[Loss and Recovery (1968-1986) tells of my late youth and early adulthood and those men important in that homo-loving life. As are all the stories in the series, this part is fiction, imagined from life incidents but not actual in the details and persons.]
I'd never before followed "current events" as we said in school. But I did from then on - the war, the agonizingly long peace talks in Paris, the Chicago demonstration and police riot, the presidential campaign. When I went to Mayville to start my teacher license, I even kept up, at least reading the newspaper.
A great part of me regretted going off to school because I was leaving the only real home I'd had. Dorothy was full of encouragement, and she wrote to me at school, sending cookies and a white shirt and tie at Christmas, the first and only one for a long time that I had. I'd earned enough for tuition, had to work a night job as a motel clerk for my one room there and weekend days bussing tables at a restaurant. Besides, I had no transportation. Glenn had driven me to Mayville, and I was stranded there.
I was off sex, still "flogging the log," of course, twice a day, in fact. I'm keeping myself for Gordo, I told myself. In reality, I was constantly busy with work and school, and I was in a program with mostly women; the few guys I knew who were also preparing to be elementary school teachers were twerps and certainly no turn on for me.
It was Glenn who had spelled out the steps I could afford and follow that would get me up the employment ladder. I certainly never would have thought of myself as a teacher since I'd hardly been in a traditional classroom in my life. In the wilds of Alaska, I necessarily did a lot of reading and especially liked the "classics" that appear bountifully in most places. Robinson Crusoe, Kidnapped, Kim, The Deerslayer and other "The Leatherstocking Tales," were my favorites, also the Poe and O. Henry short stories and the Jack London books, of course, that featured Alaska. And my all time number one - Kon Tiki.
Imagine those suntanned hunks together on a raft in the Pacific for all those months. I suppose that was what started me to think about funny stuff with guys, some of them Nordic like me. I never thought of myself as intellectual, more likely imaginative or wanting to be imaginative. Books took me away in one sense, away from the "here and now," but in another sense deeper into my inner, real self, its ways and possibilities. Because a book was a little difficult to read never stopped me. I was in no hurry to get through with a book when it came to reading. Something like sex.
After a year at Mayville and a provisional teaching license, I got a job for one year teaching eight grades at a rural school in north central North Dakota. If you want rural, ND's got rural. Surprising to me, it was a great job with lots of responsibility that fit my independence. If I was any good at teaching, I credit Dorothy Markus and Gordo, whose basic philosophy towards others was one of love and respect.
I thought each day of Dorothy saying, "You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar," and that's what applied teaching those kids. I was busy all the time for nine months. I was also isolated with no place to go that proved a built-in way to save money. Families there, even those without kids in school, invited me to dinner and treated me with respect. As a teacher, I was expected to know things, and our table conversations led to their asking me what I thought about this and that. I wanted to look older, and I'd grown a beard so that they probably thought I was older than my 19-20 year old self, the year I was among them. I was hairy by that time, full spread across my chest, and I felt confident in my looks, and because I was alone I often jacked to myself in the mirror.
In April 1970, Doug, who was at UM-Morris sent me word that Gordo was killed during heavy shelling somewhere near the triangle between the two Vietnams and Cambodia. He sent me a newspaper obituary, coming too late after the fact so that I missed the funeral. That old newsprint showing Gordo in uniform is the only picture I have of him, the only tangible reminder really as he never wrote to me. I was in a rage and could hardly teach the next day. I hitched to Bottineau on the weekend just to get drunk and get laid if I could.
Never before had I been so angry, angry at life and angry with myself for my foolish crush in an impossible situation. I just wanted to fuck somebody in a mad ass-slamming way, to buck him and fuck him and get my share of the goodies I'd been denied, as though somehow I could get even. No luck. Instead I got sick on whiskey and cigarettes, puking my guts out in the motel room.
School was out in early June, and I hitched back to Bottineau once more just to get away and sort things out before I went to summer school as part of my great plan. This had been Glenn's plan for me, something I went along with because I had no alternatives of my own in mind. I tortured myself that as much as Gordo and I seemed to have loved one another, we never made any plans for our mutual future. What can you expect of a couple of 18-year olds? Now I was 20, looked older, and had given up my beard because I felt confident and didn't need it. I was hair-covered enough anyway, having let my hair grow since high school and had quite a mane. Hair now sprouted above the neckline on my t-shirts, even though light-colored Dano-Norwegian hair doesn't show as much.
I sat in the park near the motel with my take out lunch, beer, and cigarettes. I knew smoking was unhealthy, but I had the habit. I noticed a guy walking down the path; he tapped a white cane in front of him as he came towards my picnic table. He was broad shouldered, a little rounded perhaps, but with a massive strong build. He seemed to be looking dead ahead, missed the curve of the path and walked right into the table though I called at the last second, "Watch out!".
"Sorry," he said, "I hope I didn't knock over anything."
