Now

Disclaimer

The story you are about to read may contain scenes depicting sex between teenage boys. The boys, if they're lucky, may enjoy themselves, and if you keep reading, you may too. If that sort of thing is against your principles, maybe you should look around for some new ones. You might think there ought to be a law against this, and chances are there already is. The law will have more or less the same kind of reality as the story does, except that whether you believe in it or not, it could get you into trouble. You're on your own there. Try not to be unduly paranoid, though, because that spoils the fun.

We touched down briefly at Starfuck's for the helmet and some gum, and then buzzed over onto the freeway.

I didn't know what I was supposed to be feeling at that point. I had a sort of panicked feeling of happiness. Maybe it wasn't real, maybe I didn't know what I was doing anymore. Even though I'd been dreaming about this moment for months, the rational part of me never expected it to come true.

If I could have frozen that moment in time, I think I would have. The future was a blank page, and I didn't really want to turn the page I was on.

I wanted him, but I was so nervous I couldn't finish the thought.

When we got inside, I just grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him toward me. His chin hit my lip a little harder than I would have liked, but I ignored it and sucked his mouth into mine. I couldn't even describe what he tasted like. I was so wound up I knocked him back against the door while I slipped my hands under his T-shirt and up his sides. I felt his nipples with my thumbs. Then I pulled my mouth out of his and crouched down and slipped my head and shoulders up under his T-shirt as far as I could until one side of my face was on his chest. I could hear his heart pounding in my ear. I ran my tongue as far around his nipple as it would reach. We were hugging each other so hard I had to remind myself to breathe. Some of the seams on his T-shirt were giving out, but who cared. Then he slowly started to slide his back down the door until we were on the floor.

I was tangled up in his shirt and his lap. I started to shake uncontrol- lably as I tipped us over on our sides. I didn't know if I was laughing or trying not to cry, probably it was a little bit of both. He was mine now. I couldn't have put my guard back up even if I wanted to, and I didn't. The main thing I felt wasn't even how much I wanted him anymore, it was just relief. All of a sudden this huge weight I had been carrying around for as long as I could remember was gone, and at any moment I would float up into the stratosphere.

I finally rolled away from him and lay there on my back looking up at the ceiling. He reached over and ran his fingers into my hair. Then he traced a line from my forehead down the bridge of my nose and over my lip. I took one of his fingers between my teeth and held it there. Then I really started laughing.

He rolled over closer and looked down at me.

'That bad, huh?'

'Nah, not that bad ... I was hoping for a little more tongue, though. '

He stuck it out at me.

'Yeah, that's it ... now put that thing away before someone gets hurt.'

He smiled at that, but it was kind of a faraway smile. He wasn't looking at me, he was looking out the sliding glass door on the other end of the room. There was a little green strip of grass out there, and a white picket fence. The fence was so short it would only have kept out a badly handicapped toy poodle, but I knew it stood for something, and it was something I'd never had. I'd never lived inside a white picket fence, and I wasn't sure what that was like. Outside of school, my world and Eric's were pretty far apart. I had never thought much about it. I wanted to be closer to him, but I wasn't sure where that was.

Then I pushed that thought about as far away from me as it would go, and tried to enjoy what I had. I reached over and grabbed him and pulled him down on me, and then rolled over on top of him. I had him pinned for a minute, and he just lay there looking up at me. Suddenly his eyes weren't all that far away. They were focused on me. I didn't know what he was thinking, but I knew I trusted him. He'd never let me down before. I already depended on him almost as much as I depended on Jake.

'So, Eric ... what did you wanna do now?'

He rolled me off him and sat up. Then he stood up and went into the kitchen. He came back a few seconds later and flipped on the TV and tossed me a Pepsi-Coke. I didn't quite catch it, and it rolled over next to the sofa. He followed it over there and then sat down and patted the sofa cushion next to him. I took the cue, but I didn't say anything. I sat down beside him, and he put his arm around me and pulled me to him. He rested his chin on top of my head. He didn't say anything right away either, and I suspected he was looking out the window. After a minute he started to rub his chin on my head.

'I want to do this,' he said softly.

We let a few lame videos go by without saying anything else. I tried to concentrate on the music as one lip-synching rock star after another pretended to masturbate in a minefield of mirrors and strobe lights and cameras. Every once in a while, the kaleidoscope would crack, and a little sliver of reality would slip into the frame like a shard of glass. The rock star would walk away from the cameras and climb into a stretch limo and disappear again into the world of accountants and tax shelters and hedge funds. A few seconds later, he'd be back crying crocodile tears over his supermodel girlfriend.

I should have been happy just sitting there on the couch with him and watching bogus videos while he held me against his chest. It was more or less what I'd been obsessing about for the last few months. But I still had my doubts; he hadn't blown them away.

I guess I expected a little more passion. I didn't know much about it. I knew what went where: I had the basic pornographic knowledge of the world down cold; but I didn't know what it was for.

Then he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I don't know why, but that just made everything right. I was happy again. It didn't have to make sense to me, I knew what I wanted, and this was it. He grabbed a couple more cans of Pepsi-Coke, and we left the house and got back on the bike.

We wound our way back out of the little cluster of mickey-mouse houses and got on the freeway. The traffic was starting to clot up, but it didn't matter. We didn't get off at Baker, we kept going and crept right by the interchange on our way out of town. As the traffic thinned out on the far side of the suburbs, we began to pick up more and more speed, and pretty soon the billboards going by were just a meaningless blur of empty promises between one mile marker and the next.

