Title: Prometheus Unbound
Author: Paul Plesko
Email address: pplesko@hotmail.com
Series/Sequel: n/a
Pairings: Brian/other
Category: Backstory, First time, Brian POV
Rating: NC-17
Date: Oct. 4, 2002
Summary: The new student in a Pittsburgh High-School, Brian Kinney finds himself labeled as an outcast. That is, until he meets the boy who accepts him... and helps him explore his growing sexuality. A defining relationship that begins to mold Brian into the man he would become. A precursor to the Requiem Series.
Spoilers: Mild spoilers for early season 1
Warnings: None
Author Notes: We know so little about Brian’s past life… the Patrick Swayze episode, a few tidbits from his high school years… but nothing really to support the complex character we’ve all come to love.  So here’s my attempt to put a past to his present… to explore his growing sexual awareness and emotional vulnerability.  Most gay men will find something in this story to remind them of their pasts.  This story is dedicated to Lee, wherever he may be.

Prometheus Unbound
by Paul Plesko

“S-S-S-S-Slaaaaaaaammm!”  The locker door whizzed by my ear blowing the hair on my forehead, then crashed against its frame.  The sound echoed in the long hall. I had dropped my English book as part of my startle-response and as I bent to pick it up, a foot kicked it a few feet away.  There were three of them, all of them larger than I was...and this was their way of saying “You’re new...and we don’t like you already.”

I had arrived in Pittsburgh a week after the school year had started, so even the freshmen at North Hills High School felt somewhat at-home.  I was the only “alien” and I knew that feeling from past experiences...always moving from place to place in search of electrical jobs, my Dad had dragged the family from small town to large city all over the South, and now we had made it farther north.  I hated never fitting-in.

“Uuuh...thanks,”  I said, recovering from the shock.  They were surrounding me now, with the largest of them leaning against the row of lockers.  “I was trying to figure out how to close that fucking door.”

“No need to thank me,” he said, slowly reaching for my shoulder. “We’re just the Welcoming Committee, making sure you chicken-shits know your place.  Just letting you know how things are here.”

I took a few steps between the other two and bent down to pick up my book.  A foot against my ass propelled me into a sprawl on the floor.  Before I slid to a stop I grabbed the book and got to my feet.  Being a runner had its advantages; I was off down the hall as if I were diving for the finish line.  “Asshole!”  I yelled over my shoulder as I rounded the corner.

=====

Days went by and I kept to myself.  And I watched my back.  The threesome watched me from a distance...but so did others...and I carefully avoided a confrontation.  They’d find someone new to pick-on soon enough.

And I made a few friends...among the other loners, that is.  People who were excluded tended to gather together...like droplets of oil coalescing into a larger drop because they couldn’t mix with water....the girls from poorer neighborhoods, the runt-boys who hadn’t experienced their growth spurt, the social-outcasts for one reason or another, and the stranger whom no one wanted to know.  It was a loose-knit group with myself sorta at the center.  We had been poor, off-and-on, so I understood those folks.  And I had been small as a child, even though my growth-spurt had kicked in now and I was almost 6-feet tall.  And I was a social outcast almost by-choice.  So I was the unofficial leader of the leaderless.  My cynical, raunchy humor made them laugh.  And my unwillingness to kiss-ass gave them hope.  We reached an ill-defined, by-default truce with the rich, the powerful, and the beautiful...and the equilibrium held.

That’s how I met Mikey.  I had found him lying on his side in fetal position, getting kicked in the ass by two football jocks.  He had accidentally spilled his milk on one of them as he maneuvered through the crowded cafeteria and they had taken him outside to teach him a lesson about manners.  I was skinny, but my baggy clothing hid the truth.  So when I confronted them, they backed-off and went back inside to finish their lunch.

He unwound slowly from his crunched-into-a-ball position.  He was already one of the “Outcasts” but we hadn’t communicated much because he was so shy.  I offered him my hand and pulled him to his feet.

“God, those guys woulda killed me...over a few slops of milk.”  He brushed the dust off his pants and the dirt off his cheek.  He was less than five feet tall with an overgrown crewcut and a goofy grin through his tears.  He looked sorta like an elf.

“We freshmen need to stick together,” I said.  “There’s a bounty on our asses, I think.”

“Hey, you’re in my algebra class, aren’t ya?  I always sit in the front so I can see the board...but I’ve seen you around.  What’s your name?”

“I’m Brian...Brian Kinney...but you can call me Bri.  And you’re Mikey.  I’ve seen you waving your hand at the teacher...from where I sit in the back.”  I paused as I picked some leaves off his back. “Stendahl is such an asshole...he never calls on people who think they know the answer, so I pretend to be asleep or distracted, just to see the look on his face when I nail it.”  Mikey nodded.  He’d probably figured out that volunteering was a sure way to avoid being called-on.

“I don’t get that stuff so good,” he said, displaying his lack of proficiency with English as well.  We laughed together for the first time.

=====

The following week he invited me to his house after school.  His Mom wasn’t home.  She worked at a factory cafeteria somewhere.  But she had left a big plate of cookies and lemon bars on the kitchen table.  Mikey had told her he was bringing me home for dinner.  We read some Spiderman comics;  Mikey knew all the dialogue and acted out all the parts in different voices.  I had never seen him so animated.

Debbie arrive in a whirlwind...a monumental presence...an unmade bed with the pillows thrown helter-skelter and the blankets pulled-up casually to hide the mess...a bundle of Styrofoam take-out trays thrown open as dinner...a startling whirlwind that filled the house with words and activity before we could even get up off the couch.  I will never forget this first meeting.  She shook my hand first...as the savior of her son...and then she clasped me to her breast as if I were a nursling.  I had to bend-down for her hug...warm and moist and smelling of tomato sauce.  She adjusted her wig as we parted; there was no doubt that she was Earth-Mother and artifice rolled into one.  I tried to reconcile the shyness of Mikey with the outrageousness of Debbie...and then I realized, they were cause-and-effect, flip-sides of the same coin.  She was what was missing in him...and he in her.

She liked me because I ate a lot.  In truth, I seldom ate at home; mealtimes were a disaster...sullen or explosive, but never nourishing. Here I couldn’t eat and talk at the same time, but everyone else seemed to be able to keep up the pace.  Every time I took a bite, there was a question.  Every time I tried to respond, I was interrupted.  And before I could take the next bite, I was interrogated again.  I could either starve or talk.  And I chose to eat...and she loved it.

“Mikey, eat the damned peas or you’ll never grow!” she shouted waving a fork as she reached for her Diet Pepsi with the other hand.  “I didn’t lug this stuff home to throw it in the trash.  See how Brian puts it away?  He know what makes a boy grow into something.”  She gave me this big smile that nearly blasted me off my chair.  I could feel the corner of my mouth curl-up in a semi-reply.  Even in those days I was careful about what I ate.

“Thank you, Mrs. Novotny,” I began later, after we’d helped clear the table of the take-out rubble.

“Call me Debbie,” she said.  “All the boys do.”

Actually, I almost called her “Mom” after a few weeks of visits to Mikey’s house.  It was my home-away-from-home…my haven from the chill of neglect and unconcern.  She treated me just like her own son…well, better, actually, because she was always nagging Mikey to “do this” or “try that”…but she knew I had already done it and tried it and excelled at it…so she left me alone except for the big face-into-the-bosom hugs.  I was so glad when I grew the extra couple inches to make that less possible.

=====

Flashback:  “Not so close to the edge, Bri!  Geez!  You’re gonna kill yourself.”  Mikey and I had climbed atop the garage using Mrs. Slotnick’s fence and clothesline support as a means of getting onto the roof.  After surmounting the peak and sliding down to the edge, we were overlooking Mikey’s back yard from about 12-feet up.

“Stand up…here, by me.”  Mikey was clinging to the worn shingles with his fingernails.  He slowly rose, clutching at the air for support.  I helped him to the edge.

“You’re not gonna jump, are you?” he said, already knowing the answer.

“Of course I am, you dick-head.  Why do you think I climbed up here?”

“But WHY?” he moaned, knowing he’d have to jump too.

“How can you know how it feels to jump off the garage until you do it?” I asked matter-of-factly.  There was no real answer to that question.  He swayed and I steadied him with my hand on his shoulder.  “Just fucking JUMP,” I said as I pushed-off, landed, and rolled.  I knew he wouldn’t, without further encouragement…just like everything else.  “You can do it,” I said, brushing myself off.  See?  No broken bones.  Just pretend you’re Spiderman.”

He gave me that dirty look that said “Don’t diminish my hero.”  Then he teetered, started to jump, then corrected himself, over-corrected, and slipped back down onto the steep roof which propelled him over the edge like a liberated snow-drift on a winter roof.  His pants caught on the gutter and flipped him momentarily; then he fell as the pants ripped.  He landed on his shoulder.  In retrospect, he probably could have broken his neck.  He lay there in a heap, quietly for a moment, then let-out a wail that could be heard downtown.  Deb came out onto the back porch and sized-up the situation immediately.  She stormed off the porch, shoved me aside from my kneeling position next to him, and shouted at both of us.  “Brian, did you do this?  Where does it hurt?  Answer me!  And stop your damned squealing!  You SHOULDA landed on your head.  Maybe it’d knock some sense into you.”  She picked him up after checking for broken bones by poking him in suspicious places.  “You’d jump off the fucking 40^th Street Bridge if Brian did, wouldn’tcha?”  We both looked stunned because I’d already threatened to take Mikey there next.  She could read minds sometimes.  “Someday you’ll land on your feet, Luv,” she said as she helped him stand because he still had the wind knocked out of him.  She nodded and smiled painfully…then she looked at me, not with anger, but with a knowing approval.  She knew I was already like a cat…always landing on my feet and with a few lives to spare.  I was her boy, too.  And I got twice as much parenting from Deb as I did from twice as many real parents.