"Everything's fine. It's just me. Are you all right."
"I hope so. May I sit down a minute. I've been walking a mile."
"Sure, make yourself comfortable."
He felt for the table and attached bench, finding his way to a sit next to me. He held out his hand, "I'm Wallace."
"Lance." We shook hands.
"You off work for lunch?" He was well dressed and groomed and smelled of some woodsy cologne.
"Off for the summer, taking a little breather before I go to summer school."
"A teacher, then." I liked his quick take on the conversation.
"Right."
"I used to teach," he said. "History. Now I'm a finance analyst."
"For a bank?" I asked.
"On my own. Do you teach in Bottineau?" Inquisitive, hew was, but natural, not nosey.
"I had a rural school on a one year provisional license. That's why I have to go back to school. I'm about ready to head back to Mayville and continue."
"Mayville? You should go to UMD. That's where I live, in Grand Forks."
I offered him a cigarette that he declined and a beer that he took. We shot the breeze about the weather, the town, North Dakota politics, teaching and his family. He was in town for a family reunion.
"What about you," he asked, "where's your family?"
"I'm pretty much an orphan."
"No spouse?"
I thought a moment but said, "Not for me."
"You mean you don't want a spouse?"
I had nothing to lose; we didn't know each other, and he could move on if he wanted. "I had a close relationship." I breathed deep, flooded with memories of Gordo. "So close, I felt I was married. He was killed early April in Vietnam."
Wallace turned to me and felt for my hand and clenched it. "I'm sorry for you." He reached for my face and felt my tears, and in inexplicable sympathy tears formed in the corners of his dark eyes too.
I held his hand and impulsively kissed the palm. "Thank you," I said. I looked at his long, exquisite fingers, professionally manicured, the nails perfectly rounded and luminescent. I let go of his hand, and he let it drop on my thigh, stroking it in a comforting fashion. We talked about love and loss. He told me he'd had a boyfriend in his early years of teaching, another teacher, but when he started losing his sight the guy ditched him. There'd been no one since then, ten years before. Wallace was 38.
We talked about his blindness, a degenerative condition. He was also mildly diabetic and had to watch his alcohol intake. Finally he asked if he could "see" me, and I let him feel my hands, arms - he paused at the biceps - and face, head, hair hanging down my back, neck and chest. His hands felt wonderful on me, and I realized that it was almost two years since I'd been with a man, and here I was warming up to this stranger.
"You're very handsome and strong. I can tell," Wallace said.
"Thank you. I like the looks of you, too."
"You do? Most people are turned off by all this hair."
"Not me," I said. His head was pretty well buzzed but I did notice that his upper arms and the back of his neck were fuzzier than most guys. My God, I thought, this stranger is turning me on, and I don't even know him. I searched for another cigarette and lit up.
"Sorry, I'm out of beer."
"One's my limit," he said. "I do have a few bottles back at the room if you want to walk back with me."
Oh, my God, I thought. I'm going to have sex again. Then I wondered whether he was just being nice, super nice at the moment, or willing to do the nasty with me. So I had to find out and went along with him.
Walking with a blind guy was a new experience, a thrill. You could walk along in public close up to another guy who was clutching on to your arm like you were an old, married couple sauntering down the street. People looked at us out of curiosity but then seemed to understand; they'd smile and look away.
Wallace told me about his days as a high school and university football player. He had an invitation to go pro, but did not care for the prospects of being slammed around on the field, risking some physical injury, and the potential harassment for being gay. Now I knew he was definitely my kind of guy. We passed through the park, across a business area, and to his motel. He let me into the room, well ventilated and neat as a pin, his clothes hanging in the open closet with even spaced precision.
Wallace gave me a beer from the room's frig, and we sat together at the foot of the bed. He invited me to smoke if I wanted, but I don't care for indoor smoke myself so I said, "That's all right; I prefer to smoke outside." We talked casually as he caressed my legs and back. Strangely, I felt nervous with this new guy, as though being gay and having sex with a man were new to me. But in a sense, it was a first time because of someone just a little different and, of course, eighteen years older than me.
I finished the beer, excused myself and went to piss. When I came back, Wallace had closed the shades and was resting on the bed, his head on the pillow. He heard me and said, "Lance, I like you, and I hope you like me all right."
I responded at once. "For someone I've just met, I like you fine."
"Will you let me touch you all over?"
"Let's take our clothes off," I answered immediately, "and we can touch each other."
"Thank you," he said, his face in my direction smiling. I was glad to have brought happiness to his day as he did to mine.
He was neat about placing his clothes over the desk chair and got down to his boxers. Though he couldn't see me, I felt strange to be undressing in front of him, but I piled up my stuff in a corner out of the way. He went into piss and I got on top of the bed, arranging four pillows to accommodate us. When he came out of the jon, I said, "I'm in bed on the outdoor side." He came alongside me and we immediately curled up together with a deep, refreshing kiss, embracing and feeling for one another.