An hour or so out of town, I was starving, so I made Eric pull over at a truck-stop. I had a caesar salad, a bowl of soup, a plate of fries, a shake, and a piece of pie with some ice cream. It wasn't anywhere near as good as the diner on Baker, but I was so hungry I didn't care. Eric was laughing his ass off at how much I ate while he picked at his club sandwich.

We must have hung out there for a couple of hours. The iced-tea lady was about to pour it over our heads. We didn't talk about anything in particular. I felt comfortable with him. Nothing had really changed. Or whatever had changed hadn't really changed anything. I didn't try to analyze it.

Around two o'clock, we settled up and headed back toward town. When we got there, Eric took the Baker exit and drove back to my house. It was more or less the time we usually got back from school. He didn't shut the bike off when we drove through the gate, so I got off the bike and stood there for a moment. I laid my arm across his shoulders and leaned down and gave him a kiss. There was a bit of a lag, but he responded to it. He smiled at me, and then he eased the bike around and drove back out through the gate.

My mom wasn't home, as usual, so I went looking for the maid. I found her in my mom's bedroom watching television. She was slumped down in a chair with her feet stretched out as far as they would reach, which wasn't quite all the way to the floor. It didn't seem fair to disturb her like that, so I walked back down the hall to my room without saying hi, one of the few words I had reason to believe were part of her vocabulary.

My dad was out of town, I think he'd been out of town for a couple of weeks now. I'd talked to him once by accident the week before when the phone rang right after I'd ordered a pizza. He was in Sydney or something. He wanted my mom to fax him some papers. I left her a note, but I'm pretty sure she ignored it. She usually referred that kind of request back to whichever pretty face was answering the phones at my dad's office. Eventually some wannabe officegirl would turn up at the door and ask the way to my dad's study. Some of them were pretty tempting, and I can't say I'd never thought of taking one of them a few doors further down the hall for a closer look. But that was a long time ago. I was past that now. It was even conceivable that I had a boyfriend. I made a mental note to ask Eric about that the next day.

I swam about thirty or forty laps before I completely lost count. When my stomach started to act up, I got out. I walked back to the kitchen and drank a glass of milk. Then I ate a cup of yogurt. Then a banana. That seemed to help. I tried to do some homework, but it was hopeless, I couldn't focus on that. I'd have to make something up in the morning. I could usually wing it in class if the teacher would sell me a vowel.

I was really tired, but it was too early to go to sleep. I don't know why I did it, but around 7 or so I called Jake. Usually I just waited until he called me. I hadn't talked to him outside of school for a couple of days. It was pretty obvious we were growing apart, but I didn't want to admit that to myself. I wasn't going to tell him about Eric, but I still wanted to talk to him. He was the only one who could convince me I wasn't about to disappear.

His mom answered, and she asked me where I'd been. It should have made me sad, but it didn't. I could tell she'd missed me. I chatted with her for a few minutes, and then she went to find Jake. He was outside. I could hear the traffic in the street behind his house.

'Kevin! What's up?'

'Just the usual. Nobody's home, and I don't wanna do homework. What about you?'

'I'm trying to finish this paper, but my jerk-off friends keep inter- rupting me.'

'Yeah, you can thank me later. So am I really your jerk-off friend?'

'Hey, I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it, Kevin. Does this conversation have a point or are you just leading me on?'

'I dunno. I was feeling a little weird tonight. I probably shouldn't have called.'

'You want me to come over?'

'Yeah,' I said without thinking. For some reason, I really wanted him in my bed that night. Nothing would ever happen -- nothing had ever happened -- but I still wanted him there. I probably wouldn't even touch him by accident, but at least I could smell him. I could feel his warmth in the bedcovers. That was all I really wanted from him. I probably wouldn't even get a hard-on out of it. The little part of me that took what it could get was dying to settle for that. I tried to fight it off, but I was just too weak.

'Ok, let me check with mom.'

Then I realized that if Jake slept over, his mom would pick us up for school in the morning. Anne had long ago lost faith in whatever arrange- ments my mom might have made to get me to and from school every day. Usually I'd have called Eric and told him not to stop by for me, but I didn't feel I should do that after what had happened today, and I didn't want Jake to pick up on that. I wouldn't really have wanted Eric to know that Jake had slept over, either, now that I thought about it.

'No, Jake, never mind man. I'll just hang here on my own. You go back to whatever you were working on when I called. I can jerk-off by myself, buddy.'

'Alright. You gonna be in school tomorrow?'

'Yeah, I gotta catch up. I missed some test. I hope I can find out what it was on.' He didn't say anything, but I had a feeling he had tried to call my line during the day to see if I was sick.

After I'd hung up, I stared up at the ceiling for a while. I was pretty confused. Maybe I should have been happy, but I couldn't accept that. I didn't really trust myself to be happy; I'd already fooled myself too many times.

I thought I heard my mom come home, but I didn't feel up to seeing her, so I played dead. I let myself slide further and further into the illusion of sleep until I wasn't pretending anymore. I was on the bike, with my arms wrapped around Eric's ribs. We were leaning into the curve... and then it all faded away ....

Thanks to all the people who mailed me their thoughts on the first part of the story. The next part is way different, and it should be posted within a day or two of this one, so let me know what you think about it. Any little peep out of you means something to me. Jay