Chapter 10. Friday December 24, 1993.
Our new semester got going but a common thing everyone talked about was the upcoming Christmas break with (December 23rd to Monday January 3rd 1994) 12 days off!
The big question everyone had at school was which teachers were going to be big enough assholes to assign homework to do over the holiday. My teacher in LIT402 assigned four chapters to read and review and I owed my counselor about six paragraphs of updates about my life. AHS was having a minor Christmas party on the 23rd for anyone wanting to attend.
They handed out small cups of ice cream (chocolate or vanilla) with a flat wood spoon, one per student, which was called: The Holiday Ice Cream Party in the Cafeteria, students were allowed to wear a holiday related decorations all day. The Dollar Store near the school sold cases of brown plastic antlers and green plastic elf ears, my mother sarcastically commented that nothing celebrated Baby Jesus more than plastic antlers. One of my teachers wore a big red and white Santa jacket, and I got tired of hearing people shout HO HO HO! down the hallway. I went with Daniel to the ice cream thing as his body guard, both of us usually carried lunches from home and rarely went to the cafeteria. The idiots with ISS were not allowed to attend.
Those last two days before the holiday break it was hard to concentrate in school and everyone seemed happy but distracted.
Yesterday was the last day of school for 1993 (Thurs Dec 23rd). Luckily Tom and I were both in the same school system so AHS and Caprock had the same calendars. I invited him over Friday (Dec 24th) to help develop and print the film I shot of us in Galveston. Mom worked almost a full day today, and Crow's in the living room pretending he's not watching TV (again). I asked Tom to drive over while we had the house to ourselves for most of the day. Mom said she worked a full day today, but I think they had parties at the bomb factory too.
I kind of wondered if you worked in a factory that built or serviced thermo-nuclear warheads how would they celebrate Christmas? I think they also closed for the two holidays so they started vacation on 12/25 and ended on Monday January 3rd too.
Tom and I met in the driveway (9:50am) so I could show him where to park to not block Mom from parking in the garage. We went inside and talked about lunch and stuff. He sat on one of the stools on the far side of the kitchen. We had a kitchen island which was home to a small sink, the toaster, lots of cabinets underneath, and a nice light fixture above it. Mom loved our kitchen. I think it had too many places to clean, Tom said it had a lot of counter space, which was nice. Our kitchen also had an expandable solid oak table with seating for four to eight. The kitchen had four doorways: one outside, one into the utility room, and two going into the TV room and hallway. This house had no formal dining room, we liked it that way. The TV room had enough space that a formal dining table could be placed there. I like way we had it arranged, the TV room was nicer than the living room because the big window in the TV room faces north, so it's not as hot during the day, plus the back windows have more privacy.
We have a horizontal window above the kitchen sink with a view of the front door and the front wall of the house. On the opposite wall we had two windows and a door that was half glass and gave us a view of the narrow walkway between the house and the rock wall, we could see smoke from the gas grille which sat out there. Even though it was in the kitchen we called it the back door. Our house doesn't actually have a door on the back wall. Mom always said that if a fire started in the lavatory we'd have to climb out our bedroom windows.
Our house was like an L-shape with the living room, three bathrooms, and three bedrooms in one segment, and kitchen/dining/garage/utility/TV rooms in the other part. Along the walls in the garage mom had shelving installed and we had a large chest-type freezer in the garage too. The only things our house lacked were a backyard pool, a green house, and a tornado shelter. A lot of homes in the Texas panhandle have installed tornado shelters underground, sometimes under the garage floor. Ours has no place to hide but Mom says we'd sit on the floor in the lavatory, which is the center of the house. That wouldn't help if we had an F-5 tornado in our neighborhood.
Tom told me they were driving to Oklahoma, near Elk City (139 miles each way) to visit his grandparents after Christmas, Sunday Dec 26 and 27th. He said they go there once a year on one of the big holidays.
It was too early for lunch so we went to my bathroom to introduce him to my photo gear and the overall process. There are really only two big things, but only one of them is too big to put away, which is the enlarger. Even the metal glossy print thing fits in a cabinet under the counter. The enlarger is basically a vertical projector, its large and its covered by a plastic bag.
I told him he could sit on the toilet while I loaded the films into tanks. For that process the room had to be totally dark. The entire process was done by feel, and nothing could be moved or changed once we started. I had two film tanks so we could do two rolls at the same time and we'd only be in the dark about three minutes total, long enough to crank two rolls of film into the film holder inside the tanks. Since I had three rolls to develop after the first ones were done then I'd have to load one more.
The first thing to show a newbie is how we modified my bathroom door so light didn't leak-in under the door. Most people add weather stripping stuff like you put in exterior doors, some people staple on a strip of carpet that drags on the floor, to keep the light out.
I showed him the basic equipment for developing film strips. He listened but never said a thing. I offered to let him open one of the film rolls but he said he'd let the expert handle it. I anticipated that response which was too bad because working in a dark room could easily become intimate.
Tom asked how I pour-in developer without getting light on the film, so I handed him one of the tanks to examine. "I see!" was his comment. They were designed to let liquids pour in and out without letting in light, but you still needed to keep the light level low, just in case.
I also showed him the developing chemicals came in boxes in powder form, you had to dilute them and pour them into your own bottles. I used old glass orange juice bottles from the store and marked them for which one was which.
Opening a roll of 35mm film was the same as opening a bottle of pop with a bottle opener. You did that with all the needed stuff set out on the counter right in front of you because the first part had to be done in total darkness.
