Kenny

This is a story about a love between two teenage boys. The usual disclaimers apply: If you are under the age of 18, or reading such material is illegal in your jurisdiction, then please leave this story unread now. There are within the story explicit descriptions of sex between boys, but that is not the main theme; so if your thing is reading stories that are purely sex in nature then this story will probably not be to your liking.

The story is made up of both fact and fantasy. The people herein are real, but their names have been changed. The rest of the story, as I said, is a mixture of fact and fantasy, but frankly there is a lot more fact than I had originally planned.

This is the first, and mostly the last in the Kenny series having to do with college. We had literally hundreds of wonderful experiences while in college, but most of them were, frankly, irrelevant to the Nifty Archive. So I have abbreviated this experience into one chapter plus a little of the next. It's hard to believe that I could condense five grueling years into one short chapter, but that's what I've done. It was after graduation that things really pushed the envelope of credibility, and that is where I want to concentrate next.

I just heard a very interesting spot on the radio as I drove home from work. It seems that a hospital somewhere, I didn't catch where, did a study on a group of infants who were healthy but too small to leave the hospital. They took half the infants and touched them for fifteen minutes every two hours... stroking their bodies, holding them, stroking their heads. The babies sometimes responded, sometimes not. But after only 14 days the infants that had been receiving this touch therapy had gained 40% more weight than the ones that had been ignored, even though they were more active, which should have caused them to metabolize more weight and therefore gain less. Unfortunately I have no idea how much I had been touched as an infant and there is no one to ask, but there is no mistaking that I certainly thrived, could not live without, Kenny's constant touching with his magical hands. Is there a connection? I have no idea! But I do know that there are times when simply being touched is all that I need to be completely at peace with the world.

Kenny_14: College Life

College was without doubt the best thing that ever happened to Kenny and me. Looking back I realize that we absolutely blossomed! We attacked our studies with a vengeance with the result that we could seemingly do no wrong. We met and became friends with so many really neat people I could not possibly tell about them all. But I have to try to at least relate the more memorable ones.

The first person we met was Carlo. He was a second generation Italian who'd been born and bred in The Bronx. He lived with his wife Cynthia, also Italian, in the apartment under ours. He was a year ahead of us and struggling, but that didn't stop him from reaching out to us.

The very first Friday we were in class, Carlo came up when we got home and introduced himself and invited us downstairs for dinner. We nervously accepted, and after we'd met "Sin," as he called her, we all sat down to a glass of home made Italian wine. We got all the usual questions like where we were from, why Indian Tech, what we planned to do after graduation, all things we answered enthusiastically. Before long Sin called us to the table and served one of the most delicious meals I have ever eaten, bar none!

As we ate and talked, Kenny caught my eye and started giggling. "What's the matter with you?" I demanded.

"Oh, Nuthin', CHAWHLIE," he snickered. I had noticed it too: the deep Bronx accent. I tried for years to imitate the way Carlo said my name but never even came close. Accents were relatively new to us, and we found them positively charming.

"So you guys went to high school together?" Cynthia asked.

"Yes, ma'am," I answered.

"That's 'yes, SIN,'" Carlo corrected, "We're not anything special, and certainly don't expect 'Sir' or 'ma'am.'" Ok, our first major bubble burst. We had always been led to believe that New York people were cold, impersonal, even unfriendly. That certainly wasn't the case with these two.

"You certainly seem to be good friends," Sin observed idly, "It seems we never see one of you without the other."

"That's because we're... well, we're more than friends," Kenny explained. Oh shit! I said to him with my eyes, Why in the hell did you have to say that?

"I'm sorry Charlie," Kenny said to me, "But I'm sick to death of lying. And living right under us they're gonna find out anyway, so we might as well be honest."

"So what you're saying," Carlo speculated, "Is that you're... uh..."

"We're lovers," I finished the sentence for him, "Yes we are. We've been together about four years."

Well, that was that. I was convinced that we'd just made our first enemies. We finished the meal in relative silence, then Carlo announced he had to go to the frat house for a while, so we went upstairs to our own apartment to study. Saturday morning Carlo was knocking on our door around 9 AM. We weren't sure what to expect, but after we'd let him in he just said "Look, about what you told us last night. I know how it is and I just wanted you to know we're not gonna tell anyone. Sin and I discussed it and we figured that's something pretty personal, and it should be up to you who you tell."

"That's WHOM," Kenny corrected with a grin.

"Kenny!" I scolded, "For shit sake!" But that's the kind of relationship we had already developed with Carlo; we concluded he must've been around gay people before, because our secret to him was just one more fact about his new friends. Carlo made some sarcastic light-hearted remark about smart-ass Canadians coming down here and trying to tell a New Yorker how to talk, and that was the end of the conversation.

"The reason I came up," Carlo said, "Was to ask you guys to come down to dinner tonight, if you're free. We're gonna have a couple other Canadians over we'd like you to meet. I think you'll like them."

"I don't know," I said doubtfully, "I plan to go looking for a job today and I might not be back."

"We'll be back," Kenny stated emphatically, "Just name the time."

"Whenever," Carlo answered, "We usually eat around 6. But as far as work goes, you don't have to look, I know where you can get a job."

"You do?" we chorused.

"Sure, long as you're not fussy what you do. A lot of Tech students work for a man named Blanchard Day. He does office and building cleaning, floor maintenance, things like that. He even adjusts his bookings whenever he can to accommodate students."

