---

I collapsed into my desk chair. For several minutes not a single cohesive thought went through my head.

A bit of it began to add up, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions that these documents and photo raised. I left the rest of the photos, and with a good bit of trepidation I turned to my grandfather's note.

My dear grandson, Karl,

I suppose you feel that I never loved you. That's not true. I did, but the only way I could get to see you was to put up with your mother's nasty personality. I'm sure your father (your real father) will tell you tell the rest of the story. I hope it suffices to say that I'm sorry, Son, I just couldn't put up with her hatefulness, so I stayed away.

I did, however, keep tabs on you and the people around you. I believe that if you are as astute as I think you are, you've already figured out that Harold is not your real father. After your mother's indiscretion with John Dorsett, she wanted to get an abortion. I refused to let her do it. (I suppose you're thankful I didn't). To cover it up, I paid a very handsome sum to Harold and Priscilla to do what they have done. One of my regrets is that young Clay ended up legally a bastard. Maybe you will set him straight, and with the DNA testing that is being used these days, you can legally establish that Harold is his father, and though he was born after the divorce, he did have a legal father.

John Dorsett and I talked at length about what to do about you. Acknowledging you as his son when you were born would have ruined his marriage and harmed several innocent lives, so we decided that the thing to do was for him to take you under his wing, so to speak, when you set out on your own. I'm assuming he will do that. I have to trust him, for I'm sure I won't be around then.

I've been working for my real father, and he's never said a word about who he is. Why? I'm twenty-fucking-seven years old, I have been employed by John Dorsett since I graduated from college, I advanced very quickly to my present position as vice president in charge of loans, and I'm just learning this. Then it dawned on me. It was my frigid bitch of a mother. Somehow, she had done this to me. Why? Well, it surely explained why she didn't want me to open the packet, but hell; I already knew she was a cold hearted witch. I didn't need a letter from my grandfather to tell me that. But what was it that gave her the power to keep my father from identifying himself to me sooner?

I went back to the letter to see if I could find out.

On your twenty-fifth birthday you will inherit all my wealth. Franklin will fill you in on it at that time. I'm doing it this way, so you don't have to have your dear sweet mother down your throat, because she only gets enough to live comfortably for the rest of her miserable life. By this time you will be old enough, and hopefully strong enough, to fend her off.

At the same time Harold and Priscilla will be done with their contract. I'm sure you will be seeing a divorce and a marriage at that time.

And as for their son, Clay, another unfortunate casualty of this mess, whom I am certain you will still be in love with - and still hiding the fact from him. I have included in the batch of photos some covert shots of him that will hopefully awaken you, and let you live the rest of your life in happiness.

I will say no more, except that I hope you find happiness. So open up, and admit to yourself and the world who you really are.

Good luck, Grandson,
George P. Robles

To say the least, I was numb. With the letter in my hand, I sat and stared into nothingness… not thinking… not feeling. When my mind eventually started to range, I thought, he almost says he loves me. I'm inheriting everything from him, and he figured out somehow that I'm gay, and he was okay with it. He even wishes me well in finding love with Clay. I wondered how he could know that I'm gay and not know that Clay is straight.'

My phone rang. I struggled to reach for it, pulled it out of its cradle and held it to my ear. I didn't think to speak.

"Are you alright, Karl?" I heard Mr. Dorsett ask. I nodded. "Karl? Answer me."

I cleared my throat. "Yes, I think I am."

"Sit still. I'm coming right over."

Not half a minute later, I watched Mr. Dorsett enter my office and walk around my desk. He lifted me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. "I have wanted to do this for so many years. I'm holding my son in my arms again at long last."

I laid my head on his shoulder, on my real father's shoulder and just held on to him. When I got my brain back in gear and started pulling my emotions back under control, I was amazed that the esteemed and revered owner of the venerable Bank of Robles Hills was holding me. I pulled back and started apologizing.

He smiled tenderly at me and told me to hush. "I've wanted to do that again for twenty-five years, my son. Thank you for letting me."