After everything was ready I asked Tom to go lock both house doors. By then I had the developer out, the bottle opener, the tanks, and three rolls of film. I closed and locked the bathroom door, shut off the lights and waited. After a few moments I looked around to make sure it was totally dark, everything was fine so I took the first tank, opened it and set the film reel on the counter. Working by feel I took the first film roll and a bottle opener and popped off the bottom end to remove the small reel and the film strip. Taking one end of the 35mm film strip I fed it into the opening on the reel then rocked one side forward and backward to advance the film strip onto the reel. After it was all the way on I set it inside the first tank and closed the lid and repeated the process with the second roll of film. I told Tom you have to learn how the tank feels when properly closed, for a new darkroom person you have to practice loading and handling film in the dark, but it's not as hard as it sounds.
After I had both reels loaded inside the light-proof tanks I turned on the lights to find everything was okay. I started the timer and poured developer into both tanks, we went to my room to wait. The beeper on the timer was loud enough you could practically hear it in the back yard.
The film developing tanks are similar in size to one of those cardboard containers of Morton salt in the grocery store, except only like 60% as tall. There is a funnel built into the lid so you can pour chemicals in or drain them out without letting light inside, they're really just a plastic cylinder. 35mm film strips have small tractor feed holes on both sides, on one of the reels is a small metal catch to advance the film onto the reel simply by cranking one side forward and back and the film advances onto the spiral reels about 5mm per twist, so it goes pretty fast. Those reels inside the tanks are way bigger than you need to develop a 36 exposure roll of 35mm film.
And the gap between the reels is adjustable so they'll load almost any size film, except maybe not 110 size because it's too narrow.
I turned on the small stereo in my room, Tom sat on my bed, I joined him by his side. He reached his hand over to rub my back gently. I glanced at my watch. "I'm glad you're here." I said glancing at his knees.
Tom leaned over resting his chin on my shoulder, whispering, "I'm horny."
I looked at him in the eye, he had an expression which told me he wasn't kidding. "About nine more minutes and we can drain the tanks and add the stopper," which was probably not what he wanted to hear. I had a feeling some of those photos would turn out really hot and put both of us in the mood. This might also be the first time Tom saw himself in erotic photos, who knows how he'd react. Hopefully he didn't get pissed-off or demand the negatives, but I promised he could take the negatives if he wanted.
On the beach when I asked him to take off his clothes at first he objected, but his reluctance quickly disappeared since the only other creatures near us were sea gulls. The next closest people were thousands of feet away and could barely be seen.
I asked him: "Anyone ever take naked pictures of you before?"
He said yes, there's some Polaroid shots of him in the bath tub when he was three years old and when he was trying on his first pair of undies. So I asked again, "So no photos in your teens with a smile and a boner?"
He chuckled and said, "Not that I know of, but anyone can take your picture when you're asleep! As far as I know there aren't any. Why would anyone want pictures of me naked?"
Before I could answer the timer alarmed loudly. We went back and dumped both tanks (back into the bottle with a funnel). Next, I poured in the chemical called stopper,' re-set the timer and waited. It didn't take long to reverse the developer. After a few minutes we emptied the stopper chemical and filled them with fixer' and re-set the timer then went back to my room. Each time you use the stopper you have to leave it in the tank longer the next time because it gets weaker.
I walked into my room and stood by the desk to look out the window at the small part of Daniel's roof I could see from my windows, Tom walked up and put his arms around me from behind, it felt wonderful. I heard noise from the TV room, then clicking on the hardwood floor in the hallway, I turned my head to look over my shoulder. Crow was standing in my doorway inspecting what was going on. He silently stood there watching us. He was probably making sure Tom wasn't hurting me. Tom raised one hand and waved at the dog, Crow turned and left. I told him Crow made house patrol rounds a few times during the day. He went from room to room to make sure everything was okay, except we always kept the garage door and the third bedroom doors shut all the time. He mostly spent his day on the sofa watching Sesame Street and listening for intruders.
Tom asked what he did to fight boredom and I said I was sure he took lots of short naps and day dreamed a lot, he remembered our voices and things we did, he probably replayed memories of us in Galveston and him running on the beach and the little fish and the sea gulls tormenting him.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. Tom leaned his head against mine while his hands rubbed my tummy and chest over my shirt. I started to get turned-on immediately, I'm sure he did too. We did that until the timer went off again. We heard Crow walk into Mom's room to check on things (the dog in the mirror) and the living room then he went back to the sofa. We usually left the TV on channel-2 during the day which is PBS in Amarillo with the sound turned low. My video recordings showed he spent most of the day on the leather sofa in the TV room with his nose pointed at the TV. PBS played educational programs for kids learning English during the day. It's possible he actually learned words being exposed to the TV almost every day of his life.
I'm sure after he hears a song on the TV he can replay it in his head just like us, although the words would be gibberish to him. I told people to understand a little what life is like for a dog just watch a video of common people in China interacting with their dogs, we cannot understand anything they say, neither can their dogs!
For some strange reason Crow won't watch TV if people were in the room. So one day I set up Mom's VHS-C camcorder on the tripod on the dining table, aimed at Crow on the leather sofa and sure enough after everyone left the room, he stared at the TV and his eyebrows and eyes moved along with action on the tube! I had no idea why he hid his interest in television. Any time someone walked by the TV room door he looked away from the TV. I think he's like a kid that way, he wanted to keep his interest in the TV a secret. Maybe that was another way he was learning English. But I also think it proved that he paid close attention to humans.