We did go downstairs that night, and met Graham, from Ontario, and James, from Calgary. Among other things these two new friends explained how we could get a Social Security card, seeing that as foreign students we were not in theory allowed to work without special permission. Carlo called Mr. Day, who hired us on the spot, effective as soon as we had the necessary cards. The subject of our relationship didn't come up during the evening, so we left it at that.

"Wow!" Kenny said happily as we lay in bed, "We've only been here a week, and we've already got a job, and we've made more friends than we had back home after our whole life!"

"Well, almost," I corrected, "But we've got to decide what we're gonna tell who... I mean WHOM." I could see Kenny's eyes brighten as I made his favorite grammatical error.

"Shit, man!" he said in mock disgust, "You take all the fun out of life! As far as what we tell, I think we should just play it by ear. If we get asked, then let it all out; otherwise they don't need to know."

It sounded so incredibly simple! It made so much sense! But we both knew it was a lot more complicated than that. But as we lay together that night, on top of the world (well, actually Kenny was on top of me), I didn't care who knew what; in fact I was quite ready to tell anyone who would listen! I had never in my wildest dreams imagined that things would work out so well! But of course we'd only been here a week.

By mid November we were really flying high! Our grades were great, we liked all our courses, and we had shared our relationship with most of our new friends. There were Jim from Texas, married; Lennie from Cuba, single; Gordon from Fort Wayne, married; George, a black married man from Louisiana; Andre, married, from New Hampshire; Marvin, married, from Washington State; Graham, single, from Ontario; James, single (and GAY!!!) from Alberta. Kenny and I were really hopeful that we'd become good friends with James, but his primary interest was sex, so that friendship never really developed. He was friendly enough when we saw him, but a good relationship never developed. And then there was Jesse.

We were sitting in our apartment one Friday evening, watching TV which had become our custom. We studied every afternoon and evening, worked every weekend, but Friday night was our time to become totally brain dead and watch TV, make out, or whatever else we chose to do. Anyway we were watching TV when there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, a tall dark-skinned man wearing a turban burst into the hallway, almost crushing me with the door and announced, "My name is Jesse, and I'm from In-JA!"

"Hello!" Kenny shot back from the head of the stairs, "My name is Kenny, and I'm from CAAAANADAAAA!"

"Ummm" I said, totally confused, "You two know each other?"

"We do now," Kenny answered, "Jesse, this is Charlie, my boy friend. He's from CAAAANADAAAAA too! Charlie, this is Jesse. He's from Iiiiin-JA!"

In spite of our shock, we couldn't help laughing. We thought he must have the wrong apartment, but evidently he didn't. That was just his way of making a grand entrance, and it certainly had its effect. We invited him in and made some coffee, then we sat around for an hour or so getting to know each other. We didn't tell him directly that we were a couple, but we did show him our bedroom where we obviously slept together. He invited us to his apartment "some time soon" for a feast of genuine Indian curry and he was gone, presumably to introduce himself to someone else.

"Wow!" I exclaimed, "What was that all about?"

"I think we've just been welcomed, Indian style." Kenny laughed.

"I'm beginning to wish I'd done some more research into different cultures," I mused, "I know in some cases homosexuality is pretty well accepted, and others it's a total no-no. I just don't know which."

"Jesse certainly didn't seem to have a problem with it." Kenny observed, "And I really like him."

"That was obvious," I observed, "I don't know how you could do what you did. Shit, I could never say something like that to a perfect stranger!"

"You gotta learn, Charlie! I'm not making any more apologies for who I am or what I am. We're good, dammit, and it's time the world knew it!"

"You think he figured it out?"

"He didn't seem exactly stupid to me. What's to figure out? I think we made it pretty clear and I'm glad, so there! Yeah, I think he did."

God, how I loved Kenny at that moment! How I admired him! How I wished I could be like him! I was absolutely thrilled with what had just taken place, and it was all because of my quick-witted, extrovert lover. I was neither of the above, but I suppose there was no need as long as I had Kenny.

That Friday night Kenny was amply rewarded for his little act with Jesse. He had done what Kenny did best: he gave back what he had received with interest. He had demonstrated, in no uncertain terms, that Kenny was Kenny, take it or leave it, but he wasn't going to change just to satisfy some trivial disapproval. And if humanly possible, I was even more deeply in love!

We did go to Jesse's apartment the very next week. There were about five Indian students living there, all single and in their twenties, all wearing turbans, all perfectly comfortable with us as Jesse introduced us as lovers. The apartment was the nastiest, filthiest, I had ever been in. But the food was absolutely exquisite! For some reason I cannot remember any of their names but Jesse's, but they were all unquestionably our friends from the moment we'd met them.

Kenny and I had agreed at registration that whenever possible we would take separate sections of the same course. Since we were both going for Electrical Engineering, we had the exact same curriculum, but we reasoned that if we took different sections, and whenever possible different instructors, we could share different aspects of the same course and possibly get more out of it. We were conspirators, Kenny and I, and we had come to the point in our relationship where we had no need to be together constantly, especially when being separated meant that we could further our common good. It worked well until a particularly difficult Math test in early December.

"How'd you do?" Kenny asked as soon as we met in the coffee shop, the closest thing Tech had to a Student Union. We had very quickly learned that the coffee shop was the hangout for spare periods, and even after our academic day was over we would often hang out there, just talking, socializing, meeting new friends. There were well defined cliques who always sat at the same table, and there was little we didn't discuss sooner or later. We had just got our test marks back, and I was NOT in a good mood.

"I fucked it up," I said mournfully, "I can't do this, Kenny! My father was right! I'm wasting a lot of money, time, and screwing with your faith in me. I dunno, maybe I should just accept the obvious and go home."