He was as hairy as old Geo, but with sandy-brownish hair, thickly furry and soft. His upper body was in fine shape and legs well-muscled; his abdomen was heavy, but not paunchy, muscular there too. After a thorough exploration, he turned me face down in the pillows and massaged my neck, back, arms and legs. His fine fingers had the most excellent way of spreading and kneading the muscles. "You must have a lot of tension in your life," he said, "especially for one so young."
I tried to copy his massage doing the same for him. He moaned softly, saying "Wonderful, wonderful." I felt so relaxed that when I nestled against him and he played with the hair on my chest, I fell asleep, sleeping until late in the afternoon.
I awoke to a room still shaded. Wallace was gone, but a note on the desk in clear block printing said, 'Wonderful Lance: I am to dinner with family. Back about 8 p. Please stay with me tonight.'
I dressed, went back to my motel, checked out, and carried my stuff back, stopping only to pick up a couple burgers. I had along a library copy of The Confessions of Nat Turner that I read to keep my mind off Wallace's return. Someone dropped him off just before eight. "I'm here," I said as he entered, smiling.
"You've made my day," he said.
After we'd showered together at his suggestion, with a lot of mutual soaping and groping at my initiative, we made our way to bed. I enjoyed how firm, furry and warm he was with a cock that seemed to match mine. So far we'd had a lot of boyfriend stuff, kissing and caressing, but after the play before the foreplay, I tongued and sucked his nipples. It drove him wild; he sought my pecs and did the same.
I got between his legs, caressing the insides of his thighs while teasing the purplish bell of his cock that he steadied at the base so it didn't flop in my face. I let my saliva pour on it as I teasingly began to take the slab in, grown thick and meaty. I took this feast down my throat, my nose buried in the tangled thicket of his bush, inhaling the male scent that spoke of hidden delights, guarded and reserved for the chosen few.
Then I started to swing on it, pumping my head, diving and recoiling, laving the glans and tip with the rasp of my nicotine-stained tongue, then swallowing and descending again, over and over.
Each time I traveled his hardon, I tried to increase the pressure. He groaned, cleared his throat, and groaned again. I played with his ball sac, fondling, pulling and twisting, clenching and releasing. He was squirming under me and began to buck my sucking mouth. His breaths came faster and faster. He grabbed me by the back of the neck holding my head over his pulsating cock as he groaned in a rage of explosive convulsions and shoot his hot salty-sweet viscous bodily fluid into my voracious mouth, running me over with his bounty of man seed.
He lay quiet and I came up to kiss him. Wallace licked the overflow at the corners of my mouth and chin, his tongue circling inside me as we kissed. He sighed deeply. "It's been a long time," he said, "I didn't think I'd ever be with a man again."
"It's been a long time for me too."
"Let me hold you," Wallace said, and he curved into me, his spent manhood resting comfortably in the crack of my ass. He massaged me in his arms, kissing me and sighing with sounds of utter contentment, and so entwined we drifted off.
I woke up at dawn and stepped outside in my cutoffs - that was all I pulled on - to have a smoke and think. I thought about what I had done in the last half day. First, I had still grieved over Gordo and felt sorry for myself, but within hours I was choking down some new guy's heavenly cock. I felt like a slut when I thought of Gordo and my wish to be faithful to him.
Where did I get these ideas? Not from any role model. Certainly not from Glenn who had turned me on and set me free for man to man sex. But I didn't exactly approve of his fucking around even if I'd been the beneficiary of it. Whereas Wallace, well, his wholesomeness, loneliness and vulnerability called out to the brotherly in me. And when he was comforting and kind to me, I wanted to reciprocate as gratefully and fully as I could.
Maybe, we were a matched pair. Maybe, he'd had enough of me. What had Geo said about seeing life as it is and trying to find the truth in it? I heaved a big sigh of confused resignation and went back inside to see what the next phase of the rest of my life would be.
Wallace sat on the side of the bed facing the door; he was as naked as last I left him and maybe was just awake. "Lance," he said, "is that you?"
"Who else would be barging in on you in your all-together?"
"Oh," he gasped and started to cry, "I thought you'd left." He reached out with both arms, spreading his legs as I went to hug and kiss him, letting my shorts fall and kicking them off behind me. He felt for my quickening shaft and bent to kiss it. He licked it all over up and down, lovingly tonguing the head and swirling around the glans. He inhaled deeply and widened his jaws to take me whole.
He pulled back sucking down hard and raised his head. "I'm sorry I didn't attend to you properly last night. I was so overcome with my own rare orgasm that I lost sight of yours."
"Do you want to fuck me?" I asked Wallace; I was willing.
"I want you to fuck me," he said. And he played with my cock and balls till I was so hot, I couldn't stop myself in the rhythm upon me that fucked his hot mouth in his quivering face.
