out of the corner of my eye while we were peeing next to one another. He was cut, but that was no surprise. So was I, in fact. But it looked like his was a good bit bigger than mine. It might have been the angle, but probably not. When I jerked off, I'd see that dick in my mind's eye. Sometimes it was hard, and he was sliding it into a pussy. Sometimes it was hard, and he was feeding it into my mouth. "Well, here we are," Victor said. "It's been nice talking with you, Alex. Good luck, son." We were standing in a high-rise parking lot in Brooklyn. He put his hand on my shoulder. "It's going to all work out, Alex," he said. He smiled at me like he really cared about me. I thanked them for the ride, and then I took off, looking for another one. Man, the people you meet on the road when you're hitching on a long trip like that one! I sort of knew that truckers, independent truckers, that is, would give you a lift, and that was true for me on that trip. One trucker who picked me up for my longest ride was a real young guy, maybe twenty years old, maybe twenty-one. He had a picture of a girl and two little kids on his sun visor. That was his family, and he talked about them a lot. He was a part-time preacher in some redneck town in north Georgia, and he made me listen to the sermon he was preparing. He would get about two paragraphs into it and start over. "This gon' be 'bout a hour and a half one," he said. "It takes me all week to get it ready, but it's gon' be a humdinger when it's done." The first night on the road, the driver and I both slept in the truck. He got into this little berth thing behind the seats, and I stretched out as best I could in the passenger's seat. My back hurt me bad, too. We had quieted down, and I thought he was asleep. I had an erection that was killing me, and I thought about stepping out of the cab to take care of it. We were at a rest stop on the Interstate, and I could have pretended I needed to take a leak. "Alex, do you ever abuse yourself," he asked in a voice only slightly above a whisper. "What?" I didn't know what he was talking about. "Abuse yourself. Rub your penis until it shoots out gravy," he said. I had never heard cum called gravy before, but there was a lot I didn't know. "All the time, but I've never done it with another guy," I said. I figured he was horny and maybe wanted a little human contact that night. I would have done it with him, too, especially if he would have let me sleep in the berth with him. My back needed to stretch out bad. "That's good, son. That would be an abomination before the Lord Jehovah, and it would cause you to be cast into the fiery pit forever. But even doing it to yourself is a grave sin before the Lord, Alex," he said. "You don't do it," I asked. "I won't lie and say to you that I have never done it, but since I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior a year-and-a-half ago, I have not done it," he said. "Wow! But you're married, right?" "Yeah, but she ain't here on lonely nights, now is she?" "So, what do you do, man?" "When the pressure builds up, like it is right now, I pray that God will visit me with a wet dream that night. Nine out of ten times, that prayer is answered," he said. "Do you have wet dreams, Alex?" "Naw. I thought that was a myth," I said. "Not at all, son. It's God's way of helping a man cope when his woman ain't around. I prayed tonight for one, Alex, and I prayed for one for you, too," he said. "Well, thanks, I guess." He got quiet after that, and in a minute I heard his breathing indicate that he was asleep. I carefully and silently opened the truck door and eased myself out. It was quiet at the rest stop, but cars and trucks whizzed by on the Interstate. I went around to the side of the truck that was opposite the lights from the rest area, and I gave myself a wet dream. That guy might be willing to wait for God to visit him in his sleep, but I didn't believe in leaving anything to chance, if I could do it myself. We got to his town in north Georgia on Saturday night. I had left on the previous Saturday, and it had taken me that long to get where I was. He offered me a bed for the night, and I accepted. His wife was not a pretty girl, a little fat from the kids, no doubt, and she was in serious need of some major dental work. The hair was also a big disaster. The two little kids, a boy and a girl, were two and three years old. They were all over him, laughing and having fun. He told his wife to get them to bed, though, and she did it. We all went to bed around eight o'clock. They put me on a ratty couch in their living room, and they went to bed in a room right next to where I was sleeping. The