Tripod Chapter 1
The following story is a work of erotic fiction. If you are under the age of 18 or if this type of fiction is prohibited in the location where you are reading this, do not read any further.
All characters and names are creations of the author. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
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The author retains all rights to this work. ©2022 Jay Gilbert
"Tripod" Chapter-1:
My name is Jaime. It's pronounced "Hi-may" and not "Jay-me." I used to hate my name. I used to hate a lot about myself. It's kind of complicated, but to understand why, you need to go back a few generations in my family tree.
Even though my dad's not Hispanic, my mom Anayali insisted on a Spanish name to honor her Mexican-Spanish heritage. Her mom, my abuela Nyanya López, used to be an advocate for indigenous rights in her native Mexico in the early 1970's. She's of Zapotec descent. Zapotecas are one of the native tribes of Mexico and still fiercely preserve their language and culture. She's the toughest person I know, all 4' 11" of her. Don't mess with abuela!
Abuela Nyanya met my abuelo José Cruz in Oaxaca when she was twenty. Abuela says that José was the first and only man who ever left her speechless. Abuelo was a young Gallego anthropologist from northwestern Spain who was studying native Mexican cultures. Many Gallegos look more like stereotypical Irishmen than what you usually think of as a typical Spaniard. They met at a protest rally. She said it was his flaming red hair, blue eyes and keen interest in her culture that caught her attention, but when you look at the old photos, it's clear that grandpa was also hiding something in his trousers that caught grandma's eye. They still take a "siesta" every afternoon, but we've known for years that not much sleeping happens.
They married in 1974, right after my grandad got a job offer to teach anthropology at a prestigious university in Chicago. Getting married was the only quick, legal way they could both come to the US, although they would have gotten married anyway.
They settled in Pilsen, a largely Mexican neighborhood of the city. Abuela learned English, got her bachelor's degree, then her master's degree in social work, all while she raised my mom Nayali and my uncle Julio. She's still a social worker in the Department of Children and Family Services. I've heard stories about her having it out with unfit parents. She always wins; no one ever gets the best of Abuela Nyanya.
On my father's side of the family, my great grandma Esther Katz met my great grandfather Mordechai "Morty" Fein in a camp for displaced persons in western Germany after World War II. They had both miraculously survived the Holocaust in different concentration camps. Both of their families had been murdered by the Nazis and they were completely alone. In 1946, they married in the camp and emigrated to the US. When they were being processed as immigrants at Ellis Island, "Fein" became "Fine," because that's how it sounded to the immigration official.
They wound up in Chicago, too, settling in West Rogers Park, a largely Jewish neighborhood. Morty and Esther had two kids, my Grandpa David and his sister Betsy.
Great Grandma Esther, who's now 93, says that her experience of being so close to death made her want to live even more, "To live life to its fullest, to travel, to dream, to love, to fuck, that was the best revenge." Then she added, "Luckily, your great grandpa Morty knew how to fuck. When we met, he weighed about 110 lbs., 10lbs. of that was dick." She's the funniest person I've ever met.
Morty and Esther's son, my grandpa David, grew up to become a pharmaceutical rep for a major drug company. As great grandma Esther says, "Well, David isn't a doctor, but...close enough, he married one." Which brings me to my Grandma Bernice Johnson. Her maternal and paternal grandparents had moved to Chicago from Mississippi and Virginia respectively in the 1920's looking for work in the factories. When Grandma Bernice was growing up in the 50's and 60's people told her, "Colored girls don't become doctors, baby. Be a nurse." Her response was to graduate first in her class in medical school, then to open one of the first black and woman-owned health clinics on Chicago's south side.
Grandpa David met Grandma Bernice in the early 1970's. He called on her at her medical office to introduce her to some new drugs that his company was producing. Grandma said that Grandpa was such a smooth talker that he could sell "jock straps to eunuchs." Apparently, his persuasive ways won her over and they started dating. Back then, in Chicago, a black woman dating a white guy raised more than a few eyebrows. Luckily, they each had at least the support of their immediate families, but no one else. They got married a year after they met in a civil ceremony. They settled in Hyde Park, not far from Grandma's practice, in one of the few integrated neighborhoods in the city at that time.
Two years after they married, my dad Barry was born and two years after that, my uncle Noah. As the 70's really marked the beginning of the women's movement, Grandma Bernice was pushing for her kids to have a hyphenated last name, an idea that Grandpa David wholeheartedly supported, until he realized that Barry Fine-Johnson and Noah Fine-Johnson, who were each quite well endowed, probably didn't need to advertise the fact. Word has it that Bernice and David shared more than a few good laughs over that one.
My dad Barry was always interested in writing and, because he was an excellent student, passed the entrance exam to get into Whitney Young High School, one of Chicago's magnet schools for the city's elite students. Dad was way too short at 5' 7" to make the basketball team, which was his first love, but excelled in track and field. After seeing dad in the showers after one of their track meets, one of his buddies joked that dad was the only pole vaulter he'd ever met with his own built-in pole.