Mikey’s fascination with super-heroes was all-consuming.  He could quote huge passages of dialogue better than I could repeat Shylock’s soliloquy in my English class.  I had never paid much attention to comic books until I met Mikey…they seemed one generation away from mine.  But I could understand his fascination.  Mikey desired the powers of the super-heroes; whether he might use them for good or evil wasn’t clear, but he probably found solace in the fact that mild-mannered, teenager Peter Parker could kick-ass when he wanted to.  Mikey never could.

But I found a curious interest in the super-heroes as well…their double-lives.  They could be different things to different people.  They could assume different identities.  No one knew all their secrets.  There was a certain attractiveness there that kept me reading Mikey’s huge collection.  I didn’t need super powers; I had hidden abilities that few people recognized…and I could keep those hidden to some people…and I could reveal them to others who might not know my darker side…and I could shape my identity any way I wanted.  It was a powerful lesson for a teenager.

And I occasionally thought about what it would be like to have a super-hero sidekick at my side.  The only problem was, I knew it wouldn’t be Mikey.  He always seemed to put two feet into the same leg of his tights.

=====

I remember the first moment I saw him.  The halls were almost empty because classes were about to begin for the morning.  And I was far from the entrance down the long central hallway.  He appeared in silhouette at first…almost as if halloed by sunlight…the triangular torso of broad shoulders and narrow hips, the runner’s legs evident in his tight Levis, the flash of blond hair.  He walked toward me like an approaching god; not hurrying despite the impending bell, he smiled as he approached me.  Perhaps I smiled in-reply.  He passed me.  I was late for class.

=====

Flashback: My interest in guys was awakened early.  I can remember, at age ten, finding the picture of Prometheus in the Greek mythology book in the library.  He was chained reclining on a flat rock, spread-eagled, naked…an eagle perched (conveniently) on his bent thigh hiding his groin while eating his liver.  His muscles were bulging; his body was contorted in pain, yet it was a beautiful picture.  I checked-out my own body in the mirror that night, seeing little similarity.  I had wanted to touch him as I was touching myself then.  I had wanted to feel his warmth, his breathing, his strength.  Every night I looked at the Xerox copy of the picture; every night Prometheus’ liver was devoured by the eagle…and the rest of his body was devoured by my eyes.

=====

The new priest at Saint Matthew’s (just a block from Mikey’s house) played basketball with us in the churchyard on occasional warm, summer evenings.  His body, through the immaculately white tee-shirt dampened with sweat, was trim and firm.  [Seeing him like this was the only reason I ever played basketball; I never enjoyed team-sports but, instead, valued individual achievement.  My sport was cross-country running.]  And when he raised his arms for another of his famous jump-shots he displayed the damp patches that marked him as a man in my estimation…hard work, firm muscles, and sweat.  Afterwards, as we strolled off the court, he mussed my hair and said “Next Sunday…the 8 o’clock mass.  You’re on, right?”  I had been a choir-boy and alter-boy at every church we’d ever attended.  Mom never missed a Sunday morning mass, even if she had attended one the night before.  So she kept an eye on me from the 3^rd row, left…always the same seat with Claire by her side.   Now that I was almost six feet tall, I had “graduated” to crucifer…the cross-bearer who led the “parade” for high mass.  It never failed; at that supreme moment in the mass when Father Rob (swathed in vestments to hide his physique) lifted the Host above his head as The Sacrifice…my memories returned to the time, years before, when my eyes had followed the Host into the air, but then focused on the crucifix hanging above and behind the altar.  The sagging torso.  The near-nakedness.  The stretched musculature.  The small drape of fabric hiding his manhood.  I stared at the almost life-sized statue…seeing it writhe in agony like Prometheus…perceiving the smooth plaster as warm skin…wanting to lift the cloth.  I lost my place in the service as I stood transfixed; someone eventually shoved me out of the way as the procession proceeded to the altar rail.  As I knelt to accept the Host, I don’t know what came over me, but as the priest dropped the wafer into my cupped hands, I bend down and kissed the back of his hand.  I never looked up to see whether he felt it.  But he was the first man I ever kissed.

=====

I saw Lee many times in the first few months at the new school.  He was the reason I went-out for the track team, although I chose middle-distance running, the 800 and 1600 meters, instead of the javelin or the pole-vault specifically so I would not compete against him.  I worshipped him from afar…at first.  He was my Prometheus and my Christ rolled into one warped, multi-theistic image.  I would pack and unpack my gym bag repeatedly or rearrange my locker in an effort to kill time until he appeared in the locker room.  He would slide past me wearing only his work-out shorts, carrying his shoes and his sweat-soaked track shirt.  I inhaled his aroma as he passed and lick my arm if he happened to brush by me leaving a smudge of sweat.  I watched him shower.  I always touched his locker before I left.  It was total adoration…and I was hooked. 

=====

I peered around the edge of my locker door to catch a glimpse of him as he stepped from the shower…with no embarrassment, he simply threw his towel over his shoulder and walked, dripping, to his locker at the other end of the long bench.  I was nearly dressed, having spent much too long waiting for him to arrive.  He propped one large foot on the bench; from the rear I could see his balls hanging low from the hot shower…his broad back and shoulders bending forward as he dried his calf with the white towel.  Then he stood upright again and shook the water out of his hair before he covered his head completely with a towel.  I could get a good look now without his noticing my gaze.  His ass was smooth and muscular…the bulge of his biceps femoris gave the back of his thigh that slant-of-power that a pole-vaulter gets from that explosive leap which lifts the hips so that the upper body can propel him over the bar.  Suddenly he turned; as his cock swung into view his eyes locked onto me.

“Hey, Tiger…how’s it goin’?”  His first words to me.  I flushed and turned away.  I couldn’t look at him without staring at his cock.

“I’m OK.  Thanks.  How about you?”   I took my socks out of my gym bag, re-folded them, and stuffed them back inside.

“Well, good and bad,” he said.  “I cleared ten feet a few times today…and that’s damned good…but I hit the cross-bar on one attempt.  Look at this fucking bruise.”  His finger indicated a deep red slash across his upper thigh.  I couldn’t avoid looking…and lingering.  He smiled that big, broad, friendly smile.  “Coulda lost a nut,” he added.

He dressed quickly, slipping into his Levis while still damp and tossing an oversized, sleeveless sweatshirt over his torso.  As he brushed by me, he added, “See ya around…Tiger.”

I was so star-struck, I started unpacking my bag again…and when I realized it, I zipped it closed, touched his locker for good luck, and headed out of the locker room. He was gone; the hall was empty.  I hurried to catch-up.  Perhaps we could talk some more. 

It wasn’t until I left the building that I realized I’d left all my books in my locker.  My English paper was due tomorrow, so I needed those books.  Discouraged, I turned back to retrieve them.

The locker room was empty when I returned, although there was the sound of someone showering.  As I walked by the shower room door to retrieve my books, I realized that Mr. Ramey, one of the P.E. teachers, was soaping himself.  I paused just one second too long.  He looked up at me, firmly gripping his hard shaft with soap suds dripping from the tip.  He froze…then as I continued to watch, he began to stroke it again, slowly and seductively.  His hairy pecs tensed as he posed for me, the remains of a fine athlete reduced to enforced pushups, track-laps, and detention.  He lowered his head, glancing at the red tip of his cock peeking through the suds, then cast his eyes up again.  “You want some of that?” he whispered over the sound of the spray.  I’m not sure what came over me…the invitation, his robust masculinity, or the memory of Lee’s cock…I stared with my mouth open.  Dropping my gym bag at the door, I stepped across the wet floor and dropped to my knees in the water pool.  I spray soaked my shirt and chinos.  Crawling forward on my knees, with water streaming down my face, I reached for the base of his cock and guided it to my lips.  Without saying a word he gripped my head between his hands and rocked back and forth, fucking my mouth.  The soap had been rinsed off, but some of the taste remained.  The water dripping from his body splashed my cheeks.  He didn’t last long; he had been ready to shoot when I arrived.  He slammed it in that final time as he erupted.  I could feel it spreading on my tongue.  He shuddered once, then released my head.  “One word about this….and you’re dead,” He said.  I believed him, and from that time, it was as if it never happened…and it never happened again.

=====

He was two years older than I…a junior when I came to Pittsburgh…but during the second half of my freshman year I managed to talk to Lee occasionally.  He was friendly and outgoing…a natural charmer…the center of an elite group of student-athletes…and a regular nice guy.  I joined the outing club because I knew he was its president.  And I got to know him better on several hikes in a nearby state park.  He seemed to like me.  I ran faster in my distance races just to gain his approval. [My father never attended any of my races.]  He gave me a congratulatory hug after one particular win; I nearly fainted and everyone thought it was the exertion of the race.  He offered his jacket to me…”to  prevent a chill”…and I pulled it close to my body and smelled him in its fabric.  Not only did I get to wear his jacket for everyone to see, but he also showed that he cared about me.  I cried that night from the sheer joy of it.

In addition to all his sports buddies, Lee had a squadron of girls who surrounded him occasionally.  And he had a girlfriend, of sorts; he seldom mentioned her, but I saw them together occasionally and kept my distance.  It didn’t disrupt my “plans”…because I didn’t have plans.  I knew I wanted to be with him…I knew he was special…I knew I felt good when we were together…and I knew that I fantasized about his body…but otherwise, I had no idea where this might be leading.  I didn’t understand what I was feeling in terms of my own sexuality.  I just knew it felt good.

