This chapter has taken way too long to write, and for that I apologise. Work and recent personal event left me with little time to write. I'll try to have the next chapter done sooner, guys.
A big thank you to everyone who emailed me about the first chapter. I love hearing from you, so please feel free to drop me a line at boyreece@gmail.com. Any non-constructive criticism will, naturally, be ignored.
This is a fiction story purporting to be reality. Basically, it might sound like it's based on real events, but it isn't. The usual warnings apply -- Don't read this if you're not of legal age where you live, and if stories of men loving other men get your testes in a twist, then what the hell are you doing here? All characters are products of the author's imagination and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
South African Winter 02 by Reece Adams
I sat in my living room after Jason dropped me off, staring at a movie on the TV without really watching it. The registered letter lay open on the sofa next to me -- a lawyer's letter, something about me failing to pay some doctor and legal proceedings being instituted. I would read over it again later. My mind was too mixed up in other matters to worry about it at the moment.
Adam. Grant's ex. The situation was like something out of a soap opera; so damn unlikely that I was having trouble wrapping my mind around it. I mean, what were the chances of me falling for one guy and then, out of nowhere, bumping into his ex in a shopping centre (hell, half killing myself on his ex in a shopping centre), and falling for him as well? Even after hearing about the way he treated Grant?
Bizarre didn't even begin to describe it.
I tuned back into in the room around me to find my hands in my lap and a couple of guys who looked no older than 18 going at it with a girl the same age on screen. I'd seen the movie before. Ken Park, or Kent Park, or something like that. My hands were doing their own thing in my lap. Judging from the situation in my pants, they'd been busy for awhile.
I realized that I was horny as hell. I hadn't been laid in a couple of weeks, and it had been at least three days since I jerked off. In a couple of hours, Jason would be picking me up to help him get his place ready for Carrie's party. A party that would be bustling with college guys. A party where Jason himself was planning to strip down to a little red G-string. Unless I took care of business now, I didn't think my chances of leaving that party with my dignity intact were really high.
I started fiddling open the fly on my jeans, then stopped. There were still five hours until Jason pulled up outside (assuming he was on time -- with Jase, you couldn't always be certain). Sure, I could jerk off and get it over with, but after my run in with Adam I was in the mood for a little more physicality.
Pulling his phone from my pocket, I slid it open and started searching for the Applications menu. I was trying hard to put what had happened at the mall out of my head, but his smile kept flashing across my thoughts. The sound of his voice. The way the hairs on his arm had brushed across my skin when he helped me up. None of which was doing anything to ease the tent in my pants.
Apparently, he didn't have mig33 on his phone. I considered downloading it, but then remembered that I didn't have much airtime left on my sim.
Sighing, I hauled myself up and crossed to where my PC sat in the corner. I didn't usually chat on the computer. Almost all of my time on it was devoted to my writing, and having a couple of chat windows clamoring for attention at the bottom of your screen can be distracting. Besides, I always had my phone with me, and it was so much easier logging in with the phone.
It didn't take long to find someone in the chat rooms. That might not come as a surprise in rooms with names like 'Horny Gays' and -- wait for it -- 'Very Horny Gays', but you'd be amazed at how many of these guys just sat in there and said nothing. The image that always came to mind was of weirdos lurking in the shadows at the edge of a some busy playground, eyeing out the prospects. Sure, most of them were probably perfectly ordinary guys, maybe even all of them were, but it was still kinda creepy. To me, anyway.
Keeping in mind that there were all manner of freaks and psychos on the net, I was always careful when searching for a playmate. Swapping photos was essential -- not only because I needed to see who I was dealing with, but so that they could see who they were dealing with. I'm not a bad looking guy by any stretch of the imagination, but hey; different strokes for different folks. I never hooked up with guys who looked physically stronger than me. We'd be alone in my apartment -- you do the maths. Also, call me shallow if you want, but I wasn't into overweight guys. That's just me.
His screen name was Chad69. His real name was, predictably, Chad. He was 19, and pretty athletic looking -- a blond surfer boy with a light tan and a 'whatever, dude' smile. When I opened my door twenty minutes later he was standing there talking on his phone, barely acknowledging my presence with a nod of his head. His shoulder length blond hair hung in wet strands to either side of his face, like he'd just stepped out of the shower. He was wearing a black vest that clung to his torso and showed off his beautifully shaped arms. When he walked past me and into the living room, I caught a whiff of his shampoo and the cologne he was wearing. Tommy Hilfiger's Freedom, I thought.
