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TRAGEDY IN THE BLOOD by Steven H. Davis
Chapter 14
I had gone to bed early on Saturday night, the events of the day -- and, indeed, the past week -- having overwhelmed me enough that I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. That being the case, I was unfortunately awake at the crack of dawn on Sunday, even though it wasn't a school day.
It was, of course, never too early for Rex, and as I padded groggily into the kitchen, Foxy scampering alongside, I saw that he had already finished the Sunday paper and was busily at work on the biggest crossword puzzle of the week.
"Morning, Rex," I muttered as I went to pour my morning coffee.
"Morning, Whod," he replied, casually enough.
As I turned away from the coffeepot to face him, however, I saw that he had removed his glasses, set down his crossword puzzle, and was looking at me intently. I came over to the table, sat down my cup, and took my chair opposite his, knowing something was up.
"So," he said at last, "when did you start smoking cigarettes?"
Oh, God, I thought, shit is gonna hit the fan now.
I studied his azure-colored eyes, which peered from beneath a shiny bald head over a prominent, hawk-like nose, past battle-scarred cheeks, and directly into my soul. I knew there was no way of lying to him that wouldn't get me in deeper trouble than I already was, so I just looked at him and asked, "How did you know?"
Rex ran a large hand over his shiny pate, shaking his head and smirking as he looked back at me.
"Your mother has a nose, you know," he said. "Also, you left a shirt in the laundry with bits of tobacco in the pocket. It doesn't take a genius."
I shrugged, my eyes downcast to the table. Neither Rex nor Tynah had ever hit me, but I had been conditioned for many years never to make eye contact when I was being scolded for fear of arousing my ex-mother's wrath. Rex got up from the table and went to a cabinet over the coffeepot. I risked a sidelong glance just in time to catch a flying pack of cigarettes.
Surprised, I looked up to see Rex standing by the open cabinet holding his carton of cigarettes in his hand. He replaced the carton in the cabinet and came back over to the table. As he sat, he slid his lighter toward me and centered his ashtray between us.
"Go ahead," he said. "Smoke up. We'll both get cancer together."
I was a little unsure as to what I should do at that moment. Was it really okay to light a cigarette, or was it some kind of trap that would get me grounded for a month?
Rex replaced his glasses on the bridge of his nose and returned to his crossword puzzle, so I lit up, drank my coffee and read the Sports section, feeling like I was sharing a grown-up moment with my new Dad.
That was when Tynah entered the kitchen, dressed in her usual sleepwear of a flowing flower-print caftan. As she entered the room, she stopped for a moment, looked at Rex and me smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, then continued to pour her own cup. She glanced over her shoulder at us, took her coffee, and went back down the hall toward the bedroom to perform her morning routine.
I wrinkled my brow, looking at Rex, who was peering back at me over his glasses with an amused glint in his eyes.
"Am I in trouble?" I asked.
"Beats the shit out of me," he replied. "Wait and see."
I nodded, finished my cigarette, and stubbed it out in the ashtray. Downing the rest of my coffee, I went to go rinse the cup in the sink. When I had dried the cup and replaced it in the cupboard, I started to go back to my room to get dressed. As I left the kitchen, I heard Rex's voice behind me, causing me to turn around.
"I saw your underwear, too," he said. "There's some Preparation H in my medicine cabinet. It's nothing to be ashamed of, happens all the time. Just maybe ease up on the bike riding, huh?"
I felt a hot flush burning my cheeks, but decided it was best to simply nod and leave the room.
Oh... my... God..., I was thinking as I hurried down the hall to my bedroom. Before I managed to get inside and bury my face in the pillow in embarrassment, I felt Tynah's arm grab my elbow from the side hallway. I stopped, expecting my already traumatic morning to get exponentially worse.
"I see you're smoking now," she said, her voice serious and stern. "I don't approve, but I'm not going to stop you. I only have two rules. Rule One is that you never smoke in bed, or when you're lying on the couch. If you have a cigarette lit, you are to be sitting upright and awake. Rule Two is that you never smoke in your room, where I can't keep an eye on you to see if you're breaking Rule One. You're not going to burn the house down because you fall asleep with a cigarette in your hand. Are we clear?"