Mikey began to notice that I was spending more time with Lee.  He complained about it at first, then tried to compete.  I still ate more meals at his house than I did at my own…and we spent hours together in his room discussing Captain Astro.  But things didn’t seem the same to him.  He was always asking about Lee.  What he said.  What he did.  What WE did.  I tried to answer his questions; I had nothing to hide from Mikey.  He was my adopted “brother” and I told him everything…almost everything.  Two days after I told him about wearing Lee’s jacket, I found Mikey wearing mine.

The situation took an important turn during the April of my freshman year.  The outing club was planning a hike along part of the Appalachian Trail in eastern Pennsylvania.  It would require an early morning departure to reach the trail at a reasonable time, so Lee offered to pick me up that morning.  He already had his driver’s license and a nice Toyota.  After making our plans, he suddenly suggested a change.  “Why don’t you sleep-over at my house the night before,” he said, “and we can just wake up and head for the high school to meet the rest of the club members before hitting the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  I was stunned.  He’d never invited me to his house before…and now he was inviting me to stay overnight.  I couldn’t accept fast enough.

I’ll skip the details of packing…and the anticipation…but I was waiting at the curb when he picked me up the evening before the trip.  The introduction to his parents was a blur; I could only look at him.  And dinner was the same.  I have no memory of it.  We played pool for an hour after dinner, then watched “Return of the Jedi” on tape.  It was the first VCR I had ever seen.  Lee’s slight resemblance to Mark Hamill made the movie even more interesting as we slouched together on the couch drinking Coke.  “Want something in that?” he asked.

“Such as?”  I inquired, not knowing exactly what he had in-mind.

“Oh, some rum…or vodka, maybe,” he said, getting up to step behind the bar in the family room.  “Not too much…just enough so you’ll get some good sleep.”  I hadn’t thought much about sleeping.

The rum tasted good.  I’d sneaked some of my Dad’s whiskey before…and he’d even offered me a beer a few times.  “The manly drink,” he said.  I felt the warmth spread throughout my body.  I wasn’t drunk, just feeling relaxed.  At ten o’clock, Lee suggested we go upstairs…and it was then that I realized that we would be sleeping in the same room…in the same bed.  Would I be able to sleep?  Would I toss and turn all night and fall off a mountain the next afternoon?

He turned-back the covers and indicated that the side away from the open window was to be mine.  While he went into the bathroom, I stripped down to my underwear and slid into bed.  My cock was semi hard and I didn’t want him to see it.  I usually jacked-off in the darkness before going to sleep, but that was gonna be impossible tonight.  He came out of the bathroom after what seemed like an hour and he turned off the light.  As he began to undress, the light from the open window illuminated his body…indirect light from the moon shining on the garage across the alley.  Back-lit, as I had seen him that first time.  He continued to talk to me, but I was saying very little, just clutching the blankets over my body with my knees slightly bent to hide the bulge in my jockey-shorts.  He talked about the hike as he unbuttoned his shirt and slid the tee shirt over his head.  The light shone off the slabs of his pecs with the sharp overhang in side-view.  He kicked off his shoes as he talked about breakfast.  Then he turned directly toward me and opened the waistband of his Levis;  I heard the zipper slide down, but he was in shadows.  He turned sideways then and let the pants fall farther open.  He wasn’t wearing underwear!  His cock slid out as he peeled the pants down his muscular thighs.  I nearly gasped.  He stood naked for a moment in front of the window, again in silhouette…but I could see the light shining between his thighs now and the shadow of his cock and balls hanging there pendulously.  Then he stepped further into the shadow and slipped into bed beside me.  I froze.  He was so close to me I could reach out and touch the body I had admired from a distance…but I couldn’t move.  I felt his weight shift on the bed as he turned toward me.

“Do you have a girlfriend?  I never see you with anyone…” he said matter-of-factly.

This was not the conversation I had anticipated and I fumbled for something to say.  “I dated someone back in North Carolina before we moved here,” I finally replied. “We went to movies and dances…and the 8^th grade prom.  Her mom was a friend of my mom.  It was sorta arranged.”  I had heaved a sigh of relief when I learned we were moving to Pittsburgh; Carolyn had been pushing for more than just dancing and kissing.  “There’s a girl in my algebra class that I’m getting to know,” I added trying to make it sound as if it were going somewhere.

“What do you think of Marie?” he said, veering in another direction.

I had tried to ignore her.  I had never mentioned her name to him….as if it would make her go away.  “She’s pretty,” I replied. “Otherwise, I don’t know…”

“I’ve fucked her once…not long ago.  What do you think of that?”

I couldn’t tell him what I thought at that moment, so I remained silent and rolled onto my side facing him.

“It was OK,” he continued.  “But what I really like is when she blows me.  I just lie-back, and she makes it feel great.”

Silence.  I didn’t know what to say.  I knew about blow-jobs…in theory, at least.  The mechanics and the dynamics eluded me.

“Does talking about this stuff make you hard, Bri?”  I felt the sheet move as his hand slid toward me.  His first touch was on my hip, then he quickly slid to the bulge in my groin and squeezed it gently.  “Yep…just like I thought.”  A pause while his hand remained motionless there.  “Here, feel me.”  He reached in the darkness, found my free hand, and placed it over his cock covered by the sheet.  He pressed it there firmly letting me feel his size and hardness.  My cock leapt as I felt him grip my hand tighter…and he apparently felt my spasm.  “Oh, you like that, huh?  Now put your hand under the sheet,” he murmured softly, shifting his weight closer to me, rolling onto his back, and removing his hand from my growing erection.  He pulled the sheet down; I felt its fabric slide under my palm…and then I felt “it.”  I had seen his cock from a distance, always soft.  Sure, I’d seen other guy’s with semi-erections in the shower room after track practice…soaping themselves and turning toward the wall to hide the evidence.  But my first touch of his cock shot through me like a lightning jolt.  It felt different from mine, and similar at the same time.  I gripped him as if I was holding my own…and I gave it a single stroke because it felt like the thing to do at the moment.  “MMmmmmmmm…..nice,” he whispered.  “We have to be quiet.  My folks are just down the hall.”  I slid my hand up and down his shaft slowly…the way I liked to begin…making myself wait.  He ground his ass into the bed.  “Oh, Baby…you know how to stroke it.”  I wasn’t sure what I should do, but I must have been doing it right.  I heard his heavy breathing and felt his hard abs against the side of my forearm on the down-stroke.  He was really enjoying this.  And I was bringing him this pleasure.  I jacked him faster.  “NNNnnnnggggg…not so fast!” he whispered.  “You’ll make me shoot too early.”  I didn’t know there was such a thing as “too early.”

He shifted his weight again, and I felt his hand on mine removing it from his shaft.  Had I displeased him somehow?  And then I felt his hand on my chest as he rose up beside me and pushed me flat onto my back again.  His hands pulled at the waistband of my briefs; I  lifted my ass to help him slide them down my legs. They were tossed unceremoniously into the corner.  He positioned himself over me straddling my calves.  In the darkness I saw him descending toward my groin. 

“You’re gonna love this,” he whispered.  I could feel his breath on the tip of my cock as it swayed fully-erect.  And then his hand closed around its base.  My abs tightened and my shoulders lifted off the bed…my reaction was so intense.  And then I felt it…the soft, moist, warmth spreading over my cock-tip…I inhaled sharply and started to moan.  His free hand covered my mouth to stifle my reaction.  His lips left my cock for a moment.  “Shhhhh, Baby…you’ll have to be quiet.  Just lie-back and enjoy it.  I’ll show you how good it feels.”  His lips returned now, taking more of me inside.  I could feel his saliva dripping down the base of my shaft into my pubic hair.  I dug my fingers into the mattress and held-on as if I expected his suction to lift me.  I closed my eyes and let the sensation wash over me.  Every motion of his mouth made me swoon.  It was so much better than my hand.  Meanwhile his hands explored my body in a way that let me know it pleased him.  I felt my cock-tip hit the back of his throat…and suddenly I knew I was going to shoot; I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to think about that part of it yet. 

“No…” I said.  “I can’t…I’m gonna…Oh, God, I love it…I can’t stop it…”

He lifted his head a moment.  “No, that’s okay…go ahead and shoot.  It’s what I want.  I want you to cum in my mouth.  I like it.  Give it to me.”  He dove down even farther.  I felt his hair brush my lower abs.  His hands gripped my wrists and pulled, arching my chest upwards as my back left the mattress.  I felt like a spring wound too tight.  The combination of the immobility and the stimulation on my cock lifted me to an even higher level of arousal.  Trying not to scream was my greatest effort.  And then I felt it…deep inside my body…the inevitability…the pressure…the loss of control…the welling-up of something so powerful I had never felt anything like it.  Time slowed.  The pressure seemed to creep irrevocably toward that trigger-spot…and then it surged.  I pressed my ass deep into the mattress and then pushed upward so violently my pelvic bone slammed his teeth as I spewed my cum into his throat. It was as if every muscle in my abdomen contracted at-once to expel my entire insides through the narrow pathways of my vas deferens and my seminal vesicles.  The waves of pressure accelerated as the fluid made a sharp right-turn at my prostate, then surged up the swollen urethra under my shaft.  I held my breath for fear of making a noise; the only sound was his gurgling swallowing and the smacking of lips against my shaft.  I remember feeling catatonic…as if my entire body had turned to stone at the instant of ejaculation.  And then every muscle suddenly slackened and I went limp.  He continued to swallow on me, milking the last drops from deep within me. 

