The usual stuff: it's fantasy, it's for people who are mature enough, free enough, interested or curious enough to read about a bunch of guys who really enjoy each other's company. It starts slowly, but picks up pretty quickly, and there's a story in there on either side of the part you're really looking for... Enjoy.
Roomers By Jack Fellowes Copyright 2000 by the Author
Chapter One--Checking In
When I was 30 and living in Chicago, I got a letter from a lawyer in my hometown in southern Indiana informing me that my Aunt Margaret (great-aunt, really) had died and that she had left me her old Victorian house and a small trust fund. I was really surprised, because I had never really known her very well. I had only seen her a few times that I remembered, and talked to her only once. She was my father's father's sister. Since my father had disappeared from my life when I was about four years old, his family had never really played much of a role in my growing up.
My mother never talked much about my father, and gave me only the scantiest information about him and his family when I asked. She did assure me that I wasn't the cause of his leaving. She didn't take up with anyone else, although she was quite young and pretty when he left. She didn't really have much of a chance at a new life of her own though, because seven years later she was killed in a railroad crossing accident.
I went to live with her mother, my Grandmother Sims, who continued the silent treatment about the Vanderhoeg side of my family. The Christmas after my mother died was pretty low-key at our house, but it perked up a bit when I opened a large box and discovered an intricately carved, working scale model of a Dutch windmill. Grandma gasped, and I looked at the card, which said, "I hope Christmas begins a better time for you. Aunt Margaret and the boys."
That was actually the first time I ever knew I had an Aunt Margaret. and when I asked Grandma why she had seemed so surprised at the model, she said that she had once known someone who made carvings like that, and it looked familiar. She wouldn't tell me any more about that, but she did at least explain who Aunt Margaret was. I wondered if maybe "the boys" were my cousins, but Grandma told me they were just some young men who rented rooms from my great-aunt, and that they were a strange lot, not good for the likes of me.
A few months later, after I had looked up Margaret Vanderhoeg's address in the phone book, I started finding excuses to ride my bike by the big house with the wraparound porch that sat in the middle of a large lot, way back from the tree-lined street. One day, I saw an older woman working in her flowerbeds in the side yard, and I stopped my bike in front of the house and watched her for a while. She noticed me, and asked if there was something I wanted. I said no, I was just trying to find where the Vanderhoegs lived. She asked why, and I told her that was my name too.
When she figured out that I was her grand-nephew, Peter, she invited me up on the porch, offered me a glass of lemonade, and we sat and talked for a while, mostly about my grandfather. She told me how sad he had been that he wasn't able to be part of my life because of the "problem" with my parents. She wouldn't say much about my father, even when I asked about him, but she did let slip that my parents were never divorced. All during the time we were on the porch, I noticed that someone kept peeking out through the heavy lace curtains at one of the front windows. I was going to say something about it, but let it pass.
Although she was very nice, that was the only time I ever got to stop and talk with her. My grandmother wasn't very happy that I had done it that one time, and told me not to go there again. But I did wave at Aunt Margaret whenever I happened to see her out in her yard when I rode by on my bike, which wasn't very often.
Anyway, the lawyer's letter told me that Aunt Margaret's will stipulated that it was her wish that I continue to maintain her home as a "safe and comfortable rooming house for nice young men," as it had been for the last 25 years or so. The main condition was that, in order to claim the house and the trust fund, I had to live in the house.
I hadn't been having much luck getting ahead in the big city as a freelance designer, and I really missed my hometown, which I had left after Grandma Sims died three years ago. I decided this was an omen, a sign that I should move back home, find a job, and take care of the rooming house. I still owned Grandma's house, which I figured I could now put on the market to add a little to the trust fund Aunt Margaret had set up if I had decided to accept the house. That would keep me going until I found a good job or could set myself up in business.
I put the Chicago part of my life behind me and arrived back in my hometown a couple of weeks later. The next afternoon I met Aunt Margaret's lawyer, Mr. Lawrence, a very quiet-spoken, kindly looking older man who told me all about the arrangements. I wouldn't have to worry about collecting rent from the roomers, since they paid it directly to a real estate agency that handled the rental accounts for a small fee (only 5%, I found out later, which I thought was well worth the cost of avoiding being the "landlord" of record). Then he took me to the house for an introductory tour.
The inside of the house was magnificent. It wasn't modern, but it was very well maintained. It had a total of 14 rooms, seven up and seven down, with an attic and a basement, and there was also a small apartment above the garage (formerly the carriage house). The first floor had a living room, parlor, dining room, kitchen, library, and two bedrooms, as well as a bath and a half. The second floor, reached by a grand staircase from a wide hallway between the living room and parlor, had seven bedrooms and two baths, but one of the bedrooms had been converted into a tv/sitting room for the boarders.
I found out I had five tenants, four of them with rooms in the house: Donnie, a 22-year-old deaf man who had lived there for four years; Reggie, a 25-year-old black man--a "little person," Mr. Lawrence said--who had lived there for six years; Dave, a 26-year-old construction worker who had been a roomer there for seven years; and Sandy, a waiter and would-be dancer who had been there for three years. The fifth tenant was a man called Mr. Sidney, who was about 55 or so, who had lived in the apartment over the garage for about 25 years, according to the lawyer.
I moved some of my stuff in on a really hot summer day a few days later, leaving the rest of it stored in the basement at Grandma's house. Then I just hung around, enjoying the cooler air on the tree-shaded porch.
I met Donnie first when he came home about 4 p.m. from his job at the local printer. At first he looked at me questioningly, but when he found out I was Margaret's grand-nephew, he gave me a great big smile and shook my hand like a pump handle. He didn't lip-read very well, and I didn't understand signing at all, so we had to communicate with quick notes on a pad he carried with him all the time. He was about 5'9" and probably weighed about 150. He wasn't what you'd call really handsome, but he was medium blond and very pleasant to look at and--unless my x-ray vision was failing me--he had a nice tight body under the baggy clothes he was wearing. A couple of times when I had to get his attention when he looked away, I tapped him on the upper arm--it was like knocking on hard wood! I found out he had been living at Aunt Margaret's since he graduated from the printing trades school when he was 18. It was his first job and first time out on his own.He had spent most of his childhood in a school for the deaf, although he had a family and several older brothers. I learned later that his whole family called him "Donnie the Dummy"--why do people judge others by what they have or haven't got, how they look, and how different they are? I could tell by glancing at his green eyes while he read my notes and his eagerness to jot down an answer, that he was far from being dumb. I wondered how long it would take me to learn signing.
I met Dave next. Unlike Donnie, Dave didn't conceal his physique. He was about 6'2", maybe 185-190, and built like Steve Reeves of '50s "Hercules" fame. In fact, except for the fact he didn't have a beard, he could have been a stand-in. Dark brown hair and brown eyes, and wearing a T-shirt and Levi's that didn't hide much of his solid, well-developed frame, or any of the parts attached to it. He didn't appear at first to be the brightest guy in the world, but he was very straightforward, although pretty soft-spoken. And he made the construction guy in the Village People look like an emaciated sylph. A really hot, hot man! Dave told me had lived at Aunt Margaret's since he left his folks' farm at the age of 19. I learned why he left later, and not from Dave--he didn't like to talk about it. He was the kind of guy who took what was thrown at him and just made the best he could of it. He was always looking forward instead of back.