Tom asked what he thinks about the Muppet characters on Sesame Street. I told him he understands their eyes, mouths, arms, and they talk, but he doesn't know what they are, but he understands they are characters (they are like the dog in the mirror). They are designed to appeal to children, but they probably have some appeal to the mind of a young dog too. As an adult dog most of the kid appeal the Muppets had when he was a puppy is probably gone today. But you never know for sure unless I tested him. I told Tom I sometimes stopped at garage sales looking for hand puppets of the Muppets from Sesame Street just to see how he reacted to them, it could tell me a lot about how much time he spent watching and if he paid attention.
Tom asked how I would test him. So I said I wasn't sure but maybe work a hand puppet like they did on TV and try to imitate their voices and watch his tail for a reaction. If it was totally unknown he probably would not react at all. I said I could put a puppet on my hand and hold it around the corner of the TV room and see how he reacted, maybe set up the camcorder to record his response. Tom laughed and said he'd love to see that video.
Back in the bathroom we drained the fixer solution and opened the two plastic tanks, removed the film strips and placed them in a large plastic tub to rinse in tap water. I had him close the door and I turned off the lights and loaded the third roll of film into the tank and turned on the lights. I poured in the developer and restarted the timer. As I stood watching the film strips move around in the water like thin black eels, Tom came behind me again reaching around to rub my stomach from behind. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wished someone would hold me like that whenever I worked in the darkroom. It was really nice being treated with affection like that.
When I pulled the first film strip out of the rinse tub Tom stepped back to watch as I squeegeed the water off and hung the 35mm film strips on the clothesline and turned on the heater mounted in the bathroom wall. We went back to my room to wait for it to dry. The suspense increased when we discussed which shots might be the best, I said I wanted to see the ones of him naked and hard.
"How much time do we have now?" Tom asked in a mumbled voice.
"Maybe thirty minutes, maybe less." I answered.
"Perfecto."
I sat on the edge of my bed, Tom stood a couple feet away. He pulled off his sweatshirt and wife beater undershirt exposing his wonderful upper body. I marveled at his chest muscles, puffy oval nipples, wide and deep belly button, and his flawless brown flesh. He dropped his jeans and stepped out of them now only in his boxers and socks. I could smell his feet a little but it was okay.
I think I was staring at his wonderful belly button too long and made him think I was locked-up or something, he snapped his fingers in front of my eyes, I blinked then slowly pulled off my clothes too. Now both in our undies, I scooted back onto my bed into the corner. I saw a wet spot on his boxers at the end of a tent pole. Tom looked like he had been hard for a while now. I wasn't too far behind. I reached out and gently touched the wet spot on his shorts, he acted like he wanted me to keep going.
Tom slowly crawled on top after I relaxed on my back with my head on the pillow. He stopped briefly to kiss my belly button lump then up to my tits, licking both sides briefly then up to my face where he pressed his lips against mine. He opened his mouth and slowly moved his tongue past my teeth where it met mine and they danced like old friends. Slowly, he relaxed and I felt his entire weight on me.
I really liked kissing Tom. He put so much passion and fun into it, it's almost a force you could measure. We often broke out in giggles when we kissed for a while, he's the only person I knew who put a lot of effort into kissing. To him kissing should be fun, funny, romantic, and erotic. Sometimes when our mouths were aligned together he made funny sounds into my mouth which always gave the giggles but quickly went back to kissing again. Tom's tongue sticks out a lot further than mine too.
He shifted around a little, still on top of me. I put my hands on his back and slid them up and down on his flesh. His skin was as smooth as silk and warm as love. I think some of what he was doing was grinding his dick against me.
For several minutes we just relaxed, him fully on top of me, our feet pressed together, his dick grinding into mine, and our mouths joined, our tongues touching. We relaxed and held still and just enjoyed being together like that, and not even doing anything except maybe a faint whimper inside each other's mouth.
Sometimes we'd kiss with mouths wide open and hold that position with our tongues touching, and other times he'd move his mouth around my face and try to make me laugh. He also spent a lot of time kissing my tits and asking for feedback (am I doin' it right?). His tongue firmly pressed against my nips, and slowly slid across them (which felt the best). I told him I wanted to get a bottle of chocolate syrup to dribble on my nips for him to lick off. I told him when he pressed his mouth against my chest and slowly slid his tongue across my nips it felt fantastic, it could almost make me orgasm.
I wondered what my Mom would say when she saw a squeeze bottle of Hershey Chocolate Syrup was always beside my alarm clock? "Robbie are you drinking that nasty stuff?"
So I could say, "Mom, do I go in your room and ask how you use everything?"
I'm sure that would piss her off, but she's in that transition period all parents have when their offspring starts to demand privacy.
Then the buzzer went off. We pulled our mouths apart staring briefly into each other's eyes smiling. "It's show time!" I whispered.
He climbed off the bed and offered his hand. We went to the bathroom door, opening it the room felt like a sauna. I shut off the heater and turned on the fan. The room cooled quickly. The film strips looked dry. I took one of `em down, removed the dust cover from the enlarger, inserted the film strip, and turned on the enlarger lamp. Then the other timer went off and I dumped the developer from the tank and added stopper and reset the timer for the third roll of film. I closed the door, turned off the lights, and turned on the one small red light bulb.
