ONE HUMAN FAMILY
By
John Van Laningham
NOTE: I had intended this for the Winter Story Contest. I had just about enough time to get all the parts posted when my lap top died a cruel and miserable death. So, I lost this story and a couple of others that were in various stages of completion. So, I have had to rewrite it and there have been a few changes, maybe for the better. If you like the story, please let me know at jvanlan@black.com. You can rate the story at new.nifty.org as well.
I am a recurring $6 a month dondor. You should be too.
ONE
This is the first thing:
Me at age 32 and you can call it "pastoral counseling" or you can call it conversion therapy.
"As for as God is concerned, it's better to be dead than to be gay" Brother Benny said
I was a bit stunned. "I don't know how to respond to that. I told you all ready that I've struggled with suicidal thoughts. I don't think it's...not helpful to say that. I just don't like it."
"John, it is true. Our liking or not liking God's teachings doesn't effect the truth of God's Word. I am telling you what the will of God is in your life. God's plan for holy sexuality does not include these perverted thoughts and actions. Being same sex attracted, by itself, isn't sin but it falls short of God's desire and will for your life. But acting on those desires is. And, John, I love you enough to tell you the truth. And I know that may seem harsh to you but it is done in love"
I guess it was one time too many for people telling me that they loved me while condemning me. "And you are certain you are qualified to speak for God?"
"Yes. My words are from the indisputable Word of God and are guided by the Holy Spirit"
"So," I said "God won't hate me as long as I am willing to be alone, isolated, alienated, and unhappy, lonely. I can be a second or third class citizen in the church where people pity me and talk about me behind my back."
"The people of this body, the Saints of God, love you, John, even if they don't approve of your choices" Brother Benny said
"What choices?" I snapped back. "What choices? I've never had sex with a man. Never kissed a man, never held a man's hand. I had sex with a couple of women - four to be exact - in college and nothing since."
"Maybe you ought to have sex with a woman" Brother Benny said "Men and women need each other. Men and women complete each other"
That was the last time we met. I had figured out something very important in college: whatever physical attraction I had for women (which was enough to do the deed and not much beyond that), I had no romantic interest in women. Pretending to be heterosexual wasn't an option. I mostly kept my mouth shut and deflected questions and let people think what they wanted to think. Now, I stopped going to church. Nobody cared. Never called me up to see what was wrong. I guess they were happy to be rid of me. They no longer had to pretend like they loved same sex attracted people. What I rapidly found was that I didn't miss church. Whatever I thought I had been getting out of it wasn't important.
Here is the second thing.
Me at 35. Porn is my friend. The internet is wonderful and anonymous. But I had noticed that my sex drive wasn't what it had been. I wouldn't have mentioned it to my doctor out of embarrassment but then he asked, almost casually, at the end of my check up. "How's your libido?" Since I was asked I said. Not good. We did the tests and I had a low testosterone level. I am a nurse and I know how to give shots, so I didn't mind. And the first shot, I noticed a difference. I was more motivaetd, more focused, more energetic, more driven. I liked the way testosterone made me feel. I had to take stock of my life. I smoked, drank too much, ate terribly, overweight, out of shape. It was time to do better.
I quit smoking. Tried to eat right. Started jogging. The first time out, I made 1/10 of mile. But the next day, I went one more drive way, then to the sign, then to the water tower. It was a quarter mile, a half mile, a mile, two, three. That summer, I went to the beach for the first time in years.Took my shirt off in public for the first time since I was young. I rented a condo for a week on Jekyll Island and went all over on a bike, another first in a long time. I has happy with my energy level and ability to hold out. I used the Nautilus machine in the small fitness center. That inspired me to join a gym. I went for the first time at 0600, figuring no one else would be there that early. I was wrong. I sat in my car, talking myself into going inside. When I did, it was all right. No one noticed me.
Here is the third thing.
I've quit my safe job and have become a traveling nurse. I make more money and go all around. I've turned 40 and I am thinking about I can do to mark the occassion that is special. I just started a gig in the SICU in a community hospital in southern Illinois and I'm doing the usual of people commenting on (and making fun of) my thick Southern accent. I decide that between this assignment and the one to start after New Years in Boston, I am going somewhere warm for a vacation. I look at the Virgin Islands but there is a long layover in San Juan there and back.
How about Key West? It's the southernmost part of the continental US, right?
I start doing my research. What is there to do? Where should I stay? As I am going through it online, I see a guest house that is advertised as "adults only". Of course, that just means no kids. But I got to thinking about it. Are there gay guesthouses?