I was already beginning to think of both those guys as potentially being something more than my "boarders." In the back of my mind, "room and board" was already taking on a whole new meaning. I was still fantasizing about the two of them during a lull in the conversation when Reggie came bounding up on the porch. He wasn't as short as some little people I'd met. In fact, he looked like he had the torso of a six-footer on the chubby legs of a six-year-old. I guess he was a couple of inches under 5' tall, and really solid. He worked as a welder, and he was still dripping sweat, with his work shirt hanging out and unbuttoned. He was about the blackest black man I'd ever seen, and his skin was gleaming with moisture. The sheen of perspiration set off what had to be the pecs and abs of death! While I was being introduced, my imagination--I couldn't control it--was licking the salty drops of sweat off his deeply ridged belly. After I got my libidinous thoughts in check, I realized that Reggie was smart and funny, had a killer smile, and was wise enough to gauge my lustful reaction to him, although he didn't say anything then. Chatting for a while with these three was doing anything to calm my eager, and recently neglected libido. But I managed to stay focused enough to actually remember what they were saying, mostly about their jobs and about Aunt Margaret.
I didn't meet Sandy until he got off from work at the hotel grill after the supper rush. The others had gone in, cleaned up, gotten into some summer getups--cutoff shorts and t-shirts, mostly--and were sitting on the porch with me, eating sandwiches and drinking lemonade, and talking about anything that came to mind--but mostly telling me about how great Aunt Margaret had been to them. Reggie understood sign language pretty well, since he'd had a deaf aunt, so he kept Donnie involved in the conversation without his needing to constantly jot down notes. I was in the middle of the porch glider, Dave was sitting on the floor facing me, leaning back against the porch railing, and Donnie and Reggie sat on either side of me. We were chatting away, and out of the dusk appeared... Romeo! Long before moon-faced Leonardo di Caprio came along, there was Leonard Whiting, Romeo to Olivia Hussey's Juliet. This apparition on the porch steps was the same type--slender, about 5'11", soft-edged and smooth, innocent-looking, but with eyes that stored deep emotions--a definite potential for passion! I started putting things in their proper order: I'd be playful with Donnie, let Dave have his way with me, give Reggie a tongue bath, but I wanted to finish up by making wild, sweet love to Sandy!
I think it was Reggie who nudged me back to reality as he introduced Sandy to me. The new arrival's speech and manner matched his looks. He spoke quietly and precisely, and his movements and gestures were graceful. I found out later that Sandy was just 19, and that he had been an emancipated minor of not quite 16 when he moved into Aunt Margaret's rooming house. I didn't know the exact nature of his split with his family, but I had a pretty good idea when he sat down on the porch floor next to Dave: first, he very casually leaned into Dave's shoulder, and then he shifted so his head was resting in Dave's lap. I found out a long time later that his parents had disowned him and kicked him out of the house--and at the same time, they very loyally made weekly visits to their other son, who was serving a long prison term for raping and assaulting a 13-year-old girl! Nice priorities, those people... real model family stuff!
As we continued talking, Dave's hand gently caressed Sandy's mop of red-blond locks. Although it looked like brotherly affection, I thought I detected an undercurrent of eroticism. (Of course, the gradual enlargement of the ample bulge in Dave's shorts might have given me a clue.) The funny thing, I thought then, was that no one else seemed bothered by the display. Later, I learned that all four of them shared this easy physical intimacy, much like loving brothers( which none of them had had in real life). And that wasn't all they shared... but more about that later.
As the evening wore on, and Donnie, Reggie, and Dave became unable to suppress their yawns, Sandy spoke up: "You guys had better get to bed before you fall asleep right here. You'll have plenty of time to talk with Peter tomorrow." As they sleepily agreed and began going inside, he said to me, "I can stay up for a while longer if you want to talk more. I don't have to go to work until 11 a.m. tomorrow."
He smiled when I said, "I'd like that," and got up to sit beside me on the glider.
When the others had all made their way inside and up the stairs, he said, "We all hope you'll like living here. Your Aunt Margaret made a special home for us and others like us. We'd hate to lose that." His expression was very serious. "You probably know what we all have in common, don't you?"
"I think so," I said, "and I'm beginning to wonder if Aunt Margaret knew me better than I thought."
"Oh, she talked about you all the time," he said. "She told us she was sure we'd all like to meet you, because you were 'such a nice young man.' That was her way of describing us, too. I hope she wasn't wrong."
I grinned. "She wasn't," I said, and his original smile returned. We went in and sat in the kitchen while Sandy fixed a light snack for himself--I realized quickly that I wasn't expected to be the chief cook and bottlewasher, either. Living here was going to be very interesting and, I hoped, a lot of fun, in more ways than one.
Sandy and I sat talking for another hour or so, when I suddenly realized that I hadn't met or even seen the other tenant, Mr. Sidney. When I asked about him, Sandy seemed... well, not evasive, more like thoughtful and measured in choosing his words. "He stays to himself in his apartment a lot. He's a very private person and doesn't like crowds at all. He's an artist, and he devotes all of his time to his work." He paused, as if deciding how much more to tell me. "But we all know him, and he's very nice to us. He's been pretty upset, though, since Margaret died--he's lived here longer than any of us, probably since before some of us were born."
We talked for just a little while longer, and the subject turned to other things. Although I was more than 10 years older than Sandy, he seemed wise beyond his years. I found out later that, surprisingly, he provided the mature wisdom for the group. Reggie doled out common sense with great humor and honesty, Dave was the quiet but strong protector, and Donnie was the playful puppy, who always seemed excited and fascinated by things around him. A nicely balanced group, it seemed. I began to wonder what I might bring to the mix.
Having broken the ice about our shared sexual orientation, I seriously considered making a play for Sandy right then, and having company for my first night in a strange bed. But my own common sense--and self-restraint--held sway, and I said goodnight to Sandy when I could no longer stifle my yawns. I did stand in the center hallway to watch Sandy glide up the stairs, noticing--from the rear--that he did indeed have a dancer's body, especially the compact, high, rounded buttocks and muscular thighs and calves, which stretched the worn fabric of his faded jeans. He looked so slender and vertical from the front, but the back view had tortuous curves galore. Watching him move so fluidly up the curved staircase, I almost overrode my earlier decision not to take him to my bed...
Chapter Two--Getting on Board
I awoke to the unfamiliar sounds of murmured conversations punctuated by the clatter of pots and pans and the clinking of china and glassware. Orienting my foggy brain after a moment or so of scanning my surroundings, I realized that someone, or rather several someones, were having breakfast. I pulled on a pair of fleece shorts and a baggy T-shirt, combed through my short blond hair with my fingers, and made my way to the kitchen after a brief piss stop in the bathroom.