guy's name was Ricky Turnipseed, and Ricky didn't have sleep on his mind that night. I could hear every word they said and every breath they took. "Let us pray," Ricky said, and he launched into a long prayer to thank God for bringing him home safe. After the prayer, Ricky started fucking her. I didn't hear any kissing sounds or anything like that. She gasped a little when they started, but that was it out of her. Ricky bounced the headboard of that bed against the wall with a good bit of force, and the one picture on the wall on my side wobbled. I got a mental image of Ricky fucking his wife. He was pretty lean and not very tall, and he had light brown hair that always looked like it needed a good washing. I had seen the inside band of the baseball cap he wore when he drove the truck, and there was a thick slick of greasy dirt on it. But it wasn't Ricky's hair or baseball cap I was thinking about as I lay there listening to him in bed. I had managed a peek at his dick at one of the rest stops, and he had a nice one. It was cut, too, and the head of it seemed large, out of proportion to the shaft. In my mind, Ricky and Louise, his wife, were in the classic missionary position. That big, fat cock of his was rock solid, and he was slipping it into her with religious zeal. I imagined myself on the bed right behind Ricky, helping him out with his pumping. When he got close, I mentally saw myself going down on his asshole, licking it, tonguing it, sticking my finger into him to give his prostate some relief. That was all in my mind. In reality, Ricky let out a deep groan. I could hear him move on the bed, like he was getting off her. "Oh, girl, that was good," he said when they were finished. "That one was for the Father. We still got the Son and the Holy Ghost to go. Let us pray." He said another long prayer about the importance of wives and children being obedient to the head of the family, and then they started fucking again. I had gotten hard the first time, but that time I had to let it go. I rubbed my cum all over my belly. I hoped they would let me shower the next morning before I left, but, if they didn't, at least it would dry faster spread out like that. The third fuck, the one for the Holy Ghost, was preceded by a long prayer for more children. Shit, I thought. You already got two, dude, and you live in a fucking pig sty. What the hell do you want more for? After the prayer, they fucked again. The girl started moaning a little, and Ricky kept bouncing the headboard against the wall. They stopped suddenly. "What the fuck are you doing," he demanded. Then there was a loud slap, and she made some kind of noise. "You don't move under me, woman. You ain't no harlot. You ain't no whore. You keep still, and I mean it." Another slap and a whimper from her. "I'm sorry, Ricky. I won't do it no more. It was the devil getting to me. Get back to business, baby, for the Holy Ghost," she said. Ricky got back to business, all right, and he announced his own orgasm to the immediate world. They got real quiet after that, and soon I heard him snoring. The next morning they wanted me to go to church with them to hear Ricky preach. I had heard the damn sermon so many times that I could have given it myself, so I declined. They dropped me off at the Interstate, and I got a ride right away. That guy took me all the way to Emerald Beach in about six hours. He had two sons, one nineteen, one seventeen. The older one was a "hellion," in his words, but it was obvious he loved his boys. * * * I had left home with four hundred dollars, all the money I had in the world. I had gotten a good bit more than that when I had graduated high school the previous January, but I had blown it. I wished I could find a drink machine that took CD's instead of quarters. I could have hosted a fucking coke party. The last guy I rode with was delivering groceries, and he dropped me off in the parking lot of this humongous grocery store. I was sort of walking around the parking lot aimlessly, and I spotted this Jeep with a big black dog in the back seat. It kind of looked like a puppy, and it was looking pretty sad. I walked over to the dog. I knew not to scare it or seem threatening. If I had done that, it would probably have gone for my throat. It saw me coming up, though, and it stood up. It was wagging its tail, and I expected it to lick my face when I got close to it. It didn't, though. All of a sudden I realized I hadn't really bathed or shaved in a week. I was a blond, so my beard wasn't all that noticeable most of the time, but after that many days, it was stubbly. No wonder that dog didn't lick my face. Who could blame it? I stood there