Author's note: an Enlarger is a simple projector used in color or B&W film printing. It has a light source and a holder to position a film negative in front of a lens to project an image down onto a flat surface. The flat surface has moveable plates for restricting the light to only the desired portion of the photo printing paper. Once the paper is exposed to the negative image it is placed in chemical baths which is when the positive image begins to appear. The process of developing photographic paper is nearly the same as developing a strip of film. The advantage of printing pictures at home is it allows you to use a wide range of tricks to improve the images, including making them larger or smaller, or only printing part of the image.
With the enlarger I centered the first image which was Crow on the beach. It was a negative image but I could tell he was going to look fantastic. He looked funny as an all-white dog, black sky, and grey beach. I wanted to shoot a sample exposure shot to get the best exposure settings for the enlarger and the photo paper. The best way was to expose slices of the full sheet of paper to different exposure times then select the best setting. That task took a couple minutes then I placed that sheet of print paper into the developer tray and poured in the developer and the image slowly appeared while we stood side by side watching it magically appear on the blank white sheet of Kodak Paper. While it slowly appeared I set up the next two trays and poured in the stopper and fixer solutions. When the test print was ready I pulled it out and slipped it in the stopper solution. I've used these films and paper and chemicals for years so I could pretty accurately guess which times would be best, and they were.
I told Tom while we were on the beach I never changed the camera settings so all the pictures should be printed with the same time exposure.
Tom was amazed as we stood huddled together and watched the images gradually appear on the blank white sheets of 4x6 photo paper, six slices of one image with different exposure times on each slice, each was four seconds longer. I took the test print out of the soup and slipped it into the fixer tray and turned on the white light so we could examine it, as usual, the second time was best, eight second exposure.
The alarm went off and I poured the stopper from the developer tank and added the fixer and reset the timer for 30 minutes.
I had a paper easel which held an 8x10 sheet of Kodak B&W paper, but only exposed one quarter of the sheet at a time. I slid the desired negative frame back into the enlarger, set in a blank sheet of 8x10 paper and exposed the rest of the roll onto nine sheets, except two negatives I printed twice, they were shots Maria might like of Tom posing on the beach with a big smile, but he had a shirt on in one of them. Behind him were the ocean and the white sand beach. I printed those as 4x5's for framing. I handed him the sheet and he was in charge of the tongs and pulling them out and sliding them into the stopper tray. After stopping they went into the fixer. After fixing they got rinsed in water then onto the glossy print metal sheet where they got rolled to make them true glossy prints. There was enough work now to keep me and Tom busy printing and developing paper pictures with the red light on constantly.
In order to make a picture look glossy you set it on a mirror-like metal surface, image side down, and used a rubber roller and rolled them firmly against the warm metal, which made the print glossy (shiny). After a few minutes on the shiny metal dryer they hung on the clothes line to dry, four photos per sheet.
One of the shots of Tom shirtless on the beach I took I zoomed-in to him so in the background you could see the blurry amusement park over in Galveston over his shoulder. Even though the background was blurred you could see the Ferris wheel over his shoulder
I hung the first roll of film back on the line to keep it safe and inserted the second film strip into the enlarger while Tom was busy developing the prints (the chemical sequence for developing film and printing pictures was always: developer, stopper, fixer, water bath). Then he rubbed them on the glossy metal print dryer and hung them on the wires overhead with clothespins. Then the timer went off and I drained the fixer and removed the third roll and dropped it in the tub to rinse for a while, maybe five minutes. You always rinse film and pictures in water to completely rinse away the chemicals. I have a cheap plastic rinse tub that I set in the sink and let the cold tap water run at a fast trickle all the time so the water was always cool and clean.
I knew the second roll was all sunny beach shots so I kept the same settings and started printing them but slowed down to show him his naked shots as negative images.
At first Tom was speechless looking at his negative image, with his dick on display. The ovals on his chest looked funny as white marks, similar to his belly button. He laughed and pointed out features of his body as a negative image and how his teeth were black, but his eyes were white in the center. His brown skin looked almost pale white as a negative. On some of them the dog was in the background and he was white on the negative image.
Then we started printing the second roll of film, I had to open a new box of printer paper to get all 36 printed. Every shot of him looked wonderful, which I knew while we were still on the beach because I've been shooting 200-ASA Plus-X film since fifth grade. I don't have the stuff to develop and print color 35mm at home, but they did at school.
Eventually, we got the entire second roll printed and through the trays so we could turn on the lights and stand there looking at his naked body, a few of them were when he was hard, I took two close-up shots of his head. I noticed he got totally turned on looking at himself, I was too. I hung the third film strip on the clothes line with the prints to dry. The clothes lines in the bathroom were nearly full of paper prints hanging to dry.
Tom was astounded by how good they looked and kept pointing out stuff about his body that he never saw before, or knew he looked that way.
At one point I grabbed his hand and pressed it against my hard-on in my shorts and reminded him: "Believe me, I know very well how beautiful you are." He laughed and took my hand and gripped his boner which was standing vertically in his jeans near his zipper. Tom felt rock hard through his pants.
We took a break with the door shut and turned the heater on. In my bedroom closet up high on a shelf was the large paper cutter, I carried it out to the kitchen counter so we cut the prints super straight.
While we waited for the stuff to dry we sat in the kitchen. Without saying anything I stood up and got on my knees between his legs and rubbed my face in his crotch. He pushed down his undies then I took his boner in my mouth and sucked him until the timer went off, but I never made him come. Just having him in my mouth was fantastic.
When we walked from the kitchen to the bathroom I told him "I could do that every day." And Tom told me I was welcome to help myself, no need to ask. He said he really liked the feeling of his dick inside someone's mouth.