A panorama of smiles and too-cheery good-mornings greeted me (I am not a morning person!) as they directed me to a place at the huge round oak table, fetched me a cup of steaming coffee, and asked me whether I wanted eggs or waffles. I picked waffles. Reggie was the chef of the moment, and poured batter on the smoking waffle iron. "You want syrup or some of Margaret's raspberry conserve?" he asked.
I really didn't think I had a choice, so I picked the conserve. Besides, I wanted to compare Aunt Margaret's canning skills with those of Grandma Sims, who would have fed me home-canned delights until I swelled up and burst, if I hadn't been so naturally rambunctious and flittery. (Is that a real word, or did I crossbreed 'flutter' with 'jittery'?) Anyway, as soon as I tasted the steaming, fluffy waffles dripping with raspberry, I knew I had made the right choice.
While I ate, the others, except for Sandy, fixed their lunches. Donnie's seemed most appropriate to his boyish demeanor--peanut butter and pickle slices on wheat bread, carrot sticks, and a baggie full of Hydrox cookies. Dave's was left-over roast beef and mashed potatoes, and Reggie just prepared two Thermos bottles--one of orange juice with some protein powder, and the other of honey-sweetened iced mint tea.
Donnie was the first out the door, as he had to be at work by 7:30. As he walked behind my chair, he squeezed my shoulder and then gave a slight wave when I turned around. He hugged Dave and Reggie and Sandy and started toward the door, but stopped, then turned back and walked over with a big grin and gave me a quick, tight hug, too. Dave and Reggie seemed delighted by my surprised smile, and Sandy gave me a knowing look and my arm a quick squeeze.
Dave and Reggie were on their way soon afterward, and the hugging ritual was twice repeated. I was experiencing some pretty mixed physical and emotional reactions. Happy to have been accepted into their tight-knit group so quickly, I was also feeling a little light-headed from the body contact with those three very different, but very sensuous young men.
Sandy started clearing the table as soon as I finished, and I got up to help. "No, it's my job," he said. "I do the breakfast dishes because I don't go to work until later. We all have our regular household chores, and we split up the rest according to who likes to do what and has the most energy. Dave's the lawn and garden specialist. Reggie's the handyman, but also likes to do the ironing. He just loves hot metal--and wait'll you hear his music. Donnie does most of the grocery shopping--he's great with lists--and usually does most of the laundry, especially the towels and bed linens." He kept talking as he filled the sink with sudsy water. "I'm the upstairs and downstairs maid, too," he laughed, "hell on wheels with a feather duster."
I laughed, too, and watched him carefully wash each plate and cup. I blessed Aunt Margaret for knowing somehow that I would fit in with this little family of strays. I wondered again how she could have known.
When Sandy finished and sat down at the table beside me, he said, "I've got a couple of hours before I have to get ready for work. Would you like to sit out in the backyard with me and get some sun?"
Well, why not, I thought. I could at least do a little window shopping until I could work up the nerve to investigate the prospects for bedding this strawberry blond beauty. I went into my bedroom to pull on a pair of swimming trunks, while Sandy dashed upstairs to change.
I was already out in the back yard on one of the wooden chaises when Sandy jumped off the back porch onto the lush lawn. And window shop I did when he stretched out on his belly on the chaise next to me. A blue Speedo barely contained his bubble-butt, and his lean upper torso was as finely muscled and deeply defined as a Nureyev or Baryshnikov. His thighs were tanned cords of toned sinew that made my white breadstick legs look like toothpicks.
Sandy actually seemed to doze, automatically shifting onto his back after a proper period of exposing his back to the sun. The view of his front was equally delectable--I do so love Speedos! Too soon, though, I realized I hadn't moved from my original position and was beginning to feel seared to a medium-well finish. Regretfully, I went inside to run a tub of cool water for a baking soda soak, followed by a baby oil rubdown, self-administered. Damn! I should have asked Sandy to give me a hand or two. Or maybe just have him slather the oil on me with his body, snaking his tight muscles over and around my passive form... well, I could dream, couldn't I?
After I completed my therapy and got dressed in brief shorts and loose t-shirt to go outside again, I met Sandy in the hallway going back to the kitchen. He was dressed for waiting tables and on his way out the door.
"Oh, you look like a lobster," he said. "You should have reminded me to help you rub some suntan lotion on. The next time I'll just do it. See you tonight." And he went out the door.
I smacked myself in the head. Why didn't I think of that sooner?
Chapter Three--The Face in the Window
With my sunburn starting to sting rather nicely, I decided to stay inside for the afternoon. I was a good opportunity for me to get my computer system. After all, although I was comfortably well-off for the short term, I would need to get out soon and find some freelance design work to keep the cash flowing.
Since there was already one vacant bedroom upstairs, I decided to make the other downstairs bedroom my "office." I hadn't really done more than glance at it, but it was quickly apparent that the room had been Aunt Margaret's retreat. There was a long table with a very old model electrified Singer sewing machine on it. Under the table were a couple of bushel baskets with bolts and end pieces of a dozen different fabrics. On the other side of the room there was an antique fainting couch pointed toward a small lamp table that held an ancient black-and-white TV. On either side of the door were lawyer-type bookcases with glass-front doors, eight shelves high.The window wall had a small fireplace with an ornate iron gas heater, and on the mantle was-- my carved windmill! No, it couldn't be. I hadn't moved it over from Grandma Sims' house yet!
I moved over to tale a closer look, and I could see that it was different from mine in very subtle ways. The windows in the octagonal structure had rounded arches at the top and were flat on the bottom; in mine, they were all oval. And the wood on this one looked like hickory, while mine was an imported tropical hardwood (or so my art instructor told me when I showed it to my class) with grain so fine you could scarcely see it. They were different, but it was clear that they were the works of the same artist.
I moved the old sewing machine to the floor next to the table, and turned around to go get my computer and peripherals and get started setting up my system. As I did, I glanced out the window at the garage. There was a face in the window of the upstairs apartment. I got closer to the window to get a better look, and maybe wave to the man I assumed was Mr. Sidney, maybe even invite him down to get acquainted. Before I could get over to the window, however, he drew back quickly and pulled his curtains together. That was extremely weird! Oh, well, I thought, I'm gonna be living here, he's gonna be living there, eventually our paths will cross.
It took me a couple of hours of solid straining and wiring and tinkering before I got my system up and running, and as soon as I did it crashed. No, I realized, I had just blown a circuit breaker by plugging my CPU, monitor, modem, printer, scanner, and my Zip drive into a single outlet, probably intended only for a lamp with a 60-watt bulb. I got a flashlight off the kitchen counter and headed toward what I assumed was the basement door. It was, and even though the heating system had long since been converted to natural gas, I could instantly tell as I opened the door and looked down the stairway that there had been a coal furnace down there sometime. It was the smell of damp cinders and ashes, and I knew from living with Grandma Sims that it would probably never go away.