At first, I was confused. But then I remembered the conclusions I'd come to while perusing the documents and the first photo. And of course my grandfather's letter had admitted it. I turned and picked up the photo of him holding a two year old boy in his arms. "This is the same photo that's sitting on your desk, and all this time I never realized it was me."

He smiled at me as he took the photo and looked at it. "Yes, this was taken on your second birthday. I'm eternally grateful to your grandfather for arranging for me to be there."

"So you're my real father, do I still call you Mr. Dorsett?" I asked.

He looked at me like he hadn't considered it before. "You could call me Dad… or John… whichever you're comfortable with."

"Let's go with John and let me work up to calling you Dad."

"You don't mind me calling you Son, do you?"

I grinned. "Actually, I like it. No one ever called me that before."

The guard knocked on the door, stuck his head in and informed us that it was closing time. John, my dad invited me to stop and pick up some clothes and spend a laid back weekend with him. I eagerly agreed. I felt there were still more things that I was going to have to 'deal with,' but at the moment I just wasn't ready to do that. I left everything on my desk, wanting to be away from it all - to have time to assimilate what I had just learned.

Monday morning found me sitting at John's kitchen table as his cook and housekeeper Wanda, an elderly black woman, served us a hearty breakfast of ham steaks, eggs and grits. I'd heard of grits, but had never desired to taste them. Yuck, coarse ground corn meal mush, why would anyone want to eat it?

"I can fix you something else, Mr. Karl, but you at least have to taste my grits. I have a special way of making them that no one can resist. You just go ahead and taste them and you'll see."

I looked at her like I doubted her sanity.

"Go on… they won't kill you," she taunted, "Your daddy loves 'em. He eats lots of 'em, and he's still alive." I couldn't believe that he'd told her I was his son. But then he'd told me Wanda had been with the Dorsett family since he was a child. I took a forkful and stuck out my tongue to taste it without putting the stuff in my mouth. "Oh, my, Mr. John, you got a grown up baby sitting at your table. He won't even put a little bite in his mouth."

I looked pleadingly at John, but I knew I wasn't going to get any support from him.

"Son, there is no good reason to insult Wanda. Just eat one bite and we'll both shut up." I saw him wink at her. Wanda is a tall bony black woman. And even though she talked and sounded like Aunt Jemima, standing over me with her hands on her hips she looked more like a severe army sergeant.

Feeling like a five year old, I put the forkful in my mouth and prepared to quickly wash it down with coffee. But then the flavor filled my mouth. It was like, "Oh, my God. This is the supreme comfort food - way beyond macaroni and cheese."

I grinned at her. She arched her eyebrows and looked sideways at me. "I didn't lie, now did I?"

"No, Ma'am, you didn't lie. I think that I want your grits for breakfast everyday for the rest of my life."

She grinned. "In that case, I'd better teach you how to cook 'em yourself, 'cause I'm not going to be around that long."

John had a hardy laugh.

While I enjoyed her grits with my eggs she studied me and then said, "He sure looks like you, Mr. John, but he looks even more like his granddaddy that he was named after."

Dad looked at me and grinned at Wanda. "You're right, Wanda, he does look like my dad."

Wanda wandered over to the sink talking to herself. "I sure do miss Mr. Karl. I sure do."

I glanced at John; he looked like he was lost in memories, too.

"How long ago did he die?" I asked.

It took John a second to answer. "He passed away in his sleep about four months before you were born."

"How did you get my mother to name me after him?"

John laughed. "If it had been left up to that woman, Karl, you'd never have had a name. No, your Granddad George named you. He was very fond of my dad."

The rest of breakfast was spent silently eating, both of us lost in thought. When we finished, John sat forward with his elbows on the table and his coffee mug cradled in his hands. "You didn't look at all of the photos, did you?"

"No, Sir. I had put them out of my mind until now."

"Well, I think you'd better plan on taking the day off. When we go in, you take them home with you and take as much time as you need to deal with them."

"They're that bad, huh?"

"I refuse to make any call on them. That's for you to do."