Yes. Three. And they are clothing optional to a lesser or greater degree.
I am totally uncertain about clothing optional. There are going to be some super sculpted bodies there, hot guys. Am I willing to be naked in public? What if I get an erection? What if someone is interested in me (but I reassured myself that wasn't super likely. I am 40, after all)? One I ruled out quickly. It is over a bar that doesn't close until 4 am. That left two and I choose Island House because it had a gym.
That's the reason.
But I am not sure. Gay guesthouse versus regular place? I sit down and list the pro's and con's. Then, when I am jogging, I just decide. Take a chance. Go gay. It's what I really want to do. But you can't book online. You have to call. The rooms are not cheap. I get the cheapest one I can. Well, not the cheapest because they are shared bath and I'm not doing that. I know my shit does stink but I don't need to share that with the world. I get the smallest room with a private bath, advertised as "tight for two", and wonder why, in the 21st century, anyone would get a shared bath room. Then I let my mother know of my plans and I gather she is kind of relieved. She decides to spend the holidays with my sister and her family in DC, including the new great grandchild.
Now I an excited.
I'm worried about the clothing optional thing, of course. I am anxious about whether I might have sex with a man for the first time ever but I am excited. I think I wear my coworkers out talking about my vacation and I am looking at Key West on Google Maps every chance I can. They can be annoyed if they want. They are free about making fun of me either way.
I fly back to Savannah on Friday. It's not super cold, highs in low 60's but a cold front is coming through. I wash clothes in my condo on Wilmington Island and do all the things that have to be done after being away for 3 months. Then it's Monday and low 30's when I drive to the airport, half way to Effingham County, where I would be spending Christmas in just a few days otherwise. It's a short flight to Atlanta - whether you go to heaven or hell, you cahnge planes in Atlanta - and it's an hour and a half down.
We deplane and the plane was full and I wonder if anybody else is going to Island House. In the sunshine and the warmth, I walk to the door that has "Welcome to the Conch Republic" on it. Once I pick up my checked luggage, I go and wait in line for a cab. A Sheriff's deputy is in charge of getting us organized. My turn comes and the cab driver, in a thick Haitian accent, asks me where I want to go.
"1129 Fleming St" I say
He looks at me, confused
"Where?"
"1129 Fleming St" I say again
"Alexander's?"
"Yeah"
I don't know why I don't just say Island House. Well, I do. Island House bills itself as the best gay resort in the world and saying Island House is another way of saying "I'm gay" and I have trouble saying that out loud. It doesn't actually matter. I've looked at the place and all around on Google Maps for weeks and Alexander's is across the street. I figure the front entrance for Island House is on Fleming anyway. I just cross the street which is one way and there I am. I pay the cabbie twenty bucks and get my luggage.
Yeah. The entrance isn't on Fleming.
I go around the building to the alley and that's where the entrance is. They buzz me in. Even though I am early, the room is ready (they had sent me an email asking when I would be in). The desk guy, Paul, takes my luggage and walks me up to my room, #217. They have the place decorated and you could tear it out of a Architectural Digest. Very Christmas, red and green and gold, tasteful but definitely in the holiday mood. My room is up a flight of stairs and along the side, in a narrow passage.
It's small.
I mean, it's small.
And I have way overpacked. I almost have more stuff than I have places to put it. I even brought four pairs of shoes. I turn on the TV and there is a welcome video. It seems that there are only three actual rules here: where to park, where to smoke and wear shorts in the gym And there are 4 channels of porn. I know what I am going to be watching! Squared away more or less, I go back for the promised tour. Again it's Paul that takes me around and I feel kind of self conscious about it, even though he's done it a milliion times for newbies. I just feel like a newbie.
Behind the front desk is the gym locker room area I am disappointed because the gym is small. There is a bathroom and pair of urinals in the passageway and then a dorm shower for 6. The indoor jacuzzi is beyond a glass door and the wall is decorated like a cartoon Greek vase with a daisy chain of stylized naked men. The wet and dry sauna is there. Up the back stairs, Paul stops and points out a white door.
"This is the cultural arts center. Guests seem to have a good time there" he says
I saw on the website that they had a video lounge but I paid no attention to it. There are some safe sex posters up but I wonder how much safe sex actually happens. My room is to the right but we go to the left. Around the outdoor jacuzzi below. I look down and there are two men in the area, broad shouldered and naked. One is sitting on a green and white stripped towel with his feet in the water and the other between his legs giving him a blowjob.
I am shocked by it.