The basement was surprisingly clean and had large windows on all sides. With the natural light flowing in, I found the electric box easily. But it wasn't circuit breakers, it was fuses, and although I know intellectually that it is possible to change a fuse without electrocuting myself, I am absolutely paranoid about putting my hands anywhere near a fuse, blown or not. I broke out in a cold sweat and looked for someplace to sit. There was an old trunk along the wall, next to a several tiers of shelves filled with objects of various shapes, all covered with dusty plastic tarps.
Before I could sit down on the trunk, my eye caught a tag hanging from the latch. I leaned over to inspect it more closely. It was very discolored, but the words were very legible: "Peter E. Vanderhoeg." My name! Was this something Aunt Margaret had saved for me? Then I remembered that she had told me during our one real visit that I had the same name as my grandfather. For a moment, my curiosity faded, but then it flared up again. I didn't know anything about my grandfather's life, and I wanted to get to know him, even if he was already dead.
I carefully opened the corroded latch and lifted the trunk lid. A very different smell assaulted me. It was like--what?--the way the Ohio river smelled when I walked along the bank down near the bridge over to Kentucky. The first thing I saw inside the trunk told me that it was exactly that. On top of a decrepit-looking rain slicker was a framed river pilot's license, with the name "Peter E. Vanderhoeg" calligraphed in a florid script. I set the frame on one of the shelves next to the trunk, to take it upstairs with me later, when I accidentally brushed the plastic tarp that covered the shelf's contents. As it slithered to the floor, I was astonished to see a row of wood carvings, some as intricate as my windmill, and others elegantly simple. I pulled the tarps off the other shelves--there were more than two dozen of these precisely, beautifully carved pieces sitting here neglected, unseen by people who would be thrilled to view such artistry for even a moment. There was a bridge, a carousel, more windmills, and castles and fairy cottages. There was even a small statue of a man, although it seemed less refined than the others. I looked at it more closely, and engraved on the base were four words--"Capt. Pete, My Daddy."
My father had carved this--no, all of these! Each one had the initiaIs "P.S.V." carved delicately and barely noticeably into its base. I did sit down then, on the cool floor. I had never known my father was an artist. My mother didn't tell me, Grandma Sims didn't tell me. Not even when I received the windmill that Christmas! She knew it was from him, and didn't tell me! I don't know whether I was angry or sad, heart-broken or ecstatic at my discoveries. I just sat there for a long time. I don't know when I started or stopped crying, but when I finally pulled myself together to go back upstairs, I wiped moist tears off my cheeks.
I was sitting at the big kitchen table, nursing a long-cold cup of coffee, when Donnie appeared in the kitchen, smiling that open-faced smile of his. I hadn't realized it was so late. I tried to greet him cheerfully, but he could tell I wasn't in the same kind of mood as I had been in the morning. He signed something, and I knew it had to be "What's wrong?" and then he frantically dug into his pocket for his little notepad and pencil.
I took it from him and tried to think what to write. All I could come up with was "I was just thinking about my family, and I was sad that I didn't really ever get to know them very well."
He took the pad back and quickly scrawled, "Did you meet Mr. Sidney?" I shook my head no, and immediately wondered why he had asked that. Oh well, I suppose he thought Mr. Sidney had been here long enough to have known my father and grandfather... Hey, that was probably true! I knew I'd have to get to know Mr. Sidney very soon, so I could ask him questions about my father and grandparents.
When I shook my head, Donnie looked almost relieved. He stepped behind my chair and put his hands on my shoulders. I jumped a little when my sunburn reasserted its control over my pain reflexes. He pulled away, but I caught one of his hands and turned my head to smile at him. I pulled the stretched neck of my t-shirt aside to show him my reddened skin. He winced when he looked at my shoulder and apologized for hurting me (I think) with broad gestures. He ran from the room and came back in a few seconds with a tube of aloe cream. He asked me with his eyes, pointing from me to the tube, if I wanted him to put some on my burn. My mood changed instantly. I wasn't about to let this chance slip by!
I had pulled my chair away from the table and had my shirt off, enjoying the delicate, sensuous, but not always painless touch of Donnie's hands on my tender flesh when Dave walked in the back door. I'm sure I looked as if I had been caught at something, although there was no question what was going on.
Dave looked concerned for a while, then grinned when he looked down, and said, "Forget to turn off the oven when the timer popped up?" I blushed (if it was possible to tell) when I realized that I was sitting there with a very obvious erection pushing the front of my shorts out. Dave chucked, and so did Donnie when Dave pointed to my little friend--well, not that little!
Dave took the tube from Donnie, squeezed some of the cream into his palm, and rubbed his hands together. Then he got down on his knees in front of me and started to smooth the lotion on my legs, which were equally as red and as tender as my shoulder. It felt wonderful to be fussed over like that, but occasionally I would catch Dave and Donnie exchanging mischievous smiles and nodding at my unrelenting hard-on. Somehow, it didn't seem to embarrass me anymore. As a matter of fact, I closed my eyes and let my erotic fantasies take over.
I had already climaxed in my daydream several times when I felt Dave take my hands and pull me into a standing position. As I opened my eyes, his hands were at the drawstring on my shorts, untying my bow. When he had loosened it, I felt Donnie's hands carefully sliding my shorts over my butt and down my legs. I realized Dave had taken his t-shirt off, and Donnie was bare-chested too. Dave dropped down to his knees in front of me again and Donnie, sliding the chair out of the way, crouched behind me. When I felt each of them make moist contact, I closed my eyes again. Reality was so much better than fantasy!
A gut-wrenching climax and a gentle rinsing of my body with white vinegar later, I was ready to reciprocate with both of my tender torturers, but Dave said I should get dressed. It was time to make supper for the gang, and Dave was in charge. Was he ever!
I was just pulling my shorts back on when Reggie came bounding (He never just walked anyplace.) into the kitchen. He looked at me, then at Dave and Donnie, and said, "Damn! I'm gonna have to stop working overtime!" while he was signing the comment for Donnie. The other guys laughed, while I just stood there looking like the cat that ate the canary, or got eaten by the canary, or--well, the word is sheepishly. But I noticed Reggie's eyes didn't stop exploring the part of me that was exposed, which was about 85 percent of me, and some of the best parts, too, because I hadn't managed to get my shorts all the way on before he got there. He looked me straight in the eyes and gave me that impish, knowing look that I'd seen yesterday, and he nodded slowly, telling me (people used a lot of body language around this house) that he was going to be next.
All of us quickly showered and changed to shorts and t-shirts all around, to get ready for dinner.
Chapter Four--What's for Dessert?
Apparently Dave and Donnie read Reggie's mind, too, because after our supper of pasta with creamy chicken sauce and a fresh green pea and mushroom salad, and after the dishes were washed and put away, the two of them decided they needed to go to the supermarket to stock up for the weekend. I reached for my wallet, but was quickly rebuffed.
"You can start paying when we figure out how much feeding you is gonna cost," Dave grinned. I almost made a smart-ass retort about how I could eat for free, but I decided not to--probably because Reggie was still giving me that look.