I answered, "Yes, ma'am!"
"Good." She smiled and patted my arm, then turned in a swirl of caftan and retreated down the hall, calling behind her in a sing-songy voice, "Have a nice dayyyy!"
I chuckled and entered my room. Tynah was weird, but a good kind of weird. For all of her eccentricities, I felt like I had definitely traded up in the Mom department.
After getting dressed and moping about Taine, Kathy, Mark and Jeff for a while, I decided to run through "Titanic" a few times and catch up on my homework from my other classes. I figured if I was up this early, I might as well be productive.
As I struggled through some Algebra problems, still not quite grasping exactly what the point of all those x's and y's were, I half-watched the morning sports preview show on TV, which was discussing that day's game between my favorite team, the Los Angeles Raiders, and Rex's favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Raiders had ended their 20-years in Oakland on a triumphant note the previous January, beating the Eagles 27-10 in Super Bowl XV. This would be the first rematch between the two teams since that game, and Rex and I had a bet on the outcome which involved deciding which one of us would be the lucky guy to mow our expansive front and back yards for the next month. Rex didn't bet on games often, but when he did, he went for the throat.
After I finished my homework, I went out into the living room to join Rex in front of the television. Tynah had already left for church, and I found that the guest ashtray had been placed on an endtable next to the couch. Rex always got the La-Z- Boy for big games. As the pregame show focused on some lame human-interest story about one of the players' kids or dogs or something, Rex and I lit cigarettes and he turned down the volume on the TV.
"So what the fuck is going on, Whod?" Rex asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Taine spends the night over here and leaves early, barricades himself in his house and won't answer the door. Then you spend the night over there and sneak back in here in the middle of the night. Now I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since. Then you go to this party on Friday and all your clothes reek of cigarettes and pot."
He paused to take in my shocked expression, then grinned.
"I commanded troops in Vietnam," he said. "I know what pot smells like. I knew my men were smoking it, so I had them bring me some so I could see what all the hoopla was about."
I looked at him expectantly, but he merely shrugged.
"Didn't do anything for me," he said. "But this one you better not let Mommy find out about. And if I see your grades start to fall, we're going to have a talk."
I nodded with a serious expression.
"I didn't like it much either," I said, truthfully.
"Good," he said, and pointed the remote control back at the TV. Before he turned up the volume, he said, "I'm not going to tell you how to run your life, but Sly Maxwell tells me that Taine has been moping around almost as much as you have. Not that it's really easy to tell with that one."
"You think I should go talk to him," I asked, hoping for an outside reason to do what I had been aching to do since Thursday night.
Rex shrugged and raised the volume on the TV.
"You can't do it today," he said. "Sly took him to the racetrack to watch him do laps. He says it's the only way the kid will do his homework."
"Oh," I said, trying not to let the disappointment show in my voice.
Rex said nothing, only sipped his beer as the game started and we were carried away by our teams.
When the game was over, it had been determined that I would be mowing the lawn for a few weeks, so I went out to get started. I never minded mowing the lawn, although it took forever, because it gave me time to think, the low roar of the motor allowing me to concentrate on my thoughts without distraction.
What I was thinking about, of course, was the past week. I had met a perfect angel, someone I knew deep inside was my one and only soulmate, and he had rejected me twice. I had gone on a real "big kids party," only to do a lot of things I didn't really want to do, and which left me feeling empty inside. I had experienced all kinds of sex with Kathy and Jeff, only to receive two more rejections, more emptiness, and a bloody asshole. It really hadn't been a great week.
Sure, I could have looked on the bright side, but that was against my nature. Instead, I looked at everything in the worst possible light, and it was from these dark tunnels that I found my determination. I had learned some things about myself, even at my young age, and one of them was that when I felt the most boxed in and hopeless, my tears and self-pity dried up and I got in touch with my inner strength.