Intrigued but shocked. So brazen, so out there. And Paul seems to ignore it, like it is an everyday event. Part of me, though, really admires them for being so uninhibited. I am so inhibited that I am on the opposite pole. I wish could be like them and maybe one day I will be. Another part of me wants to watch the action for a while longer! It does seem I have jumped into the being gay thing feet first. Through a breezeway and some rooms, a public toilet to the right, and out to the pool area. Men are sitting around in chairs, some naked, some wrapped in towels and some in Speedo's. We go to the bar/cafe area and up a spiral metal stair to the sundeck with national flags flying - US, UK, Australia, Belgium, Russian, Argentina, Italy. There are men sunbathing nude. Since I am the type to freckle and burn, I am not a sun worshipper.
I pick up some towels and I am back in my room on my own. Vacation started! I cover myself in sunscreen and, for the first time in my life, put it on my dick and ass too. And sunscreen on my dick stings a little too. Flip flops on, wrapped up in a towel, Georgia Bulldogs baseball cap on, shades, book in hand, I head for the pool. I get the only chair available. It is next to a black guy in a Speedo. He's a little too chubby to really rock a Speedo but his bulge definitely fills it up.
I pretend to try to read my book but I am nervous. This is the moment of truth. Will I get naked in public? Here is the thing: I actually do want to. I am just talking myself into being scared of it. I look around. I might actually be a little on the younger side, believe it or not, or in the middle age wise. There are guys in better shape than me, more that's not in as good a shape. So, hesitantly, I undo my towel and let it fall free.
No one laughed No one pointed at me. No one clapped. No one cheered. No one noticed me at all.
I go back to reading my book, now able to take it. There are people in the pool, mostly a gaggle of guys in their 20's to 40's, in a knot in the center of the pool, socializing.
"Well, goddamn it, I'll just go get them then." I hear from the pool.
Looking up, there is slender blond twink walking through the water to the entry steps. When he walks up them, I see he has a real nice ass. And then he turns to the corner, headed for the bar, and he is sporting a raging erection, pointing straight up. His friends are laughing and making fun of him but the twink is shrugging it off. He turns and faces them, hard on in view.
"This is what it is like when you don't have liquor dick, girlfriend!"
I watch him at the bar, placing an order, getting close to a man in a chair at the bar area. That guy wraps an arm around the twinks ass and then turns him to give his hard dick a good stroke or two. The twink comes back with the 3 drinks and places them on the pool's edge and slides back into the water.
That's when I realized that we are gay men. We like erections! Erections are a good thing!
Emboldened a little, I get up and wrap the towel around my midriff and go get a drink myself, a Kentucky mule. Then I go back, shed the towel and get into the water of the heated pool. I'm too shy to engage with anyone right then but I am, in fact, skinny dipping. I do play with myself down there a little in the pool but I figure no one is actually looking. The alcohol does help relax me.
Then I start thinking. What am I going to do? It's barely afternoon so I have the whole day left. That's when the thought entered my mind. The cultural arts center. Suddenly, I am very curious about that. I don't want to do anything there. I am not going for sex. In fact, given my complete lack of experience, I am very much of two minds about sex at all on this vacation. Even though I am not going to be hanging out in there, I want to see what it is. Just to know. Just to say I did. And I figure lunch time is the best time because it's not likely that there will be anyone in there.
Hesitating outside the door for a moment, I snatch it open. Air pressure sucks thick plastic slats in the hallway toward me, making a noise. The hallway in painted in vermillion and there is dim red lighting. Just beyond the slats is another set on my right but the hallway extends on past that. I go through the slats and I am in an almost pitch black space, which I think is big, but the only light is dimly on up ahead of me to the left and I head that way. There is a small space with a thick soft pad on the ground. I duck down but bump my head on the ceiling. It is an area for sex, obviously, but it doesn't seem practical.
I turn and am in the hallway again. Tbe video lounge proper is right there past plastic slats again to my right. I head over and peep in.
There is a man in there.
He is wrapped up in a towel with a hand rammed inside of it. I retreat back toward the cubby, panic stricken.
What am I going to do? I am breathing hard. My palms are sweaty. My heart is pounding in my chest. What am I going to do? Part of me says to just leave. I saw what I came to see, more or less. Mission accomplished. Go. There is another part of me too. That part wants to find out. That pats to know. Part of me wants to stop being afraid. To start embracing life. To go be bold. Taking a deep breath, I make my decision. I go through the plastic slats and the man looks up at me. He is older than me, average looking, thick around the middle. To be honest, I am more attracted to the situation than to the person.