He lay back in the bed raising his legs and pulling the cheeks of his wide ass apart for me. I got up to him, holding his legs out and drooled saliva out of my mouth to work into his hairy asshole, soon wet and glistening silvery with my spit. I placed his knee sockets on my shoulders as Glenn had once set me for Gordo, and fingered him open - one, two, three fingers.
Feeling he was ready, I guided my dickhead into his welcoming anus, coursing my tube into his pipe and began anew the rhythm of ministration, the internal massage that communicated the utmost in honesty and closeness between a guy and a guy. I rocked within him hoping I was plumbing the spot, brushing and stroking and throbbing against his hot internal button, the prostate. I jacked him as he ran his hands over his chest. Wallace pinched each nipple and crooned. "Yes, yes, yes. Give it to me Lance. Come in me and make me feel it."
I picked up the tempo, hitting him harder, holding his legs up and out once again. I bent him up and back so that his ass was more in the air beneath me. His arms were down at his side, hard into the mattress; he clutched at the sheet, his fine fingered hands turned into clawing fists of devilish abandon. He squirmed under me, and convulsed, shooting his gizz all over his chest, face and the bed. His hot, sweaty butt quaked under me, slammed and pulled my cock within him.
I exploded, hardly able to stand up as the tsunami of cum poured from me, and my nuts shot rockets, and my thighs throbbed with the velocity of all the blood in my system. I couldn't stand; I shook all over and fell on him.
And there we lay, sweaty, cum soaked and gasping for breath.
He nuzzled me to life, and I consumed the strings of his translucent spunk from off his face and neck. He rubbed my back and the back of my neck, then fingered through my hair. "Lance, how old are you?"
"Twenty. Why; are you worried you've done something illegal to a minor?" Wallace ignored my question.
"Twenty? How did you learn to be so kind and understanding to a much older guy, nearly twice as old as you?"
"I've always liked older guys. It was an older guy, twelve years older actually, who brought me out. I'm grateful to him; or, maybe that imprinted on me."
"Do you fuck with a lot of guys?"
I laughed. "Pardon me, but I had some early experiences-basically two guys, the guy who mentored me and the guy I felt married to. I avoided other guys. You're my third."
"Are you looking for more opportunities?"
"I suppose I'm a contradiction. I'm attracted to men; I admire a lot of men; I lust after a lot of men. What did Archie Bunker say about Mike? 'A permanent case of the hots.' That's me. But I also want to love and be loved by one special friend forever." I paused. "Forgive me, I sound stupid."
"Lance, I want... Lance, I don't know your full name."
"Lance Davids."
"Lance Davids, I want to get in the shower with you. Then, Lance Davids, I want to take you out for a big breakfast. And then, Lance Davids, I want to take you home with me to Grand Forks. Will you come live with me and give me a try? At least, for a while."
With my collapsed cock, still in him, I took as much of him into my arms as I could and wept wet salty tears into his massive, hairy chest. "Yes. Praise all ye powers of the universe. Yes I will."
"One thing, you'll have to quit smoking."
"Okay, I quit." That was the only thing Wallace ever demanded of me.
Wallace Jaspers and I lived together for sixteen years. Pretty boring, huh?
He had hired a car and driver who had brought him to Bottineau. Upon his return, we stopped at my rented room in the Podunk where I had taught and loaded my stuff in four boxes and a suitcase and headed for Grand Forks. We talked options on the way. It made sense that I transfer to UND and that I take the summer to settle in before going back to school. I would learn to drive and he would hire me to help him.
When we arrived, I was once again surprised at Wallace, the man of modesty. His home in the University neighborhood was beyond my grandest imaginings, a Victorian on a large, landscaped lot, two-story with four bedrooms upstairs, an open front porch and back screened porches both downstairs and adjoining the master bedroom above. I had my own bedroom for when I needed privacy, but that wasn't where I spent my nights whether for sex or not. I treasured just sleeping with him.
The next day we went shopping for a car and would buy a new car every year. While I wanted something racy looking like a Mustang, Wallace wanted the long-distance comfort of a Buick. We'd compromise on the likes of a Cadillac Seville; these are the little bargains one makes with one's partner. I joyously became Wallace's driver, gardener, valet, dietician, and cook.
I was not his secretary, he had a secretary who came to his office at home, but I did read to him what he wanted from the breakfast newspapers-Fargo Forum, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. In the evenings, I read aloud the poetry he loved, sometimes changing the words, as
Naked he lay; clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and he all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms, legs, lips close, clinging to embrace,
He clips me to his breast, and sucks me to his face.
In 1973, finished my B.S. in teaching English, but preferred substitute work in school districts surrounding Grand Forks in both North Dakota and Minnesota. It was half the pay and it meant early morning calls and being on the road sixty miles or so every day, but I wanted the flexibility, free evenings with no extra-curricular assignments, no homework to correct, and no school attachments. The money didn't mean much anyway; Wallace invested all my earnings and gave me everything I needed and wanted.