"Lemme see that!" Kenny demanded, and yanked it from my hand.

"A 'B'?" he exclaimed, "You're gonna hang it all up and go back to Canada with your tail between your legs 'cause you got a B?"

"I wanted it to be perfect," I said, fighting tears, "I wanted to be able to take a whole armload of papers and tests and transcripts and rub it in my father's face! And I wanted it to be perfect!"

"Charlie," Kenny said as he threw his hands in the air, "I can't believe we're having this conversation! You know that's impossible. You're gonna have bad days, you're gonna piss off some professor, make a stupid mistake, something! There's no way you can be perfect all the time! And I'm sorry, but I doubt that you'll find another student on campus who will agree that a 'B' is a fuck-up.

"But you don't understand, Kenny. When I show my father my grades, my test papers, he will zero in on that 'B' like it was a radar target! Then I'll get the same old 'That's fine, but what about this 'B'? That's what he does, Kenny. He did it all the time I was going to school and living with him. Either it's perfect or it's not worth a shit."

"So don't show it to him! Shit, man, he's shown no interest in this whole thing anyway, so let him wonder."

"Charlie," Jesse said as he appeared from nowhere, "You have to decide why you're here. If you're here just to impress your father, just for some sort of revenge or to prove yourself, you're here for the wrong reason."

"Charlie," I heard Carlo say as he showed up, (God, how I loved the way he said "Chawhlie!") I would kill for your brain! You and Kenny are so bright, so enthusiastic, so... so into life! You two guys are inspiring half the fucking school, man! But you've got to do it for yourself, or you're wasting your time! You're in for some pretty rough times, and trust me, this isn't the last 'B' you'll ever get. And frankly if you're doing it for someone else, you're wasting your time. But if you quit it's gonna be the biggest waste I've ever seen. Just leave your brain where I can pick it up on your way out, ok?"

"I'm sorry guys," I said as, to my mortification, I was getting teary-eyed again, "You just don't understand."

"No," Carlo agreed, "I don't. What's your average gonna be at the end of this term? I mean your cumulative average? What's it gonna be Charlie?"

The four point GPA system was totally new to Kenny and me. In high school our final grades were always letter grades, individual exams were always graded on a scale from 0 to 100. This new system was in my opinion an over-simplification, but in time I got used to it.

"I dunno, Carlo," I answered, "I just don't know. Besides what does cumulative average mean when you've only got one term under your belt?"

"Best guess, Charlie," Carlo persisted, "Give me your best guess what your average will be. And be pessimistic. Kenny tells me you're good at it."

I did some mental calculations, trying to be realistic and objective. "Ok," I said finally, "Probably 3.5 or so."

"That's worst case?" Carlo questioned.

"Yeah, I don't think I'll do any worse than that."

"Charlie," Carlo said dramatically, "My best term GPA has been 2.6! My best, Charlie! And my cum average is only 2.4, and that's being optimistic."

"My best is 2.8," Jesse offered, "I'm sorry Charlie, if you're looking for sympathy because you got a 'B' you better look somewhere else. I'll trade your grades for mine any day!"

"You feeling any better?" Kenny asked as we snuggled together that night.

"Yeah," I said as I once more luxuriated in the touch of the one I loved so much, "I guess I kinda looked pretty stupid."

"Not stupid," Kenny said, "Just a little screwed up."

"As usual," I said ruefully.

"Charlie, you just have to stop living for your father! You're not gonna please him no matter what you do. And probably more important, it doesn't matter. It's YOUR life, Charlie! This college stuff is serious shit! It costs a lot of money, takes years out of our lives, and demands a lot of commitment! You have to do it for YOU, Charlie! Not your dad, not me, not even your mother! You have to do it for YOU!!!"

"I sorta thought I was doing it for me." I said weakly.

"I know you did! But you're not. You're doing it for all the wrong reasons. You feel you have an obligation to just about everyone. But what about you, Charlie? Where is your obligation to YOU?"

I felt a lot better after our talk. I had started classes with the idea in my head that I would accept nothing from myself but the very best. Not a bad objective, but a little unrealistic if one defines "best" as "perfect." That wasn't the only B I ever got, nor was it the worst.

We quickly learned that Carlo was a "gimmick" type of guy. He had a gimmick for everything. He'd decided he didn't want to be drafted and spend two years in the Army, which I could certainly understand, so he joined the Army Reserve. That meant he was in the middle of eight years of twice-a-week meetings at the local armory, plus two weeks training tour every summer. I wasn't sure he had won that one. He had figured out all his classes, so he thought, and knew how to pass them all without studying. He made crib notes and hid them on various parts of his body; he used the old "bullshit baffles brains" concept to the ultimate degree; when he wasn't doing well in a certain class, he dropped it, theorizing that he'd do better after he'd had such-and-such a class.

Carlo was coming up with a new scheme to make a million dollars every day, it seemed, and there was no convincing him that his latest scheme wasn't the best ever! It was extremely obvious, at least to Carlo, that he was destined for greatness and he wasn't going to have to work very hard to get there. Kenny and I were concerned about him because we considered him our best friend, but no amount of talking could convince him that there was another way to achieve his goals.

