RA Adventures: Revisited (Chapter 1)
By Sam Redwood samredwood@gmx.ca
About 20 years ago there was a touching series named RA Adventures. It was one of my favorites as a young gay man coming-of-age at the same time as the characters. I recently re-read the series, and began to consider how the story might have continued. Of course, this many years later, the original author's email address has resulted in bouncebacks, and I can't imagine that he has spent a lot of time thinking about this series in the intervening period. By chance he has, however, please reach out. I'd love to talk with you about the characters and where you might see them.
As for everyone else, similar to the original series -- this is not going to be a quick cum, so if that is what you are looking for, you might want to look elsewhere. And, of course, this story is a fictitious work that depicts sexual activity between consenting male adults, so if that is offensive or illegal in your area, you may wish to consider a different website.
Kevin McReardon here. It's been a long time since that conversation with my sister at Christmas. You could say we have a lot to catch up on!
First things first. I just turned 39, for the first time. You aren't the only one that can't believe it's going on 20 years since we last spoke...I really do need to be better at staying in touch. (How many times do I keep saying *that? Obviously I haven't been able to improve on my communication habits with time.)
I was finally able to take my leave of the South, settling down in the natural wonderland of the inland mountain west for about 15 years now. There really isn't a better place to plant down roots. The mountains are breathtaking, with skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer. In between our cities are big swaths of wide open land, the kind of place where you can really begin to recognize how insignificant many of the 'problems' we face in the day-to-day really are. People aren't as jovial here as in the South, of course...we all kind of keep to ourselves much of the time, the whole "live and let live" mentality and all. But hearts are as big as the wide open land, and everyone is willing to help out another person in need.
But how did I get here? What happened with me and Clint? How are Christi, Matt, and the others doing? Did I ever get a chance to kiss Clint again...or Dan? What did Clint do after graduation? Heh...so many questions, that if I answered them all in detail, we'd *never get to where things are today. And besides, how long did it take me to spill that I grew up all those years in Argentina? You certainly don't think I'd spill all the beans at once, do you? Besides...my children and husband are calling me outside for a hike in the mountains.
"Come on, daddy," my oldest begs. He's growing up so quickly. As he's grinning up at me I can tell that I've got the makings of a sweet-talking troublemaking *adult forming in the 10-year-old in front of me! When we decided to have children, we also decided that we'd have two...one from my sperm and one from my husband's. We found a surrogate mother who was willing to carry both so they have the same mother. Besides his growing mouth, I can also see his grandmoter's, my mother's eyes taking shape. I can't help but grin down at him.
"Alright, I'm coming. Are you ready?"
He grins back, "Uh huh," before racing out and away from me here in my home office. "Daddy's coming. Let's goooo!"
I chuckle to myself as I stand up. I really have hit the jackpot. A loving family, beautiful community, and work that I love to do. When I decided to move out west, it was sort of a group decision. No, not like the free love communes of the late 1960's. That's *California and it's still a couple of states away. But, life moves on in surprising ways. My family is in the southwest, a short plane ride or a long day's drive from here, and I had the opportunity to move with my chosen family. Blame the TV show "Friends" for corrupting us that we could really make a family out of our close friends.
As I walk down the hallway, my daughter -- our youngest -- makes an appearance. Her curly red hair cascades down her head. "Are you ready to go for a hike," I ask her. She nods intently.
"Can Buggy come, too?" Buggy is a stuffed animal of a grasshopper that never made much sense to me, but it was $1.99 in a basket full of strange stuffed animals at IKEA and she latched onto it immediately. Kevin knows better than to argue with a child over $2, and Buggy has been an essential member of the family all these years since. She's at the age where the security of stuffed animals and other objects are being transferred to self-sufficiency, so whenever Buggy comes back out, I try to say yes.
I smile. "Of course Buggy comes with."
As we were talking, my husband came from the opposite end of the hallway. I have to say, he is still as good looking as I remember from the first time I really had that close look at him when we were in college. Matt's red hair was cut closer these days than before, but his chest and legs were still just as sculpted as ever...a testament to his still-daily workouts. When we moved west, he and Clint both joined the community rugby team to give themselves something to do in between grad school classes. After they graduated and started working, they never quit playing. They've made a couple of competitive tournaments over these years. I'm definitely not complaining about the results...for *either of them.
I stand up and Matt looks at me. "Ready, babe?"
"Yeah, I'll grab my boots and we can go," I respond. He grins back, and I lean over for a quick kiss...which results in complaining and jeering from the kids. We both chuckle at them, and Matt shoos our daughter and Buggy to get ready as I head over to the bench in the kitchen with all of our shoes next to our already-prepared and anxious son.
Once ready and prepared, we all headed out the back door. Our home sits on four acres just about half an hour outside of the city, close enough that Matt's commute to the University where he is a professor isn't too strenuous, but far enough away that we can look up at a truly dark canvas of sky each evening without too much light pollution. Our property backs up to the edge of a national forest, itself in the foothills of the local mountain range, and together with our neighbors we have created our own pathway in the woods. In the spring, like it is now, we are treated to cold creeks and rivers carrying away cold snowmelt from the peaks, with small wildflowers springing to life on the forest floor. In about a month, the wildflowers will begin to go dormant again...that's the thing I won't ever fully adjust to in the west. Plants begin to brown even in early summer, so that by fall most everything is dormant and green is just a fond memory. These spring months, though, with white snow and colorful plants side-by-side is just magical. The ground is flat and even for about two miles...more than enough distance to walk out some energy with the kids without doing too much circling.