“Taste it,” he said as he slowly move up my torso.  By the time his mouth reached mine, my cum had drizzled from his mouth onto his chin and I licked it hungrily.  We kissed for the first time…like I had learned to kiss Carolyn…mouths wide, lips devouring, tongues dueling.  But here, it meant something.  I was telling how I felt about him with each twist and thrust.  I felt him inhaling the air from my lungs, sharing the same breath.  I nearly fainted.

Minutes later we lay side-by-side, both breathing heavily, unable to speak…or unwilling to interrupt the moment.  Finally he spoke.

“I’ve wanted to do that for months,” he said.  “You are so fucking hot…so gorgeous, so lean, so delicious, so…”

“No,” I interrupted.  “You’re the gorgeous one.  I’ve watched you for so long, I know your body by-heart.”

“Stop it…let’s just say it’s mutual and leave it there.  I have so much to show you…so much to enjoy of you…let’s don’t waste time looking backwards.”  He nuzzled my neck and kissed my clavicle. “I love this spot right here, for instance…”  His tongue delved into the depression at the base of my neck in the center of my chest. “…your jugular notch…I can feel your pulse with my tongue.”  I began to tremble as he licked me there.  “And now…” he said as he lifted his face to mine, “I want you to do me.  It’ll be your first time, won’t it?”

I nodded “Yes,” feeling a little embarrassed and anxious that I might not do it right.

“Don’t worry,…there’s an art to it that you can’t attain your first time…but I can teach you…show you…demonstrate…”  He smiled in the darkness, enjoying the idea of demonstrating on me.  “Tonight, just get over the idea that it’s my cock…that it’s dirty…or somehow wrong.  Just forget about all that.  I washed myself well…that’s what took so long…and someday you’ll even learn to like my taste.  I do.  And you don’t need to swallow.  I’ll understand.  I remember my first time.”   [ Considering all the times, recently, that I’ve shoved my cock into a guy’s mouth without ever wondering whether he knew what to do, I’d say that Lee was being extremely sensitive and generous.]  “We’ll just do it the easy way…no need for you to be uncomfortable…and you can quit whenever you like.”  He slid off the bed on his side and walked around the end to my side.  “Sit here…on the edge,” he said, helping me to move.  I was still trembling.

I sat on the edge of the bed.  He spread my knees and stepped between them bringing his torso as close to my face as possible.  His hand on my shoulder pulled me forward gently.  I touched his thigh and felt his inner thigh muscles quiver as I slid my fingers up toward his groin.  My thumb brushed his balls as I tried to find his cock hanging there, but in the darkness, I managed to brush it with the back of my wrist.  Reaching up with my other hand, I missed it too.

“Would you like to see what you’re doing?  Hold on a second.”  He stepped away and I heard the scratch of a match.  Its bright flare blinded my eyes for a moment as it moved to the votive candle on the nightstand.  It blossomed into a small flame as he shook the match to extinguish it.  Suddenly my eyes focused on the face of the Madonna immediately behind the low flame…her eyes downcast as if in sorrow.  Lee quickly turned the picture face-down.

“Here,” he said.  “Suck me now.”  I looked up at his torso of burnished bronze, half-lit by the candle.  Its flicker moved over his body like ripples in a pool.  Every square inch of his lighted skin look alive and moving.  The crucifix at the Easter Vigil.  The Fire-Giver ready to be devoured. The head of his cock gleamed like the sugar-syrup on fresh strawberries…ripe, red, shiny.  He had attempted to wipe-off the droplet of pre-cum with his thumb, but instead he had spread it over the entire tip.  I leaned forward again, placing my hands on his hips; my palms automatically slid around behind to cup his ass as I pulled him closer.  As I opened my lips, I cast my eyes upward along the valleys and mounds of his abs and pecs.  He was watching me…waiting to see his cock disappear into me.  I had dreamed of this moment without actually anticipating how it would feel. I inhaled as if it might be my last breath…to be struck-down by the sheer pleasure of the act.  At that moment, I loved him more than life itself.

My lips slid onto his tip, widening as they descended until they gripped the shallow groove beyond the mushroom-head.  It was like damp velvet to my lips…that combination of slick and soft.  His inner thigh muscles trembled as he struggled to stand upright. I looked up again to see the expression on his face…sheer pleasure and the anticipation of unbearably more. 

“That’s it,” he murmured.  “Just take your time.  We have all night.”  I had never imagined that guys could do this all night.  “Don’t get excited.  Don’t rush it.  Ooooohhhh….so good…”  His voice trailed-off to a whisper.

I began to use my tongue on the tip, …encircling it, long licks across the top, exploratory licks under the overhang.  He lunged then, involuntarily, and drove an additional inch into me at an oblique angle with the head sliding along my inner cheek.  My saliva was flowing heavily now.  I swallowed as I watched his eyebrows rise in a momentary ecstasy.  Who knew that I could bring such pleasure with so little effort?

“Can you feel me throbbing?” he asked.  I tried to shake my head “yes”…but it only changed the angle of his dick so it touched alternately the roof of my mouth and my tongue.  He enjoyed that too.

“God, you are so good…even for your first time.  Only another guy could know just what to do…could know just how it feels…could make it feel this way.”

I was gaining courage now, knowing I was doing it correctly.  His cock tasted mildly of soap.  I can remember the taste even today.  Soap and salt.  And the slightly acrid taste of urine from his secretions.  I found it unusual but not unpleasant.  I had tasted my own cum before, so I knew how it tasted…and I was ready to try his.

I pulled him closer.  As his knees hit the edge of the mattress, he arched backwards at the waist and shoulders letting his pelvis advance without losing his balance.  The stretch of his belly, viewed from so close, filled my field of vision.  He was all there was.  I brushed my forehead against the thin trail of hair descending from his navel to blossom into the soft bush of pubic hair that caressed my upper lip as I took him deeper.  His glans hit the back of my throat, triggering a gag-reflex I hadn’t anticipated.  I struggled to overcome it, but I choked and pulled off quickly gasping for air.  My eyes filled with tears, partially from the reflex and partially from the fear of disappointing him.

“That’s OK, Baby…you’ll get used to it.  Just take a deep breath.”  His hand caressed my face as he brushed away a tear with his thumb. “You just need practice,” he said with a grin.  I smiled and went back to work, licking the underside of his shaft with long strokes before engulfing the head again.  I stroked the globes of his trim ass with my fingers; I knew its contours from memories of the shower room.  I opened his crack and slid the fingers of my left hand along the inner softness.

He laughed.  “You’re a natural,” he said.  “You already know what I like.”  Sensing my enjoyment, he took-over a little, rocking his pelvis back and forth as he fucked into my mouth slowly…never deep enough to choke me, but long-enough strokes to let me judge his size and girth.  I would let him do anything he wanted with me.  Anything to please him.

I reached between us and gripped the base of his shaft between my thumb and forefinger to adjust our alignment…and then I began to sway forward and back in time with his thrusts, meeting him halfway…matching stroke-for-stroke…taking him as deep as I dared.  I was adjusting now…testing the limits of how much I could take…learning to close my throat on his tip at the apex and milking him as he pulled out.  My lips gripped the stretchy skin as it slid over his steely interior.  His abs tightened again as his hands moved to grip my head like a basketball.  We were fucking now...the sounds of my wet lips on his shaft…his gentle moans of pleasure…my labored breathing through my nose…all blended into the subdued murmur of surreptitious pleasure.  I could sense the intensity of his pleasure.  I could feel him crying for release.  I longed to be the instrument of that pleasure and release.

With a sudden shuddered he pushed me away.  I stopped my fall with one hand as he grabbed his cock and pumped it, squeezing it to build-up the pressure.  His torrent shot over my face and chest.  Still warm from the core of his interior, it burned my flesh like the magical Asperges…lustration…internal purification…the salty taste as I licked some from my fingers.  He stood there looming over me…a single thread of glass-like seminal fluid gleamed in the candlelight…it connected his cock to mine in a thread-like catenary curve.  The image burned into my brain.

He slowly regained his senses.  He smiled.  He leaned forward over me, supporting himself on straight arms as his lips met mine.  Then he lowered himself onto me, pressing me backwards onto the rumpled blankets.  His cum, pressed between us, glued us together like Super Glue; I never wanted to leave him.

“See?  You liked that.  I knew you would.  But I wasn’t sure you were ready to finish me in your mouth, so I pulled-out at the last minute.  I didn’t want you to gag or to choke or  to not like it after enjoying what came before so much.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled against the side of my neck.  “Whadaya think?  Did I surprise you?”

“It was great,” I said.  (Such a monumental understatement.)  “ I knew that guys did that sometimes, but I never dreamed…”  I hesitated to tell him how much I had wanted it without really knowing what I wanted.  “I hope I did OK.”

“OK???” he said.  “OK?  You were wonderful…so spontaneous…so willing to try it…so hot.  I’ve never blown a load that big with Marie.  And she doesn’t really like it.  She just does it to keep me from wanting more.”

I thought to myself, “I’d do it to MAKE you want more…”  And I realized at the moment that I wanted more, too.  I wanted it all from him.  I wanted him to teach me…use me…even hurt me if he wanted to.  “Let’s do it again…” I said, shifting my body under him.