After 15 minutes I took down the third roll which had only nineteen shots of Tom, the others were either me, Crow, or their house on stilts. On our 2nd day on the beach I had Tom take several pictures of me, almost the same as the ones I took of him that he might use as his graduation picture.
I picked the best shot of Crow running down the beach like a race horse and printed one of those 8x10 for framing. I also loved the look on his face while he was testing how fast he could go. Looking at the dog running photos I told Tom, "Thank God dogs can't get a driver's license!"
"That would be bad." He commented.
So I said, "I wonder, if someone could make a motorized vehicle that any dog could sit in and properly steer and brake if they were mentally capable of controlling it. In our world there is no such thing that I know of. I have no idea how to make a steering wheel that worked with a dog's front paw. How would you shape something like that?"
Tom told me I think too highly of dog brains. But I swore they were capable of much more than humans realized. Tom said maybe they would end up steering with something other than their front paws.
Back in the bathroom we printed the third roll of film and hung them on the lines, then took the other 70 some shots out to the kitchen to start cutting them into individual prints. The way I do it is I use 8x10 sheets of photo paper and put four images on each sheet to save money, and then I cut them into individual prints.
After all the sheets were cut we took them into the bedroom to look at under daylight. I checked the time and was waiting for the last group to dry. We snuggled in my bed (with the large window directly above my headboard) and looked at each one, some of them we used the magnifying glass to examine them closely. Tom was very impressed by the shots and I showed him how I already made duplicates of the ones I thought he would want copies of and a couple for his mother to frame or put in the family photo album.
I went back in the bathroom and took down the prints from the third roll of film, they were fully dry. I turned off the heater and we went to the kitchen to cut them into individual prints.
We got back on my bed, side by side on our stomachs and passed the stack of 109 pictures back and forth, I suggested some prints for his mother, one of those was him shirtless. Tom commented, "I never knew black and white pictures could look so good."
A moment later he told me it was weird looking at naked pictures of himself as if they were of some model, he never before saw himself as an object of desire. He never thought he would get turned on looking at photos of himself, like the close-up shots I took of his dick head.
Another one was him on his side on the sand near the water, he had one arm up to elevate his head. I took a lot of pictures of him on the boulders, with and without clothes. Some of those I slid his shirt up a little to fully display his belly button to the camera, and I pulled on parts of his shirt so the outline of one of his nipples were clearly visible to the camera. But about 11 shots of him were totally artistic and G-rated, suitable for a gift to his mother in a frame. He even suggested two shots of himself as being his senior class graduation photo.
While we examined the photos I slid one hand down my pants because I was super horny, soon after he saw my hand Tom handed me the photos, so I got flat on my back looking at the pictures and he blew me to a very nice orgasm, he let it squirt all over my stomach and chest. I had to hold the photos up in the air to keep them from getting spermed.
Tom cleaned me with paper towels then we made out for a while.
The final count was I took 24 photos of him naked and almost half of those had an erection, three were close-ups of his dick. I told him about pictures I saw of someone's dick where they carefully drew eyes, eyebrows, a nose, chin, ears, and moustache on the head of a dick, it looked very cute. I told him we should do that to his sometime so I could photograph it.
He said he saw a photo of someone's stomach once where he had a large color tattoo of a cat arranged so his belly button hole was the cat's butt hole and it was standing there showing you his ass and looking back at you while you stared at it.
After my orgasm we snuggled against each other, with our heads together and discussed each one in detail. We nitpicked his belly button and the ones where I positioned him so the sun lit the inside all the way to the bottom. There were two shots with him sitting upright on the boulders but his body was positioned so his nipples cast long pointy shadows halfway down to his hips. That was a very hard shot to get exactly right, but I'm glad we tried.
Tom seemed very happy and told me I was the best friend he ever had, I was the most generous and caring young person he ever knew.
I faced my fear and told Tom, "That's why you should trust me and be my roomie in Amarillo this fall. It would be a lot easier and cheaper for both of us if we did it together."
"I don't know, that's a lot of money. Your Grandpa said it would be like making used car payment after graduation. And what if it turned out that I'm not smart enough for college?"
"I got no idea what kind of grades you got this year, but just talking to you gives me the impression you're pretty smart. You know your GPA?"
"Yep, I think it's been 3.5-.8 since freshman year."
"Oh hell, you're an A/B student, you'll do fine. Even if you had a hard time they got study groups and tutors and tons of free help on campus. There's no reason why you should doubt your ability."
We paused briefly and stared in each other's eyes, "Tell me your biggest fear."
"I'm afraid if I fail that far from home I'll end up on the streets begging for food in a town where nobody knows me. If I failed in Amarillo I got no worries."
I held his hand firmly and made a promise, "As long as you're with me I'll make sure it goes okay, but you gotta do your part too." He smiled and looked down at our hands then back in my eyes, "I give you my word, it'll be fine. I can feel it. You're already in my special dreams, and we're much older and still together."
I sat upright and put my hand on my chest and said "I promise you will not fail as long as you keep trying." Then I told him something my mother told me several times, "My Mom liked to say that college is just a long series of small steps, none of them is extremely hard or risky, but you gotta keep taking those small steps and stay focused on the goal instead of girls and parties."
All he said was, "Okay, I'll go." So I leaned over and gave him a small kiss on the mouth and asked, "You're not just sayin that to make me happy?"
"No, I'm serious."