As soon as we heard Dave's car start up and back out of the driveway, Reggie asked me, "How's your sunburn feeling now?"
"It's cooled down a lot," I said as I poked my finger here and there to test the tenderness.
"Good, 'cause I don't want to hurt you when I jump your bones," he said leeringly, pulling off his t-shirt and baring that incredibly ripped chest and belly. "Come on, why don't we go into the parlor and get better acquainted?"
He took my hand and led me down the hall to the parlor and over to a big overstuffed sofa piled high with throw pillows. I watched as he gathered up the pillows and tossed them over onto a big easy chair, but he was looking at me too.
"You like the way I keep in shape, don't you?" He flexed, intensifying the definition, setting off his pecs and eight-pack. I just nodded dumbly, feasting on his muscled masculinity. He wasn't very tall, but he sure did fill up the room with his presence. "I like it when people tell me that I look good, and show me how much they appreciated me," he said--no, commanded.
I pushed him back onto the sofa and knelt in front of him, my hands tracing the individual muscles in his check. I leaned in and took one of his nubby little nipples in my mouth, nipping and sucking at it furiously, as I tried to unfasten his shorts.
"Oh, baby," he sighed, "I knew you'd be good, but slow down. We've got plenty of time."
"But Sandy will be home soon and the others will be back," I protested, more from eager lust than real concern that we'd be interrupted.
"No, they won't," he said. "It's Friday. Sandy works until after eleven o'clock, and the others won't be back much before then. It's just you and me."
I looked at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was just eight-thirty. I guessed I could pace myself a little. But I sure as hell couldn't wait to get the little stud out of his pants. What came out of his pants when I pulled them down wasn't little at all. I had figured a little person would have a little cock--wrong! It was hard as a billy club, about the same color, and almost as long. (OK, so I'm exaggerating a little--it was over seven inches though, uncut, and leaking precum like a bucket with a hole in it) I pushed his pulsing cock back against his abs, and started swiping my tongue across one side of his belly, over the underside of his gorgeous dick, and then across the other side. I traced his ab muscles with my tongue. I outlined his cock with sucky kisses. I nipped and pulled at his tightly wound pubic hairs. I swabbed his surprisingly smooth ball sack and sucked each of his large balls into my mouth, bouncing it on my tongue for a moment, then switching to the other.
He moaned and squirmed, his muscles undulating, moving under his shiny, ebony flesh like dolphins swimming just beneath the ocean's surface. "Oh, Peter, honey," he said hoarsely, "you are doing me so good!"
"I'm just getting started," I said, lifting his big dick to an upright position and sliding the skin completely off the head. I tongued the precum-slicked head for a preliminary taste, which I savored for a moment and then slowly and deliberately engulfed his hot, throbbing penis. I didn't stop until his pubes were brushing my lips.
"Oh, sweet baby, here it comes! Take it, honey, take it!" he screamed, his voice climbing at least an octave. He grabbed my head and began fucking up into my mouth with fibrillating thrusts. I swallowed his spurting load, then siphoned out what might have been left in his cum tube. He just flopped back, panting.
I licked my lips and grinned up at him. "I thought you said we had plenty of time, but you already finished."
He opened his eyes and flashed that evil leer. He leaned toward me and took my head in his hands, pulling me in for an urgent, spitty kiss. Then he pulled back and stared into my eyes. "That was just the first one, bitch," he laughed. "We ain't done yet."
Chapter Five--Can't Top That
I was on my back on the sofa, with one leg over the back and the other hanging off the front. Reggie was on his knees, jackhammering that big hard dick into my guts, while making a suck-toy out of each of my tits. The faster he drilled me, the more I whimpered and threw my head back and forth on the arm of the sofa. When he went rigid and came inside me for the third time, flattening my prostate with his thick plunger, I stretched my head way back and yowled out, "Good, so good! Do it, Reggie, do it! Oh, yeah, fuck me!"
After a second or two, I opened my eyes and saw a movement at the parlor door. I tapped Reggie on the back and twisted around as he raised up. There was Sandy, leaning against the door frame, grinning.
"Gotcha!" he said. "I got off early this evening, because business was really slow and the boss was pissed at the world. But I don't guess you'll be staying up late to talk tonight, will you? If you've had the real Reggie routine--and it sounded like you had--you'll probably need to go to bed early to recuperate."
"I--I--" I stammered.
Reggie wasn't a bit flustered. He pulled out, wiped his big floppy dick with his t-shirt, gathered up his shorts and headed upstairs to shower after giving me a quick kiss.
"G'night, Reg," Sandy said as Reggie passed him, slapping Sandy on the butt before tromping up the stairs. Sandy turned back to me, smiled again, and said, "You look even better when you're pumped."
I didn't know whether he had intended the double meaning, but his staccato chuckle told me the joke was on me. Still, I felt I had to explain.
"I didn't plan..." I started.
"No, you didn't," Sandy said. "But we did!" [Pause for effect.] Effect noted, he waited for my blushes to subside, then said, "Go get showered and get to bed. I know you need the rest. You can sleep in tomorrow. It's Saturday." He spun around to head upstairs, then stuck his head back in the doorway. "Oh, and don't set your alarm. I'll come and wake you for breakfast."
My dreams flashed through different scenes and situations like an MTV video, fast-paced, high energy, on the emotional edge, hot and stirring. The sexual sensations felt so real, felt so... wet! I opened my eyes and looked down at Sandy, smiling up at me (smiling, that is, as well as a person can when he's got a hard dick stuffed in his face.)
"I thought you said you'd wake me for breakfast," I mumbled.
He pulled off for moment. "I did. You are breakfast." And then he plunged back down on me.
I reached down to pull at one of his legs. "Well, I'm hungry too," I said.
He got the hint (so subtle!) and slid around until his shorts-covered bulge was a couple of inches from my face. I quickly unsnapped and unzipped his shorts, and with his help got them pulled down his legs and off his feet. There, in front of my eyes, was the most beautiful sex organ I had ever seen: long, but slender, with alabaster skin patterned with fine blue veins, a rosy red berry peeking out of its collar of pinkish foreskin. It was standing out over a pair of egg-sized testicles in a hairless sack that made the matching set complete. There was an arc of blondish pubic hair just halfway around the base of his swaying lance, stopping where his hairless scrotum began. The angle at which his cock stood was perfect, made for my throat, which soon swallowed it and squeezed it again and again with gulping motions.
I pulled him on top of me and made him fuck my face. My hands roamed and squeezed and caressed every part of him I could reach, as I took every inch of him--and he, every inch of me. I knew I was reaching the jumping-off point, but all I could see, or think about, was that whitesnake burrowing deeper toward my belly with each downward thrust. Time was suspended while we teased the raw edges of each other's passion. I could hear my pulse and feel his. I could smell his soapy boyish scent grow muskier as he dripped sweat on my body beneath him. I could see nothing by the Carrera marble of his smooth, almost hairless flesh as it smashed into my chin again and again, his blue-white balls bounding on my brow.