There was another thing we learned very quickly about our new life in Indiana. The racial unrest was starting to rage in some of the southern states and, I'm afraid to say, although there was outward peace in Fort Wayne, the tension was still there. Kenny and I had grown up in a city where not a single black person lived. The one incident I'd had with the black boy at the swimming pool had been in another city were there were a few blacks, but certainly not very many. I suspect my incident with him was at least in part a fascination by our physical differences. At any rate, and for whatever reason, we had grown up without learning to hate, could not even begin to understand all the issues involved and the complexity of the situation. That's not to say that we had no prejudices, because that would be a lie! But we were completely oblivious to the imaginary line that ran through the center of Fort Wayne, dividing the city into black and white.

We had been invited to a party by a black student we didn't know all that well. We had already learned that social lines had been drawn, but Christmas was coming fast and we couldn't afford to go home, so we'd determined to keep ourselves as busy as possible to ward off homesickness, so we agreed to go.

I have no idea why we'd been invited, but we found ourselves the only white people there. In fact we were the only students, except for the guy who'd invited us and one or two others. The rest of the people were just black locals. No matter, we had a total blast! We sang, danced, joked and, yes, we drank! Or at least I did. Kenny was one of those very talented individuals who could and did act totally inebriated without having had a single drink! I cannot remember any of the details of that party except one: we met Dorothy.

Dorothy, or Dot-o as we called her, was about our age, and as black as anyone we had ever seen. She was also full of fun, totally enjoyed making fun of herself and her color, her social status, whatever got a laugh. She made it very clear from the outset that she was not interested in any long term relationship with any Canadian white boy, to which we responded by telling her unabashedly that we weren't interested in her either, or any other female for that matter. It took her all of about five milliseconds to figure out the rest, and then she said just as unabashedly, "In that case, y'all have to meet my cousin Jimmy."

Jimmy Benson was a young black boy, perhaps a year or two younger than Kenny and me, and incredibly beautiful! He was so effeminate I'm doubtful the he could hold his wrist rigid if he had to. He as also totally Gay and made no apology for it. He even told me one time that there was no hiding the fact that he was black, which was the big social hitter, so why hide the fact that he liked guys? He was funny, charming, and I was more attracted to him that I cared to admit. He was also very intelligent, but unfortunately in his social and economic position in life, it was very doubtful that he would ever use the intelligence he possessed.

"You went there?" Gordon said in astonishment one afternoon in the Tech coffee shop. I had been showing off an ashtray I had stolen which had inscribed on it "Stolen from Jim's Hollywood Drive-in."

"I don't know where else to get one of these," I replied, "We hang out there a lot. It's a cool place."

"But it's in the black section!" Gordon pointed out.

"That's kinda obvious," I grinned.

"But... Charlie, it's not safe!" I had been playing ignorant, but this last comment got me riled just a little.

"I feel a lot safer there than at many of the white drive-ins," I stated emphatically. I had to admit the first time or two I'd gone there I did feel somewhat intimidated, but I was with Dot-o who knew everyone, and after I got to know some of the regulars I was perfectly at home. In a way I guess I felt an affinity to these people who, like myself, found themselves socially less than ideal because of the way they were born: They because of their color and I because of my sexual orientation. Gordon had lived all his life in Fort Wayne and could relate all sorts of horror stories about white boys going to that part of town, but none of them were first-hand. He was simply passing on what he'd heard all his life.

We had a one week break plus two days at Christmas, a week in which Kenny and I worked at least 12 hours per day. True to his word, Blanchard had all the work we cared to do. He had scheduled periodic cleaning of various offices, plants, anything that might be closed for the holidays. The first day on the job was Monday, Christmas eve! I wound up in a large engineering firm, completely stripping and re-waxing a large drafting room. We started at 5 AM and finished at 6 PM, but not without incident. Kenny was in the same building, but his task was the employee cafeteria.

"Thank you so much, Carlo," I said sarcastically at 8 PM that evening. Kenny and I had got home, cleaned up, and were spending the evening with Carlo and Sin. "'Whatever he asks,' you said, 'tell him you can do it.'" I continued. "'No matter what,' you said, 'there's nothing very hard and Blanchard is impressed when you're willing to take on anything!' So I did exactly what you told me to do. When he asked if I could run a floor scrubber I said sure, so he told me to run it over the half of the room that had been cleared of furniture."

Kenny was trying unsuccessfully to stifle his giggles, and from the grin growing on Carlo's face I think he knew what was coming. "So what did you do?" he asked.

"I did exactly what you told me. We had moved all the tables to one half of the room and were gonna do the floor in halves. When I started that scrubber it took off right down the middle of the floor and there's no way I could stop it. I tried to manhandle it and the more I tried, the faster the damn thing went. By the time I got it stopped I had knocked over six drafting tables, and there were stools and drafting supplies everywhere!"

"You're not supposed to force them, Charlie," Carlo pointed out between chuckles, "You steer them with the handle. Lift and they go right, push down and they go left."

"I know that now," I said angrily, "Eddie showed me. It's easy once you know, but I didn't know dammit!"

"But you do now. And if you had said you couldn't do it you might never had a chance to learn. You would've been using the mop, and that's twice the work."

Kenny was roaring with laughter. He had come in from the cafeteria just as I was being drug across the floor by the delinquent scrubber. "You should've seen him," he screamed, "That thing just took off dragging him behind it, mowing down everything in its path. It looked like a freakin' cartoon the way things were flying."

"I might've been fired if Blanchard had been there," I observed.

"Not a chance," Carlo assured me, "He has trouble getting guys to work, especially during holidays. He won't fire you long as you do a good days work for him."

Eventually I started to see the humor in the incident as well and joined in the laughter. It was obvious to me that Kenny wasn't going to stop laughing and feel sorry for me, so I might as well enjoy it too.