I realized that Tom had a rather poor image of himself when it came to classroom performance, its nearly crippling him. He cannot imagine himself graduating from college, he only sees risk. In his current life at Caprock High School and at Star's Diner he really isn't challenged much, it's a comfortable-easy, safe, protected life. Tom isn't used to taking chances and pushing himself to achieve higher goals. I have no idea how to help him with that other than to make sure he does well during his first year at college. When he gets those first two report cards and sees he can maintain a 3.8 he should be fine the rest of the time. `Yes, I can do it! Lisa was right, college classes are just a series of small steps.'
Then my bedroom phone rang.
"Ola, Roberto's telephono. Oh hi Mom. Nope, he's right here. We just printed the Galveston film. No, nothing else. Sure, what time? Now? Okay. In which freezer? In white paper. Okay. Sure I'll ask him. Okay. Love you too. Bye." I hung up the phone and returned to bed next to Tom.
"Your mom?" He asked.
"She wanted to know if you can stay for dinner."
"Sure I guess so but I need to call Management first, she might have dinner plans for us." I handed him the phone, punched his numbers.
"Hey Mom. Fine. Yep I saw them. Robbie made some prints for you too, they're the best I've ever seen. Say, they want me to stay for dinner, is that okay? Yes. 11pm? Thanks. Yep. Okay bye."
"She's fine as long as I'm home before 11pm, but I should go home earlier because I open tomorrow."
"Great. Let's go get dinner out of the deep freezer."
While we were walking to the garage I wondered it maybe Maria was encouraging his lack of self confidence so he never left home.
I opened the garage door and turned on the light, and lifted the lid on the deep freezer. We looked from side to side, saw the white paper package (2.5 lb Top Roast), got it out, closed the lid and set it in the small sink under warm water.
Back in the bathroom I emptied all the trays, covered the enlarger, and put everything else away so it looked like a bathroom again.
Tom put back on his blue jeans. He started to pull on his shirt but I asked him not to so I could enjoy his amazing upper body. He almost laughed at my request. I think I'm the first person to openly admire his body.
I thought to myself this would be a great time for Daniel to arrive unannounced so he could meet Tom when he had no shirt on and sees his big burgundy titties.
Around 4pm we got back on my bed to examine the photos again. A short time later I heard the garage door rumble, Mom was home. "Robbie I'm home!" She yelled from the kitchen. "We're in my room Mom!" I yelled back. I heard her run the kitchen sink, replacing the water in the sink with warmer water to speed up the thaw.
When we heard the garage door motor Tom pulled out all the photos of him naked and hid them under my pillow.
After a couple minutes Mom's face appeared in my door which was wide open. I held up the pictures and she walked in and quickly glanced at them, she said they were excellent. "So that's what those boulders looked like. They're huge!" Tom told her she could have copies of any photos. Of course he didn't know Mom purchased all my chemicals, film, and Kodak paper too!
"Well I hope you boys had a nice day! Robbie honey, dinner should be ready in about one hour. Would you boys peel veggies please?" She wanted us to do carrots and potatoes.
"Sure!" We said in unison. She turned and walked down the hallway to her room and shut the door. I climbed out of bed after handing Tom all the prints. I left the room for the garage and got out four firm Idaho potatoes, four large carrots, two onions and brought them back to my room where Tom was sitting on the side of my bed pulling his shirt on.
"Wanna help?"
"Sure, do I get minimum wage?" He asked as a joke.
Back in the kitchen I started to demonstrate cleaning/peeling of potatoes. "I've actually done it before, remember where I work?" He said with a smirk.
"Oh yah, sorry. You wash and I'll peel, okay?"
I pulled out the kitchen wastebasket and stood by the counter and peeled while he used a brush to scrub them under cold water in the small sink.
After peeling I asked him if he wanted to play tennis. Tom of course repeated back to me that I had told him I didn't play any sports so I told him `Tennis' was what Crow and I called playing with the tennis ball. As far as I knew dog brains understood three basic games: Tag, Tug-O-War, and Hide-n-Seek. But you can't play Hide-n-Seek with a dog because they all cheat. I told him it would be like doing a broad jump competition against a kangaroo, or a swim competition against a dolphin.
We got dressed in our warm outside gear and walked Crow to the school's baseball diamond where we always played because it was fenced. We were there for quite a while, since it was cold outside Crow lasted a lot longer. And having another player made it more interesting. It took a while for Tom to get over his phobia of handling the slimy neon green tennis ball after spending so much time in the dog's mouth! I told him we rinsed our hands in the water fountain and washed them at home, his saliva was gross but not toxic. We stayed on the diamond for much longer than we normally did because Crow was getting into playing with Tom.
I know he meant it as a joke, but when we tossed the tennis ball back and forth briefly he told me I threw like a girl, so I told him he sucked dick better than he threw, and we both laughed.
We walked back home in the dark just as Mom was taking the roasting pan out of the oven. On the way we passed a Crown Vic parked on the street and I started to ask Tom how he felt about playing ball with the dog, how did the dog know the rules? How did Crow know Tom could play too? It started as us teasing the dog by throwing the ball back and forth above his head but eventually he jumped up and snatched it out of the air and took off running so we had to chase him to get the ball back, it was then two against one but he could easily out run us.
I told Tom, "He plays along to make it interesting and fun for us and we play along to make it fun for him. I think that shows he's thinking about it, game play isn't a knee jerk reaction to him, I think it involves thought."
Tom stood there with a puzzled look briefly then he said, "Maybe. But it shows he understands us and our customs." I told him nearly every dog can play with a tennis ball, and they all do the same thing, Keep-Away or Tag or a combination of them.