The room has vinyl benches along each side and double tiered in the cross bench, in the color of the House of Lords. Ihe middle is a four posted padded platform with a fuck bench in the middle on the far side. There are 5 video monitors showing porn, two on each side and one in the middle. The man in sitting on the bench to the right and I sit on that same side. Not close enough to touch but on the same side.
There is porn playing and I stare up at it, still wrapped in my towel. I reach inside and touch myself. I hope that anxiety won't keep me flaccid. I touch myself and watch men fucking on screen but my interest is in a middle age man next to me with a gut. I turn and look. He is looking at me. I am hard enough.
I undo my towel and take my stiffening cock out.
My heart is racing and my attention is narrowed down to tunnel vision. It's this and nothing else. I play with myself like it's nothing. I turn to look and he is watching me. He has his hand inside his towel. I stare at him. Then he begins to slide down next to me. He says nothing and I say nothing. He reaches over and puts my cut cock in his hand.
Oh shit.
Somebody has my hard dick in their hand. It is amazing. It is incredible. I let him stroke me. I reach over and try to worm my hand inside his towel but I fumble it. Instead he undoes it. He is hard. If mine is average, his is not as long or as thick. But it is a man's dick. A man's dick and hard as hell, hard like steel. The hardness is incredible. I am actually taking another man's pride in my hand and stroking it. Incredible.
I want this. I want this so bad.
We stroke each other, looking at each other and not the porn. I wonder what comes next. Surely something. I want to kiss him. I lean toward him and open my mouth slightly. He gets the idea and we kiss. Open mouth, wet, tongue and all. I love it. Can't get enough of it. I want more. I am so horny at this moment. I have a ton of performance anxiety but I am incredibly hot and burning, massively turned on. I want more. I am breathing hard now, more out of lust than fear.
Without even thinking about it, I sink to my knees and get in front of him. I have his hard-on in my face.
Oh God.
Here we go.
This is it.
No turning back.
My mind is flooding itself with instructions. Open wide. Use your lips. Lips over the teeth. Mind the teeth. For God's sake, NO TEETH. Lips, tongue, hand. Don't do any one thing for too long. All right. Amateur cocksucker in the saddle, waiting for the gate to be released. I open my mouth and take him all the way down, all the way to the root, no gagging. I can smell the earthy, funky odor of a man. I slowly come up the shaft with my lips. Roughly my tongue grazing his piss vein. All the way up to the head and I stop, swirling my tongue around the head, sucking hard.
Weirdly, I am loving this.
My own dick is twitching. I have to stroke it. I am incredibly turned on, sucking a dick.
All the way down again. And back up. My iips and my tongue love on the shaft of his hard tool. Coming off his dick, I lick it up and down with my tongue. I stroke him, feeling his hardness in my hand.
"Oh yeah" he mutters.
When I put it back in my mouth, he grabs me by the back of the head, forcing me down to the root. This time I do gag and almost have to fight to get off of it so I can cough. But I jump back on it. I want him. I want his cock in a way I can't describe. He face fucks me and I struggle to keep up. But I keep my tongue working on his pole as he impales my mouth.
"Fuck yeah" he grunts again.
I pull off and stroke him while I lick and suck on his hairy balls. I suck on his left one and then use my free hand, the one I using to stroke my over-excited dick, to tug on his big balls. Then I point his manhood down and swallow it again. All the way, tongue rubbing his piss vein.
"Uuuuummmmm" he groans, again pressing my head down.
I bob up and down on it, using my hand for extra friction. Up and down, quick. Then he grabs it out from me and starts furiously stroking it. I flick at the head of his dick as he does. Then I push his hand away and I jump back on it.
"I'm going to cum!" he calls out, giving me fair warning.
I don't stop. I keep going. And true to his word, he fills me up with a fat load of warm, salty, thick cum. Now I have tasted a man's seed and I swallow it down. I suck out every last drop of it.
Wordlessly, he gets up and wraps himself back up in his towel. And he leaves. I am frankly disappointed. I had hoped he would return the favor. But, I guess, having cum, he's done. I am left alone in the den of sin but I am happy.
I did it.
I sucked a dick!
I DID IT!
I climbed the mountain. I slayed the giant.
I am hard and I am horny. I am hoping someone else comes in. But no one does. Alone, in the dark light of a red room, watching young men pleasure each other, I stroke a fat load out myself, a big plop of semen. I lick a bit off my hand and I decide I like the taste.