He laughed loudly, then stifled it.  “I’ve turned you into a little cock-whore in one try.”  He kissed me on the nose.  “There’s plenty of time for that.  I have a feeling we’re gonna do this a lot more in the future.”  I nodded, rubbing my nose against his cheek.  “But tonight, we need to get some sleep.  I want you to have enough energy to run away from those Appalachian bears if they mistake you for lunch.”  We laughed together, bellies rubbing together in a shared moment of silliness.

He pushed himself upward, breaking the glue-bond…then blew out the candle.  He skirted the bottom of the bed and crawled into his side.  We lay there apart, still reliving the past hour.  I stared up at the blackness of the ceiling.  It seemed as if my whole life had changed.  Instinctively, my fingers crept under the sheet just to check to see if he was still there…to test the reality.  I brushed his hand with mine; he turned his palm upward, interlocked my fingers, and squeezed.  Hand-in-hand, we lay together…until he rolled toward me once more, slid his forearm under my shoulder and rolled me against him, encircling me with his strong arms. 

“Sleep here close to me,” he whispered.  “We’re together now.”

=====

I barely remember the hike.  Surrounded by other hikers, male and female, he was all I could see.  Under the canopy of trees…on the edge of the cliff…along the steep descent…all I could think about was the previous night.  He had awakened sometime in the middle of the night and had pulled me close again, kissing me in the surreal half-sleep.  It had not been a dream.  He had told me he loved me.  I had lain entangled in his arms and legs, my cheek against his shoulder, as he had drifted off to sleep again, having disclosed the unprotected truth.

After the hike and the long drive back to Pittsburgh he drove his carload of hikers to their respective homes; I was the last.  We sat in the car in front of my house, talking about the trip.  We had not discussed last night over breakfast, or during the drive to the high school, or certainly not while on the hiking trip…but not even now.  It was the only thing on my mind, yet he talked of other things.  Finally he said, “Go inside and get some sleep.  You’ve had a busy day…and a busy night before that.”  He smiled.  I melted.

The house was quiet.  Claire was home, alone in one room.  Mom was reading her Bible or saying the Rosary…I only saw her from behind.  She heard me come in, I’m sure, but it was only a momentary interruption.  I headed for my room to unpack my duffel bag.  The room seemed suddenly empty…devoid of life.  I slipped out of my clothes in the cloistered silence and climbed into bed…naked.  I had never slept naked until that night with Lee.  And I have never slept any other way since.  I lay between the cool sheets, feeling them warm against my skin.  My hand took its usual position, but I felt dissatisfied with how it felt, somehow.  It still had Lee’s saliva on it, I imagined.  I licked the webbing between my thumb and forefinger to get a taste of him.  It wasn’t enough.

The lights went out half-an-hour later; the house was silent.  My Dad was still out, but he would come home drunk in the wee hours.  I tossed and turned, uncomfortable in the familiar feel of my own bed.  Another half-hour passed and I assumed everyone was asleep.  I dressed quietly and opened my door quietly.  The floor squeaked a little as I felt my way through the darkness to the back door.  I found my bike leaning against the fence and rolled it quietly down the walk to the street.  It was about 6 miles to Lee’s house.  I found it after making a wrong turn and retracing my path.  The house was dark.  Leaving my bike by the front door, I followed the driveway to the backyard.  The moonlight which dappled the patio helped me navigate through the minefield of outdoor furniture, potted plants, and the barbecue grill.  There it was…his window….open as I knew it would be.  It was higher than I had imagined.  I could reach the sill with my hand, but there was no good place to get a foothold.  I was afraid of waking his parents or the neighbors, so I contemplated sleeping under his window that night…just to be close to him…but I wanted to be with him.  I threw a pebble at the raised pane of glass; it struck with a “tick” and fell back onto the patio.  Another one…and another.  From the interior blackness emerged a figure.  “What in Hell are you doing here?” 

“I rode my bike,” I said in a loud whisper.  “I wanted…”  I wasn’t sure exactly what I DID want, but I knew there was a gnawing urgency in my belly that was affecting my mind. 

“Get in here,” he said, extending his hand.  “Before you wake everyone up.”  I gripped his wrist as he lifted me to the sill.  I swept my arms inside, gave a lunge, and landed on the floor in a heap as my knees and ankles cleared the window sill.  He pulled me upright.  He was naked.  “You crazy kid,” he said.  “I’ve created a monster.”

“I wanted to be with you again….and again and again and…”

“I know,” he said.  “Me too.  But I never dreamed you’d pull a stunt like this.  How will I explain it tomorrow morning?  ‘Uh, Mom…Brian just stopped by for breakfast before heading to school…which just happens to be in the opposite direction from his house.’”  Meanwhile he was unbuttoning my shirt.

“I’ll leave early in the morning,” I replied. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.  I just couldn’t sleep thinking about last night.  Please don’t be angry.”

“No need to apologize,” he said as he loosened my belt and opened my pants.  “The hardest part of my whole day was saying goodbye to you a few hours ago.  I was ready to rape you in the back seat.”  I smiled at the accidental reference to my “back seat.”  “Stay here tonight,” he continued.  “I couldn’t sleep either.  When you threw that boulder at my window, I had my face buried in your pillow from last night, smelling your shampoo.  I was missing you something awful.”

We kissed as my pants slowly slid down my legs.  I had to sit down to remove my shoes and socks before I could get the pants off.  I hadn’t worn any underwear, following his example.  No preliminaries this night…no foreplay…no instruction…no hesitancy.  Instead of waiting to see what came next, I threw myself into it…mouth and hands…top and bottom…a triple replay of last night.  We hardly slept at all.  Oh, there was one new thing he taught me…the simultaneous blowjob…a “69” position.  My only regret was that the tremendous pleasure he brought me sometimes diverted my attention from pleasuring him…so we struggled back-and-forth for control.  As soon as we finished, we started again.  We seemed to have an endless supply of cum…a creamy-white bottomless pit.  In the morning, as the sky began to lighten, I grabbed my clothes and prepared to slip out the window.  He awoke and stood to help me…but we ended-up embracing and kissing for an additional five minutes. 

“I’ll see you at track practice, if not before,” he said, mussing my hair as I ducked through the window.  “Think of me, Baby.”

I could think of nothing else.

=====

We showered together every day after that…after track practice.  It was never obvious; we both used the same tactics we had used before…delay or polite haste…to coordinate our readiness for a shower.  And there was never any overt sexuality between us…or even the hint of affection.  But there was plenty of sexuality at night.  I slept in his bed at least five nights a week…and we sometimes went for overnight campouts on an additional weekend night.  The night after my unannounced arrival under his window, I found a large wooden box centered under the sill…just the right height to step upon and hoist myself through the window.  Sometimes I would arrive before he got home and I would hide in his closet.  Lee would come in smelling of Marie; he would shower before we sucked each other because he knew it bothered me.  Sometimes he would be asleep, or feigning sleep, as I slid in beside him naked and ready.  It was a compulsion.  My day began when he kissed me goodbye in the morning…and the evening began as we met on the track field in the afternoon, because I was already wanting him…already anticipating the first embrace in the darkness of his room.  I went to great lengths to make my room look lived-in…mussing the bed, leaving today’s paper on my desk, rearranging things…only my mom seemed to notice that I was staying out late or all night.  “Just like your father,” she hissed at breakfast one morning.  “I’ll pray to Saint Jude for your soul.”

Mikey noticed that something was different.  He began hanging-around during track practice, watching from the bleachers as I ran a few miles on the track.  I kept my eyes straight ahead…no yearning glances at Lee.  And then I would go home with Mikey…to read comics or to play computer games.  Deb noticed a change in my disposition, I think.  She tried to find out why…the same kind of nagging questions she used on Mikey…but I was smarter than he was.  She couldn’t trip-me-up.

I’ve already told you about the fateful day she barged in on Mikey and me as we were “exploring” our attraction to Patrick Swayze.  Mikey had found a copy of People Magazine with an article about the hot, young star of “Red Dawn” including a shirtless, sweaty, half-page picture.  The corner was turned down.  Mikey looked at it often, apparently.  I knew it turned him on…and I knew he didn’t know why.  And so, as we lay side-by-side on his bed, I pulled out the magazine and opened it up to the picture-of-desire.  I held it where we could both see it, and with my other hand, I began stroking myself through my levis.  He looked at me in this funny way as if he thought he was the only one who had discovered how good that felt.  I opened my fly and let my cock rise slowly out of its confinement.  His eyes got big…and so did his cock as it expanded against the denim.  I handed him the magazine, positioning it over his face, and then reached for his zipper.  His eyes got bigger than ever and he stiffened like a two-by-four.  I pulled his cock out of his pants and began stroking it slowly as his eyes flicked back and forth between my hand and the picture.  He closed his eyes (the fateful mistake), as I saw the doorknob turn.  I quickly jerked my zipper up, stuffing myself inside with the same motion.  When Deb came bustling it with a pile of Mikey’s underwear, he was still lying there, cock at full-staff, with the telltale magazine tumbling to the floor…face-(and glorious chest) up. 

“Ma! Don’t you ever knock???” he yelled as he tried to stuff himself in.

“Couldn’t.  Hands were full,” she muttered, trying not to look at us lying there.  “Could barely manage the doorknob.” 

“Can’t a guy have a little privacy…in his own room?” he wailed as he rolled over and almost fell off the bed.

“Wackin’ off…it ain’t my problem,” she said as she closed the door behind her.

A few days later I arrived at the house expecting to find Mikey ready to ride our bikes to the mall comic store, but Deb was alone in the kitchen.  “Is Mikey ready to go?” I asked. 