playing with the dog, wondering if I was going to have as good a place to sleep that night as that dog was. All of a sudden, two boys came out of the store, and each of them was pushing a grocery cart. The dog looked at them and started barking what I thought was a pretty happy bark. Those were obviously its boys. I stepped back. This one boy, wearing a mid-cut white tee shirt, a very small red Speedo, deck shoes, and a red baseball cap, went up to the dog. He was like something out of a magazine. Real dark hair, black even, maybe, and nice muscles everywhere. I checked out the bulge in his bathing suit, and it was impressive. In fact, my dick started getting hard a little. The other kid was a blond, like me, and he was a looker, too. He had on a tank top, a blue pair of swim trunks, and flip flops. The other guy had on deck shoes. The dark-haired boy went up to the dog to say hello. The dog started to lick his face, which was stubbly, too, but he said "stop." The dog backed off. "Good, Trixie," the boy said. "See, she's learning." Then the blond guy noticed me. "Hey," he said. "Hi," I said. That boy looked good. "Is that your dog," I asked. "Yeah. She's ours. Do you have a dog," he asked. "Naw. I don't have a dog. I really don't have anything," I said. "Are you a tourist," he asked. "Yeah," I said. "Where are you staying," he asked me. "That's a good question," I said. "I just got into town. I'm not staying anywhere." "You don't have a place yet," the dark-haired guy asked. "It's getting on to night time. You need to find a place, man. The cops will pick you up, if you try to sleep on the beach." "Well, I guess you can visit me tomorrow in jail," I said. "What's your name? I'm Tim Murphy." That was the blond one talking. "Hi. I'm Alex Stewart," I said. "I'm Kyle Goodson. Come with us, man. You can crash at our place," he said. I shook hands with both of them. "Where's your car," Kyle asked. "I don't have one. I hitchhiked here from New York," I said. "Whoa! We were just in New York about three months ago. We missed you, I guess," Kyle said. I laughed hard for the first time in over a week. "Did you have a good time," I asked. "Yeah, we had a real good time. I won a bunch of money off some guys shooting pool in Greenwich Village. I hustled the hustlers," Kyle said. "You know that's a gay neighborhood, don't you," I asked. "Yeah. That's why we went there. We're gay," he said. What do you say to that kind of announcement in a grocery store parking lot in a town you've spent a week hitchhiking to get to? "Come on and go with us, Alex," Tim said. "We'll find you a place to stay." "Are you sure," I asked. "Alex, that's your background talking, man. You basically don't have any options. Get in the truck." "It's not a truck, Kyle. How many times have I told you that," Tim said. God, those boys were cute, I thought. "I know. Get in the Jeep," he said, and he and Tim laughed. The dog barked happily, and we took off. * * * I couldn't believe the house we went to. It was a damn mansion on some kind of body of water. I came from a middle class family, so I wasn't just blown away by the house, but it was still very nice. A lot nicer than ours. My mom did public relations for the city of Rockville Centre, and my step-dad was a respiratory therapist at a local hospital. I figured they made about $1.75k or more a year, together, so we weren't down and out. The schools I went to were good, not too many minorities, and I was slated to go to a good college. I was also slated, it seemed, to get my ass kicked on a regular basis. "This is it, such as it is," Kyle said. "Summer camp." I laughed. Summer camp, my ass, I thought. Kyle and Tim put the groceries away in the kitchen. They asked me if I wanted a beer, and I said I did. Kyle opened one for me and one for himself, but he didn't give one to Tim. Instead, Tim took out a can of coke. I sort of stood around watching them. "Why did you come down here," Tim asked. "I had some shit I needed to get away from back home," I said. "Like what," Kyle asked. "Nothing important, really. I just needed a change." "Have you got a job," Kyle asked. "No. I just got here," I said. "Do you guys work?" "Yeah, for the summer," Tim said. "I work in a gift shop, and Kyle works in a hotel. We all work in one or the other of those." "All?" "Us and our brothers," Kyle said. "We've got sort of a weird family." I must have made a facial expression or something that made him continue. "Kyle and I are boyfriends," Tim said. "The guys whose house this is are a gay married couple, and they have some foster sons. We consider all of those guys our brothers." "How many," I asked. "Let's see. There's Justin