"Crow could grab the ball and take off running home to keep the ball and win, but he always stays with us because he wants to play. I think that shows there's a lot of thought going on in his brain, not just knee-jerk emotions."
Again, Tom simply said, "Maybe."
When we approached the dark Crown Vic parked along the curb Tom leaned in and whispered he was going to look in the windows, I tried to grab his arm but he got away and walked up slowly to the passenger side doors and looked in the windows then he suddenly jumped back and jogged over to catch up with us. Tom whispered that he thought he saw someone or something alive stretched out across the front seat, it scared him because he thought the car was empty.
As we started walking up our driveway Tom asked if it could be a homeless person sleeping in their car, he said "Sure, why not?"
When we got in my room and took our winter stuff off I told him he could go look in that car with my flashlight, Tom said, "No way! What if it's the cops?"
I told him my mother worked at Pantex, anything is possible. Maybe that's why we see those cars everywhere we go. Everyone in Amarillo knows about Pantex but not too many know what they actually do. "I don't even know what they do at Pantex and my mom works there!"
There was a TV documentary film shot back in 1982 called `Dark Circle' that described factories like Pantex and Rocky Flats in Colorado, I told Tom it wouldn't surprise me if my mom was being watched. He acted like he didn't understand what I was talking about so I let the subject drop.
Thirty minutes later dinner was ready. We ate a roast with baked potatoes and cooked carrots. I was glad she didn't put the sugary glaze on the carrots. I told her even Crow hates the glaze. Tom said we ate it at my grandparents house and he liked it, so I gave him a mocking smile and we washed our hands and went into the kitchen.
This was the first time that Tom and Mom got to talk about general stuff, kind of a get to know you chat. It was interesting to hear what they talked about, I mostly kept out of it. She asked about the diner, his school, hobbies, life goals, favorite classes, problems at school, dating history, and his father. Tom seemed reluctant to discuss his father's death in detail, but said he was in grade school when it happened and he stayed with his grandparents in Oklahoma for a few weeks then came back home to find his mother was like a totally different person and their house was re-arranged. She asked why he called Maria 'Management' instead of Mom and he said it started as a joke, but at work she's all business and nothing but business, she also does payroll and ordering.
Mom asked if her mother went to college, "No, she's a Vietnam Vet and has a high school education but she has 20 years experience managing restaurants."
Mom said "Wow, that's a lot."
"Yep, she started in high school, managed mess halls for four years in the Army, and now in Amarillo."
I interrupted and told Mom that Tom's parents met in Germany and got married then got out of the service and came back to the states.
So Mom asked, "How'd they end up in Amarillo?"
"Well Mom's parents live over near Elk City, just east in Oklahoma but she was born near Corpus Christie, and Dad grew up near Chicago, I think the town was called Joliet, but Amarillo had lots of jobs and affordable houses and then I came along and ruined everything!" We chuckled at his statement.
Mom told Tom we moved to Amarillo for almost the exact same reasons, jobs and they have good schools too.
Mom finally asked how the diner was doing financially and Tom said he never saw the numbers but they always cover the paychecks, they pay the bills on time, and the mortgage was paid off 20 years early. I know all the taxes are fully paid, his mother had some money in the bank but he doesn't know how much, and the other owner won't discuss his paycheck, and Mom cannot say either, she does payroll.
He said the roof on the diner is new, so is the parking lot, all the appliances work, all the lights come on, all in all the place is in very good shape so they're doing something right, and my mom manages the business.
Mom asked about their customers and Tom said their customers are about 70% Hispanic, but they get a lot of business from travelers on the interstate highway because they have a billboard sign out along I-40 for westbound traffic. There are a lot of people driving across the country to Disneyland.
Tom laughed and said we'd be shocked to know how much traffic on I-40 is related to Disneyland. He said once you get on I-40 you don't even need a map, just money. Follow the signs to Disney.
Mom asked if he ever went there and Tom said once maybe ten years ago but he barely remembers it now.
During dinner Tom complimented Mom on her pot roast. Mom said they were hard to screw up if you used a meat thermometer. She had the same kind as Gram used to cook the turkey. Tom said at work they used timers and wall charts to know when to pull a roast from the oven, but everything gets double checked with a good electronic thermometer for food safety. He said they used an immersion cooker for big cuts of meat, like prime rib.
Tom said what he wants is a tiny battery powered thermometer that worked without wires and lasted a long time on one battery, or maybe an oven that could read the thermometer and shut off when it reached a certain temperature.
Mom told him that could be his master's degree project, but it probably exists already in high-end ovens. Tom said he liked the immersion cooker but it's slow. They have to start cooking the day before. Sometimes the chef starts them at his house and brings them to work fully cooked.
After dinner Tom and I did dishes while Mom disappeared into her bath tub again. I whispered to Tom she liked bubble baths with candles. When I said that he made a gesture of a woman on her back masturbating, I laughed and figured that was going on too. I reminded him my mother wasn't even 40 yet.
"Wanna take a shower?" I asked him quietly while we were putting the last of the dishes in the machine.
"Right now with your mom here?"
"Yes. She knows about us Tom, there's nothing to hide. I swear she's cool about that stuff."
"Maybe some other time."
"You know, you could fuck me if you wanted." I leaned over and whispered in his ear. He stood there stuck staring into my eyes. I knew he was thinking hard. I shut off the lights after refilling the dog bowls and adding ice cubes to his water.
I turned to walk to my room, he followed, Crow slid off the sofa and joined the party.