“No, Love-bug, I sent him to the grocery store to run an errand…just to get him out of the house.  I wanted to talk to you.  Alone. Sit down.”  I straddled a kitchen chair backwards and propped my chin on my hands clasped on the chair'’ high back.  I looked up, waiting for the lecture.  “You know how Michael feels about you, don’tcha?” she said, easing herself into the chair opposite mine.  I looked at her offering no answer.  “He loves you like a brother…just like I love you like my own son.  That’s no surprise to you, is it?”  I shook my head “no” without moving my eyes from hers.  “And you know he’d do anything for you…anything you asked him to do…because he damned-well worships you.”  I dropped my gaze at that one, thinking of how I felt about Lee.  “Listen, Brian…and if you ever repeat a word of this, I’ll cut off your balls with a dull knife.”  She paused to let that image sink-in and to prepare for what was to come.  She started quietly.  “I know Michael may be queer…just like his Uncle Vic, God-bless-him.  I knew about Vic even before Vic did.  And, although I don’t approve, I know it was unavoidable for Vic.  He was headstrong and wild.  You couldn’t tell him anything.”  She paused until I lifted my eyes.  “Michael could be that way, too.  But he’s weak…he’s vulnerable.  Maybe he’s too afraid to ever act-on-it. So I want you to promise me sumthin’…a solemn oath…that you’ll never initiate anything with him that could possibly lead him to act upon those tendencies.  He’d do anything for you…things I don’t even want to think about.  And you’re the strong one.  You can control yourself…and him.  There’s no need for me to talk to Michael about this.  It’d only plant seeds that would grow into weeds.”  She leaned forward and reached for my hand across the table.  “Tell me you won’t hurt him, Brian.  Promise me you won’t.”

I looked down at the flowery placemat.  How could I tell her I was that way too?  She would swear that I made Mikey that way…that I had already made him queer.  Someday I would tell her, if I had to…but not now.

I looked up again.  “I promise,” I said softly but firmly. 

“Swear it.”

“On my soul…Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,…hear me.  I swear it.”  I gritted my teeth and tightened my lips.  The bicycle crashed to the pavement outside as Mikey came thumping up the back steps.

Mikey loved me…like I loved Lee…but he would never know the joy I knew.  The joy of acting-out that love…of saying it with my body and my whole being.  He would NEVER know.

=====

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

The voice from behind the screen was Father Rob’s.  “God’s blessing upon you, my son.”

"I confess to Almighty God, to Blessed Mary ever Virgin, to all the Saints, and to you, my spiritual Father, that I have sinned.  It has been 3 weeks since my last confession."

“And what is your sin, Brian?”

I swallowed hard and gripped the arm of the bench in the confessional.  “I love a man, Father.”

There was a pause.  “ Do you love him with your heart…or with your body, Brian?”

“With both.”

“And is he older than you?  Someone who has coerced you into this?”

“No, Sir.  Well, he’s two years older than I am…but it was mutual.”

There was another pause.  To cut off any further questions, I switched back to the memorized words. "For all these sins and for those I do not remember, I ask pardon of God with my whole heart, and penance and absolution of you, my spiritual Father."

“I absolve you of this sin,” he murmured.  “Avoid this boy…and sin no more.  Say ten ‘Hail Marys and repeat the Rosary every night for a month before going to sleep.”  (I could just imagine Lee going along with this.)   Then there was silence.  I left the confessional and walked quickly down the side-aisle.  I heard the door click behind me.

“Brian, wait.”  I spun around, still walking, backwards, toward the side-aisle door, feeling foolish and embarrassed.  “Wait!” he said again.  I stopped.  He approached.  “That was the official response, Brian.  My duty.  I wasn’t finished.  Now, let’s talk in my office.”   He followed me to his office as if he was afraid I’d escape.

“Sit down.”  I slumped into the chair, waiting for the lecture.  He sat on the front edge of his huge desk, relaxed and casual.  “I have something to tell you that I know will surprise you, …but you need to hear this.”  He began.  “I know how you feel.  I know how confusing it is.  I know all about the guilt…and the power of your feelings.  Because I’ve been there…done that.”  I hardly believed what I was hearing.  I looked up into his eyes, which were sad.  “I loved someone…a boy my age…when I was your age.  It seems so long ago.  And I’ve learned to deal with the self-doubts and the teachings of the church.”

“You can’t be a priest if you’re queer,” I said.

“No…you’re actually wrong.  It may seem like hair-splitting, but there’s no condemnation of being homosexual…it’s giving-in to those impulses that’s actually forbidden.  It’s the act, not the desire. You can be gay…if you’re celibate.  That’s how I keep my pact with God.”  He walked to the window and stood looking out with his back toward me.  “I went to an all-boys Catholic high school.  Here we were, all thrown together with roiling hormones.  It was Hell.  There were only two choices…either you were heterosexual and you plundered the nearby all-girls Catholic Academy…or you were aiming for the priesthood.  I tried the former, and chose the latter.”

“And you can live that way?”

“I can.  Some can’t.  Knowing what I know about you, I could probably coerce you or tempt you into sex with me.  And I’d want it…don’t get me wrong.  But it wouldn’t be fair to you…and it wouldn’t be fair to God…and all the good I do would be wiped-out by either the guilt of hiding it or the embarrassment of revealing it.  I can love you within my own self-imposed limits…and feel your pain…and understand your struggle…and maybe even help you.  But I can’t touch you, other than to bless you.”  He turned with a tear in his eye.  “The Suffering Servant, at your service.”

“So those are my choices?  Living a lie, celibacy (which amounts to the same thing), or a lifetime of confessing the same sin every month?  I think I’ll choose Door Number 4.”

“And that is?”

“To live life my way…honestly…and skip the confession.”  I rose from my chair.  He could have argued with me at that moment; I was vulnerable to reasonable arguments…but he offered none because he’d chosen a different path and couldn’t go back now.  We nodded our farewells…and I only saw him years later at that farce-of-a-funeral for my father…an older and more bitter man.

=====

Even when we weren’t together as a pair, we were still together.  I would have done anything to be with him, so we started double-dating…he was with Marie in the front seat and I was with her younger friend, Robyn, in the backseat.  When we would park between the railroad tracks and the river on River Avenue or on the dead-end road in Riverview Park, the girls would compete to see which could bring off her partner first…or who could make him yell the loudest.  Lee and I discussed it in advance to “fix” the contest.  It made me jealous to hear what was going on in the front seat…but at least I was with him.  And when all was said and done…when the girls were delivered to their respective houses…he would drive to our secret spot and we would share a joint and have sex.  Sometimes we managed a repeat-performance in his bed the same night.  No matter how drained he was, he saved the best for me.  We spent most of the late spring in this mode.  And, if we didn’t double-date, I would be waiting for him when he got home, ready to hear the details of his escapades…and knowing that I could please him more than any of them.

=====

“There he is!  Grab him!”

I had just left the track-team equipment room, dragging a few of the big foam-rubber cushions from the pole vault pit for Lee.  They caught me between the stairwell and the chain-link wall of the equipment room…with no escape.  And there were three of them, and suddenly a fourth.

“Smart-ass pussy-boy needs a lesson.  I know it was you that sprayed perfume in my football locker…”  (Actually, it was some of Lee’s dad’s after-shave…but he had the right guy.) 

They lunged and I did my best to use my speed to elude them, but they were part of the defensive line and they were trained for grab-ass moves on nimble quarterbacks.  I had an arm around my throat from behind, then two sets of arms around my hips and knees.  Struggling was of no use.  They carried me into the football locker room, banging my head on the doorframe in the process.

 “In here,” the fourth said.  They continued past the lockers to the bathroom.  I was lowered to the floor; then someone sat on my back while another straddled my legs.  The biggest guy opened the door of one of the stalls, unzipped his pants, and pissed a long, hot one into the stool…with the seat down.  Someone grabbed my hair from behind and arched my face upward to watch the performance. “Time to wash that smart-aleck smirk off his face,” he ordered.  They picked me up by the back of my tee shirt and the waistband of my running shorts and flung me into the stall.  One stood atop the stool; two others crammed themselves on either side, pinning my arms behind my back.  The fourth forced my head into the stinking bowl with his shoe on the back of my neck, pressing my throat against the cool, porcelain bowl-edge and my face between the “arms” of the seat.  His foot slipped higher against the back of my head forcing it lower and cutting off my breathing.  I began to struggle involuntarily.  “Hit it, Jack.”  I heard the gush of water before I felt the diluted urine swirling up onto my face…entering my nostrils…filling my mouth as I gasped for breath.  I could hear their laughing over the “swoosh” of the water as it finally drained away.  I coughed and sputtered.  The urine burned my sinuses. 

I felt hands on the waistband of my shorts, pulling them down to my knees as I struggled to stand.  Suddenly there was a searing pain across my ass.  A hand-swat? A snapped towel?  I didn’t know.  It surprised me and made me sprawl over the toilet seat again, stumbling with my shorts constraining my knees.  I almost chipped a tooth on the chrome pipe at the backside of the tank.  They left me there…bare-assed with my feet sticking out under the stall door as it swung closed.  I waited until it was quiet in the locker room before I came out.

My shirt was ripped.  My chest was wet from the water dripping off my face.  I tried to clean-up, but as soon as Lee saw me, he knew what had happened. 

“Was it Jack…and Andy?” he snarled.  “I’ll kill those fuckers.”

“No,” I said, “I’ll take care of it myself.  You’ll lose your college eligibility if you get into trouble.  I can handle it.” Turning red in the face, he argued with me, but I was adamant.  Brian Kinney fights his own fights.  And takes no prisoners.