By the time I had finished mowing the lawn and bagged the grass clippings, I had made some decisions. One was that I was going to stop moping around like a wuss and do my best to enjoy Polk and tournament season on my own. Two was that I didn't need to let people like Mark, Kathy and Jeff pressure me into doing things I didn't want to do. I would make more of an effort to hang around people like Carter, Kirsten and Linda. People who liked me for who I was, and weren't just going to use me and cast me aside.
Three was that I was probably full of shit about the first two, but I would do my best to pretend to myself that I wasn't and would give it the old college try.
I went into the side door of the garage and stripped to my briefs, tossing my clothes in the washer, and then went back outside to rinse the remaining grass dust and clippings from my skin with a garden hose. There was a private area between the side garage door and our tall hedges where I could rinse off without being seen by anyone outside. As I finished rinsing off and went back in the garage to towel myself dry, Rex came outside with two beers and handed me one.
"Here," he said. "Drink this. It'll put hair on your balls."
I figured I needed some of that, and I was pretty thirsty besides, so I eagerly downed the beer as Rex went outside to inspect my mowing handiwork. While he was outside, I dropped my wet briefs and threw them in the washer, finished toweling off, and put on fresh clothes, which I had left folded atop the dryer before starting my chore. I had just gotten dressed when Rex came back in the garage, nodding his head.
"Mighty fine work there, Whod," he said. Then he came over and put a hand on my shoulder. "You know, Rick, if you're waiting for that kid to come over and talk to you, you're going to have a long wait. You're going to have to be a man about this and go talk to him."
With that, Rex went back inside the house. I finished my beer and thought about what he said. Be the man. I wonder if he knew he was suggesting that to someone who was in love with one boy and had just been buttfucked bloody by another. Sure, Rex was cool about smoking, beer, and even pot, but he was a veteran of three wars, tough as nails, and a real he-man. I wondered what he would do if he found out.
Then I started thinking again about the decisions I had made. Not moping around would be easy, because -- at least for the moment -- I was full of newfound determination. I would be ready for school in the morning and the tournament on Friday, and I was pretty sure I would try out for the Fall show, which would be that old school-play standby, Thornton Wilder's "Our Town."
I was going to make it a good year from now on, and I would definitely try to spend more time with Carter and Linda and Kirsten. Well, not Kirsten. I could see where my recent experiences and Kirsten's lipgloss would lead, and I didn't want any part of that. Okay, maybe a little, but what I really wanted for the moment was to make things right with Taine. And Rex was right: he wasn't going to come to me. I was going to have to be a man and go after him.
Come Hell or high water, Rex always said, a man sees what he wants and goes after it. He probably didn't mean for me to go after an angelic, shy straight boy whose hair was like silk, whose eyes were like multicolored diamonds, whose skin was like the finest white satin, and whose smile crossing his perfect cupid's-bow lips melted me into nothing and everything all at once.
But that's exactly what I was planning to do.
Chapter 15
I went to Linda's house after dinner on Sunday night. Sunday was Rex's big cooking night, and he made Tynah and me these amazing stuffed bell peppers, with ground beef, onions, and a tomato sauce delicate enough to get past my dislike of tomatoes in general and gloppy tomato sauce in particular. After helping Tynah clear the table and wash and dry the dishes, I went to take a shower and get ready.
While I was in the shower, I soaped my slim, hairless body slowly and began thinking about what had happened at Jeff's house on Saturday afternoon. Although the circumstances had been less than ideal, and the end of it had been emotionally painful, Jeff had shown me a part of my body which I hadn't known before, and that was the secret, nutlike pleasure spot inside me. The prostate, which had given me heretofore unexperienced pleasure, and the most powerful and explosive orgasm of my young life.
With no hands on my rod, no less.
Because I didn't know any of its other nicknames, I began to think of it as my "panic button." Now that the minor tears and fissures of Jeff's invasive entrance had healed, I felt as if I could finally begin to explore my newfound toy, and I began my exploration in the shower that night.