We hadn't done much for Christmas... Kenny and I had bought each other some trinket, but we hadn't got gifts for anyone else. We had received a package from Mom and one from Robbie, which we put under Carlo's tree. We had no decorations, no tree. It wasn't a humbug thing, but Carlo and Sin had insisted that we spend Christmas Eve and Day with them, so we saw little point in going to the trouble. I found in the two months preceding Christmas I really missed all the frantic preparations for Christmas in the church: the extra choir rehearsals, the sneaking into the church early on Saturday morning to practice, the excitement. But I had other priorities now and had to put those things on the shelf, at least for the present. Kenny had tried to persuade me to get involved in some music program, but I had simply told him that unless I could make a commitment, I wasn't going to do it. I did intend to take a few music courses at a local Lutheran college, but I never had the time and the money at the same time,

There were about twelve people at Carlo's that night. He had a few of his fraternity brothers, and some of our mutual friends. We were all the same: either we couldn't afford to go home, or we didn't have enough time. We sipped wine (even Kenny had a glass) and nibbled on finger foods, all Italian of course, and shared with each other what Christmas was like at home. They started filtering home around midnight, with Kenny and I finally climbing the stairs to our own apartment around 3 AM. It had been a great evening.

We stripped silently and got into bed, each feeling a little melancholy but neither willing to admit it to the other. Kenny turned the radio on low and we both got into bed. We wrapped our arms around each other with the light still on, and just lay there staring into each other's eyes. There was a song published years later that describes how we felt better than any words I could ever write. It was sung by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, and the first time I heard it I thought of that night. Since then I have worn out three tapes until it was finally released on CD, and I have two copies of the CD: one for home and one for my car. It's called "The Greatest Gift of All," and as I said, it describes perfectly what we felt that night:

Dawn is slowly breaking,

Our friends have all gone home.

You and I are waiting

for Santa Claus to come.

There's a present by the tree,

stockings on the wall.

Knowing you're in love with me

is the greatest gift of all.

The fire is slowly fading,

a chill is in the air.

All the gifts are waiting

for children everywhere.

Through the window I can see

the snow begin to fall.

Knowing you're in love with me

is the greatest gift of all.

Just before I go to sleep,

I hear a church bell ring.

Merry Christmas, everyone,

is the song it sings.

So I say a silent prayer,

to creatures great and small

Peace on earth, goodwill to men,

is the greatest gift of all.

I don't know how long we lay there, just staring at each other. There was no conversatkion, no sex, not even any erotic thoughts, only total contentment. There would be time enough to be homesick tomorrow, so tonight we just enjoyed each other and our togetherness.

Our first Christmas Day on our own was far too full for us to even think of homesickness. We spent the entire day with Carlo and Sin, and all the visitors they had all day long. Kenny and I spent at least a half hour talking to his mom and another few minutes talking with Robbie. I called my father but it seemed after the initial greetings we had little to say. He did ask how I was doing, which I took as a sign that perhaps he was interested. Wonder of wonders, he even asked about Kenny! After a few uncomfortable minutes he promised that if I'd write he would answer.

When we opened our gifts, we got another surprise. Mom gave us some shirts and pants she knew we'd like, along with some money she directed us to use for "luxuries," but it was Robbie's gift that floored me. Kenny and I each got a Dietzgen slide rule! At that time there were no hand held calculators and few computers, so the tool of the engineer's trade was the slide rule. With it one could multiply and divide, do fractional exponent calculations, trig functions, all sorts of things. We had considered Dietzgen to be top of the line, but they were very expensive and we had planned to buy a much cheaper one as soon as we could afford it. How in the world Robbie knew was always a mystery to me - he had taken Journalism and Political Science, so it wasn't as if he was familiar with such things. I still have that slide rule, but of course with calculators and computers being so common now, it is retired - just an old piece of wood with a lot of happy memories.

Before we knew it we had come to May and the school year was over. I probably forgot to mention that Indiana Tech was using the quarter system: four quarters per year, not two semesters. So in May, 1957, we had already finished three terms. Kenny and I had both done well, he with a 3.8 average and I with a 3.6. We were both disappointed they weren't higher, but at the same time grateful that our efforts had paid off. The shock came when we dropped in to Carlo's when we got home.

"I'm all done," Carlo announced, "I just don't have the brain power you guys have. I flunked most of my courses."

"You can't quit, Carlo," Kenny pleaded, "You're almost halfway through!"

"That's fine for you to say," Carlo answered bitterly, "But I've got a new baby girl, and I just don't have the intelligence that you guys have. I just can't do this."

"Bullshit!" I said as my adrenalin started pumping, "I think you're every bit as intelligent as we are, and maybe more. But you put all your efforts in the wrong place, Carlo! You're always looking for the easy way out! You spend hours and hours every day at the Fraternity house instead of studying. You leave things till the last minute, then cram all night before an exam. Shit, man, I've only been here a year but I know that's no way to get a degree. You get frustrated because we go to bed at 8:30 the night before an exam. You say that we just don't understand what it is not to be brilliant. We're not brilliant, Carlo. The only difference is we know enough to keep our work up day to day, so when it comes exam times we KNOW the fuckin' work! All I ever do is go over a few things I'm not sure about, and then I get a good night's sleep so I'm feeling good going into the exam. Try it, Carlo. Please? Just give it a try!

After a lot of coaxing, we did convince Carlo to give it another year. He had no prospects at home anyway, and he agreed that the stakes were high. But to our dismay he wasn't about to give up his partying at the fraternity, nor did he back down on all the sure-fire gimmicks he was always trying.