and Brian, Jeff, Seth, and us. Six," Kyle said. "Is everybody gay," I asked. "Yep. Everybody but Trixie, and the verdict is still out on her," Tim said. "Trixie?" I really didn't need an answer. When the dog heard that name, it perked up. "This is Trixie," Tim said. "Aren't you, girl?" Trixie barked a little. That seemed like a very smart dog to me. After they put the groceries away, Kyle and Tim each made a big tray of snacks. Then we went out back to the terrace, taking the trays along. There was a very big pool, and there must have been twenty guys around, most of them buck naked. "Wow," I said, sort of under my breath. I didn't know where to look first. Some guys were in the pool, and the naked ones sitting around all had wet hair, like maybe they had just gotten out of the pool. "You can swim, if you want," Tim said. "We pretty much all swim naked, but you don't have to, if you want to wear a suit." "What happens if you, er, . . ." "Bone up," Tim asked. "Nothing. You just ignore it. No sex in public. We get hard-ons all the time, and nobody will care if you do." Nobody but me, I thought. Until about six months before then, I had assumed I was straight. I mean, I liked girls, they aroused me, and I wanted to be straight. Then we got a cable modem at home, and I was able to download porn movies from the news groups on the Internet. I wasn't working more than twenty hours a week at a CVS Pharmacy, so I had a lot of time to do that. At first, all I looked at was the straight ones, and I found myself watching the guy a lot more than the girl. I watched a few lesbian movies because I had heard they were incredibly hot, but they did absolutely nothing for me. I needed to see cock to really get worked up. Then I found a couple of gay news groups with tons of movies, and I downloaded a bunch of those. Some of those were incredible, especially the blowjobs. I started having fantasies about blowjobs. At first, I was getting them from another guy, and that was hot. Then I was giving them, and that was even hotter. Finally, after doing a bunch of reading on Web sites, I decided I was bisexual. I knew that a lot of gays were suspicious of people who claimed to be bisexual. Some of them thought it was a cop-out for guys who were afraid to admit that they were gay. Maybe that was the game I was playing. I didn't know. I did know, though, that I was more attracted to guys than I was to girls, at least at that stage in my life. What Tim had said about no sex in public was almost laughable to me, at least in my case. I hadn't had sex with anybody, male or female, boy or girl. I was a complete virgin. Believe me, I didn't want to be, but that was just the way it was. I wanted either a girlfriend or a boyfriend, but my first choice would have been a boyfriend. "Alex, are you going to go in," Kyle asked. I had sort of spaced out a little, thinking about all that stuff. "Yeah, but I think I need a shower first," I said. "It's been a few days, you know?" "Okay," Kyle said. "Tim, do you want to take a shower?" "I guess so," Tim said. They took me inside a building that was next to the pool. It was as nice as the lobbies of some hotels I had been in, and there were some guys in there, too. Some of them were shooting pool, some were playing ping pong, and there was a table of cards going on, too. They led me to a locker room. I really wanted to shave, so I got out my razor and shave gel. Kyle and Tim got undressed, so I assumed they were going to shower, too. I know I gawked, but I couldn't help myself. They were both totally smooth on their upper bodies, and it even looked like their pubic hair had been groomed. They both had little gold hoops through each nipple, and that was totally hot. They each had a little tattoo above their pubic hair. Kyle had a cute little monkey, and Tim had a bunch of bananas. Kyle's was on his left side, and Tim's was on his right. Kyle's said "Tim" under it, but Tim's didn't say anything. They looked at me, too, after I undressed. What guy wasn't curious? Only I really gave them something to look at when my dick got hard right before their eyes. "I'm sorry, guys," I said. "I'm not used to this." I knew I must have been beet red. "That's okay. We've seen 'em before," Kyle said. We went into this little gang shower that had four shower heads. There was shampoo and soap out for you to use, and Kyle had handed me a wash cloth as I had gone in. The shower felt really good after so many days of not having one, and I shampooed twice and soaped up twice to get myself clean. When I was finished, I lathered my face and started shaving. I had taught myself to shave without a mirror about a year before, and