He took a seat on one of the sofas, phone still clutched to his face (it sounded like he was talking to his mother -- kinda weird). I sank into the chair opposite him and watched him until he hung up.
"So, where we gonna do this?" he asked immediately, looking up at me with a smile that was more amused than it was interested. Now I noticed his bloodshot eyes, the vacant quality to his gaze. This guy was higher than a kite.
"Uh.. I..." I stammered. Embarrassing, I know, but he'd caught me off guard. I was used to talking with the guy a bit before we got to it. It made things a little less awkward. If that makes me weird, then sue me.
He chuckled, glancing around the room than nodding towards my bedroom door.
"That your room?"
I nodded, opening my mouth to ask what he did for a living, when he stood up and moved toward my room, pulling his vest off as he went. His shoulders were fairly broad, nicely tanned, his back tapering down to a pair of white board shorts that clung to his waist and hugged his ass like a second skin. I felt my cock stir in my own pants as I drank in the thin line of untanned skin above his waistband.
He turned when he reached the doorway, balling the vest up and tossing it at me.
"You coming?"
Catching the vest, I stood and followed him into my room.
He stood next to my bed, hands clasped behind his back, smiling expectantly. I swear to God there wasn't an ounce of fat on him. His skin was bronze perfection. His chest was pronounced without being large, his stomach flat, the trail beneath his navel the same rusty blond as the hair on his head.
I didn't hesitate. I couldn't hesitate. I knew from past experience that if I hesitated, I'd become clumsy, and if I became clumsy I'd end up embarrassing myself. So I tossed his vest back at him, crossing the room as he caught it and shoving him toward the bed. Taken by surprise, he stumbled backward and fell onto the mattress, looking up at me with an expression of frank stoner astonishment that would have gotten me laughing if I wasn't so geared up.
"Hey, no rough stuff, dude," he said. There was the slightest edge of panic in his voice.
I straddled his hips, pinning him down by the shoulders. He had these full, deep pink lips that contrasted beautifully with his tanned complexion, parted now as he eyed me warily through a blond spill of his fringe. Because of the large windows, the light in my bedroom was brighter than anywhere else in the apartment. In it, I could see the faint shadow of stubble on his cheeks and jawline.
I wanted to kiss those lips, but knew that a lot of the bi guys weren't into the kissing thing. So instead I lowered my head to his chest, homing in on his right nipple and encircling it with my lips. A moan escaped him as I applied a gently suction, flicking my tongue back and forth over the tip until it became stiff and rigid in my mouth, running my hand down his smooth chest to roll its partner between my thumb and forefinger until it reached a similar state.
"Fuck, that's good," he groaned, placing a hand on the back of my head and twining his fingers in my hair. "Don't stop, dude."
On any other day I might have been happy to comply. Today, I had places to go later. Leaving his chest, I started kissing my way down his stomach toward the waistband of his shorts, snapping open the clasp on the front as I went. As if on cue, my phone started ringing in the lounge. Glancing up briefly, I considered answering it. I was slightly paranoid about not answering my phone. My ever active imagination usually turned every call into a potential emergency, so that unless I was in the shower (or trying to sleep...), I almost always answered.
My new friend moaned behind me, rubbing himself up against my hand, and all thoughts of death and disaster left me. Whoever it was could wait until we were done.
His cock virtually sprang into my hand when I peeled the Velcro fly open -- warm, pulsing, rock hard. I squeezed it gently, stroking it as I worked my way downward, noticing that he was uncircumcised -- the head already wet with precum when I moved the skin back to run a thumb over the tip.
He was breathing hard by the time I reached his waist. I took a moment to examine my prize. He wasn't huge, but he was bigger than most. Probably seven inches long, with a fat, pink head peeking from an impressive collar of foreskin. A fine mat of blond pubes surrounded the base, trailing away to either side of his sac, his balls already drawn up tight against his groin.
"Man, suck my cock," he breathed, slowly rolling his hips, fucking my hand. "Put it in your mouth, dude. Suck my fucking cock."