I closed the door while the dog climbed in bed. He walked in a circle and collapsed on his spot. I pulled off my tank top and dropped it back into the drawer. He stood there a few feet away glancing at my skinny body from foot to face, when his eyes got to the middle I lowered my shorts to flash him my balls and wiener. He chuckled and smiled.
"Come-on, live a little." I said smiling at him.
Tom slowly stripped to his boxers. While he got ready I turned on my stereo for some background noise and a tiny bit more privacy in the bathroom. I told him the towels were in the cabinet under the sink. Then I opened the door and we walked down the hallway and entered the bathroom and locked the door. Mom got out of her shower about half an hour ago, I think she went to bed a while ago.
I got out the towels and turned on the water, then dropped my shorts. He dropped his boxers and stood there ready to go, he looked half hard.
I adjusted the shower water and closed the curtain. Tom stepped around me and climbed in first and started to wash rapidly. I grabbed a finger of Vaseline from the jar, placed it back in the drawer, smeared it on my hole and stepped to the back of the shower. Keeping my back side dry I washed my face, pits, front side and crotch and feet in the water that sprayed over his shoulders.
Then I turned around and placed my hands on the wall at head height and stood silently waiting for him. It took about thirty seconds before he turned around and stepped into me and put his arms around me from behind. His hands went to my belly then up to my chest to massage my tits. He pressed his groin against my butt, he was fully erect. His penis rode up and down against my crack and he used his hand to steer it in search of my spot. But we had to keep the noise down.
Tom slid the tip up and down feeling for home. He also felt the goo and leaned his chin down and kissed my shoulders. Once he found the spot he started to push upward. He slowly inched himself inside me with short thrusts.
Once partly inside he put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me downward, pressing himself upward into me.
Tom rode me with his hands on my shoulders, he started moving faster and harder than before. I shushed him in case he could be heard in Mom's bedroom.
About fifteen more of those hard upward thrusts and I felt his muscles twitching in his groin. After several long seconds it was over, the only sound was the shower running and Tom breathing rapidly.
After it was over he lowered slightly and slipped out of me, I turned around and he hugged me with tremendous energy and we kissed until the hot water ran out. While we kissed I soaped my hands and slowly washed our boy parts.
With the final minute of warm water he washed my crack, shut off the water and silently stepped out to towel off and got back in our shorts.
I showed him I had a comb and tooth brush for him in a plastic bag in the drawer, which made him smile. We stood side by side doing our hair in the mirror, then I brushed my teeth. When I was done he grabbed my tooth brush and paste to do his too. I stood by and watched. Nobody in my life ever did that before.
At first it kind of grossed me out but I remembered I'd just had his tongue deep inside my mouth, so sharing a toothbrush was no big deal.
We quietly went back to my bedroom and locked the door. He grabbed the stack of pictures off my desk and we sat on the bed and looked at them again with the magnifying glass. Both of us were really impressed with by how they looked. I told him the biggest factors in picture quality were the quality of the glass in the camera lens, the enlarger lens, and the size of the negative. I told him back in the 1800s the photos taken by professional photographers used negatives that were almost as big as the print, so they could be enlarged a lot and still looked sharp. Tom admitted he didn't even own a camera but his mother did. He said he had a Polaroid camera years ago but it got busted. Tom also said after his father died his mother lost interest in lots of things like taking pictures. He was still mesmerized by the photos of him on the boulders with sunlight on the bottom of his belly button. I told him it was very erotic and he should walk around in public with it on display and see how many people glanced at it. I think he spent the most time with the magnifying glass looking at his naked body in direct sunlight.
One of the shots of him he really liked was a horizontal image, he was seated on the sand where the waves ended on the beach. His legs were spread and I had the lens zoomed back to 35mm wide view, and the position of the camera near his ankles made his dick and belly button look abnormally large. He thought it was funny and cool.
I liked the ones of him with an erection pointing up, him standing on the sand with his hands on his hips staring out to sea as if waiting for a ride, one of him sitting cross legged on top of the boulder with his dick fully visible pointing at the sky, and another one of him sitting on the boulder, leaned back with his fist gripping his dick but the head was still fully visible. On that one I shot it so his belly button was in focus but his large burgundy nipples were blurred out, but still very large.
I got him to discuss renting an apartment near campus in September and he might be able to stay rent free, but we'd have to see how things actually worked out. I wanted to ask him to marry me again but was afraid to even kid about it. I was starting to feel a strong sense of affection for him like I never felt for anyone before, even Crow.
Don't get me wrong, I love Crow but his life is already almost half over at age 4.7 years.
Around 8:45pm he got dressed. We divided up the photos and I put his in a Ziploc bag, I walked him outside to get in his car so he would impress his mom by coming home almost two hours early. He drove off after a kiss through the open car window.
It was cold outside, I was only wearing school shorts. After our lips pulled apart through the car window he looked down grabbed his crotch and told me he was getting hard again! We laughed and he put the car in reverse and backed out the driveway.
I went into my room and wrote him a thanks email for the wonderful day.
I'm pretty sure I'm falling in love with Tom, but this is all new to me and I got almost nobody to ask for advice. I might ask Dan to see what he knew about love. To be completely honest... I have no idea what love is. How can you tell when you're in love?
That evening after Tom left I was alone with Crow in the utility room and he looked at me and I made the gesture I'd been teaching him: I raised my hand and touched my chest, then clasped my hands together then gently stroked the side of his face and smiled at him. His tail swayed slowly after I did that, I thought to myself that I felt the same way. My gut feeling was that Crow loved me too, and he said that evening with the look on his face.
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