Though I substituted in a half dozen high schools almost every teaching day, I had other days to myself. In good weather I worked around the house and especially enjoyed keeping the grounds trimmed and in bloom. I finally read Georgias Noressian's book that he'd sent me, over two years before. Towards a Theology of Equality and Justice Based on Love was a trim book, even in hard covers, with a lot of footnotes to the Bible and other sources. But it read extremely well; Doktor Noressian's style was swift, compelling and moving like the strong, steady current of the Red River down the street.
His argument, if I may be so bold as to summarize it, ran like this. The character and power of God is love. God's intention is that people love one another. People, however, vary widely and no personality type is dysfunctional. Variance in type and culture often leads to disagreement and conflict, even among those who otherwise might see themselves in the same community. Disagreement and conflict lend themselves to characterizing the difference in people as outside of one's own group, even outside of human bounds. Reconciliation between conflicting groups comes through recognizing the universality of God's love and the essential commonality of human kind as God's creation. Such realization leads to acceptance of one another's marginal differences. This acceptance extends to those of sexual variance.
That is painfully brief, I know, and doesn't do Geo justice, but it spoke mightily to me though I am not at all religious. The book illustrated once more how Dok, however whoring he was, was essentially a man of patience, understanding and above all love. I wrote to thank him, and we began a correspondence. It was strange to exchange letters with an old fart who I realized was after my bod all the while I was deeply in love with another man. I made my current situation clear and Geo wrote back, 'How abundantly glad I am for you is more than these words fail to say. You deserve it; treasure it as a blessing. I must say, however, that I wish it were I who shares your life, love and bed, covetous old sinner that I am, and not the wundermensch who has come upon you.' I made sure to write to Geo each Christmas, as I did, at least as often to mother Dorothy Markus.
With summers off, we did a lot of traveling, driving around the countryside on weekend trips. I took Wallace that first summer to meet Dorothy Markus. She showed her usual gracious self, overjoyed to see us, and insisting we stay in her house since Glenn wasn't coming home that weekend.
We spent a week in Chicago (August 1970); and flew for a week each August following to San Francisco (1971), D.C. (1972), and New York City (1973). Wallace was big on museums where I described to him what we saw. He loved music - especially opera - and dancing, so we visited plenty of gay bars as a couple, and he put up with the smoke.
In 1975, we went for two weeks to Montreal and Quebec City, and then followed overseas trips. Wallace had a phobia about flying over water so we took the Queen Elizabeth when we went for a month at a time to Paris (1976), Vienna (1977), Rome (1978), Athens (1979), Cairo (1980). For each of these places, we'd sail to port, stop over briefly in England, do the Channel Crossing and take trains and use each major city as a base to see the surrounding area.
Who'd ever think that I'd own a tuxedo or sit at the Captain's table on the QE II? For Cairo, I got Wallace to agree to fly from London, where that puddle jumping got him over white-knuckled fear for later trips. We saw the Pyramids, of course, and Valley of the Kings and other old ruins, but also went to Jerusalem. Then came the big adventures: Delhi, Bombay and Madras in our India tour (1981), Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka in Japan (1982), Rio de Janeiro (1983), Sydney (1984), and Helsinki (1985). I really liked the last two cities best, so modern, stylized and bustling.
I got Wallace on a better diet for his diabetic condition and regular exercise program. He assented to my request and put a weight room in the basement, though I used it twice as much as he did. He'd always been a swift walker in all weather, and now he jogged with me three times a week except in blizzards and subzero conditions, customary in the northland. Since he was an athlete by nature, he took to it well and had great stamina.
Ahem!
I was the primary beneficiary of this regimen as I strove to retain my 20-year old weight and musculature. Actually, I improved my body through muscle gain and fat loss and though I was on the trim side, you could say I had the leisure to become a real hunk. Wallace continued to appreciate my body with his hands. He also arranged for me to take swimming lessons and sent me to his barber where my long locks were kept trimmed in a feathered, shoulder-length style. I'd never looked so hot and felt so good about myself.
When we met Touko Laaksonen (Tom of Finland) in our travels, he did one of his erotic drawings of me in the nude with the donkey-length dong, very flattering in the homoerotic sense. Wallace commissioned it and bought all the sketches and final drawing to keep it off the market and presented them to me. "I have my own ways of seeing you," he said.
Wallace had a large family; he was one of eight brothers and sisters and about forty first cousins. I don't know how he kept track of them all. He was always upfront about saying "we" when talking to them about us while never saying what "we" were. They were all Catholics, but I could never detect that they were at all fierce or antagonistic about their religion and our relationship. Wallace attended mass regularly, and I always went with him though I never took instruction or joined the church.
