Okay, this is not a story with a whole lot of sex. Some will come in here and there, but it is not the central theme. It's a story about love between men and self-acceptance, kinda like all of my stories are.
If you're under 18 or 21 or whatever, be aware that in some odd corner of the universe, you could possibly be breaking the law.
If you like anything of mine, please e-mail me at virtualinsanity78@yahoo.com and I will be very grateful to you and a lot more likely to write faster updates. If you don't like what I write, keep it to yourself. :-)
IMPORTANT!!! This story includes excerpts of Paul & Morgan's memoir, which I will separate from the rest of the story with asteriks like the one's below. If this is confusing, e-mail me and let me know and I will try to figure something else out!
Join my group! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/storiesvi/ ********************************************************
Part Ten Eric:
I had Skit's phone number pinned up on the corkboard in my bedroom. I put it there yesterday after he scribbled it down and handed it to me when we left Bombay Cuisine. Mike called me last night and asked me what I thought of the place and I had to lie and say that I thought that it was good, not that I thought it was bad or anything...it's just that I don't remember what the hell anything I ate tasted like because Skit was sitting across from me.
He has the perfect face, I mean, his skin is so soft and he blushes every time I look at him. I lay in the bed last night and had a fight with myself in my brain about whether his eyes are his most attractive feature...or his lips. His mouth is a perfect bow...and he's got this habit of biting his lip. I get a boner just thinking about it...but his eyes, everytime I close my eyes just for a second, I can see them flashing up at me. His eyes say everything before he even opens his mouth, they are so expressive and he gets this look in them when he looks at me. I can't believe he actually feels so much for somebody like me.
I got up from my desk and walked over to the corkboard and took his number down. I traced the numbers with my fingers. Seven little numbers were the only thing separating me from hearing his voice and I was almost too scared to call him. He'd told me that he would be out late the night before for some kind of art show. So, I had not even bothered to try to call him. I had been waiting around since I woke up for a decent hour to call him.
Now that it was past eleven, I felt that I could safely call him, without sounding like I had been waiting to call him or anything.
I sat down on the edge of my bed and picked up the phone. My hands were kind of shaking, so I took a deep breath and then just dialed.
"Hello," the voice of a man came through the line and I figured that it was most likely his dad, so I did my best to sound completely polite and son-worthy.
"Hi, I'm calling for Skit," I said in as steady a voice as I could manage.
"Just a second," he said and I heard him put the phone down to go out in search of Skit. That's when my heart sped up in my chest and I felt a flash of hot and cold.
Skit was gonna be on the other end of the phone at any moment and I had to figure out what to say to him. For a moment, I was completely positive that he was about to realize what a total loser I am when it comes to any kind of meaningful communication and drop me...he's the kind of guy that likes to have someone he can talk to, you know?
"Hello," Skit's voice came through the reciever and everything inside of me just started jumping around like crazy. My breath started coming out uneven.
"Hey, Skit," I said quietly and he was silent for a moment.
"What took you so long to call, I've been waiting since like...forever," Skit told me and I could hear the smile in his voice. I started smiling, too.
"I didn't want to call you too early...cuz, I knew you were out late last night," I told him. "How was that art show, by the way?"
"One, you can wake me up anytime," he said emphatically and my smile widened. "Any time, okay?"
"Okay," I said, grinning.
"And two, I could hardly even think at that art show, everything kept making me think about you," he said and I totally relaxed, loving how expressive my guy was. He could just say exactly what he was feeling without even being awkward about it. I laughed a little.
"I can't stop thinking about you, either, I was up half the night," I told him.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Nothin," I said, leaning back against my pillow and putting an arm behind my head. "I am sitting on my bed talking to you."
"What are you wearing?" Skit asked and his voice lowered a little. The smile I wore was about to split my face in two.
"I'm wearing a pair of shorts," I said. It was so stupid to be blushing in my bedroom where no one could even see or hear me. I had nothing to be embarrassed about.
"Just shorts?" Skit asked, then quickly, "What color?"
"Black gym shorts," I told him quietly.
"Mmmm," he intoned into the phone and I laughed out loud.
"You're crazy," I said. "What are you doing?"
"Dying my hair," he said slowly.
"What color?" I asked, mocking him a little. He laughed.
"Extra white blonde," he said and I sighed.