We both took the summer off that year to earn extra money for the coming year. It was a summer of the hardest work Kenny and I had ever experienced. We found ourselves crawling around inside huge air ducts, vacuuming them; sitting atop huge cranes inside steel mills, scrubbing them down; taking Venetian blinds down in public schools and washing them, one slat at a time, then putting them back up. One of Blanchard's regulars asked me one time why Kenny and I seemed to enjoy the work so much. He had been working this job about four years, was married and had a child and another on the way. I wasn't sure what to say, but Kenny knew exactly how to answer. "We enjoy it," he said, "Because it's only temporary. We need the money and this job is the way to get that money, but we can see an end to it. We know we're not gonna do this the rest of our lives, and that's why we enjoy it!" I'm not sure the guy understood, but I sure did! If we hadn't had anything else, we had a goal, and Kenny's little speech made that goal all the more important.

It was mid-August, and our summer work term was drawing to a close when I went to clean a bowling alley in the middle of town. To our astonishment we found that the bowling alleys in Fort Wayne had open bars, which meant the bowlers would often get pretty drunk. Kenny was off at midnight that night, so I was alone with another person who I didn't know when, at 3 AM, we arrived to clean the alley.

"You get the washrooms," Kirk said, "I'll do the dusting, then we can do the floors together." That seemed like a workable plan so I agreed, and headed for the truck to get the bucket full of brushes and other materials needed to clean toilets and sinks. Cleaning of washrooms was one of the more unpleasant parts of this job. There are no words to describe how disgusting some people can be in a washroom, and to my surprise the ladies' were often worse then the mens'. I cleaned the men's that night with no problem, then when I went into the ladies' and opened the stall doors, I discovered a lady in one of them, sitting on the toilet, totally passed out! She was about 50 years old, and I had no idea how long she had been there. I tried to arouse her and finally got her to her feet, but then what was I to do? I doubted that Kirk would be any help, so I decided to find out who she was and how to get her home. Kirk, knowing that I was asking for trouble going through her things, called the police and had her hauled away.

We were late finishing the bowling alley, what with all the fuss over the drunk I'd discovered. By the time I got back to the old Chevy and headed for home it was after 8 AM. I knew Kenny would still be asleep so I drove around town for a little while, then found myself in the southern part of town, commonly called the "black section." On a sudden whim I parked in front of Jimmy Benson's house and went to the door. I didn't think what I was doing, I just did it.

"Hey, Charlie!" Jimmy said cheerfully when he answered the door, "What brings you here?" Jimmy was standing there wearing nothing but his white briefs, which contrasted with his black skin. I had never seen him shirtless before, and discovered somewhat to my surprise that he had a really good build. He was absolutely beautiful!

"Uhhh... you!" I heard myself stammer.

"Cool," he said, grinning and showing off his perfect white teeth, "Come on in. Mom and Dad are both gone to work." I was already beyond all thought, all judgment as I walked into the modest house on shaky legs.

"Did you and Kenny have a fight?" Jimmy asked.

"No," I answered, "He's home in bed. I just thought I'd drop in on my way home from work.

"I'm glad you did," he returned, "I think there's some coffee in the kitchen if you want some, and I'll go put on some clothes."

"Coffee's fine," I said, "But don't bother with the clothes on my account. I really like what I see right now." I couldn't resist any longer, I placed a hand on each of Jimmy's shoulders. 'You're really built for a little guy," I observed.

"Thanks, he said shyly, "I like to swim a lot."

"Really? Man, Jimmy, so do Kenny and I. We'll have to go together some time."

"I'd really like that," he said beaming as he poured two cups of coffee, "I don't get to go with very many guys. But that still doesn't answer my question. How come you're here so early?"

I didn't answer, and there were no more questions. I wrapped my arms around his muscular shoulders, totally in awe of the softness of his skin with the hard muscles under it. And then our lips met. I felt Jimmy's body go rigid, then slowly relax as he returned the kiss enthusiastically, moaning ever so slightly as he did. I ran my hands down his lithe back to his buns, one in each hand, and squeezed.

"Man!" he exclaimed, "That's the first time I've ever been kissed like that! But it ain't gonna be the last."

"You got that right," I smiled as I kissed him again. He was incredibly passionate, and soon our tongues were doing a ballet in and out of our mouths. It was incredibly erotic to me, and whatever caution I'd had was completely gone.

"Does that mean you're a virgin?" I asked when we were sipping our coffee.

"Uh-huh," he replied, "There don't seem to be that many black fags around.

"I--I--" I stammered, "I'm not black, but will I do?"

"That would be so great!" he grinned. And it was! For the next hour Jimmy and I explored what to him was uncharted territory. I was totally in awe of his perfect body and did my best to demonstrate my admiration by the way I worshiped and pleasured it. It's really difficult to say who derived the most pleasure. I discovered that his shoulders were not the only parts of his body that had well developed muscles, and he gasped loudly when my lips connected with that most important of all muscles.

By the time I left Jimmy's it was after 10 AM. He wanted to know when we could meet again and I said probably never. "Kenny is gonna be furious when he finds out," I told him.

"He doesn't have to find out," Jimmy assured me, "Unless you tell him." I didn't say so to him, but I was coming back to my senses enough to know that I would indeed tell Kenny, sooner or later.

It only took Kenny a few seconds after I got home to figure out something was wrong. He met me at the top of the stairs, looking for a kiss, a kiss I didn't dare give him because I could still taste the remnants of my lovemaking with Jimmy, and I reasoned that if I could taste it, Kenny would probably smell it. "What's wrong, Charlie?" he questioned happily, "Don't love me any more?"