Wallace adored the worshipful nature of Catholicism on the high end of the liturgy, loving to sing in his beautiful tenor voice. He also played the piano - he had a baby grand - and sang both show tunes and art songs. When he sang German Lieder, it melted me. His parents were gone by the time Wallace met me, but I did meet more of his other relatives than I can account for. One year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house, and it took 12 card tables to handle the overflow from the dining room table that seated twelve people. That means 60 people, a feed requiring 3 turkeys and a goose.
Wallace was moderate in his habits, generous to me, and frugal as a general rule. He closed rooms when not in use and didn't heat them. He kept the thermostat low, and he frowned on air conditioning. He could feel when unwanted lights were on and turned them off. He wasn't stingy - anyone who buys a new Cadillac every year - but careful. I don't know how many clients he had, but he managed millions of dollars for other people, clocked the financial markets every trading day except when vacation and distance intervened with the news, and kept all this stuff in his mind or his secretary's files. I never knew how much money was around; it seemed to be plenty.
Our love life was on the vanilla side, but with a lot of variety. He was always loving and usually tender, but he liked to come on to me in the middle of the night when I was asleep. And he liked to fall asleep still in me. We were wilder during vacation times, likely when work pressures were off him. He was often eager to be fucked then and to fuck in turn until we were drained. We were affectionate and physical in other ways and always showered or bathed together in his old claw footed tub.
Later when he put in a deck and hot tub in the back, we enjoyed many a summer soak and leisurely fuck outdoors in the dark. Because of my love for Wallace and belief that our relationship was on an even keel, I did not expect hot action daily but routinely in the long run. I did need frequent release and did it with my faithful five-finger exercise and later a vibrator, but I stayed off other men, except to appreciate an eye-catching, well-packaged dude when I saw one. We did live beside a university campus and I was often outside taking care of the house or lawn. My eye might rove, but my pecker stayed tuned to one guy.
After our trip to Helsinki in August 1985, Wallace's health turned to the worse. His insulin intake wasn't doing the job or doing it too well. He was losing weight and strength. And he felt he had to save himself more. He started sending his clients to other portfolio managers. In April 1986, following a Mayo Clinic physical, doctors told him that he was losing circulation, that the feet could suffer lack of blood supply, would turn gangrenous and need to be amputated when that seemed a likely condition.
Within two weeks, Wallace reassigned his remaining clients, retired his secretary and spent all his time with me. We talked about a cruise along the coast of Norway, to Murmansk in Siberia, or to St. Petersburg.
On May 15, a Thursday morning, I awoke to find Wallace dead. We were to learn he had killed himself with an overdose of barbiturates. He had gone to his lawyer to get notarization of his signature and then mailed the same documentation back on his suicide letter. He did all this for me so that there would be no suspicion that I had anything to do with his death.
Nevertheless, I was devastated, and could barely endure the days that followed.
He left the bulk of his estate - a few million dollars - to be divided equally among his seven brothers and sisters, who were all living. He left a trust to me of $100,000, a fraction of what he gave to his siblings. The house and its furnishings, he gave to the University of North Dakota though I had life interest in it or for as long as I should want it. The Cadillac, surprise to me, was mine by title deed.
I also learned from Wallace's attorney that I had my own income-producing portfolio, my salaries that Wallace for sixteen years invested with the dividends always reinvested. It was close to $300,000 in current market value and paid out about $18,000 a year, an amount I followed his lead on and continued to reinvest.
He'd done all this for me without alienating his family so that no one raised any objection to these arrangements, and the will sailed through probate in short order. He was cremated and a marker placed in the family plot in Bottineau. His ashes, however, I took to the park where we had met, to the very spot where he literally bumped into me, and there I scattered them.
While I was still trying to figure out my next steps, Glenn Markus called me out of the blue. I'd had no contact with him since he drove me to school, eighteen years before. But he had my address from his mother's book. His mother had just died from cancer, June 15, a month after Wallace. I went to her funeral, having sold the Cadillac and bought a jeep. Glenn and I commiserated with one another, though I was mostly in a fog.
I noted Glenn looked much the same, dark haired and trim. He sported a mustache and wore contact lenses. He seemed care worn, wrinkled about the eyes. He was just as intense. Over the years, he'd gone from being a teacher to a high school principal. Currently, he was a superintendent of a struggling rural district near his hometown. He'd spent a lot of time taking care of his mother, as well he should have.
Looking around, I saw no one from our crowd of pals that I recognized. Perhaps for my steadfastness to the memory of his mother, Glenn invited me to spend the 4th of July weekend at the Hidden Lake cottage. I accepted the invitation, while deliberating in my mind whether actually going there was the best thing to do. I was thirty-six years old, still a grieving husband, and it was exactly 18 years since I had been at that lost weekend, half my life before. But I knew that I had to make the break, and should I stay in Grand Forks, I'd be haunted. Already, I couldn't sleep in our bed or I'd be a weeping basket case. Dreams of Wallace filled the nights in my separate bedroom. Every morning I woke with my whopper erect, ran into the shower and whacked off to memories of my hubby groping and caressing me with his sensitive, "seeing" hands, his hardon pressed against me.