Two elongated, muffled groans, and we fell away from each other--gasping, sated, limp, but very happy. I pulled him around and up to face me. He wore the same silly, happy smirk that I felt on my own face. I kissed him tenderly--not a kiss of passion, but of gratitude and assurance. Then I tickled him (I knew he'd be ticklish!) and said, "Still hungry?" He responded by munching on my nose, my chin, my ears, gradually slowing until he was nursing on my left nipple, like a sleepy baby.
When we woke up again, it was still only nine o'clock. There wasn't any sound of talk or cooking in the kitchen, so we just lay there and basked in each other's warmth. As we talked, I told him about everything that happened the day before, especiallythe realization that I had received a gift from my father, several years after he left us, when I thought he had forgotten all about me, that I had learned more about my father from those carved pieces than I had ever been told.
"Oh, no, Peter, I'm sure he never forgot you. It was just that..." he cut himself off.
"That what?" I asked, leaning up on my elbow and looking straight into his eyes. "What do you know?"
"Well..." He tried to gather his thoughts, to form just the right explanation. "Your Aunt Margaret told us a lot in the weeks before she died. She said that your mother's family wouldn't let your father see you after he moved out. It broke his heart, but he didn't want to cause trouble and upset you or your mother. He did watch you from a distance while you were growing up, and she said he considered contacting you after your grandmother died."
I heard his words, but they didn't register. My Grandma Sims wouldn't let my own father see me? Why? My mother had told me after the separation that my father still loved me, but that he had to go away for a long time. She said that they still loved each other, but that their marriage wasn't meant to be. And what could have kept him from letting me know he cared about me?
The light went on inside my mind. "He was gay, too, wasn't he?" I said quietly. "He thought I would hate him if I found out."
Sandy looked at me, gauging my state of mind. He barely nodded yes.
I slumped back into the pillow, and with more than a dash of irony said, "My life has certainly gotten very interesting the last couple of days." What I intended to be a sigh of exasperation turned into a whimper, followed by an uncontrollable series of sobs and a flow of tears.
Sandy just put his head on my chest and wrapped his arms around me. He knew I had a lot to think about.
Chapter Six--Inside, Outside, All Through the House
Over the next few days, I dragged more of my family's history out of the four guys, and I have to admit that it changed my feelings about Grandma Sims. I'd never heard her side of the story, but if what Aunt Margaret had told her boys was true--and why would she bother to lie when she was dying?--Grandma was an implacable shrew when it came to my father or his family. Sandy told me that, on that boyhood visit I had made so long ago, someone told Grandma and she telephoned Margaret and told her in no uncertain terms that she would call the sheriff if she or any member of her family had any more to do with me. It all fit together with my memories, and the whole picture wasn't very pretty. She denied me knowledge of my father, my grandparents, Aunt Margaret, any number of things that would have filled the empty places in my heart after my mother died.
It's not as if I were the melancholy Dutchman--I wasn't Danish!--during my adolescence, but deep feelings bubbled up within me whenever I saw other, more "normal," families showing affection and paying attention to one another. For most of my young life, I had had nearly 100 percent of Grandma Sims' attention, but I didn't really feel that we were that close--I'd never just run up and for no reason hug her, for example. I had really missed the sensation of nonsexual touching as a way to show love, sympathy, protection. I realized that when I moved to Chicago after Grandma died.
At first, I thought sexual encounters would fill my need for human contact. But after the few intensely active months of my breakout from the straight life, I realized that something important was still absent. I wanted someone to come home to, to sit and talk with, to cook and clean for, and really just sleep with--just the two of us--for a long, long time... like forever!
That was when I began my search for my other half. I thought I had found him at least three times: the first turned out to be a romantic whore, to whom the words of love were truer than the actions; the second simply wanted to split the expenses of living in Old Town Chicago, without bothering to accept any of the responsibilities of everyday life; and the third--that was Bucky. He was my first lover and roommate for almost a year (11 months, one week, and three days!), and my soulmate (I thought), until one day he just didn't come home. He didn't even come around later to get his belongings, and I never heard from him again. Friends told me he still lived in the city and had become very withdrawn. I tried to get in touch, but he wouldn't return my calls, answer my letters, or even answer his door after I found out where he was staying.
I guess that was why I was ready to leave Chicago when I got the lawyer's letter. A fresh, new start in an old place and, I thought, a chance to be more in control of my own life. If I had stopped to ponder just how much of my life since returning home had been orchestrated by others, I might not have felt as if I were starting on a new path I had chosen for myself.
But one thing was true--I was searching for my roots. I had found out that my father was gay and a woodcarver/sculptor of uncommon ability (I must have inherited his artistic bent), that my grandfather had been a riverboat captain and great storyteller, and that my aunt was a "fag hag"--in the sweetest, nicest sense of the term. She surrounded herself with gay young men, because she understood and cared what happened to them, and wanted them to have a chance to fulfill their dreams. I pictured Sandy, finding his way here at the age of 15-almost-16, having experienced little but rejection in his young life; then I saw him as he was today, a confident, intelligent, sensible, and caring young man who gave more than he took from life. If Aunt Margaret had anything to do with that and the aura of family that surrounded all four of the others... well, then she should be blessed as the patron saint of "that kind"--our kind. Fleetingly, I wondered why Mr. Sidney didn't fit the same mold as the others. Maybe it was because he was older.
I decided then and there to learn everything I could. I started spending most of the time after Sanday left for work and before the others got home digging in drawers, boxes in the basement and the attic, and just searching everywhere for another hint of answers to my still-unanswered questions. Occasionally as I was scanning old letters, bills, canceled checks, and the like, I thought I caught a glimpse of a face in the window of the apartment over the garage.
It was about the fourth day of following this routine that I started looking at books on the shelves in my computer room. I had thought that I would just open them and see if any important papers or clippings were pressed between the pages, but I realized there was one whole shelf of black-covered books without titles on the spine. I pulled out the one at the left and began reading the handwritten text. It was a diary, Aunt Margaret's diary!
It appeared to start about the time my father was born, and recounted his early years with fastidious detail. I started skimming, looking for other significant references to my father. I leafed through three more volumes before stopping on one entry, dated a few years before I was born, that popped out at me:
"Petey told his father last night that he realized he had sexual feelings for men, and not for women. He expected a tirade--or worse--but he was more shocked when Pete embraced him and said simply. 'I know, son. I know, and I love you very much.' I am so proud of my two boys. Petey for his courage, and Pete for his compassion. I love them both so very much."
I began to cry. How different my own youth would have been if I had grown up in a family like that! I wouldn't have had to put on a front every day in school, date girls whose strict upbringing I knew wouldn't allow them even to think about sex before marriage (fulfilling a sexual role with a woman was one place where my talents as a social illusionist would definitely have failed me, as my anatomical components would also have done), and sneak around town to have brief, nervous, but exciting encounters with the only other gay kid I knew.