Later that week I was leaving school after track practice.  The hall was empty except for one guy crouching at his locker and rummaging through a layer of trash in the bottom…it reminded me of an animal scavenging for food.  He was the one I suspected of planting his foot on my neck that night as I unwillingly drank piss.  It was pay-back time.

He was an offensive halfback, a senior, and college-bound on an athletic scholarship.  But before he left, I had a message for him.

He had not seen me yet in the dim half-light of the school closed down for the evening.  I sprinted quietly down the hall in my soft running shoes.  As I passed him, I reached out to push him off-balance…to see him sprawl on his ass.  But as he fell, he reached out with both hands to steady himself.  His right hand gripped the frame of the locker while his left hit the door with such force it banged loudly against the adjacent locker and sprang back, trapping three of his fingers with it’s sharp edge.  I heard him scream as I rounded the corner.  And I only learned the next day that he had broken those three fingers and could not maintain his fitness or qualify for the scholarship.  I hadn’t intended to maim him…just to embarrass him.  But my reputation spread; people learned they should not mess with me…and perhaps I did a little to encourage that opinion.  But I wasn’t really the vindictive, sadistic asshole that some people made me out to be.

=====

The previous summer, Lee had worked as a lifeguard at the Longue Vue Club, and he was planning to repeat in that capacity during the upcoming summer.  He asked if I’d like to work with him.  Not only did he get me the job over more experienced and older applicants… he helped me pass the test for lifeguard certification (we laughed about practicing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation…”You’re resuscitating SOMETHING, that’s for sure,” he said).  And somehow he managed to synchronize our schedules so we always worked together.  He was my only transportation to work, so the manager thought his suggestion was a good one.

The job was great!  We sat at opposite ends of the huge pool on elevated platforms looking god-like in our matching, skimpy, slightly-saggy, red Speedos. “Not too tight,” he warned.  “I want to see those apples dangle when you step out soaking wet.”  His blond hair turned almost white, while I got such a suntan, so quickly, he accused me of being Hispanic instead of Irish.  We played like brown beavers when the pool was empty…fighting underwater, trying to lift the other helplessly to throw him into a sprawling splash, groping each other underwater,  and even trying to pull the other’s Speedo down to his knees.

Once a week we worked late.  The pool was open for adults only.  The lights were dimmed.  There was soft music.  And the guests sat at poolside tables to sip drinks delivered by waiters in white uniforms.  Some couples danced, while others dallied in the pool.  It was so much easier for us; no snotty kids to yell at…no fighting or running.

Normally, we showered and dressed quickly after going off duty…but one night Lee seemed to be finding every excuse to delay…arranging and rearranging the lounge chairs, which were usually the responsibility of the morning crew…wiping the chrome frame on the diving boards and ladders.  The patrons were long-gone when we finally reached the dressing room.  “Anyone here?” he called out as we entered.  No reply.  He locked the door behind us.

He had been so slow before, but now he was out of his swimsuit and into the shower room before I could even find my locker.  When I entered the shower room, the entire row of individual stalls had their curtains closed, so I couldn’t tell which one he was in, even though I could hear the water running.  As I walked down the row headed for my favorite shower-head, I was pulled roughly by the wrist into the stall I had just passed.  He stood there, dripping and inviting.  My towel fell at my feet and became soaked immediately.  We stood face-to-face in the cascade; the small droplets clung to his lashes like point-diamonds and his darkened hair was already slicked against his forehead.  He pulled me closer and we kissed in the center of the spray with water dribbling from our chins onto the other’s chest.  As I stepped even closer, our cocks were trapped between compressing ab-muscles.  He rocked slowly, massaging our cocks together as he took small steps turning us so that the water shot over his shoulder onto my chest and shoulder.  His hands stroked my back.  He reached for the soap.  He soaped my back first, then handed me the soap to do him.  Suds poured down our legs and swirled at our feet.  Quickly he turned in my encircling arms so that his back was against my chest.  His hands reached back to pull me against him with my cock pressed vertically into his crease.

“You know what to do,” he said softly.  He rolled his pelvis, sliding his ass-crack up and down my firm shaft.

“I’m not sure…never done it before,” I countered.

“Just position it.  I’ll do the rest…and you’ll know what to do.”  As he leaned forward placing his spread hands on the tile, the water hit me full-in-the-face.  I leaned forward to duck under the stream.  He turned his head as he felt my chest against his back.  Supporting himself on only one hand now, he reached down between his thighs and positioned my cock head in his tight crack.  He pressed back against me as I met his pressure with my own.  I felt my cock begin to bend, then stiffen, and then lodge in his tightness.  Water running down between us filled the “V” as my shaft filled his gorge like Grand Coolee Dam.  “Rub some soap on your shaft,” he suggested.  “Just a little.”  I pulled out and slicked my shaft with a thin layer; my hand action made me fully, throbbing hard.  He pressed back, harder this time, almost making me step back. The tightness around my dick was unlike any mouth.  It re-shaped my head; it stretched the skin.  “Do it NOW,” he rasped urgently.  “Give it to me.  I can take it.”

I didn’t want to hurt him, and I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I gripped his waist and pressed forward again, hard, feeling some slippage and more tightness.  He inhaled sharply as if to yell.  I hesitated.

“More!” he demanded.

I lunged again, this time feeling something give-way…opening to let me enter… sheathing my shaft like a tight throat.

“Aiieee,… oh,…that’s better.”  He pressed against me again and I felt it go farther in.  And then I realized what to do….slow in-and-out motion like a fist around my cock…pulling back, then pressing forward into him with a pelvic surge while working his hips in the opposite direction.  He let-out a low moan of approval.

“That’s it…you’ve got it.  Slow at first, ‘til I get used to it…then you can fuck the shit out of me.”  The thought made me pause;  I remembered where my cock was.  I looked down to see what was happening.  “Forget that,” he snarled, reading my mind.  “It won’t happen…and we’re in the shower anyway.”  He had a point.

The tightness was incredible…more intense than I had ever felt.  The resistance made me want to overcome it…to go deeper…to spread him wider…to move in-and-out more quickly.  I just did what felt good to me; I used him like my pillow, or a mouth,…an inanimate object to give me pleasure.  Thrusting faster now, I heard him grunt or moan with each thrust.

I came quickly.  This was too good to postpone.  My thighs slapped his ass as I punished him with each thrust.  My wet cock made a sucking-sound as it pulled out on each cycle.  One final thrust…and I shot my wad into him.  In retrospect, he probably only took half my length that first time, but it felt wonderful.  He was jerking himself with his free hand, I realized, and he came a few seconds after I did.  The crushing tightness made me wince, particularly since I am always so sensitive right after I shoot, but it prolonged my peak and, from that time until now, I have always loved the clamping-down as a guy cums.

He straightened-up, my cock still held tightly in his ass.  His shoulder blades hit my wet pecs as he turned his head sharply to the side.  “Kiss me,” he said.  “I want to seal it with a kiss.”

I wrapped my arms around his chest as if to crush him, then I forced his head more sharply to the side as I kissed him obliquely.  He moaned against my lips.

“That was fantastic, …just fantastic.”  He turned, pulling off my semi-hard shaft with a soft popping-sound.  His soapy palm closed around my shaft to clean me.  “It’s the least I can do,” he said with a twinkle.  We embraced again, chest-to-chest.

“I’ll bet you didn’t expect THAT!”

“No,” I said.  “You surprise me over and over again.”

“I knew I wanted it to happen…while I watched you sitting there tonight, almost naked, bathed by the shifting light of the rippling pool.  I knew it would happen sooner or later…and I chose sooner.”  He kissed me again…and when I opened my eyes he was gone.  We dressed silently.  I was still in a euphoric daze.

In the car on the way home, my curiosity was aroused.  “Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked.

“Yea…at first it does.  I’m fairly new at this myself.  Just when you think the pain is too much and you can’t do it, it opens up and you get this surging fullness.  The pain turns into the most incredible pleasure…a one-ness…it’s hard to describe.”

“Can you feel me getting harder?  And can you feel me cum?”

“Most of the sensation is right there at the tight spot,” he continued.  “But I can feel you getting bigger.  And I can feel the warmth and slipperiness of your cum, I think.  It’s kinda hard to say…I was kinda busy myself at the time.”  We both chuckled.

“Did you like it?” he asked after a pause.

“Yes,…after I got over the worry about hurting you.  It felt like nothing I’ve ever felt before.  I’d do it again.”

He swerved as if to pull over to the curb.  We laughed out-loud that time.

=====

My sophomore year was a delight.  There was a new crop of freshmen to be abused by the upper classmen…and Lee was a senior at the peak of his physical performance.  He placed first in the All-City pole vault.  He was the Vice President of the Student Government.  But, most of all, he was my secret love, my partner, my constant companion, and my idol.  We didn’t sleep together quite as often, but when we did, the eroticism and the physicality were more powerful than ever.  I fucked him at every opportunity…and even, in a few cases, when there really wasn’t an opportunity and we took huge risks.  We explored the full array of positions and variations; it was the beginning of my “List of 19 Positions and Their Variations.”  We experimented.  We tried all the scenarios we could devise. 