I gave most of my upscale clothes to the Salvation Army. W while in the store, I picked up a couple worn jeans and a dozen used t-shirts, just the kind of clothes I had worn as an impoverished, orphaned teenager and still felt most comfortable wearing again. This is my true self, I told myself. I still had my old boots, though re-heeled and the work boots re-soled, along with a pair of Bond custom made Western boots, made of water buffalo hide, that Wallace had given me on Christmas. I also kept the thigh length, silk Japanese dressing gown that Wallace bought for me when we were in Kyoto. I'd often worn just that on early mornings when getting ready for the day so that he could feel me up whenever he wanted.
I signed over the house to the University. Then I packed my fancy leather satchel and duffle, putting the luggage along with my PC, and four boxes of books into the jeep. It amounted to all my worldly goods. And I left for the lake on the morning of the fourth.
Strangely, I could find my way there from old memory. Nothing seemed to have changed much at Hidden Lake except the trees were taller and the gang older. Glenn, who definitely relaxed here away from his superintendent's responsibilities, greeted me eagerly, typically dressed in nothing but a smile. He kissed me and ground his cock against me when we embraced. Though he was 48, he looked great body-wise, though a bit haggard. Good old Geo was also on hand, though very gray and aged-looking at sixty-eight, covering himself in an XXL T that even hung below his palanged cockhead otherwise swinging free. He was thrilled to meet me again and enthusiastic in his speech.
"Mr. Lance, how well you have turned out." He inspected me appraisingly, something that seemed to perk him up. I was glad to see his juices were still percolating.
Next from the back of the house came a tall, lean and handsome, hard-bodied guy, who looked vaguely familiar, despite a ratty bandana over his shaved head. "Lance, remember me? Ben Clarke."
"Ben, I'd recognize those freckles anywhere." He'd been sunning, I guess, because he had on only a thong bikini bulging with more good stuff. He sported a 'Harley Forever' tattoo on his left shoulder and a 'Screaming Eagle' on his right. He had studs and rings in his ears and knobbed barbells through his nipples. I guessed he was now Geo's "boy," though I figured he was in his early forties.
"Are you still in the construction game?" I asked.
"Right, except now I have my own company."
Time had prospered us all. Who else is here, I wondered, but it would be just the four of us until Saturday when more friends would come for Glenn's birthday celebration.
Ben invited me out for a swim, and after I had parked my stuff in the back room and gotten into a jock strap, I joined him in the lake. We stood and talked in the deep water and he filled me in on a few things. Doug after college had eventually gone into insurance and done well; he married, but his wife left him on grounds of incompatibility, and he was raising two boys as a single father in Austin, Minnesota. Dirk never got his degree, had overdosed on heroine at age 30 and died alone in a Minneapolis walkup. Denny, whom I barely remembered, the bartender from Brainerd, had "rented" from Glenn for a few years but tired of him and moved to West Hollywood where he did bits in porn videos.
'Denny still looks good,' Ben said, 'but the porn is boringly tame compared to the stuff he did with Glenn, and with me and Geo for that matter.'
Geo was retired and lived half the year at the lake, mid-April to mid-November and the rest in Baja California. Ben saw him every weekend at the lake and from Thanksgiving through Valentines Day in Mexico. "We have an open relationship," Ben said. And then without missing a beat, "I still want to fuck with you."
"I don't know what I want," I said. "I guess I don't know anything."
"God, you college boys; you're so insecure." Ben laughed and we played around in the water for a couple hours.
"Happy hour," Geo called about 4 o'clock, banging on a gong. Ben and I walked into shore, and I noticed we were both tumescent despite the scrotum-shrinking temperature of the water. It wasn't clear to me how many scotch-and-sodas or brandy Manhattans Glenn and Geo had by that time, but they were glowing and very friendly. Glenn felt himself between his legs every quarter hour and Geo, seated between Ben and me, repeatedly alternately felt, fondled, stroked and kissed each of us. Glenn had Ben between times to himself, stroking and kissing each other.
"Let's go for a walk," I said to Geo. "Get some shorts on and we'll go up to the road." I asked him because we had an honest, confessional relationship, and I believed he could help me. He obliged, and I got shorts with a battered UND XL T over them. We wore sandals.
"Geo, do you know my partner of sixteen years killed himself?"
"Yes," he held my arm as we walked along, "Glenn told me. I think he did it as a gift to you."
I stopped him, and we stood at the roadside. "But, but, he did it without my knowing it, without my consent. We had shared everything for sixteen years, and he didn't tell me." I was crying; Geo embraced me and kissed my tears, though a car whizzed by and someone shouted, 'Fucking queers; they're everywhere.'