Andy Pepper--I hadn't thought of him for years! I was ashamed of myself for not being his friend in public, but he had been tagged the class fag while he was still in grade school. Only the girls would hang around with him; the boys all shunned him, and made jokes at his expense behind his back... and occasionally even to his face. I came to admire Andy at a distance for his ability to remain calm and even dignified while enduring the cruelest verbal gibes. I happened to encounter him one day when I was roaming the nature trails (REAL nature trails! I was looking for animals to sketch.) in the state park at the edge of town, and we started to talk. We ended up talking for hours. I finally told him that I admired the way he stood up to the taunts, and I wished I could speak up for him, because...
He finished my thought: "You're gay, too, aren't you?" I nodded, looking down. He went on: "Listen, Petey, you don't want to let any of those jerks find out. I didn't have any choice--I look and act gay. But you can protect your secret, you don't look like their idea of a fag. I don't blame you if you don't want to be seen with me in public, but I would like to see you in private--that is, if you want to."
I wanted to. Those stolen hours with Andy were the only times in my teen years that I was free to be who and what I was, to say anything I wanted, and to do... well, to do and be done, if you will. I think I was a little in love with Andy, and when I came out to friends at college years later, I felt a terrific pang of guilt that I had never told him so, or had the courage to show our classmates how special he was to me. I lost touch with Andy after we went different directions to college. I hadn't thought of him much since that day I made what I thought would be a disastrous, alienating announcement to my friends. The total equanimity (actually, yawning boredom) with which my confession of my sexual orientation was received blew me away. My best friend and fellow art student, Hardy Kellner, stepped up, gave me a hug, and said, "Pete, you're my friend, always will be, and I love you. Just don't try to get between me and my ladies, and for god's sake don't get political!"
Good ol' Hardy--known by all of our crowd as "Party-hearty-Hardy"--was a raging, hormone-driven heterosexual bent on making as many female conquests as he could, but he was also one of the few solid anchors I had while drifting through life. I decided to give him a call soon. The last time I saw him was at his wedding. He had met a nice Catholic girl from St. Louis, converted, and decided that he would settle down there. From the few letters and phone calls I had gotten since, I guess he had transformed himself into the epitome of monogamous, dependable husband and loving father. The last I heard, Hardy and his wife had four kids and were actively working on number five, as he put it in a quick call he made one day on a short layover at O'Hare between flights.
A random thought hit me as I emerged from these memories: Petey, Andy, Hardy, Bucky--boyish nicknames were everywhere in my life. And now... Sandy?
Chapter Seven--Meeting the Invisible Man
As much as I tried to wheedle information from the four guys, there were two things they wouldn't talk about: whether they knew where my father was, and anything about Mr. Sidney. They basically gave me the same kind of runaround on both those topics--"When he's ready, he'll come to you."
I should mention that I was not a model of patience. I searched even more determinedly for clues in Aunt Margaret's diaries and papers. I found checks written to my father beginning after grandfather died and ending just after my father and mother were married. Then, after a gap of several years, I found checks written to "Mr. Sidney Hague." I wondered why she wrote so many checks to him, when she was the landlord and he was the tenant. Oh, well, knowing what I now did about Aunt Margaret, I decided there would have been a logical answer. Maybe he was not good at handling his own finances, and she helped him by doling out his own money as he needed it. But a nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me I didn't quite feel satisfied with that scenario.
Frustrated in my search for more information about my father, I decided to tackle the other puzzle in my life: why hadn't I had a chance to meet and talk to Mr. Sidney. The others apparently talked to him fairly regularly, and Dave even took to the mall and the supermarket occasionally. But I had never even seen him take one step out of the apartment!
It was time to take matters in my own hand. (Quit thinking those dirty thoughts!) I decided I was going over, knock on the door, and introduce myself. It wasn't as if he had told me himself that he didn't want to have anything to do with me, and stopping by for an introduction and visit was the neighborly thing to do, not to mention that I was his landlord, damn it, and I deserved to know the people who were living on my property.
I felt a little jolt then, when I realized that what had been "Aunt Margaret's house" up until that moment was now "my property." I didn't feel like an impassionate witness to life in this house anymore--I was part of it, involved in it, I felt ownership. In two minutes, I was out the front door, past the front of the garage to the stairs on the far side, leading up to the apartment. Now I realize I probably sounded like a storm trooper clomping up the wooden stairway and rapping firmly on the screen door.
Someone pulled the curtain aside far enough to see who it was, then opened the door a crack and asked, "Can I help you?"
I was in no mood for pussyfooting. "Yes, you can. Mr. Sidney? I am Pete Vanderhoeg, your new landlord, and I thought it was high time we got acquainted."
A brief silence, then, "Yes, you're probably right. Won't you come in?" he said, opening the door wider. I still couldn't see him clearly, because it was bright outside and he was standing in an unlighted room.
I pulled the screen door open and stepped in. He turned away from me to close the door again, and then slowly moved to face me. My eyes weren't accustomed to the dimness yet, but I could see that he was about my height and weight, blond but with an almost white beard and moustache. He was wearing jeans and an old, baggy, stained sweatshirt that looked like it had spent the early part of its life on the tackling dummy at Da Bears' training camp.
He guided me into what must have been the living room, although there was no furniture to speak of, just a couple of low tables and piles of thick, fluffy pillows. The walls were bare, except for a large, ornated mirror with a gilded frame on the wall opposite the main pile of pillows. He pointed toward the pillows, and invited me to sit while he got me something to drink.
"Do you like your tea unsweetened?" he asked me. I nodded yes, and he smiled slightly as if he had expected that answer. My eyes searched his face for something... I don't know what I was looking for.
While he was preparing the tea, I piled a couple of the big floor pillows on top of one another, trying to make some semblance of a chair to sit in. Before I could get settled comfortably, he came back into the room carrying two cups of fragrant, steaming tea. He put one down on the long, low, narrow coffee table between us,and handed the other to me. I stood fully up to take it from him.
When I did, I saw my own reflection in the mirror. I looked at him, then back at my image, then back at him again. Then I noticed an intricately carved Dutch windmill on the table in the corner of the room. Do you know what an epiphany is? Well, I had one at that moment. I was looking at myself at 30, and myself at 50--I was looking at... my father! I started to tremble violently, spilling some of the tea. He quickly moved around the table, took the cup and saucer from my shaking hands, and helped me sit down on the floor in front of the pillows I had stacked up.
He knelt beside me. "We have to talk..." he began. I was struck dumb, I couldn't speak, I wasn't even capable of that moment of forming a coherent thought. The years of not knowing if he was alive, or if he had ever really cared about me... the years when I needed a father's love and protection... all those lost years! I couldn't begin to describe the emotions that were drowning me.
By the time I had recovered some semblance of awareness of my surroundings, I realized I was hearing him say, "You probably hate me..." He fell silent.
I sat there, not knowing which emotion I should give in to. Should I be angry and unforgiving? Should I be mourning all that we had missed sharing? Should I just erase him from my life and go on as if he didn't exist?