"That's gotta be one of my favorite colors on you," I told him. "It makes your eyes seem even more blue."
He was silent, so I forged ahead.
"What are you doing today?" I asked him softly.
"Nothing, do you want to come over?" he asked, just as soft.
"Yes, I wanna come over," I said, running my hand across my stomach and smiling. "We could hang today. Go to the movies or something?"
"Yep," he said gently and I listened to him breath for a minute.
"What time do you want to get together?" I asked.
"Come over," he urged and there was this quality to his voice, needy but strong all at the same time. The more I got to know him, I felt less confused about everything. My feelings and being gay seemed natural when I talked to Skit. I didn't even care about the crazy thoughts that went through my head when I was by myself.
"Give me your address," I told him and then leaned over and grabbed a pen and a notepad from my nightstand. I scribbled down his address quickly, my heart thumping in my chest.
*** It only took me twenty minutes to get to Skit's place, but I sat in my truck for another five trying to talk myself out of the nervous, quivery feeling that was taking over all of my insides. I figured out that there pretty much wasn't any hope of me not being nervous and got out of the vehicle.
I walked to his front door and when I reached up to knock, the door was flung open and Skit stood on the other side. His eyes devoured me like I might not be real or something. This extra warm feeling came over me, I loved the way I felt when he looked at me, just standing in front of him.
"Hey," I said quietly and his face flushed red as he watched me. I started grinning. His hair was still wet and just a bit darker than it would be when it dried.
"Hi," he said with a wide smile. Then, he stood there and continued to watch me. My smile got bigger.
"You letting me come in or what?" I asked.
He stepped aside and gave me some room to come inside. I immediately liked the way he had decorated the house...and it was obvious to me that he had been the one to do the decorating from the brightly painted walls to the Andy Warhol paintings that lined them.
"Nice place," I told him quietly and a small smile crossed his face.
"My dad kind of let me have my way with it," he said, turning in a small circle as he led me into the living room. "When my mom died, he wasn't all that interested in things like decorating...or cooking."
"Mike told me about your mom," I told him. "I'm sorry that you lost her."
He looked me right in the eye and I could see that the fact that his mom had died still hurt him, even though years had passed.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I really loved my mom."
"I know," I agreed. "I couldn't imagine losing my mother."
"It's not fun," Skit admitted. "And it was like my dad practically flipped out because he didn't want her to go. So, I had to deal with that and figure out the fact that my mom wouldn't be around anymore. Plus, I'd just kinda figured out that I was gay when I was eleven. So, they had started dealing with that together when she got diagnosed."
"It sounds awful," I told him.
"Yeah, I don't like to admit it, but her disease kinda made the fact that I'm gay not seem like such a big deal," he went on. "It went from being all about how to deal with me liking other boys to just getting through the chemo and then dealing with the fact that she wasn't going to make it."
"It looks like you guys are doing alright," I said. He smiled and nodded.
"Yeah, we are," he said, kind of turning to face me. "Finally."
We were silent for a moment, getting used to the fact that we were together.
"Hey, you're a really good listener, Eric, d'you know that?" Skit asked.
"You think so?" I asked. "I guess so. I'm better at listening than talking most of the time."
"Except when you have something to say, you get your point across," he defended me. I nodded, smiling.
"So, what do you want to do?" I asked him and his smile turned a little shy around the edges, those blue eyes flashing at me. He was adorable.
"I dunno," he said, moving his hands around awkwardly. "I could paint you."
"Nah," I said slowly, a little bit nervous about just sitting there with him watching me. Erections and such. "Let's go on a date."
He smiled from ear to ear.
"A real date?" he asked, looking a little bit doubtful.
"Mmm hmm," I said, nodding. "Just like a movie and maybe grab something to eat. Or we could play mini-golf or go-carts?"
"Are you sure you're ready to do that?" he asked and I just looked at him.
"I want to be ready," I told him.
"But you might not really be ready?" Skit asked and I shrugged.
"I dunno," I kind of mumbled. He smiled at me, this gentle kind of smile, full of some kind of knowledge that I just didn't have yet.
"You're taking big steps," Skit informed me, "And I think you should go slowly. What if someone from school sees us?"