Heavily soaping both my hands, I let my right hand grasp my smooth, circumcised cock, lubing it thoroughly for action. My left hand, meanwhile, went around my slim hips, over the glistening wet skin of my sleek young buttocks until it found the shallow crease in between.
As I ran my soapy right hand up and down my pulsing young boyhood, my left middle finger found its way down that crease and began teasing and soaping my tight, hairless pink pucker. I was already pretty worked up, so it didn't take much relaxing time until my soapy digit worked its way past both muscled, pulsing rings and into my incredibly warm inner sanctum. There was no pain this time, as it was healed and clean.
I had to feel around a bit -- my memory of the experience having been a bit hazed by the ether and poppers -- before I located the magic spot.
But there it was, a little more than an inch past the second ring on the front side (what the pre-med kids called the "anterior") of my inner space. The skin felt a tiny bit thicker, and the hard lump of my panic button was about the size of half a chestnut. The pace of my right hand's grip on my slender young cock increased as I began to probe and explore the tender spot.
It felt good, but I wasn't getting enough pressure, and I was coming at it from the wrong angle. I withdrew my middle finger and began soaping it as well as my ring finger, then achieving re-entry with both, this time from the front, between my legs, so I could make a beckoning gesture toward the front of my body. My balls bounced on my left arm as I tugged my cock harder with my right hand, my soapy erection sawing back and forth through my clenched fist.
I smiled inwardly as I fleetingly realized that my left hand was now making the famed "Hook 'em Horns" sign which all fans of the University of Texas football team would recognize. But it was happening inside me! I felt gleefully naughty as the shower bathed me with warmth, my right hand busily stroked my throbbing young dick, and the middle and ring fingers of my left hand thrust in and out, stimulating my panic button until all... systems... were... GO!
"AHHHHHHHHHH-AHHHHHHHH-AHHHHHH" I cried, as my body began to convulse in spasmic, ecstatic release. My slick scrotum pulled close to my body, one ball actually popping up into the canal from where it came. My tight rosebud clenched spasmodically against my thrusting fingers. My steely-hard cock began spurting thick, arcing shots of boycream all over the walls of the shower.
My body shook, shivered, and quaked as I felt my knees turn to jelly with the force of my climax, driving me down to kneel on the floor of the tub as I continued to hammer my panic button with my left hand, quivering as I coaxed out the last of my young spunk with my right.
Oh, wow, was all I could think as my slippery, slender young body continued to shake with the enduring paroxysms of my unbelievably intense solo orgasm.
The water beat down upon my hunched back as I leaned forward, my head almost touching my knees as the waves of pleasure continued to course through my long, thin frame. I stayed like that for a while, then shakily got to my feet and washed myself and the shower walls off. There had been no pain this time, no blood, and I knew that I had found something which would become a regular, cherished part of my sexual life.
I was supposed to be at Linda's at 8:00 to run through our Duet Acting scene from "Same Time, Next Year" for the Chamberlain tournament five days hence, so I had a while to craft a letter. Since Taine's house was on the way to Linda's, I decided that I would slip a note under Taine's door on the way.
I knew Sly was going out for the evening with my Biology teacher, as I saw her day planner open on her desk on Friday, so I knew that Taine would be the only person who would read what I wrote.
I also knew that Sly respected Taine's privacy, so I pilfered an envelope from Rex's study, sealed it, and wrote TAINE on the front. This was the letter I wrote:
"Dear Taine,
I am very sorry about your mom, and I am also sorry if anything happened last week that made you feel uncomfortable. I didn't mean to make you think I was taking advantage of your grief, because I wasn't. My heart went out to you, that's all.
Well, that's not all. Ever since I met you, all I do is think about you. You have made my transition to Polk a happier one. I lost my mother too, don't forget, and even though she's still alive, I don't think I'll ever see her again. Like you, I have had to move from place to place to place, losing friends along the way. And, like you, I don't make friends very easily to begin with.