"I'm just tired," I replied, and headed for the bedroom. That was a truly stupid thing to say, because that wasn't the first time one or the other of us was dead tired, but we were never too tired for a kiss or two. Kenny was really perplexed now and followed me, then sat and watched as I got undressed.

"Ummm, Charlie," he said with a slight grin, "Your boxers are inside out!" Oh shit, I thought, he knows I'd never go out like that, no matter where I was going. I felt myself turning red, and then I made the mistake of the century: I looked into Kenny's eyes.

"Charlie," Kenny pleaded as he embraced me, "You're crying! Please tell me what's happened."

"You don't wanna know, Kenny," I answered, "you just don't wanna know."

"If I didn't want to know," he returned, "I wouldn't have asked. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad."

"It's worse, Kenny! I'm such a piece of shit. I--I--"

"Please tell me! Did you wreck the car? Got fired? What?"

I did something then that I never thought I could ever do. I looked deeply into those brown eyes and I told him it all. "I'm so sorry, Kenny," I said truthfully, "I don't know what came over me. It was like... well, like it all happened automatically. I'm so happy with you, but when I'm not with you I just get all crazy!"

"Guess I'll just have to be with you all the time," he observed.

"You're not mad?" I said in surprise.

"No, I'm not mad. A little hurt I guess, but I know better than anyone else how horny you can get. And Jimmy sure is one great looking guy. Thanks for telling me, Charlie."

"But..." I protested, "The last time... you were so mad..."

"We hadn't been together that long," he explained, "You didn't even know the guy. It was pure sex and nothing else. This is different. We both know Jimmy and we know he's a nice guy, even lovable in many ways. I'd be lying if I said I had never thought about doing what you did. I don't want you to make a habit of it, but it's ok, I understand."

"Don't worry, Kenny," I assured him, "I'll never do anything like that again."

"Don't make a promise you can't keep," he whispered, "What you've got I want for myself, and I'm gonna do whatever I have to to make sure I get it all."

"Please don't do anything to Jimmy, it wasn't his fault."

"I'm not gonna do anything to Jimmy," Kenny said with a grin, "Unless of course I do the same thing you did."

(I know I'll get asked a thousand times, so I might as well tell everyone here, he never did get together with Jimmy. Kenny, it seemed, only had eyes for me! Which of course made me feel all the more guilty.)

I thought for weeks about what I'd done, and I realized that I was truly allowing my gonads to rule my life. It wasn't fair to Kenny, and it wasn't even fair to me! So why was I like that? And why did it seem to be getting worse?

The following year was to Kenny and me as wonderful as the first. We kept our grades up, continued working for Blanchard, and continued to make new friends; GREAT friends! It was pretty well common knowledge that Kenny and I were a matched pair. Many knew of our love affair, but there were just as many who had no idea, but just accepted us as inseparable friends. We never volunteered the information about our true relationship, but never shied away from it either. I think we could easily have spent the next twenty years in college, so content and happy were we, except that we would have got tired eventually of having to take off every third or fourth term to work and make some extra money. I guess the only thing really significant that happened in our sophomore year was that Carlo finally threw in the towel and went back to New York. We hated to see him go for more than one reason, but he went anyway.

It was in our junior year that things really began to get intense for Kenny and me. We had been maintaining a pretty good average and had become pretty well comfortable with our position in life. Many of our friends knew we were lovers and accepted it for what it was. Some had rejected us, but there was no abuse; they simply ignored us. We became reporters for The Nucleus, the student newspaper. We were even elected to the Student Council, which totally blew my mind.

We had been sitting in the coffee shop one afternoon after class, bitching about something the school had done or was doing, when one of the other reporters challenged me. "Don't just sit here and bitch," he suggested, "Do something about it!"

"What can I do?" I returned, "I'm just a foreign faggot student. So I'm doing about all I can by just sitting here and getting mad."

"You can run for Student Council," he reminded me.

"I'd never get elected. I mean, I'm no jock, not all that popular, and I don't know that many people."

"I'm not so sure," Kenny interrupted, "I think we should, Charlie! Really, let's go for it!"

So after a lot of talking and convincing, we did run, and we were both elected! And if I do say so myself we set that council on its ass! We would come to meetings holding hands, or arm in arm, and we presented a united front of two. When an issue or motion was introduced, Kenny and I discussed it between ourselves, then spoke as one and always voted together. Most of the other councillors did not know about Kenny and me, and although we were sure they were suspicious, we never gave them the satisfaction of coming out completely. It was much more fun watching them wonder. And of course it gave us a voice in the goings-on of the college, which we used to full advantage.

As nearly as I can remember it was November when I was given an assignment to interview various members of the Math faculty. "We're getting a computer," Phil, the editor, said, "And I want it fully covered. It's gonna be a feature story complete with follow-ups." It seemed like a pretty mundane assignment to me and certainly not that exciting, because all I knew about computers was that they were large machines with millions of lights that did calculations pretty fast. Boy was I wrong! I interviewed the head of the math department, plus two of the faculty who had been involved in the acquisition. I also covered three of the management staff, including the President. By the time I had finished I was getting excited, and the story I submitted showed that excitement in no uncertain terms!

