Polar Opposites
Disclaimer: DO NOT COPY unless expressly permitted by me, the authoress. I assume that by entering the Nifty Archive you are at least 16 (!) and know or have some idea of what you're doing, but ideally you should be 18+ (just to stay safe).
This story was originally published in a private website 1 year ago. The site was closed down before I finished posting due to its webmaster being unable to pay the cost of running the site, and keeping it free. Notice my English is not the best, but I'm doing my best to practice. I have a passion for the past, so this story develops in another time; do not expect a historical accuracy. In fact, actually, history is happening right now and you don't even know it!
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It's my first time/attempt posting on this archive, after lurking about on and off for ages and staying inside the fan-fiction side of the web where Im mostly recognized for my slash fan-fic, so this is also my first story with original characters and not some band or TV series people!
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Contact me here, for comments, and questions:
marianrhodes@yahoo.com
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Polar Opposites
A story by M
Chapter 1
The summer that I finished High School, I decided on a whim that I wanted to draw comic strips for a living. What a crazy idea, right?
Let me tell you a bit about myself, before I go on with the story. My name is Thomas, and my father died when I was 7 years old. He was shot during a dispute over land limits with another farmer, who lived on the next-door farm.
At the time this happened, America was dealing with the Great Depression and life was very hard back then... so to make a long story short, my mother couldn't afford to care of me and I was sent to the *St. Joseph's House for Boys—an orphanage. There were about one-hundred and fifty other boys in the building and I shared a room with 10 boys my age and older. Drawing was my only escape from a harsh reality, and so I developed my artistic abilities.
When I was nine, I received the news that my mother died after developing cervical cancer. I lived in the hopes that mamma would come back for me one day, so I was devastated.
The room had five beds for ten boys, so we slept in pairs (I think it was a temporary arrangement, there was not a lot of money there and the building itself was too crowded and needed reparations). There's a lot more to living in an orphanage, things like rules and strictly enforced codes, but I won't go into that.
By time I was 12, I shared a bed with a boy named Kenneth Stalin and while this story is not about him, he did play a crucial part on my sexual awakening, for he was the first boy with whom I had my first (hardly) sexual experiences.
I was attracted to Kenneth and Kenneth made it no secret that he was attracted to me—we were old enough to know we had to keep our mouths shut about our sexuality as in those days there was no discussing homosexuality and homosexuals were condemned. Of course we didn't know what sex was, sex was not discussed in public, and there was no sexual education whatsoever, and nothing good was said about them 'goddamn queers', so I knew some stuff about it being wrong. I was confused, I knew I was queer, but I how was it wrong—why was I wrong and what evil was I really doing? Well I guess our prepubescent lust had more power than whatever social norms were established back in the day. We parted ways when Kenneth's grandparents claimed and obtained his custody. I missed him terribly.
I longed for him even though I knew he would never be back in my life. Time did its thing and I was one of the few boys selected to attend regular high school, where I lusted after many other boys. I did have a sexual experience with some jock named Rusty who was older than me and I had a crush on, but this is not the right time to tell you about that.
Now, where was I...?
Yes. I had graduated high school. One to never excel at anything athletic, I was rather average—brown hair, brown eyes, slender build and about 5'7; there was nothing special about me, I guess. I had a job in a warehouse, stock-taking and driving a truck after school. I'd saved up some money to go anywhere that I wanted and what I wanted was to draw comic strips, so as soon as I turned 18 I began taking on that pursuit.
Here's where the story really begins.
It was the start of the summer of 1949 and I'd met a man named Jonathan Taylor, who happened to have some form of dealings with the press. He pointed me in the right direction.
A 50-something widower, Mr. Taylor also ran a semirural boardinghouse, where he said I could stay but I'd have to share a room. Well, at the time I was living in a crowded residential facility for the warehouse workers, which was attached to the side of the three storey warehouse, it was filthy and infested with roaches and mice so the idea of moving out of that place was rather appealing to me. I had meager cash reserves but was determined to find a new life.
It was decided, even before I could give it more thought.
The boardinghouse consisted of a few extra rooms in a large, beautifully rustic multi-story house. The way it worked was, you got a room (often shared with a stranger), shared a bathroom with other boarders, and ate with them at a big table. I was okay with that. Most boarders were men looking for jobs in the outskirts of town. Back in the day, rooming houses or boarding houses were recognized as a legitimate tenure for unmarried individuals of some means.
"The general store is a short walk away, that's the public library and not far from the house you can get to a beach" Mr. Taylor said during the orientation. He set me wise to the rules and I signed a few papers, got a key and went upstairs.
On opening the door I found the room to be quite comfortable. The light filled room was equipped with two single beds, a chest of drawers and desk. We also had a sink and case closet. I chose the bed on the left, away from the window. There were two windows, one on the right wall and the other between the two beds, with a nightstand underneath, a brass lamp on it.
The bed was dressed with clean sheets and I smiled at that. I hadn't slept in a clean bed since I was home, before my father died. Since I'd arrived late in the afternoon (practically after lunch) I waited until dinnertime and spent the rest of the afternoon in the room. The house had a total of twelve rooms, which included six bedrooms, and Mr. Taylor had his privacy in a suite of rooms on the third floor.
We had a room with a radio on the ground floor, and the dining hall, with a view to the scenic meadow and woodland. There were nine men currently boarding and there was room for only one more.
Dinner was a quick affair, a fried chicken meal served by a portly black woman named Rwanda, who made her living that way—these were the days before national desegregation, and many black folk made a living out of serving the whites. I was never okay with that, but in those days you didn't complain, or spoke against it, and you didn't go out in the streets to protest or demand change.
My first week, I didn't really get involved with anybody, but a man named Larry who smoked cigars was friendly enough to show me around, what there was to do in town, and how to get away with bringing women (mainly sex workers) into the house.
"Ain't that against the rules, sir?"
"Sure is—you just gotta know the trick, boy" he'd said and between puffs of his cigar he told me exactly how to. I wasn't interested, but I pretended so. Me, being 18 I knew nothing about women, sex with them wasn't in my mind, and like I said, sex wasn't as openly discussed as it is nowadays. I jacked off a lot to thoughts of the handsome boys I saw.
Larry was the sort of guy you wanted on your side, I guess. Everybody seemed to like him and he talked to absolutely everybody, even the black employees (and they liked him too). I had no interest of befriending anybody, but having Larry thinking I was his pal, often got me some benefits within the house (say I'd be out of soap or shaving cream Larry would be willing to share, things like that, also if I got in an argument with any of the boarders, Larry would settle things down, etc.)
Then there were Marty, and Henry, with whom I played cards some evenings. They were railroad workers. Billy and Ralph who knew all there was to know about the era's baseball; Scott and Anthony, two of them were friends since first grade and found each other later in life—and Reese and Cory who were very good looking guys (Cory was 21 and was all about girls). I didn't really fit in, but I was okay I guess. I jacked off to those guys and my fantasies often involved sucking their cocks—even though I'd never done that, and I wouldn't have started anyway.
In the following days, I adjusted to the way of living, I adjusted to Larry considering me a friend and I adapted fairly well to Friday night outing with the guys who were now my living companions. I was having a good time, though I wished to meet boys and not girls.
Then one weekend in July before the 4th, my roommate arrived.
I'll never forget meeting him. There I was barely shaking his hand, a six foot tall man with bedroom eyes and a golden aura; he was like a magnet attracting me to him.
Baptiste was his name.
From the start, I knew we were polar opposites, yet, without him, I wouldn't have had the best summer of my life.
* St. Josephs' House for Boys is not a real orphanage, never was.