When we got to the bank, John asked me to join him in his office. I'd already been told that one of the other VPs would handle any appointments I had. I sank into one of the big comfortable chairs in front of his desk and studied him as he settled into the other one. I glanced at his face to see that he in turn was studying me. He smiled and I could see his fond love for me - his son. I grinned.

"Son, your grandfather left out a lot of history that you really should know… that you have a right to know. I'm sure you've already thought through the age difference between Marcia and me."

He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "My wife's first pregnancy was twins, a little boy and girl. The little boy died just hours after he was born. I got to hold him for a few minutes, and in that short time I fell in love with him. I'd never considered wanting a son, but after that, I yearned to have another."

Again he paused. "I suppose before I go on, I need to clarify some relationships. George… your grandfather and I were more than just best friends." He glanced at me. I was shocked, but I'd learned as a child to not show my emotions, because one's emotions can be used against one. He raised his eyebrows looking surprised that I just sat there looking back at him. Then he cleared his throat and continued. "Back when we were young, being gay was unacceptable. We both were headed to be leaders in this community, as our fathers were. So we had to marry. Both of our wives were aware of our proclivity and accepted it as part of the marriage contracts.

"George's wife… your grandmother… already had a young daughter when they married. George adopted her. That's your mother. You have two sisters…well, half sisters that live back east. You are an uncle several times over, by the way.

At that, my eyes widened, and I smiled at the thought of being an uncle after being an only child all my life.

"Anyway, back to other things. Having lost my newborn son I continued to want another one, but after my second daughter was born, my wife could have no more children. A couple of years later, she discovered that she had female cancer. Despite all the doctors did to combat it, a year and a half later she was dead.

"Marcia at this time was around twenty-three. Why she set her eyes on me I have yet to figure out. I was drinking a bit too much at that time, and at a party your granddad threw she managed to seduce me.

"I know… I was a mature man and she was a very young woman, and one would think it would have been the other way around. But that's the way it happened.

"Truly, I don't think she intended to get pregnant. I don't know where the silly woman got the idea that it couldn't happen the first time she did it. Anyway, when it became apparent that she was pregnant, she admitted to George what had occurred.

"Needless to say George was furious with me. He saw the incident as being unfaithful to him. I really thought he might sever our relationship. I apologized repeatedly, begged his forgiveness, and told him I was willing to take full responsibility and marry her. Marcia wanted to have an abortion. George insisted that she have the baby even though she refused any thought of marrying me.

"As the pregnancy advanced the doctor told Marcia the child would be a boy. George set up the original nursery between the two master suites in his home and filled it with toys for his grandson. He was hardly speaking to me at that point. It seemed like we were fighting every time we got together.

"Then Marcia… sneaky bitch that she is… discovered that her father and I were lovers." He closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. Knowing where the story was going, my heart wrenched for the man.

He eventually raised his head, stared at the ceiling, and said in an emotional filled voice, "God, I hate that woman. It's a pleasure to see how unhappy her life has been."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then continued, "She decided to keep the baby - you - and raise you herself. But being aware of her social status, she decided she had to have a husband and her own house. Why in hell's name she picked Howard Johnson I have yet to figure out. The man was newly married with a child on the way. She forced George to buy the man for her.

"I suppose she knew that Howard could be bought. I have no idea how much it cost George. It had to be an immense amount. Anyway, I think you know the rest of the sordid story. If you have any questions, Son, I'll do my best to answer them."

I leaned forward in my chair, rested my arms on my knees and studied the toes of my shoes while I gathered my thoughts. I could feel John… my dad… watching me. I sat back with a heavy sigh. "One question," I said. "Why, when it's perfectly obvious that my mother is a mental case, didn't my grandfather simply have her committed to a mental hospital and take the child…" I squinched my eyes closed, then looked at my dad, "…me, to raise himself?"

John nodded his head as if he'd expected the question. "Karl, your grandfather was terrified of anyone finding out he was a homosexual. That was why he allowed Marcia to ride over him like that."

"If that's true, how did the two of you carry on your af--- your relationship for so many years?"