But from the first time I saw you, I knew that you were different. That you were special, because you could really see me and I could really see you. And I don't think either one of us has ever been seen as clearly or as deeply by anyone else.
We've both been through a lot of pain, and I think it's easier if we face it together. I understand if you're uncomfortable with the things that happened between us last week. I was pretty surprised by them too.
Surprised, but not unhappy or scared. I don't know what any of it means, but I'll tell you what I think... I think it means that we're two people who found each other in a lonely and scary world, and it doesn't need any other name than that.
I want us to be friends again. I want us to not be afraid of going deeper with each other because we think someone will call us names or label our friendship.
It doesn't mean we're going to go dancing down the street spitting rainbows. All it means is that one person has found another person who understands.
And that's pretty rare, and I don't think we should throw it away because of other peoples' ignorance or our own fear. Get back to me if you understand, and it can be a letter slipped into the grate of my locker or under my door like this one.
I just need to know you hear me, and understand that all of my intentions and thoughts and feelings about you have always been, and will always remain...
Nothing but the best.
Rick."
I got on my bike and began pedaling down the street to Linda's house, the letter to Taine clutched tightly in my right hand as it gripped the black foam handlebar. I meant to deliver this letter or die trying, and as I saw Taine's house coming up on my left -- the red Lamborghini nowhere to be seen -- I tucked my tall, thin frame over the handlebars and pedaled as fast as I could.
I reached Taine's door in nothing flat, as I had learned to handle the delicate, 20-speed racing bike as roughly and hard as if there were a sticker along its sidepipe reading BMX. Screeching to a stop along Sly's lengthy driveway, I steeled myself, kicked out the kickstand and -- with a few glances over my shoulder to make sure no one else was watching -- marched myself right to Taine's front door.
I stood there for a moment, taking in the large oaken barrier to Taine, and sucked in a long, almost painful deep breath.
I heard Rex's voice in my head: "A man knows what he wants and goes after it."
I also started hearing voices from my past, previous schools, previous altercations: "Faggot! Queer! Cocksucker!"
But then I thought of Taine. That sweet, brittle angel. Lost in his grief, his mourning, his loneliness. The one person I had ever met whom I would allow to do anything to me.
Was he angry? I would let him hit me.
Was he sad? I would let him cry on me.
Was he horny? I would not think twice before sharing every single thing I had learned this week with him, and letting him pour out all his hurt, all his fear, all his sadness inside me.
I was in love with a boy. One boy, I told myself quickly, not all boys. I wasn't a faggot, a queer, a cocksucker, a gaylord. No... I was only gay for one amalgamation of molecules in the entire universe.
Taine.
He was my soulmate. I was sure of it. He was the only person in the world whom I would live or die for. My Taine... how could I win him? Could I ever? And -- if I couldn't -- would life even be worth living?
I took a deep breath, tried to remember my resolve from earlier in the day, and slid the note under the door.
As it disappeared from my grasp, I was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding... What if SLY found it? What if Sly READ it? What if Sly, filled with oil-stained, greasy macho fury, called Rex and Tynah, complaining about their pervert son who dared... DARED... to write this kind of letter?
What then?
I pictured him then -- my Babes. His thin, gaunt, pale face. The sweet, sexy cleft in his perfectly-angled chin. His high, delicate cheekbones, just waiting to be kissed. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes. That beautiful, thin, acquiline nose. Just there for me to run the very tip of my tongue lovingly across.
That slim, slender, pale neck. A vampire's wet dream.
I knelt, one hand slowly working its fingers down the huge, oppressive oaken door. I closed my eyes, imagining my Babes on the other side of that door, dressed in his grey flannel pajamas, his soft, silky, virginally smooth feet sliding across the carpet on the other side of that door, accepting my confession.
Accepting my love, always and forever.
I slipped the note under the door and ran to my bike, as fast as my feet would carry me.
Thank you for reading Chapter 14 & 15. To be continued...
Once again, I'm always happy to hear from readers at DJAkeeba@aol.com
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