"He wanted to spare you, Lance. I believe that. He was going to be sicker, maybe be confined to a wheel chair. He didn't want to be a burden to you. You are younger, and he wanted you to have more life. Obviously, he loved you."
"But I loved him, couldn't he see that; I would have done anything for him. Anything."
"Lance, Lance, he didn't want your sacrifice; he wanted to give to you. That is what made him happy and peaceful in his own mind. It was a brave thing he did for you."
"God damn it, Geo; I loved him. I loved him." I wept like a baby.
Geo caressed me as more cars shot by. We walked a little farther in silence, turned and started back. "God gives us the gift of time," he said.
"Time is the great healer. I lost Dirk, too, first to drugs, then he left me, then he overdosed. I have been robbed, irreparably; Dirk gave me nothing but damnation for not understanding him or his real needs. I still do not know them. This is the punishment I receive for idolizing him, for worshiping his body, for overcoming his ego with my need to possess the flesh of the young. You had love given to you, even in the death of your lover. I have death given to me from which there is no resurrection, unending death."
The bastard, he was making me feel sorry for him as therapy against my own grief.
We returned to the patio and Ben and Glenn were out in the lake, horsing around with a lot of shouting and splashing. Geo frowned. "It is the curse of gay men to never grow up; Peter Pan land." He poured more to drink. "What are your plans, Mr. Lance?"
"God, Geo, after all we've been through, call me Lance." "Thank you; I will. Lance, my dear, what are your plans?"
"I don't know."
"And when will you know?"
"I don't know."
"Then we have before us nothing but possibilities. Will you sleep with me tonight?"
"What?" The old fucker continued to astound me.
"I just thought I'd ask. You are very desirable, you know. How long has it been for you"
"Two months, you nosey bastard."
"Two months!" He called, "Glenn, Ben, come here at once. Lance is in dire need of getting laid."
They came in both nude and erect. "God almighty," Geo breathed, "the minute my back is turned."
"Give me a beer," I said; "has anyone got cigarettes?"
Ben flipped a pack on the table; I took one and Ben held a lighter to it, doing the eye contact thing. Geo brought a couple beers for me and began setting the patio table for snacks. I now sat between Glenn and Ben, one on grass and the other on nicotine, each supplying me the same. I began to feel giddy and high. We ate Geo's lasagna outside, and it grew dark.
There was no talk of fireworks or going elsewhere that night. We went in when the mosquitoes got bad, sitting around the dinner table nursing the last of our drinks. Talk turned raunchy. "I'm trying to remember," Glenn said, "who has the bigger cock? Lance or Ben?"
Geo guffawed, "What do you mean? Soft or hard?"
"Let's find out," Glenn answered.
"And what's the prize?" Ben asked.
"First night rights," Geo said.
"Winner chooses." I was about to protest, but Ben pushed his chair back from the table, and I saw I must be a good sport. I stood and shed my clothes.
I was soft and Ben already half hard. "No fair," I said; "Ben is cheating."
"Let's even the score," Geo said, and he and Glenn moved on me, both kneeling and licking me, cock and balls. Glenn stood with his engorged cock in my face, and, poor, horny and lonely dope that I am, I grabbed it and started licking and sucking. Oh, what fools, we mortals be.
I was aroused, and Glenn positioned himself to sit on me as Geo moved to clamber on top of Ben. Glenn and Geo each settled themselves on our cocks and began to ride them. Ben looked at me and reached over from his seat to pull my head towards him. Leaning together we sucked face as our elders cavorted on our rods, as they alternately tit pinched and frenched one another. I grabbed Glenn's cock, tight against my abdomen and jacked him, inflating his humping me as old Geo, inflamed with a new desire, rode his bronco with renewed vigor. I felt myself going down the slippery slope of abandon, shutting my eyes and imaging my time with Wallace at its hottest and most erotic.
Glenn shot across my chest and Geo leaned over to lick it up, playing with my nipples. Glenn was massaging Geo along the neck and back and he shot all over Ben with Glenn returning the favor to lick Geo's cum off Ben and suck Ben's pecs. Ben shot in Geo, both of them gasping and I let go into Glenn, throwing my head back to a trio of my buddies kissing, licking and sucking me.
In a few minutes we untangled ourselves, and arm and arm walked to the lake for a half-hour of skinny dipping and washing off. Ben was declared the winner in the hardon category, and Glenn gave us his bed. I don't know where Glenn went, presumably in with Geo since neither of them liked being alone, even if their only choice was each other, a castoff.
Ben was very nice to me, caressing and kissing and whispering about the moon, stars and slap of the lake waves. "Listen, Lance baby; listen to the waves, the lapping shush, shush of the waves. Isn't that the most erotic lullaby you have ever heard?" We listened in silence, breathing together in harmony with the slap, slap of the waves, and thereby, moment by moment floated off into sleep.