The only thing that changed was the double-dating.  He had a different girlfriend who was embarrassed to suck him when other people were around.  So I had only a few dates with Robyn…the major fall holiday dances and parties. I had used-up all of my excuses for not fucking her…my inexperience, my fear of an unintended pregnancy, even my firmly-held Catholic beliefs (?)…so we tried it one evening…standing up in the alley behind her house.  I let her get me ready…and I knew enough of the basics to make it believable…she seemed to know what to do…and I actually carried it to the inevitable conclusion…but it just didn’t feel right and I never tried it again.  I liked Robyn and I didn’t like deceiving her…or making promises I couldn’t keep.  My heart and body belonged to Lee.  She and I parted amicably, never discussing the details or the reasons for the split.  And she found someone else right away.  I was happy about that.

At school Lee and I were like hetero brothers…constant companions…recognized as “a pair” by everyone, although few people ever hinted that it was more than just a friendship.

Thoughts about Lee’s inevitable departure to attend college could be suppressed most of the time, but not completely.  With his good grades, excellent sports performance, and leadership skills, he would get into almost any college he chose.

I accompanied him on one weekend campus visit to Penn State.  We stayed in a dorm room, drank beer with the older guys, and fucked like bunnies in the tiny dorm bed.  He seemed impressed with the campus, but it was clear that he had his eye on bigger and better schools much farther away…and I tried to ignore it.

“Hey, Beau,” he said, giving me a squeeze. “I’ll be home for every holiday…and you can come and stay with me during the summer.  We can work together…just like last summer…and this upcoming one.”  I tried to smile, thinking positively.

But I was with him that fateful afternoon at his house when his mom said “It’s here, Lee.  Your letter’s finally here.”

I watched him take it, hold it like a sacred object, and start to open the envelope.  “I’ll be right back,” he said as he headed for his room.  As he turned, I read the return address…“Undergraduate Admissions, University of California at Los Angeles.”

His mother and I stood facing each other, probably trying to read each other’s thoughts as we waited for the verdict.  I don’t think she was too eager for him to go so far away either.  After a few minutes, he returned waving the letter.  “Got it,” he said.  Two words that dashed the future.  He probably saw the cloud descend over my face because he held my hand as his mother kissed him; I felt him squeeze as if he were kissing me.  “Let’s go for a ride,” he said a few minutes later.

We drove to our usual parking-spot on River Road.  We didn’t talk much on the way.  He seemed to be gathering his thoughts for one of those deep conversations we had occasionally.  “Let’s walk,” he said.  There was a brisk breeze at our backs as we walked along the railroad tracks.

“You’ve known I was going off to school,” he began.  “It’s no big surprise or anything.  I’m two years older than you.  This is what I have to do.”

“I know,” I said.  “But I never thought it would be so hard…”

“Well, it’s not as if I’m going away forever…like we’ll never see each other again, for Christ’s sake.  I’ll be home for holidays…and you can spend summers in California.  We’ll both learn to surf and be big kahunas with surfer trunks and Maui-Jim sunglasses.”  The image made me smile weakly. “And there is such a thing as the fucking telephone.  Cross-country phone-sex…brothers-of-the-bung-hole…just think, you can sleep two hours later and wake-up to a long-distance-fuck.”  With tight lips I finally made eye contact with him.  His face suddenly reflected my sadness.  “Don’t be like this,” he said.  “Don’t ruin the time we have together.  We’ve got a few months…then the summer…before I leave for California.  I’ll be with you until the last moment.”  He put his arms around my waist and pulled me close for a kiss.  “You’ll see.  It’ll work out.  Come over tonight and we’ll talk about it some more.”  His eyes sparkled with the promise of sex.

I climbed the box that night at 1 am as I had so many times before, but this time trying to keep my heavy heart and the lump in my stomach from showing.  Darkness helped.  He was waiting for me. We swirled into action like sex-starved wrestlers….each trying to pin the other for the tortuous pleasure we had planned. 

In the afterglow, I lay in his arms as he stroked my back with languid fingertips.  “We’ll always be together,” he said, finally, as if resuming our afternoon conversation.  “We belong together…whatever society says, whatever the Church says, whatever the law says.  You know how much I love you.  Christ!  I’d slit my throat rather than hurt you.”

“I love you too,” I began.  We seldom talked this way.  Professions of love seemed unnecessary…like stating the obvious.  “I guess I’m just selfish.  I can’t imagine being without you.  No phone call can make up for your touch.  No heavy breathing can make up for your tightness.  No one can make me feel this way about myself.  Imagining it makes me feel lonely already, even with you by my side.”

“But we have the future,” he countered.  “Short-term separation for long-term togetherness.  It’s just a matter of time.  It’s just a matter of self-control and discipline…like the pole vault.  We’ll fly over the bar together.” 

I pressed my cheek against his chest, listening to his heart beat…strong, perpetual…like my love for him.  I slept in his arms and awoke there as the sky began to lighten.

=====

Mikey lay beside me on his bed as we admired the Batman-and-Robin poster he had taped to the ceiling.  “Brian?”  I turned to look at him.  He knew I was right there. “Do ya ever think about the time we…”

“Yeah, Bud…I do.”

“I mean…about Patrick Swayze.  You still like him, right?”

“I still haven’t seen a picture of his bare ass, so I’ll reserve my final judgement,” I said with a grin.

He paused for a few seconds.  “Do you ever think about…think about me that way?  I mean…like we did that day…”

“What’s the matter?  Doesn’t you own hand feel good any more?  Too many calluses?”

He swung the pillow at me, but I dodged it.  “Briiii-yaaan!”  He stuffed it back under his head.  “I just wonder sometimes whether…whether…whether I could….or you would…”

This conversation was going nowhere, intentionally.  I rolled over and kissed him on the forehead.  “Yeah, little buddy…you’re my super-hero sidekick…my twin-brother…and my pet gerbil, all rolled into one.”  I poked him in the ribs while he had his eyes closed, reveling in the kiss; he jumped and banged his head on the headboard.  What a klutz!

=====

Summer came and went.  Last year we had been demi-gods compared to our total deification by the poolside bikini-bunnies.  Voices hushed when we passed.  Girls brought us ice cream cones like they were making sacrifices at the altar.  We were Castor and Pollux, though both immortal…half-brothers and full-lovers.  The weeks flew by…too fast to even remember. 

At the beginning of August I learned the date of his departure…from his mother, because he could not bring himself to tell me.  I helped him plan…and pack.  We shopped for his new college wardrobe; we even fucked in the men’s dressing room at Kaufmann's Department Store…quietly but energetically.  He made me feel special…as if he couldn’t leave without my help…and that he couldn’t leave without me.

The drive to the airport with his parents was excruciating.  We had talked about his departure so much…but we couldn’t talk privately in these last painful minutes.  I rode “shotgun” while he drove; his parents were in the backseat, so I couldn’t even cop-a-feel.  I was numb.  Perhaps he planned it that way.  He knew I couldn’t cry in front of his parents.  We waited with him at the gate until it was time to board.  The hugging was awkward; I wanted to kiss him one last time.

And then he was gone.

His parents drove me home.  But, on the way, his dad asked “Where can we drop you, Bri?”

I almost said “Off the bridge…right here.”

=====

He called me when his plane landed, probably to make sure that I had made it home.  “I miss you already,” he said.  I just broke down and cried.

The weeks went by…and the letters became less numerous.  School had started.  I understood.  He was adapting to a college campus.  He was making new friends.  I put that thought out of my head.

And then the letters stopped.  I called him…and he sounded mildly annoyed and possibly drunk.  Instead of mellow, he sounded hostile.  I used the excuse that I was paying for the call and I said goodbye.  He didn’t call me back.

At Thanksgiving time, I waited for a call.  “Hi, Tiger…I’m home.  Come and get me.” That’s how I imagined it…but it never came.  After dry turkey and cold conversation around the homestead holiday table, I rode my bike to Lee’s house.  His parents were just finishing their meal…alone.

“Have you heard from Lee?” I asked.  “He hasn’t written to me for awhile.”

“Oh, I know how you feel,” his mother said.  “He’s just so busy…schoolwork and everything.  He’s trying to find his way around Los Angeles.  Oh, and he has this new girlfriend…” I didn’t hear the rest…about how he was spending Thanksgiving with her family on Catalina Island…learning to skipper their sailing yacht…teaching her to drive.  I missed him even more, if that were possible. 

=====

I finally reached him by phone when he came home for a few days at Christmas.

“We need to talk,” he said… “about all that stuff we did in high school.” 

“Yeah,”  I said.  “I think about it a lot.”

“It never happened,” he said.  “I have a new life now…I’m totally straight…and if you ever whisper a word about it, I’ll deny it and make you look like a queer-boy, fantasizing fool.”

“I AM a queer-boy, fantasizing fool,” I said.  “As queer as you are…fantasizing about our future together…and fool-enough to think you meant all those things you said about our future.”

“Don’t call me,” he said as he hung up.

=====

I could continue the story of my high school years…about the famous “synthetic cum” incident…about other guys (a few) and other exploits (a lot)…and about Mikey’s coming-of-age.  But my life seemed to end then…the part of my life open to others.  And the rest is more private…more reserved…more concealed.  I opened my heart to no one until…but that’s another story entirely.

=====

Postscript:  I found Lee fairly recently…just an idle People-Search inquiry.  I hadn’t really intended to contact him, but my curiosity was aroused.  So I dialed the number.

His marriage, shortly after college graduation, had lasted less than a year.  A second marriage was foundering.  He was selling life insurance in Pomona.  And he didn’t come back to Pittsburgh any more…too depressing.  He sounded tired, and older than 32.  I didn’t tell him I was fucking most of gay Pittsburgh…and I omitted any mention of Justin, who was currently Lee’s age when he left me.  We promised to “get in-touch”…and we won’t.

=====

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