He didn't have to ask me twice. Wrapping my fingers around the base of his prick, I leaned down and ran my tongue slowly over the leaking tip. He shivered, letting out a low moan as I used my lips to roll his foreskin all the way back and take the head into my mouth. His cock tasted clean, the steady flow of precum slightly sweet on my tongue as I slid his nob to the back of my mouth, pausing to lick around the underside of his shaft before letting it slip into my throat. At the same time I gripped the waistband of his shorts, sliding them down until they puddled around his feet. Like his upper body, his legs were nicely muscled without being huge, his thighs warm and lightly hairy beneath my palm as I ran a hand up to knead his aching balls.
His hands were on my head again, working, pulling at my hair as I rose up and sank back down, taking his entire length into my mouth again and again, stopping to work only the head for a few seconds, swirling my tongue around the sensitive ridge of his glans before plummeting all the way to the bottom again. The feel of his hard shaft filling my mouth, sliding over my tongue, invading my throat, had my own cock leaking what felt like rivers of precum in my pants. Here was this gorgeous young beach boy, the kind of guy most gay men dream about but never actually get, lying naked on my bed with his big dick in my mouth, moaning and squirming like every nerve in his body was on fire and his skin was catching.
I was so into what I was doing that at first I didn't even register the banging. It was only when I heard my name being bellowed from somewhere that I noticed my playmate had gone quiet above me. I realized the banging was coming from my front door.
"Brian! Brian, please, dude, open up! Please!"
I recognized Jason's voice. The note of panic in it had me on my feet and halfway across the living room before my brain decided to come out of hiding and remind me of (a) the boy in my room, and (b) the raging horn in my pants that was only just beginning to go down.
"Brian!"
Skipping back to my bedroom, adjusting myself as I went, I pulled the door swiftly shut -- praying that the boy would think to stay put and keep quiet, that Jason wouldn't need to use the bathroom, that I didn't have any blond pubic hairs clinging to my face. Then I was across the living room, opening the front door, trying to swallow the blush I felt flooding my cheeks.
Jason stood with one hand braced on the door frame. The first thing I noticed was how pale he was. It looked as if someone had replaced the gold which usually colored his skin with a white watercolor paint. The second thing was his eyes. They were big, frightened. He'd been crying. I'd never seen Jason cry before.
"Jase?" When he made no move to come inside, I reached for his arm. The muscles just under his skin were shivering. I felt my own panic start to rise. "Jase, what's wrong? What-"
"Carrie," he panted. He was out of breath. As I watched, a tear spilled from his left eye and fled down his cheek. "There's been an accident. Please, dude, you gotta come."
My panic ballooned all at once, swelling into something huge and red, and I had to struggle to keep it from taking over completely. I managed to mutter something along the lines of fetching my shoes (I'm basing most of this conversation entirely on conjecture -- for some reason that scene in the doorway is sort of grey in my memory), watched him hurry down the stairs toward the parking lot before turning about and fleeing back to my bedroom.
The boy was sitting on the edge of my bed, his pants back around his waist. He looked up when I entered, his expression alarmed before he saw that it was me.
"What's happening?" he asked.
I started to speak. Faltered. Tried again. Faltered. I could feel tears building behind my face, and had to grit my teeth for a second and breathe deeply through my nose to hold them in check. Carrie was one of the sweetest people I knew. I didn't know how bad the accident was, but judging from the state Jason was in, I was guessing it was pretty bad. Suddenly, I was having a hard time holding myself together.
"My friend," I managed, still biting back on the tears, staring intently down at the carpet. I felt wetness on my face, and realized one of them had broken through the barriers. "She's been in an... accident. I have to go."
"Oh shit." He stood up, crossing to where I stood and placing a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up, I found him peering into my eyes with concern.
"You okay?" he asked.
"My mate's waiting outside," I said. My chest hitched, and I realized how close I was to burying my face in his shoulder and bawling my eyes out. Taking his hand from my shoulder, I squeezed it gently before crossing to retrieve my shoes. I kept telling myself that I didn't know what Carrie's condition was, but my mind kept replaying Jason's face at my door, kept showing me his wide, frightened eyes, his tears. And I knew that, hard as it was, I had to hold my own tears off. For Jason. I had to be strong for him.