"Ah, more dark family secrets. The original Robles that built the two houses on top of the hill, I think he was George's great grandfather, extended a natural cave that runs under the Robles' house to the basement of my house across the street. He built my house for his mistress."

After a couple of minutes of contemplation, I said, "I surmise that Marcia," I grinned at him and added, "sneaky bitch that she is, discovered the secret access to the tunnel and surprised the two of you in bed." I looked at him with an eyebrow raised in query.

He blushed and nodded. "That's exactly what happened."

I nodded in return, stood and said, "I need some time to absorb and deal with all this."

He stood and held out his arms to me, and I walked into them. He held my head against his shoulder and rubbed his hand up and down my back.

"I love you, Son. I know that apologizing for the past is useless, I just pray that you can forgive my part in it."

I could only nod in response, then I squeezed him and let go. He followed me into my outer office and stopped to pass pleasantries with my secretary while I went into my office to gather the contents of the packet from my grandfather.

I stopped next to John in front of my secretary's desk. He gave me a one armed hug and said, "Go deal with it. If you need help, you know my number, Son. Twenty-four-seven." I couldn't believe that he was acknowledging me in front of a bank employee, even if she was my personal secretary.

"I'm serious Karl. Don't come back until you are comfortable with it all," he said, and then added, "and yourself." So, he was saying he knew that I was gay, too? I thought I had pushed it so far back in my psyche that not even I could see it.

I stood there and stupidly watched him walk away. I was abruptly brought back to the moment when Terry, my secretary, said, "He really is your dad, isn't he?"

Absentmindedly, I answered, "Yes, he really is."

"And you never suspected?"

I looked at her and asked, "What do you mean?"

She smiled. "Karl, from the day you were first hired, there's be speculation that Mr. Dorsett is your father. If you were the same age, you could almost pass as twins."

I'd surmised that last Friday when I'd compared the photo to my mirror image. I smiled back and simply said, "Yeah." Then in business mode, I told her to ask him if she had any questions.

I left the bank with the packet, and as I drove home I continually glanced down at it lying on my passenger seat, wondering what the pictures revealed that would have John telling me to deal with it. I went directly to the desk in my home office and again slipped the contents of the envelope out onto the desk top. I separated the documents and put them aside. I took the stack of pictures and neatly stacked them in front of me. With a big sigh and shaking hands, I again looked at the photo of my mother and John. I laid it aside.

The next several pictures were of me as a two year old with each member of my family, including the one of John holding me. I studied each photo and laid them all side by side. A couple of things stood out, and they gut punched me, one: the look of loving adoration and pride in the faces of my grandfather and John, and the look of bored necessity on the faces of my mother and Harold (I could no longer think of him as my father now that I knew the truth), the other: Mandy, the nanny that had raised me was in the background of each picture with a look of love and pride on her face. I sat back and thought of the dear old black woman who had been my surrogate mother. She'd died of a heart attack when I was eleven. I'd been bereft, while my parents were simply put out by the inconvenience her death caused. The stark reality that I lived in a house with two loveless people hit me full force after the funeral. The rest of the staff, the cook, the maid, and the outside man took care to show me a little affection, but only when my mother wasn't present.

I placed the two photos of John and my grandfather to the side and stacked the rest with the documents. Then I turned to the next batch of photos. They were of me and Clay through our childhood and into our teens. These were all covert shots. I don't recall ever seeing anyone with a camera taking photos of us. As I studied each one, I felt tears coursing down my cheeks; the look of happiness on our faces. God, why did I have to be gay? Clay and I could have still been best buddies.

Funny, as I looked at the photos, I began to really see myself in them. I realized that I was a good looking kid - as handsome as Clay. I'd always carried the self image of an ugly, small, nerdy twerp that was perverted and twisted inside. I could never see what Clay saw in me. Now, as I studied these pictures, I began to see it. I'd been a beautiful little boy. I wondered why Harold and my mother had no love for me. Well, I could understand some of why Harold didn't, but my mother? Geez, she was my mother - she was supposed to love me.