It took me several minutes to pull myself together and shape my question to him: "Just tell me one thing--why did you stay away?"
He took a deep breath, and said, "I wanted desperately to be a part of your life, but your grandmother said that if I came anywhere near you, she would tell everyone that I was a worthless, dangerous pervert who had deceived her daughter and was trying to molest his own son. I would never have done that," he said, his voice cracking as he trailed off. He went on to say that she pressured him to move away and stay away from me and my mother. He had left, changed his name, and come back within a few months just so he could be near me, even if he had to live like a hermit and wasn't allowed to talk to me, or even let me know he was alive. I started to shiver again, this time in mounting anger at the old woman who had kept me from knowing my own father, even after my mother had died. Mentally I drove another nail into her coffin.
I started to cry, which set him off, too, and we fell together into a hug--at first, stiff and awkward, then melting into the kind of embrace I had always wanted: the sure, strong, warm hug of a loving father comforting his child. I asked him about my mother, and whether she felt the same way as my grandmother. He said that my mother had always known he was gay--she was his best friend in school--and after her mother found out and forced him to leave her, they would meet secretly every week or so. He said she couldn't bring me along, because I was so young and didn't understand what was going on. I might have unwittingly said something about him to my grandmother, which would have gotten them both in trouble.
We cried together for a while, and then we talked. And talked. And talked. Time passed. Afternoon became dusk, dusk became dark, and dark became dawn. We hadn't moved from our places there on the floor for nearly 15 hours. We hadn't eaten. We just talked, marveling at the ways in which we were alike. I asked why Aunt Margaret hadn't just left the house to him, and he said, "She figured I'd never get the courage to try to see you if she did."
Then I asked how she knew I would... well, "fit in." He told me that a few years ago, a young man named Andy Pepper had found himself without a home, and another friend of his told him to go see Aunt Margaret. While living here for a while, my father went on, Andy figured out that she was related to me, and he started talking about our private times together.
I blushed, but my father said, "No, they didn't talk about that part of it. Where Margaret was concerned, it wasn't about what you did, but how you treated people, and how they felt about you. Andy spoke of you with great fondness, you know."
"No, I didn't know," I said, saying under my breath, "I wish I had."
He said Sandy and Dave and the others had told him they thought I was really nice, too, and that he should be proud. Realizing they had known all along, I decided I was going to kill them for not telling me anything! As soon as I got home... oh my god, I thought, I bet the guys are wondering where I am. Talk about conflicted! I was murdering them in my mind one moment, then fearing that I had made them worry the next.
I looked at my watch--it was 5:30. And idea came to me. I leaned close to whisper in my father's ear. He grinned, and said, "I'll be there as soon as I get cleaned up."
Chapter Eight--Cooking Up a Plan
I dashed across the lawn to the house, and managed to make it into my bedroom before anyone else had started to stir. I took a quick basin-bath, washing only the most offensive parts of my body, and changed into a fresh t-shirt and shorts. When Donnie and Reggie came downstairs, I was already in the kitchen, whipping together a special breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, sliced melon, toast, juice, coffee and tea, with several jars of Aunt Margaret's canned fruit spreads from the cellar lined up on the counter beside the stack of plates, the glasses and cups, and the tableware.
"Hey, we wondered what happened to you," Reggie said and signed for Donnie's benefit. "We didn't know whether to be worried or happy for you." Donnie nodded in agreement.
Dave walked into the room, sniffing at the cooking aromas, as I announced: "Well, I met someone." I loved the looks on their faces. "And I've invited him to join us for breakfast. He should be here soon."
I just kept cooking, ignoring their obvious attempts to pump me for more information. When Sandy came in, Dave told him what was happening. I just caught a glimpse of his shocked--and disappointed?--expression when he heard. But he put a smile on to say, "Congratulations, Pete, you deserve it."
"Wait," I said, "I'm not married yet. I just met the guy, and I want to get to know him better. That's all. And I wanted you all to get to know him they way I hope to."
Sandy looked puzzled, and started to say something, when he glanced up and saw someone at the kitchen door. He opened it quickly and let the surprise visitor in. He started to introduce him to me: "Pete, this is Mr. Sidney Hague. Mr. Sidney, this is--"
I cut him off. "No," I said. Sandy looked shocked. I continued,"This is the man I spent the night with"--I loved the expressions on all their faces--"my father, Peter Sidney Vonderhoeg." I turned to my father. "Welcome home, Dad."
Everyone's jaw dropped, and my father hugged me, saying, "I've waited your whole life to be with you like this--together, in our own home, like father and son."
He started crying again, so I did too. Sandy joined the hug, crying too. Reggie and Dave and Donnie made it a very moist group hug. It was the first time in my life that I had felt really loved, the way I had always dreamed.
We finally did sit down and enjoy a big breakfast together, laughing and just jabbering together until Reggie realized he had to get to work. Dave and Donnie had a little more time to spare before they headed out, so they and my father took their coffee (or unsweetened tea) into the living room to talk for a little more.
I stayed behind in the kitchen with Sandy, who was starting to clean up. He was running hot water into the sink and pouring a healthy portion of detergent in, when I stepped up behind him, very close. I put my hands on his shoulders. "Sandy?" I asked. He turned to look at me. "Do you... and Dave... I mean, are you... ?"
His eyes opened wide, and he started to breathe more quickly. "You mean, are we boyfriends?" I nodded. "Oh no, we're just buddies, friends--well, you know, like the others..."
I pulled him a little closer, so I could whisper my next utterance: "I would like very much to be more than buddies with you, Sandy. I think I've already fallen in love with you."
Time stood still for an eternity as I looked into his eyes, trying to gauge what I saw there. His beautiful eyes, wide open for that eternity, suddenly blinked, and tears were pouring down his cheeks. He choked out, "Oh Pete, I fell in love with you that first night." He grabbed my face and pulled it to his, covering my cheeks and forehead and chin and nose with wet kisses. I put my arms around his slim, hard body and squeezed him tightly to me. "Pete, I've dreamed of this every night since then... not just being with you, you know, in bed, but being yours."
My passionate kiss muffled his voice. Then I pulled him to me even more tightly, his head on my shoulder, and mine on his. I looked up to see three faces in the kitchen doorway, all of them smiling and crying as the three of them hugged one another.
That was quickly followed by another one of those really wet, whole-group hugs. Damn, I never get tired of that feeling of belonging!
I suppose I could bring the story completely up to date, but it's enough to say that my father was my father, not my 'buddy.' However, he wasn't Dave's buddy, and Dave eventually moved into the apartment with Dad. Sandy moved his stuff into my--our--bedroom, and the guys found a couple more 'strays' who needed a safe and welcoming place to live. They turned out to be such nice young men.
"Thank you, Aunt Margaret," I say to myself every day. "Thank you for giving me my life, my father, my new family... and my Sandy!"
The End Copyright 2000 by Jack Fellowes
(I hope you enjoyed this story. Let me know at: jwhstloo@ix.netcom.com)