it was so much more efficient than having to dry off and then shave. Kyle definitely needed a shave, and Tim could have used one, too, but neither of them bothered. I noticed Kyle checking out my body very thoroughly. He looked at Tim every few seconds to see if Tim was checking me out, too. It was beginning to make me a little nervous. I mean, I didn't know those guys from Adam. What if they were planning a gang rape? I had my razor in my hand, and I thought I could defend myself, but they were pretty big boys. Kyle whispered something to Tim, and I really tensed up. Tim disappeared, though. "Were you in an accident or a fight or something, dude?" Oh, shit, I thought. They had been looking at my bruises and cuts, not at me in any kind of sexual way. Kyle's dick, which must have been at least five inches, was completely soft. He had seen me as hard as I ever got, and it hadn't done anything for him. I was relieved he wasn't going to rape me, but I was just a little disappointed that two gay guys stayed soft as Jell-O when they saw me hard. "Something like that," I said. In a minute, Tim was back with an older guy. He was as fine as he could be. Dark hair and eyes, a sculpted face, a really nice body, and a great tan. He was shirtless, but he had on shorts and flip flops. I had finished shaving by then, and I was looking around for a towel, or something, to dry off with. "Hi, I'm Kevin Foley. Welcome," the guy said. He stuck out his hand, and I shook it. "Hi, I'm Alex Stewart," I said. "Thanks for having me over." "You're welcome, Alex. Listen, Tim told me you have some really nasty bruises, and some cuts, too. Do you mind if I take a look at them," he said. I was embarrassed to death, but what was I going to do? Tell him "no"? Kevin turned me around to look at my back. I hadn't seen that part of me, but that's where I had taken the worst of my step-father's shoe. "I'm going to touch you, okay? Tell me if it hurts." "Okay," I said. He touched bruises all over my back very gently, and they all hurt. Then he touched the small of my back, where my kidneys were. I screamed. "It's okay, buddy. I didn't mean to hurt you," Kevin said. He sort of hugged me. "Kevin, look," Tim said. Tim was pointing at my dick. It burned like fire just then. I looked down, and there was a drop of blood on the tip of it. I was sort of panicky. I had been pissing blood for a week, and it hurt like hell every time I did it. I knew to drink a lot of water, but that only made me have to go more. The blood in my piss never let up, though. "Get his clothes," Kevin said to Kyle. Kyle must have gone through my bag because he brought back clean underwear, some clean shorts, and a clean tee shirt. "Alex, I think we need to take you to the doctor right now," Kevin said. "I don't have any money for doctors," I said. "Yeah, but we do," he said. "You two get dressed and go with us. Kyle, go tell Rick, Jeff, and Justin what's going on. We'll call them when we know something. Tim, go get his wallet, and then go get Kyle's car out from the nest of cars in the driveway. That's the one we're taking. Mine is in the garage, and we could never get it out right now." "Yes, sir," they both said. They both took off to do what he said. "Do you think I'm really hurt," I asked. "Yeah, but you're going to be okay in a few days," he said. He grinned at me like he really cared. "Thanks for doing this," I said. "No problem. Can you walk all right by yourself?" "Yeah. I can walk." I took a step forward, like I had been doing all week. It hurt like hell, though. "Maybe you could help me," I said to Kevin. * * * In time, everything came out all right, but I was much more injured than I had thought I was. I had some kind of ruptured vein near my kidney, or something like that, and they had to do emergency surgery to repair the damage and stop the bleeding. The doctors told me I was a miracle case and that I really hadn't had much of a chance of living, even as long as I had, with that condition. I would live a normal life, the doctors said, and I basically had Kyle to thank for noticing how banged up I was. I went home to their house after I got out of the hospital. They took turns staying home from work to take care of me for a few days. I didn't need that much care, but it was good to know somebody was there with me. I was really a stranger to them, but I felt totally at ease around them. That was my introduction to the Foley-Mashburn family and their introduction to me. I had had some prejudices about Southerners, as I guess all Northerners did, but those guys personified Southern hospitality at its best to me. I guess you could call saving my life "hospitality." |