As I went through the photos of Clay and me, I could actually see when I pushed Clay out of my life. I noticed immediately after that that neither of us ever looked happy. Even as Clay rode on the shoulders of his jock mates after winning some big game, he smiled, but his eyes were sad. I wondered why, when he had everything going for him in those days. Through that same period, the pictures of me showed a young fellow that never smiled either, my shoulders slumped in defeat. I recalled vividly how I felt at that time.

As the photos progressed, they showed Clay in his Dallas Cowboy uniform, and one with his ex-wife. Again his eyes never looked happy until one where he was holding a newborn baby in his arms. In that one, his eyes lit up, but still with a slightly haunted look.

The pictures taken of me showed the metamorphosis I was going through as well. I'd grown and put on weight and muscle. I walked with pride. I studied my eyes in each photo. They had taken on a hard glint. When there was a smile on my face, it never extended to my eyes. My eyes in those photos reminded me of my dear mother, and I shuddered. For the first time, I wondered what had made her so cold and unloving.

I wondered again who had taken these pictures and why. I stood and stretched. I glimpsed my reflection in a mirror and walked over to it and impartially and analytically studied my face. My eyes looked old and sad. There were no laugh lines like I saw in the faces of others my age. I smiled and tried to crinkle my eyes in a Santa Claus expression. They still looked unhappy. I didn't need to analyze why. I knew why. And I knew that there was no solution for it.

With a big sigh, I flopped back into my desk chair to look at the rest of the photos. The first two were of Clay in his Dallas Cowboy uniform with one of his fellow football players. They had their arms around each other's shoulders. I recognized the guy as the fellow with Clay the other evening when he'd stopped me outside of the bank - Ralph, that was the guy's name. Out of curiosity, I turned to my computer and did a search on him. What I found shocked me. I wondered how I could lead such a sheltered life. How could I have not heard about the scandal that had rocked the world of sports when Ralph outed himself soon after Clay had injured his knee and retired from football? It began to dawn on me that even though Ralph was queer, Clay was still his friend. I wondered if he could have accepted me knowing that I was queer. Had I lost all those years of friendship because of an unfounded fear that Clay would hate me if he found out I was gay?

I recalled the look on Ralph's face when Clay introduced him to me - and it dawned on me that it was jealousy, not just dislike. And then there was the comment he'd made. "So, you're the Karl that Clay never seems to stop talking about." Clay had told him to shut up and Ralph had responded, " No, Clay, it's interesting to see that the real Karl stands up to the image that you've built in my mind. At least, I now know what I have to compete with. "

All of these years we could've possibly still been best friends and I could've possibly moved on to find myself a lover. But no, I had fixated on assuming that Clay would never accept my sexuality.

The pictures I'd viewed on the net of Ralph were in sports sites. In them Ralph was either in street clothes or a football uniform. But one site was listed as a porn site. Clicking on it, I was shocked to see a picture of Ralph being fucked by some hunky dude whose face was turned away from the camera.

I sat back and thought about this. I wondered if Clay was aware of this picture. Since he was clearly good friends with Ralph, I considered what that meant to me. I decided that I had done the right thing in pushing Clay away. People have a tendency not to believe someone is gay if he's a big macho football player, where I would have been tagged a little faggot that had the hots for the big macho football player.

I was exhausted by all this emotional garbage. I pushed back in my desk chair, propped my feet on an opened lower drawer and fell asleep. An emotionally exhausted mind does weird things in the subconscious. I dreamed erotic dreams. Not of loving Clay, but all out fucking with Ralph. And as Ralph fucked me, I could hear Clay in the background calling out, " Yeah, that's it, Ralphy, fuck my little buddy. Make him scream for more. Fuck the faggot. Make him cum without touching himself." And I did, I filled my briefs with hot sticky semen. I woke up feeling embarrassed and humiliated. I figured that it was because Clay had been there pushing 'queer' Ralph to fuck 'queer' me.

