TO THE READER:
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT SEX BETWEEN MALES. IF YOU ARE TOO YOUNG OR PROHIBITED FROM READING IT BECAUSE OF THE LAWS WHERE YOU LIVE, PLEASE LEAVE NOW.
BECAUSE THIS IS FICTION, NO MENTION OF CONDOMS IS MADE. IN THE REAL WORLD, CONDOMS ARE THE BEST PROTECTION FROM TRANSMITTED SOCIAL DISEASES. PLEASE ACT RESPONSIBLY.
"Strangers on a Train"
Chapter Two
Rodger returned to George's compartment looking fresh and immediately declared he was hungry. George agreed it was definitely time for dinner.
In the dining car they were led to a table for two on the left side. There were occasional sights of cars passing with their headlights lit on the nearby freeway. They had played or slept during the trek through the horseshoe turn just north of San Luis Obispo, the place where the engine and the rear of the train almost meet, necessitated by the quick climb up to much higher elevations.
The waiter asked the gentlemen what they would like to drink. George chose iced tea, Rodger another cola. They scanned their menus and each chose a salad, steak, a baked potato, and vegetables. George justified his choice by saying to Rodger, "I feel starved. We used up the calories this afternoon. You look in pretty good shape. Do you work out regularly?"
"No. I'm just a bike rider, and I walk to work. Usually, I count the calories and skip desserts. On this trip I may indulge here at the table. I figure I'll walk a lot in Seattle. I want to get to know a few of the usual tourist spots, like the Space Needle and the Pike Street fish market. Mostly, I need to look at what's available in the way of housing. I don't want to be too far from downtown, but I'd like to have some outdoor living space. Maybe that's too much to hope for on a limited budget." Rodger replied.
"You may be surprised, Rodger, at the different life style in Seattle from what you've known before. Where do you live now?"
"I live in the valley, the San Fernando Valley in Woodland Hills. I have a condo I hope to sell."
"You will definitely be surprised by the difference in climate between Southern California and the Pacific Northwest. The rainy season is quite long in Seattle, some friends described it as "The Gray City." The Summer is often quite short, though they have experienced drought lately. Last year, I'm told, the temperature stayed down so long that the bees were long gone when the cherry trees were ready for pollination. That was why there was no cherry crop in the Pacific Northwest. I mean Washington and Oregon.
"I wonder if you had thought about Portland, Oregon. It's a beautiful city, compact enough downtown that you can easily walk around on the streets barred to cars. Again, there's a problem of weather. Portland, according to some other friends, has nine months of Winter. The rainy season usually starts in September, and goes on for nine months. It can rain for 30 days, then stop for several hours. The sun doesn't come out before it starts to rain again. It's not a heavy rain, but just a light mist, still I I couldn't take it."
"I sure couldn't take that either. I was born and raised in "The Valley," and expect to see some sun at least 300 days a year. A friend moved to San Diego and told me he looked daily at the weather page in the newspaper during the Winter. Almost every day, San Francisco had been warmer than San Diego. He learned that San Francisco's temperature reading is taken inside the Golden Gate, protected from the storms coming down from Alaska. San Diego has no such protection.
"Every storm sweeps down from the north and hits downtown and the Hillcrest section, the gay section. That's where he lived, across from Balboa Park. The locals talk about something called "June Gloom." He said for him it was preceded by "Nasty May." In April they had two weeks where the fog never lifted. The better weather is east, going into the mountains, but that's not a convenient place to live."
"Rodger, let me tell you about Santa Barbara. The city is 30 miles east of the storm track. When you drive north from the city, you drive north and west. That explains the difference in weather. You're only 90 miles from Los Angeles, if you need to go into the city, but it's much more like a small town. I like it."
"George, that's fine if you have the budget for Santa Barbara. I don't. I've been there, and it's quaint, the weather is great, and it could be great to live there, but I've had to take it off my list of places to retire to."
"Well, maybe you'll find what you really like in Seattle. It is a pretty city, and it has a different feeling from Southern California, not just the weather, but in many ways both Oregon and Washington seem different. The people are more friendly, there isn't the desperation to make it quick like you find in LA. There's more of a sense of civic responsibility. People really seem to care about their neighbors, the elderly, the ailing, and those who are poor. There isn't all the crime that you read about all the time in LA and Orange counties. As you can tell, if the weather weren't so difficult, I'd retire in either Portland or Seattle."
