Summary: Hunter discovers a picture of Michael from his dating service days.
Rating: PG
Archive Date: 20 February 2006
When Hunter got home from school, he headed straight for the computer. Some friends had told him about "ego surfing", and he was eager to check it out. He logged onto his favorite search engine and automatically typed in "Hunter Novotny Bruckner" before catching himself. With a sigh, he backspaced through that name and typed in the hated "James Hunter Montgomery" before clicking on "Search". What waste, he thought, there was absolutely nothing on his name.
Not quite ready to give up just yet, he typed in "Benjamin Bruckner" to see what his dad's name produced. Okay, at least his name brought up some hits. Hmm?a police officer in Detroit rescued a family from a burning house, that wasn't his dad. Professor of Gay Studies at Carnegie-Mellon, author of RU12, blah, blah, blah. He already knew all of this information.
One last try for something interesting. Hunter typed in "Michael Novotny" and clicked on "Search". This also brought up a few hits. Owner of Red Cape Comics, an article about the bombing at Babylon listed his other dad as one of those injured, and then something completely unexpected came up. It was a link to a gay dating service! Hunter clicked on "Images", and up popped a picture of Michael, posing with his shirt off and the top few buttons of his jeans undone. Hunter's eyes popped when he read the text: "HOT guy, well hung, into any scene. If you like to give it, have a great body and a big cock, I want to hear from you." When had Michael done this? He looked younger in the picture, but there was no date listed. This was going to be fun!
Just then his dads came in the door, chatting about their days. Hunter looked up from the computer and said, "Oooohh, Michael you are so busted!"
Ben and Michael came over to look at what Hunter had found. When Ben saw the picture, he looked at Michael with hurt and confusion in his eyes. Michael immediately explained, "I did that before I met you."
Ben appeared to be a little placated by this, but was pretty sure there was more to the story. Confident that Michael would tell him when he was ready, Ben asked Hunter, "Don't you have some homework that needs to be done?"
Hunter stomped upstairs to his room, totally frustrated. Not only did the ego surfing on his own name come up completely empty, the one thing he found that might turn into an interesting discussion had been squelched by his dads.
Later that night as Ben and Michael lay in bed, Ben could tell that Michael was still wrestling with the picture Hunter had found on the Internet. He decided to push Michael a little bit to see what would happen. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
"I do," Michael replied, "I'm just not sure where to start."
"The beginning is usually a good place," Ben replied with a reassuring smile.
"I wasn't quite truthful when I said that I took that picture before I met you," Michael started by saying.
"I figured as much," Ben responded.
"It was after I had made the initial decision that I wasn't ready to handle a relationship with you. Those few days were some of the worst days of my life, and I threw myself headlong into finding a relationship. I was seeing you everywhere! I guess I was trying to escape your memory by finding someone, anyone, to fill that void."
Ben nodded, understanding exactly what Michael was saying, silently encouraging him to continue.
"Every time I was asked to describe what I wanted in a guy, I ended up describing you. Even the guy who did the video for one of the dating services turned into you, and he? you? whoever? quoted what you wrote for me in the copy of RU12 you gave me."
Michael was becoming more animated by this point in the story. He continued, "Brian even told me to stay away from you. He's the one that took that picture, by the way. He had put on his ?Ad Man' hat, and decided to make me into something that people would want to buy. I went on exactly one date because of that picture. Have you ever met someone that seemed pretty great, until he opened his mouth?" Ben nodded. "That's what this guy was like. I was completely turned off by him when I listened to him talk about himself."
"It was then I realized that you were like David, only in reverse." Ben looked at him quizzically. "With David, I knew, deep down, that he wasn't the right guy for me, but everyone was so excited for me, they all thought, except for Brian, that he was the perfect guy, and that I was so lucky that he was interested in me. I just figured that I must be missing something, and went along with it. I figured that so many people couldn't be wrong, and went against my own feelings. Well, we all know how that story played out."
"In your case, I knew deep down that you were the right guy for me, but I initially listened to everyone who told me to stay away. You should know that Brian was the first one to change his mind and tell me to go after you, if it was what I really wanted. That's when I realized that I had to trust my own feelings, no matter what anyone else said."
"Thus began my career as a stalker," Michael joked, earning a laugh from Ben. "I had to get you to give me one more chance. I was already in love with you, and knew that we could make it work." Michael took Ben's left hand in his, letting their silver wedding bands rub against each other, a tangible reminder that the stalking had paid off. Michael then reached up to kiss his beloved Ben, finishing off the explanation in the best possible way.
Michael yawned, then said, "I'll call the dating service tomorrow to make sure that my account is completely closed, and get that picture off the Internet."
Ben nuzzled Michael's neck, then whispered in his ear, "Not so fast, baby. I'm hoping to get a live recreation of that picture."
Michael smiled, and said, "Any time you want."
End of "Ego Surfing" by Kirsten (eli_ollie@yahoo.com)