The boy left while I was running around looking for my keys (they'd found their way under my computer stand). He dragged a promise out of me to call later and let him know what happened, although I knew that I probably wouldn't. It seemed kind of weird for him to be taking an interest in my life. When it came to playmates, it was usually just a once off thing. Maybe it was because I was scared of being found out. I don't know.
Five minutes later I was in Jason's car for the second time that day, strapping myself in as he pulled out of the parking lot. I wanted to say something. I wanted to ask what he'd heard, who'd contacted him, how the accident happened. But I didn't dare.
He steered the car with one hand, the other never leaving the gear lever as he raced through the network of streets toward the hospital. I reached over and lay my own hand over that one, squeezing the large, rough fingers in mine. When he glanced at me, I offered a smile that I hoped looked at least halfway encouraging.
It was all I could think to do.
At 12:30 that day, the day of her Birthday, Carrie had been on her way back from the Pavillion mall with her mother and sister. Her parents had given her a R5000 Pavillion gift voucher for her Birthday, which she could spend at any of the stores in the mall, except for the food stalls and the cinema complex. Naturally, she had decided to hit the clothing stores. Upon hearing her younger sister, Alison, complaining that she didn't know what she was going to wear to the party later, she had offered to spend part of her present on a new outfit for the girl.
When I heard that part, I came pretty close to breaking down again. It was just so typically Carrie.
They were headed home along the N3 freeway -- Mrs Cohen driving, while the girls fawned over their purchases in the back seat -- when the driver of a mini-bus taxi in the next lane lost control of his vehicle and swerved into their lane, hitting into the back of the small Toyota Corolla with the combined weight of seventeen passengers traveling at approximately 130 km/h. The collision sent the Toyota careening across the freeway while Mrs Cohen tried to regain control of the vehicle. Directly into the path of an eighteen wheeler truck.
Mrs Cohen was killed instantly. Alison was alive when rescue workers pulled her from the wreckage, but despite the best efforts of the paramedics who attended the scene, the extent of her injuries was just too severe. She died en route to the hospital.
Carrie had been in the operating theater for just under half an hour when we arrived. She had a fractured skull, a broken leg, broken arm, several broken ribs, a cracked pelvis, as well as numerous other internal injuries. She had been resuscitated once in the ambulance when her heart stopped, and the doctors were now rushing to save her life.
Jason and I heard all of this from Mr Cohen in a private waiting room in St Augustine's ICU. His voice shook as he spoke, and he had to pause a couple of times to swallow before continuing. By the time he was finished, there were tears running down both Jason's face and my own. I could see that my big friend was struggling to hold back the full force of his fear and grief, could feel it in the hand I used to grip his shoulder. Considering the extent of my own feelings, I couldn't even begin to imagine what it cost him to hold all of that inside.
Then we sat. We waited. There was nothing else we could do. Carrie's life was in the hands of the surgeons. I was trying hard not to speculate, trying to clear my mind and stay calm, but as the minutes ticked by I found myself growing more and more tense, the weight in my chest building gradually heavier, harder and harder to hold down. I kept one hand on Jason's shoulder, taking as much comfort from the gesture as I was trying to convey and wishing that there was more I could do than just sit there -- both for Carrie and my friend. I don't think that I'd ever felt so scared and helpless in my life.
We'd been sitting there for ten minutes according to the clock on the wall, when one of Carrie's cousins entered; a pretty young woman with blond hair and large blue eyes. Mr Cohen greeted her as Janice as he hugged her to him. Apparently she knew Jase as well, because he went over to give her a hug, leaving me on my own while the three conferred in the corner of the room.
I decided to take the opportunity to get myself something to drink. My mouth was dry, and I realized that I hadn't drunk anything since the cup of coffee Jason made for me that morning. Excusing myself, I made my way down the ICU hallway towards the soda machine I'd spotted on our way in.
The small entrance foyer in which the machine stood was deserted. As I stood there, digging my wallet out of my pocket, my eyes roamed over the buttons displaying the available drinks. Coke, Fanta, Lemon Twist, Pepsi. But no Sprite. I'd been hoping for a Sprite because I hadn't had one in ages, and the stupid machine only stocked Coke, Fanta, Lemon Twist, and fucking Pepsi.