The host indicated that their table was needed for other diners, and they had finished their meal quite some time ago, so they left the dining car. George asked Rodger if he wanted to go to the bar car, but Rodger answered that he didn't drink. That was fine with George, because he explained he didn't want alcohol to dull his senses as he prepared for an important meeting that was taking him to Seattle.
George invited Rodger to return to George's compartment. "While you're at it, bring your toothbrush and whatever you sleep in. I don't promise a lot of sleep, but it could be pleasant again." Rodger laughed and agreed he would return to George's compartment after he had brushed his teeth. He didn't wear pajamas. He hoped George wouldn't mind if he slept nude. After all, they had napped in the same bed without the benefit of nightwear.
When Rodger returned to George's compartment, he found George in bed, saving a space by the door for Rodger. Rodger quickly disrobed, climbed into bed with George, kissed him and said, "How about some cuddle time?"
George's answer was to turn away from Rodger, to lay on his side and move back a bit until he felt Rodger's furry chest against his back and Rodger's arms around his body. "Oh, that feels good. There's something about cuddling up together, "spoons," if you will, that is relaxing and satisfying. Say, Rodger, how tall are you? I'm almost six feet, and you're much taller."
"I'm six feet four inches of contented man. George, you have made this trip into an adventure. First we had a pleasant lunch and ogled the almost nude sun bathers on the beaches. Then we made love, and it was much more than just sex. It was love. Now, delightfully sated with a fine dinner, here we are in bed again, just relaxing. This is what traveling ought to be like."
"Rodger, it used to be this nice. In the early days of jet flying, the passenger was treated like a guest. There was plenty of space, lots of leg room, and good meals even in coach. Of course, you didn't have to go through all that screening, limiting your carry-on to tiny bottles, or worry that someone would go through your checked baggage and steal your valuables.
"I can remember taking the Shasta Daylight passenger train from Oakland to Portland with my mother. It used to make the trip in one day, something like 16 hours. It now is an overnight trip if you don't get caught up waiting on a siding for a freight train. I can remember waiting a couple of hours on a siding north of San Luis Obispo, waiting for a slow freight to pass on the single track of right-of-way. Without governmental supervision, Southern Pacific had taken away the parallel second tracks.
"When the Congress removed the requirement that railroads provide passenger service, and AmTrak came into existence, passenger service on railroads disappeared. The railroads got free land when they were built, now the obligation to provide decent service was removed.
"Of course, taking away fast rail passenger service was a gift to the airlines. They lost their biggest competitors, and soon lost the regulation that kept them making a decent profit while limiting competition. Oh, man. I've probably gone on too long, but the traveler is now the last one to please. The airlines run up and down fares, and extra fees for baggage. The Congress finally caved in this year to require airlines to reveal the total cost of a ticket, no more secret fees that suddenly appear on your ticket when you purchase."
"Sorry, George. I haven't traveled all that much in the past ten years. I just hear people complaining how they are treated like cattle on airplanes. I'm glad we're on AmTrak. Now, you're going to have to excuse me. I was up very early this morning, getting things prepared for my absence, and I'm going to fall asleep with a wonderful man in my arms."
"No problem," George said, twisting around to kiss Rodger goodnight. The two were soon asleep."
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
The next morning George returned from the toilet to find Rodger still comfortably sleeping. George carefully backed up against Rodger, squeezing between his arms to resume the comfortable "spoons" they had maintained the previous night. Feeling Rodger's arms around his body reminded George of what it had been like when his arms were around his wife in the early years of their marriage.
George didn't grow up knowing he was gay. He thought he was straight. he didn't know any gay men or boys. No school chum played sex games with him when he was growing up. Like so many men, he met a young woman in college who was fun to be with, quite intelligent, and who had plans for the things she wanted to do with her college degree. A week after they graduated they married. It was what all their friends did.
The Vietnamese war was going on when George graduated with an engineering degree. He was drafted, taught to scrub grease traps in basic training,and to dig an incredible number of trenches. No, it wasn't during World War II and the famed trench lines, like the Maginot Line. Once out of basic training he was assigned to a supply depot. At least he could identify some of the equipment they handled. Otherwise, it was just two years of deadly dull duty.
Some of the guys in his outfit would hit the whore houses on the weekend. George didn't. He was faithful to his wife. If Peggy could handle being a soldier's wife, working in a drug store during his time in the service, and he was lucky to be able to see her most nights and weekends, then he could keep his pecker in his pants when away from home.