"I dunno," I said, the thought didn't exactly thrill me but it didn't scare me, either. Yeah, it was hard admitting to myself that I had feelings for Skit, that I might be gay, but it was even harder to sit back and realize that I wasn't attracted to anyone, that I couldn't make a solid connection with a person.
"Well, until you're like a hundred and fifty percent sure, we should just kinda not rock the boat or anything," he told me quietly and I felt like complete and total shit.
"So, you don't wanna do anything?" I asked him, staring hard at him. He shook his head.
"No, not like I don't want to do anything at all, just...we should lay low until you're sure," he said...and his face softened, just a little bit. "I don't want to get hurt."
It was like he was tugging at my heart strings or something, my chest got sort of tight and I just looked at him.
"I'm not trying to hurt you," I told him. "I don't want to do that."
"I know that," he said, relaxing a little. "You wouldn't be here if I didn't know that." He bumped me with his arm and I bumped him back.
"So, what are we gonna do today?" I asked.
"Come upstairs and let me show you some of my etchings," he said in a seductive tone and wiggled his eyebrows at me. I smiled, immediately boning up at the joke.
I followed him upstairs, watching the way the too-big jeans he had on sort of hung on his hips. By the time we got to the top, my breathing was a little off and I forced myself to take slow, even breaths...to tamp down the excited feeling coursing through my veins.
He led me into a room that was a little bit smaller than my own. There was a bed jutting out from the corner of the room, making it the center piece. It was covered by a red down blanket and there were a ton of pillows in just about every color of the rainbow. The walls were painted a honeyed, muted kind of yellow and there was a TV suspended from the wall on the left side of the bed.
A simple black table off in the corner served as computer desk and on the other side of the room, there was an easle with a half-finished painting and a small table nearby with brushes and tiny tins and tubes neatly lined up.
On the wall near the easel was a charcoal drawing of me. I walked over to it and stared at my own image, seeing the vulnerability in my eyes, the fear and the anger...all of those things he had seen in me before I ever saw them myself. I touched the drawing with my fingertips, then turned back to face him.
He was watching me silently, his face flushed red.
"I really...really like you," he said firmly, almost defensively. I smiled.
"I'm glad," I told him. "I don't know why you do, but I'm glad that you do."
"I know why I do," he said, coming to stand closer to me. "It's cuz of the dimples here when you smile." He touched my face near the corners of my mouth and I started shaking.
"You like me because of my dimples?" I asked, teasing. He nodded.
"Yep, my favorite part of you," he confirmed.
"I'll have to remember to thank God for them when I say my prayers tonight," I said and he leaned up and kissed me.
It's kind of hard to realize what you're missing in life until somebody like Skit Tyler kisses you. I placed my hands carefully on each of his slim hips and kind of squeezed him closer to me, opening my mouth for the kiss. The only sound in the place was our lips and the tiny little noises that Skit made deep in his throat. He pulled back a little.
"You taste like peppermint," he said.
"Toothpaste," I told him and kissed him again.
"So, you thought you were gonna get some action, huh?" he teased when we came up for air a few seconds later.
"I hoped," I told him and he pecked me soundly.
"So, I guess you like me?" he murmured, kind of against my lips. I squeezed him and pressed him closer so that he could feel how hard I was against his navel.
"You think?" I asked. He laughed deep, down in his throat and I got even harder.
"I like the sounds you make," I told him and proceeded to try to reach his vocal chords with my tongue. He immediately started making the noises again and I was groaning when I heard the sound of someone clearing his voice loudly. I broke away from Skit and looked over to see a taller man standing in the doorway. Skit turned and looked, too.
"Hi, dad," he said brightly, his face a mask of perfect innocence.
"Hi, Skit," his dad said, mocking the innocence exactly as he stepped into the room. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest.
"This is my dad," Skit said to me and I held out my hand as the older man approached.
"I'm Eric," I said as he shook my hand.
"I know who you are," he said, glancing pointedly at the drawing on the wall behind me. I was a little relieved when I saw the joking glint in his eyes. I know my face was blood red.
We all stood there in silence for a moment and I watched as Skit bounced on his heels, his eyes beaming happiness at his dad, who grinned back at him shortly. His dad put a hand on both of our backs.
"So, why don't you boys join me for lunch," he said, pushing us toward the door. "Downstairs." ********************************************************** More to come!
You could have read this days ago, if you would join the group! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/storiesvi/