I forced the fantasy out of my mind and took a shower to wash the remnants of my dream off my body. It was an effort to keep my mind clear of it. My stomach growled when I straightened up from tying my shoes. I realized I was ravenous and went seeking food. I made myself a tuna sandwich and splurged on the Mayo. A glass of ice cold milk washed it down. After cleaning up my kitchen mess, I found myself standing in the doorway of my office staring at the stack of still unviewed photos that included a four by six white envelope containing another set of photos. I wondered what they would reveal. I didn't feel like I could take finding out just then, and decided to get outside for a while.

My condo building is directly across from a large park. I'd often admired the beauty of the trees and broad manicured lawns, but never had I set foot into it before. With my hands stuck deep in my pockets I meandered along the trails and discovered a pond filled with ducks. I sought an empty bench and sat down.

As I watched the antics of the ducks and thought about all I'd learned in the last three days, I realized that the admiration and fondness I had for John - my employer - Mr. John K. Dorsett - had turned into the love of a son for his father. Sunday had been a day full of revelations about his life, and how he'd always kept a watchful eye on me. I wondered if he had taken the photos I'd been looking at, and decided that was not his modus operandi. No, it had been my grandfather's doing, and I was sure that he had been fully aware of what he was setting into motion.

I blocked out the dream about Ralph and its consequences and thought about the other people in this sordid mess. I'd dismissed my mother from my emotions many years ago. She was simply an aggravation that I had to put up with. She was unbearable to be around for long, and I fully understood my grandfather's attitude toward her. And I could well see why Harold wasn't around much when she was home, and why he never spoke to her when she was. Of course, much of it was because she treated him worse than she treated the servants, which was awful, but then again, from my new perspective, he was just a hired hand, wasn't he?

I found myself being angry at him for not completely filling the position of playing my father. Then it dawned on me, he was really only paid to play the part of a husband. I wondered what kind of man divorces the woman he supposedly loves to marry another for money, even if he gets to have his beloved ex living next door with his real son. I wondered if I should tell Clay that my supposed father was really his. Would Harold have the balls to admit to his own son what he'd done - that he'd taken money to divorce his wife and deny his child a father? The next few months would certainly be interesting, because the truth was going to come out. I would see to that.

I thought about Clay's little son growing up not knowing he really had a granddaddy. I pushed down my anger at Harold again. I suddenly realized that if it hadn't been Harold in the role of husband to my mother, it would have been some other man. I wished that my grandfather was still alive, so I could tell him what a shitty deal he laid on his only grandchild, whom he professed to have loved. He'd been a manipulative bastard playing with other people's lives - and beyond his death he continued. Well, I wasn't going to let him manipulate me. My mother, Harold, even Clay were part of the past, and I refused to let the past continue to affect me. I was going to destroy everything in that envelope and continue on with my life.

Back to my condo and into my office I marched. I swept all the documents and photos into a pile with the intent of brushing them off into the waste can, but in moving the photos, I exposed the white envelope containing photos I hadn't yet viewed. I dropped everything, opened the envelope and pulled one out. It was the same photo on the Internet site of Ralph being fucked by the man with his faced turned away from the camera.

The photo was apparently one of a series, with the net picture being one of them. But in the next one I looked at, Ralph was fucking the man and his face was now in plain view. It was clearly Clay getting Ralph's cock up his ass. My head spun, my stomach churned, and I thought I'd toss my lunch, or simply pass out as I stared at it.

I really thought my heart was going to pound its way out of my chest. Devastated, I crumpled to the floor wishing I could die and be done with it all. The way I felt at that moment, I'd have been better off as an abortion.

As I sat there on the floor of my home office, I started getting angry. First I was angry at Clay for betraying my love for him, then realized how ridiculous that was. He had no idea that I loved him. I turned my anger to Ralph, and saw that it was mere jealousy that he'd gotten Clay and I hadn't. The anger finally got directed at my grandfather. I have no idea what his motive was in including those photos of Clay and Ralph. He'd known how I felt about Clay. He'd even wished me happiness. Was he just being facetiously cruel? Why did he include those awful pictures? Was this his way of slamming me one last time?

There is one good thing about anger. It can give one a strong incentive to do what one has to do.