High school is where my dad met my mom Nayali. She had also gotten into Whitney Young due to her excellent academics. As a little girl, she'd developed a love for filmmaking and would run around with a video camera trying to capture the stories of her friends. Grandpa José her anthropologist dad inspired her to record the real lives of people she met. He told her that by letting people tell their stories, you were honoring them and their traditions and that their lives would live on forever in her films.
So, my dad Barry and my mom Nayali, two creative types, were bound to hit it off. They dated through high school and both attended college at Northwestern. Mom majored in video production with a minor in anthropology. Dad was an English major. They married right out of school. Dad finally found a practical use for his English major. He got a job as a copywriter at one of the large ad agencies in town. He's now worked his way up to creative director. Mom started as a production assistant on film and TV shoots in town. She eventually got tired of it and realized that her true calling was as a documentary filmmaker, telling the kinds of stories that her dad encouraged her to tell. She's traveled around the world and has won awards for her work.
We live in a nice, suburban town north of Chicago. I was born and have grown up here. It's pretty liberal and fairly accepting of different kinds of people, but ever since I was a little kid, I never felt like I belonged. In elementary school, kids used to tease me and call me names because of my very mixed racial makeup and because I was always so short. "What are you anyway?" was the question I was always asked, as if I were some fucking alien. "You look like Chucky" came up a few times, as well, like some mini-assassin. The one that got me most, though, was when they called me a mutt.
By the time I was twelve, I'd also figured out that I was gay. Seeing other boys' reactions to pictures of naked women kind of clued me in that I was different.
Being an only child, I didn't have a brother or sister with the same weird mix of ethnicities for support and I never talked to my parents or to anyone else about the bullying or being gay. I figured I should just toughen up and learn to take it, but young kids don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with that kind of taunting, so I just kept it in and let it affect my self-esteem.
I felt that I wasn't Latin enough or white enough or Jewish enough or black enough or tall enough or straight enough to belong to a group. I'm a human no-man's land, a place in the middle where no one belongs. My body is a mish-mash of generations of ancestors from four continents. I have very curly, dark auburn hair. My skin is a light caramel color, but full of freckles. My eyes are green, but almond-shaped. My lips are full. My nose is flat and wide. I have the high cheekbones of my native Mexican ancestors. Except for a light sprinkling of pubic hair, I'm completely smooth, like a Xolo, one of those Mexican hairless dogs. I've got the bubble butt of a Nigerian sprinter. I was always the shortest kid in class. And I was still a virgin at nearly 17, because I didn't want anyone to see me naked.
From the time I turned twelve, my mom would let me go on some of her productions in the US or Mexico. I'd carry equipment and run errands. When I was sixteen, I picked up the nickname "Tripod." Most people think it's because of the tripods I've carried around on shoots, but that's not quite the case.
Besides filmmaking, my other love is gymnastics. I was on the team in high school. It was one of the few sports where being smaller in stature was an advantage. Anyhow, I'd always been really self-conscious in the locker room, wrapping a towel around my waist before taking off my shorts and underwear. I guess everyone just assumed I was shy.
After practice one day, the guys on the team were goofing around, snapping towels at one another. They grabbed me from behind, held me down and whipped my towel off. Jaws dropped open when hanging from my 5'4" (163cm) body they spotted my 11" (27cm) cock. Hanging soft, it's nearly to my knees. Tyler Jacobs screamed out, "You're a fucking human tripod, dude." The four other guys in the locker room started laughing and shouting, "Tripod! Tripod!"
I felt the blood drain from my face. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to die. With my heart pounding in my chest, I threw on my clothes and ran home. After years of holding in my feelings and hating myself for being different, the incident in the locker room was my breaking point. I ran in the door of my house and up the stairs to my room without saying hello to my mom or Abuela Nyanya, who was paying us a visit. I threw myself on the bed, sobbing. A few minutes later, mom knocked on my bedroom door with abuela in tow and asked me what was wrong. I told her about the incident in the locker room, then added, "I've hated who I am my entire life. I feel like Frankenstein's monster, made up of bits and pieces that don't go together. And on top of that, I have to be gay and some freak, too."
I had never come out as gay to my parents, but it was kind of unspoken that they knew. I never had had a girlfriend or a boyfriend for that matter, so the topic of my sexuality never came up. My parents had lots of friends in the LGBTQ+ community and my dad's brother Noah is gay. I never really feared their reaction and, as parents go, they're pretty awesome people.
Abuela hugged me and started to cry. Mom reached out, wrapped me in her arms and smiled. She then told me a story I'd never heard before. Apparently, Abuelo José, Abuela Nyanya's husband, came from a wealthy family in Spain. When he told his family that he was going to marry my abuela, they disowned him. "How can you marry a `chola mexicana' and not a respectable Spanish girl?" they asked. After returning to Mexico, he never heard from his family again.
She continued that on my dad's side of the family Grandpa David and Grandma Bernice faced outright hostility and death threats. They were spit on by passers-by because he was white and she was black.