Sufficiently tired out from their hike, Matt and I turn the kids back. At home, our daughter decides to take a nap. "Daddy," our son asks me, "Can I read a book while you do more work?"
"Sure," I say. "Is it a quiet book?"
He runs to his bookshelf in the living room to find the book he wants, and as I'm turning the corner into the room he holds it up proudly -- 'The Crossover' by Kwame Alexander. "Of course you can read that," I say.
We walk into my home office. I've set up a corner for the kids to work quietly in there with me. About eight years ago I began my own consulting business, between when the kids were born, so that I could spend more time at home with them both. It was the same year Matt made tenure at the University, and we knew that we would be settling down here. I was ready for a change, and had been working in a variety of different fields and positions up until that point, so I decided to jump into something different and exciting. I sublease an office downtown for when I need a different space or meeting with clients in person. I've also been getting more clients in other parts of the country, so I have been traveling more. But, for most of the time, I work out of the home office and one or both of the kids can come in and read or draw in their corner of their Daddy's office.
Matt lightly knocked on the door, holding two cups in his hand. One with fizzy fruit water for our son, the other with a tequila sunrise for me. Matt, and his drink choices, is a classic. He set the cup for our son down first and then came over to me to hand me the adult beverage.
"How much more do you have to do," he asked me. "I want to be able to plan for dinner."
I clicked through the open tabs of my web browser. "Uh, I think only half an hour or so," I replied.
An alert popped up on my screen...an incoming iMessage from Clint. "What are you guys doing for dinner tonight?" I called for Matt to look at the screen.
"Dude, I so don't want to cook," he told me. I looked at him, and he had a sly grin on his face.
I grinned back, "Barbecue, then?"
"Hell yeah!" he replied.
I typed back a reply to Clint. "We're thinking barbecue. Want to join us?"
"Let me know what he says," Matt told me, then turned to our son. "C'mon. Let's go wake up your sister and get ready to go out to dinner while Daddy finishes up in here." They shuffled out of the room just as the iMessage alert popped up again.
"Sure. Want to meet there in an hour?" We all had a local barbecue joint we frequented, probably more than any of us really should. But the prices were reasonable, the servings plentiful, and the owners loved and accommodated families with children. Plus, the owner regularly sponsored our city's Pridefest events, a major positive demonstration in our conservative state, so Matt and I always felt safe there with our children. "Sounds good," I replied.
"Hey, Matt. They're expecting us in an hour," I called down the hallway. "Yup!" I heard in return.
I put the finishing touches on a proposal that I would need to send out in the morning, then closed out all the other pages and files I had been reviewing. I wrote down a couple of tasks in my project notebok, tidied up my desk, and shut down the computer for the evening. I looked at some pictures I had on the shelf next to my desk, stood up and took one of the frames down in my hand. I smiled looking at it. It was a beautiful, sunny New England day. Clint and Christi were in the middle, looking just as stunning as ever. Christi's dress was beautiful, with the clean, sharp lines which were both popular and also classic. The classic black tuxedo that Clint wore struck the same balance. Their wedding really had been one for the storybooks, and it seemed so long ago to remember when they decided to get back together and give their relationship another shot about a year after Clint's graduation.
Sometimes I wondered what that conversation had been like, between the two of them, when Christi told Clint she was wrong about not having feelings for him. In response, Clint told Christi how much he had missed her, as well as his own confusion about what he felt with me. Clint came to me after that, to tell me what he had told Christi, and also to tell me that he was feeling like he wanted to try to make it work with her again, but that it wasn't easy to choose her over me. Then, Christi called me, under the guise of being offended that I *had not told her any of this. We all had a lot of really hard, but really good, conversations. And, of course, it all worked out better than any of us could have imagined.
Clint could still set my mind spinning, just looking at the picture of him was enough for me to feel warmth throughout my body. The glimmer in his blue-gray eyes looked like they were staring deep into my own, even in the picture. The love and admiration shared between him and Christi was apparent even in the photo, and their posture and presence had 'power couple' written all over it.
Matt was standing in the doorway as I was lost in thought. "That was a really good day," he said softly. I smiled. "Yeah, it was," I said, setting the picture back on the shelf.
"Sometimes you think it's kind of weird how we all ended up here," he asked me. I turned around to face him straight-on, and began to walk towards him.
"No, at least, not really," I replied. I reached out my arms to put my hands on his waist, taking stock of my husband and my thoughts. "I'm just incredibly happy that we did, and that we're together." He smiled, reached his own arms out for my waist and pulled me in for a gentle kiss.
The story returns, to be continued. I have a few more installments prepared already and will try to release them as I'm able to work ahead and keep it going. In the meantime, please reach out with questions or comments.