It was stupid. Such a small, petty thing. But that was all it took to burst the floodgates. Suddenly I was crying, covering my face with both hands, stumbling to a nearby couch to sit down. Why did life have to be so unfair? Why did such terrible things have to happen to such good people? I'd known Carrie almost as long as I'd known Jason, and the thought of never hearing her laugh, seeing her smile, never watching her wave from the passenger seat of Jase's car after they dropped me off, hurt like nothing before. I didn't have many friends, but those I did meant more to me than anything. Not knowing whether she would be alright was killing me.
I must have sat there crying for about ten minutes. Under other circumstances Jason would have probably come looking for me, but he didn't. Nobody came in. Nobody went out. For those ten minutes I had the foyer to myself.
When the fit finally ended, I stood up, drying my eyes on my shirt. As I did, I happened to glance out of the small window beside the vending machines. And stopped.
The window looked out onto one of the hospital parking lots. Dressed in blue jeans and a baggy red teeshirt, Grant approached the building from the other side of the lot, a plastic shopping bag dangling from his right hand.
Almost at once, I felt my spirits lift a little. There was no denying the pang of guilt that came trailing along behind that joy -- guilt over my earlier encounter with Adam (shit, I had his phone in my pocket), guilt over the joy itself, what with one of my best friends possibly dying elsewhere in the building -- but the joy was still greater, and I wasn't about to deny myself that small respite from my grief.
Crossing to the window I raised my hand to start waving, hoping to attract his attention... when a second figure emerged from below my field of vision. Tall. Black hair that waved in the wind. Broad shoulders beneath a blue Billabong shirt, muscled forearms, black jeans that hugged long, firm thighs and the perfect ass.
Leaving my hand hanging in mid air, I watched as a smile spread over Grant's face, watched his step speed up to match the newcomer's. I felt my own smile falter and die as his arms reached up and forward in the gesture which anyone in the world would have recognized, his lips forming words which my ears couldn't hear but which my eyes had no trouble reading. Hey, baby.
I felt the grief starting to balloon again, twice as powerful it seemed with my congealing joy to fuel it. I was going to start crying again. I hated crying. I hated the weakness, the childishness of it. I'd always been contemptuous of people who cried at the drop of a hat. Yet there I was, getting ready to break down for the second time that day. Stupid. So stupid!
It was Jason's voice that drew me away from that window and its painful little scene. Jason's voice, bawling. Bawling loud enough for me to hear it all the way at the end of the ICU hallway.
I ran, already knowing what had happened. My head was spinning. A nurse who hadn't seen us come in earlier tried to stop me. I nearly bowled her over. Truth be told, she hardly registered in my mind. All I could hear was Jase. My chest seemed to full suddenly, weighing on my lungs. The hallway seemed blurry, surreal, unimportant.
Mr Cohen and Janice sat on one couch, hugging each other, each of their faces buried in the others shoulder. Jason sat in the couch opposite, hunched forward, his great shoulders shaking as he cried loudly into his hands. A doctor dressed in surgical scrubs stood beside him with one hand on his shoulder, looking on helplessly as my big friend wept loudly.
Crossing the room, I collapsed beside him on the couch, wrapping my arms around him and drawing him into a hug. He came willingly, fumbling at the front of my shirt for a moment before sliding has big arms around me and squeezing me to him with a savageness that made it hard to breathe. I felt the grief that had been building up inside me tremble for a second like an overinflated balloon, straining at the borders of my control. Then it took me, and for the next fifteen minutes or so there was only the sound of Jason's hurt and my own.
Although I didn't know it at the time, Carrie's death marked the beginning of one of the lowest chapters in my life. In the tale ahead, you will encounter things you might not want to read. Things that you'd rather not imagine anyone going through. All I can do is promise you that there is a happy ending waiting at the end of it all. They say that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I guess the fact that I'm still here proves that there must be something to it. This is a story of pain and happiness, of highs and lows, kindness and unthinkable savagery. But most importantly, it's a story about love. About how I found my way to it, anyway.
(To be continued...)
If you have any comments or constructive criticism you'd like to share, feel free to email me at boyreece@gmail.com.