My final interviewee was Professor Bartlett, who had taught two of the math courses I'd had, so we already knew each other. He was to be in charge of the whole project, and he would teach the first class. He led me to a classroom which, he said, would be cleared of furniture, equipped with special air conditioning and power, and this room would be the home of the new computer. The first function of the new computer was to be a programming course in the coming spring term. "WOW!" I exclaimed, "Off the record, is there any way I can register for that course?"

"Off the record," he answered, "I for one would be glad to have you. But it's not an official elective, so you'd get no credit for it, and being the first programming course, it's reserved for seniors."

"I don't care, Professor. I just want to see what this thing is all about. I've been doing without luxuries for a long time, and if I can get into this course I'm gonna splurge and do it."

"Tell you what," the professor suggested, "Why don't you audit the course as a reporter, to do a feature after it's over. It won't cost you anything, and you don't have to make all the classes."

"Thanks," I said, "But that's not for me. I've never been good at being half involved in things. With me it's always been all or nothing. I want to be in that class! And for the first time in my life I'm gonna throw away all that humility and tell you that I know I can do it, and I want to be in that class!"

"Your story was really something," Kenny smiled at me, "You managed to get the whole school worked up! I'm so proud of you!"

"I don't deserve praise," I confessed, "I just got so worked up, so excited, and I just wrote what I was feeling. I got an added benefit too. Prof. Bartlett said he'll reserve a seat for me in the class, and one for you if you want it."

"He knows about us?" Kenny inquired.

"He does now. I told him the day I interviewed him for the story. You'd have been so proud of me, Kenny! I looked him right in the eye and said 'I'm good, and you know it. And I want in that class!' And then he folded and said I could go. I told him about you and said I wanted you in it too. After I'd told him the whole story he agreed to reserve a seat for you too. He told me he thought both of us could really benefit from exposure to computers."

"Tell him no thanks," Kenny said after a few moments thought, "This is your thing, Charlie. I've read your story and I can understand your excitement. But I don't share it. My thing is communications, and it would be wrong for me to take up a seat when it's going to be a popular class, especially after your story."

I went to Ottawa that Christmas. Kenny's mom had been talking about sending us the money to come home, but just about the time we'd decided to go, I got a note from my sister Joan. She invited the two of us, saying it had been far too long since we'd had any contact. "You've got to go," Kenny said, "In case you didn't know it, you love your sister and you miss her. I can tell just from the way you talk about her."

"I know I do," I answered, "But I just didn't know how she'd feel about... well, you know. I mean her husband Ted was in the Canadian Navy, and I'm pretty sure he's quite homophobic, and I just didn't want to cause any trouble."

"Well," Kenny pointed out, "She invited YOU! So what we'll do is we'll both drive to Ottawa, then you can stay there and I'll go on home. Then I'll pick you up again."

"You don't think Mom will mind?"

"Yeah, she'll mind 'cause she wants to see you as much as me. But I'll explain it to her. I know she'll understand.

"But that means you'll have almost a thousand miles to drive all alone."

"Not a problem, dude. I can do it standing on my head."

"But Kenny, this'll be our first Christmas apart since we met. I'll miss you!"

"I'll miss you too, Charlie. But we've gotta do what we've gotta do."

And so that's what we did. I had a wonderful time in Ottawa with my sister, her husband and their little girl. We had never been that close when we were growing up, but now she showed in every way she could that she thought I was a really kewl guy! They had got all the details of my sinful lifestyle from my father, and their reaction was admiration that I'd stuck to my guns. Of course my sister had done precisely the same thing when she left to get married despite our father's violent objections, so she had some sense of what I'd gone through. Kenny had an equally good time at home, but he arrived two days early in Ottawa, which gave him and Joan to get to know each other. Before we left to go back, Joan pulled me aside and whispered, "Now I understand why you're so attracted to him. And if you ever get tired of him let me know!"

It was the fall term, our last year, before I got to take my computer course. The computer had been delayed (thanks, IBM!), so the course was put off as well. Kenny and I had decided that we wanted to finish our last two terms with perfect 4.0 averages, so we had saved like mad, then quit our job and concentrated on our studies. The addition of that computer course meant I was taking a five credit overload, but I was confident that without working I could do it. Convincing the powers that be wasn't quite so easy! But for anyone reading this who is on the beginning side of a college career, a 3.8 average carries a lot of credibility! So I was allowed to register for the overload.

The first time I saw that computer it was true love at first sight. It was, for those in the business, an IBM 1620 Data Processing System. It was about the size of a large office desk. It seemed to be beckoning to me as it sat there, its cooling fans humming softly. There was a second smaller machine, which I learned was a paper tape punch and reader. There were no hard drives, no floppy disks, not even a punched card reader! Floppies had not even been invented, and hard drives, called RAM drives then, were under development for very large computers, which the 1620 was definitely not! But it didn't matter, I was in love.

The console of the 1620 was an electric typewriter which we used to key in our programs in binary machine language. After the program was entered and debugged, we punched it on paper tape with holes in it so we didn't have to key in the program every time we wanted to run it. Primitive? Definitely! But to me it was Heaven!

"I get the distinct feeling that I've been replaced as your first love," Kenny observed as his hands roamed over my body.

"That could never happen," I answered happily, "But that computer is a close second. It's so cool, Kenny! That's what I want to do for the rest of my life! I'm gonna work for IBM!"

"But what about Electrical Engineering?" he said.

"Someone's gotta build them," I pointed out, "And design them. And that's gonna be ME!"

As always, comments, suggestions, criticisms are welcome. Please email charlieje@mindspring.com

Everyone please have a wonderful and safe Holiday season! Enjoy whatever festivities you have planned, but above all, be SAFE!

Charlie