"Jaime," my mother added, "You are the product of generations who defied hatred, prejudice and even physical danger to be together. Their love has endured and even grown stronger over time, when other couples have gone their separate ways. You are the physical manifestation of bonds that are so strong, nothing could break them. You should be so proud of who you are and where you come from because you are made of pure love.
"Our ancestors the Zapoteca believe in the "Muxe," the "two-spirit"person. These are individuals who are neither all man, nor all woman, but who manifest aspects of both. Before the conquistadors brought the idea that sodomy and homosexuality was a vile sin, two-spirit people were revered in our society. Being gay is nothing to be ashamed of, it is a gift because you see the world as a continuum and not as black or white, not just masculine or feminine. Because of your ethnic background and because you are gay, yes, you are an outsider, but this lets you see people and situations in ways that others don't. That is a unique gift."
Mom paused for a second to think, clearly weighing what she was going to say next, then continued, "Men on both sides of our family, going back generations, have been extremely well-endowed. You have the ability to excite and give your partners unimaginable pleasures in ways other men can't, but you must realize that you also have the ability to inflict pain. You must be gentle and considerate in your love-making. Now that your secret is out, I wouldn't be surprised if potential partners start throwing themselves at you. Please be careful and protect yourself."
Then abuela wiped away a tear and chimed in, "Mi hijo, you are like a wonderful mole," speaking of the sauces that are a specialty of her home state of Oaxaca, "Some have up to forty different ingredients. Some of those ingredients you'd think would never go together. But after a couple of days of grinding, mixing, blending and cooking, you're left with an ethereal mixture, something that is so delicious that it's transformative. You are that mole. You are kind, brave, creative, intelligent and uniquely handsome. And you pack all those qualities into a hot, little bite-sized body." She let out an infectious laugh that lifted me out of my tears. "Maybe your variety of mole contains quite a bit more plátano than most, but that makes you supremely delicious. Don't ever forget that and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
After our conversation, Mom and abuela Ayanya headed back down to the kitchen to continue cooking dinner. To say that our family was food-obsessed was to put it mildly. Each woman, going back generations, even though she might have worked outside the home, taught both her daughters and her sons to cook. It's odd, but on both my mom's side and my dad's, there was the feeling that cooking was a life skill that everyone should master and that sitting down to a meal together as a family bordered on sacred. While each member of the extended family specialized in the cuisine of their ancestors, each also appreciated and was eager to learn the way food from other ethnicities was made.
A big family gathering at our house might feature Grandma Bernice's greens and mac & cheese, Great Grandma Esther's brisket and tzimmes and Abuela Ayanya's Tlayudas. It wouldn't be a surprise to hear all three of the women get into a discussion over whether Esther's Challah was better than Ayanya's Pan de Yema or Bernice's cornbread. The odd thing is that each woman defended a different woman's bread as being better than her own.
As I was letting mom's and abuelas words about me sink in, I headed down to the kitchen to see how I could help out. On tonight's menu were memelas, which are like a thick corn tortilla layered with beans and cheese, and carne asada. I volunteered to man the grill. While getting things ready outside, I could see through the window Dad entering the kitchen. It was clear from the expression on his face that mom was filling him in about what had happened to me at school, as well as her and grandma's conversation with me.
Dinner on that Friday night was interesting, to say the least. Talking about how I felt about myself and my ethnicity was uncomfortable because I needed to open up about thoughts and events that I'd kept to myself my whole life. Talking about my dick in front of my own parents and grandmother was absolutely squirm-worthy, to say the least.
Dad, who'd had a lot more experience being both multi-racial and well-hung, summed it up best, "Jaime, you can let others control your narrative or you can take control of it yourself. Some people will say that you are a shining example of what has made America great--the melting pot, with each group bringing unique strengths and ideas to the table to make the whole better than the sum of the parts, others see multi-racial people as an example of what's wrong with the United States, where each group's unique qualities have been lost.
I spoke up, "I get you, dad. Kind of like, `One man's meat is another man's poison'?"
"That's one way of putting it," Dad said, "But with regard to your, um, manhood, let's just say that what some see as grotesque excess, others will see as a fantasy come true, the entirety of their wet dreams incarnate." Dad smirked and said, "More like, `One man's meat is another man's pleasure.'"
The sip of water I'd just taken shot out my nose as I burst out laughing. Everyone else at the table cracked up as well.
Dad, always the copywriter, the maker of brand images, added, "It's up to you to step up, take hold of the reins and shape your own brand image to others, rather than giving people who don't deserve it power over you. Jaime, you have to ask yourself what is brand Jaime Fine-Cruz going to be?"
What a day. I needed time to process. In the space of a day, the way I had always seen myself was called into question, and I realized that who I was going to be as a man was up to me to decide.
I helped with the cleanup in the kitchen and headed upstairs to my bedroom, a chorus of voices swirling in my brain, each with a different opinion on what to do next.
End Chapter 1