They decided they wanted to live on the West Coast after George's discharge. His first job offer took them to the San Francisco Bay Area. They found a house they could afford to rent in Oakland, and he had an easy commute to the office in San Francisco. When children came along, there were still good schools in Berkeley, so they moved there. George did all of the things a good father does: he went to little league games where his son played; he attended music recitals where his daughter played the piano. He spent time with his kids at home and with their activities. They were friends, though he was still the responsible parent every child needs.
One Sunday he read a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, a bit of fiction about a gay man getting ready to go to a bath house where somebody beat him off. George had some vague recollection of hearing there were bath houses in the city. As he finished the story, there was a comment that the San Francisco bath houses had all been closed by the Mayor because of the Aids scare. There remained a bath house in Berkeley and one in Santa Clara.
One Friday afternoon he was finished with work after a short business lunch. He took the BART train home towards Berkeley, then remembered the Berkeley bath house would be near his route home. He got off the BART near the bath house, walked over and paid his entry fee.
They gave him a towel and the key to a room, for he had paid a bit extra for the privacy it would provide. He stripped, locked his clothes in his room, took a shower in a big open room in front of several men. Then he began to explore the bath house. Some of the men walked around the bath house nude with a towel over their shoulder. Some wore their towels wrapped around their waists, but if they had an erection, the size was revealed by the big bulge.
At first, George kept the towel around his waist, but as he walked he found it kept slipping down, so he, too, laid it over his shoulder. In the bath house were several rooms. A large room with a giant TV screen had comfortable sofas. Several men were watching a porno film with two men sucking cocks of two other men. George soon tired of that. He wanted to see the live action he had read about in the Chronicle.
Walking down the halls, looking into some rooms with open doors he saw several men sucking cock. He had never done that, and he wondered what it would be like to have a blow job. In a couple of rooms he saw men fucking other men. He couldn't imagine doing that, so he passed by.
A fairly long room had holes cut in the wall at various heights. He saw a finger stick out from behind the wall. A man walked up to that hole and stuck his cock through. Somebody behind the wall must have sucked on that entering cock, for the man who was sticking his cock through had to hold on to some of the holes while he thrust his cock through the hole. He moaned and groaned. George heard him tell the sucker how good it felt. It wasn't long before the presenter must have cum because George could hear him first say, "I'm cumming," then "Take it all, drain that cock." A short time later the presenter pulled his now-soft cock back through the hole and walked slowly out of the room.
A blow job seemed an interesting way to experience anonymous sex to George. He looked at the holes, saw a finger pointing through a hole, and he pushed his cock through the hole. First he felt someone lick the end of his cock, where the piss slit was leaking precum. Then the mouth took his whole cock, lips sliding down his shaft till George could feel the lips at the base of his cock. He, too, held on to nearby holes to keep his balance as he thrust his cock as far into the hole as possible. He was ripe. It wasn't long before he shot a big load into the waiting mouth. The sucker kept sucking till George had to plead to be released. His cock was too tender. He thanked the sucker and moved back. His cock was clean.
George returned to the shower room to wash away whatever residue of saliva the cock sucker might have left on his cock. He felt somewhat dirty. After a quick shower, he saw a clock and decided he had better head home. Peggy might have come home early from the class she was taking in Japanese.
George was the first one home. His son had a game away from home, and his daughter was probably off with some of her friends. He changed to his comfortable, at-home clothes, a t-shirt and gym shorts, no underwear, then began to look at Peggy's menu for tonight's dinner posted on the refrigerator. He took the chops out of the freezer and took the salad materials out of the refrigerator. While he was looking at the salad greens he decided he might as well make a salad. That way Peggy could concentrate on the rest of the dinner. He was just finishing the salad when Peggy came into the kitchen, caught him making the salad, kissed him and thanked him for his contribution to tonight's dinner.
Peggy didn't ask the usual question about how his day went, so he was happy just to listen while she told of the study of Japan's national parks which was the subject of today's lesson in Japanese. The evening passed pleasantly. His son's team won, and his daughter's friends took her to the nearby campus of the University of California. She hoped to be admitted if she had the grades.
George never told Peggy or any of the guys at work about his trip to the bath house. He didn't have any other close male friends to tell about his adventure. He did manage to find an available afternoon to attend the bath house about once a month until is life changed.
At this point Rodger awoke, dashed to empty his bladder, and while he was still out of bed, the chimes rang announcing breakfast. Both men rapidly dressed in last night's clothing and walked to the dining car.
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