UNDER THE CHERRY TREE
By
Rev. Jesse Penfield Gibson, MDiv, DMin
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters and situations are purely imaginary. Any resemblence to any living persion is coincidental. This story is primarily a romance but does contain some scenes of explicit sex, primarily homosexual but not exclusively.
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TWENTY FOUR
I am not sure why we stayed at Xander's like before. We could have gone to his now solo room in the dorm instead. But we didn't. We made love and then he went downstairs. I would study there. We made meals and ate together. Like a married couple really. We partied together too. And with Cass and Dex. Tommy too. For that week, it was like it was before but I missed Carter and Xander did too. We knew we would be going to see him that weekend.
carter seemed to be settled in when we got there for the weekend. He was on the porch, talking animatedly to Danny as we pulled up and passed Jimmy's inspection. Danny just seemed amused but surprisingly wasn't holding forth as we stepped onto the porch.
"What's going on?" I asked
"He is explaining the emerging church movement to me and trying to convince me that Christianity isn't just a narrow minded, bigoted group of right wingers but a philosophy of love and acceptance, despite the evidence to the contrary" Danny said.
"Trying to convince him or convince yourself?" I asked Carter.
"Myself mainly I guess. I'm trying to figure out what I believe in. It isn't atheism though."
"Buddhism?" Xander asked.
"I don't know. Maybe I'll get there one day. I am really glad to see you two though. I missed you."
"Yeah, us too"
We were together on a pallet in the screened in back porch. The house didn't have air conditioning so this was actually one of the more comfortable places to sleep and the pallet was softer than I thought it might be. But it was all ready hot and humid enough to be uncomfortable unless a breeze was blowing. YOu certainly didn't want any clothes on. In the few days since he had been here, Carter had been introduced more fully to marijuana and he did tentatively join in with us. We sat there in the night, naked, stoned, talking.
"So what are we exactly?" Carter asked.
"What do you mean?" Xander replied, handing him the joint.
"YOu two are a couple, which is great. But what am I in this deal? The third wheel? What exactly?"
"Does everything have to be defined?" Xander said
I cut in. "I don't know Carter. Realistically for the next couple of weeks, you are here and we will be in Macon. Then a 2 week break and summer classes for me and not for Xander. I don't know. Logistically, we are all going to be together some. I want to spend a week of my break here, working with Danny and Xander is going to be off doing porn, Then there's that you and me are gay and he is bi and the two of us aren't going to be monogamous. Can't we just let it work out?"
"I had sex with Jimmy" Carter said, his head down.
"So have I" xander said.
"I guess I have too. He and I did it with AJ" I said
"Hmm" Carter said. "We are everything my dad said gay people were. Well, promiscous anyway."
"Not everything"
"No" he said. Then he smiled. "BUt promiscous, huh"
He was all ready leaner and rangier from the simple, wholesome diet at Danny's table. Sexier. He was hard. We all were. I was unashamed. Carter was. though, still a bit. But you can't do this part clothed is the thing. You have be naked and undone, vulnerable and open. It's the way you give and get pleasure. I knew where he was at. It hadn't been that long ago. I also know the hunger. Once you do it, you want it. Almost nobody willingly goes back to being celibate. I lean over and kiss him. He kisses back. It is passionate. Yeah, I know that hunger.
Carter lays on the pallet and both of us are on either side, I am kissing him. Xander is tending to things further south. He moans as Xander ministers to his stiff prick. I smile. He looks at me with longing. I kiss him again. In a while, we trade places and I go after his dick with my mouth. BUt Xander feeds Carter his. The problem with three ways is someone tends to get left out I hear. I hope not and I hope it's not me. I want them both.
"Suck him Carter. Play with his balls" I tell him.
He takes Xander's nuts in his mouth and Xander sighs. He has always liked that. He likes his foreskin played with too. In fact, he just likes sex generally. He is far more sexual than either of us. So this thing might work out after all, I think.
I bottom. First Carter. I sit on his lap, his dick in my ass. It feels good but he is not as big as Xander, and neither of them are as big as me. But I like it best on the receiving end. I am hard still as I rock back and forth, his dick sliding back and to. I love the fullness of it and jolts to my prostate. Xander stands over Carter, his dick in my face. I happily take it into my mouth. I know how he likes it and I like making him happy.
Carter loses control and spews in my ass. That just means that Xander gets his turn. He is horny by now and he is not particularly gentle. He knows I can take it. He knows I want it. He does me hard and that is just perfect. I take it doggy style, my hard on flopping back and forth against my flat belly. Just the motion is driving me crazy. It feels too good. It is too much. I orgasm just from the motion of Xander's dick. He isn't far behind me.
We slept together, huddled up in a knot, naked on porch in the late spring heat. Three boys not even 19 years old yet. The younger kids woke us and made fun of us, insisting that we come right away to breakfast. Carter was embarassed because of morning wood and I was too but Xander laughed. It didn't matter. We were young and it happens. The thing is that here there is no shame and there is no sin. There is no reason to hide.
That day, Carter decided that he would trip. Xander joked that his education was quicker than mine because, in his words, it took me forever to do acid. I dispute that but Carter said that he was playing catch up. If he was going all in, then he was going all in. I had to respect that. Danny accomodated us, of course, with doses for two. One of us had to babysit. For the first time, I lost rock, paper and scissors. I was to the babysitter. It is a sacred responsibility. The set and setting need to be right for psychedelics but still you are in a fragile state. It is beautiful when good but frightening otherwise. My friends, my lovers depended on me.
"It's beautiful" Carter said, looking across the pond on the back part of the property. A half moon reflected across the water where the little kids had played so happily earlier to day, the light shimmering as the water rippled.
"It is the mother of life" Xander said.
"That's true" I said. Xander looked at me and smiled. I can imagine what they were thinking and seeing. I envy them what they are seeing and experiencing. I wish I were joining them.
We drift off over to the house, in the direction of some softly lilting music. I am not sure where it came from but I eventually recognized it as Cat Stevens from off in the distance. Carter was transfixed by it. He smiled and made some cryptic comment that was intelligible to him. Xander laughed at it and then Carter did too. Despite it being a half moon, it was a generous light and just cool enough to take the edge off, even if it was humid.
Eventually back on the porch, I fell asleep. I woke up to the birds singing and the vapor coming off the water on the pond and saw Xander and Carter still asleep in each other's arms. It was nice.
As school came to a close, I was busy studying and catching up. I had a few lab things that I had let slide that needing doing and some chapters to read. It wasn't the end of the world but I was behind going into Dead Week. I saw less of Xander as he respected my need to study. He was less motivated except for art and then when the inspiration struck and not to schedule. We made love though. Neither of us wanted to give that up although a couple of times it was with Sarah too. I think he hooked up with the girl from earlier in the year, Haley, once or twice too. I didn't begrudge him that. I knew he needed it.
Finals done, I packed up my stuff in the truck and said good bye to Robbie. He had been a good roommate and I would miss him even though we would be at the same school. We didn't really run in the same circles and we weren't really friends anyway. Hadn't been when we got here, married in a room together only because of small town familiarity, but now neither of us wanted to continue as roommates. I said I would catch up with him at home and maybe so but maybe not. My plan was to go home for a week and then head to Danny's for a week before summer classes started. The plan at home was to come out.
It didn't happen at first. Mama was thrilled as always to see me and made over me a bit. It took a day or two for the newness to wear off and for us to settle into a routine. The millstone of knowing I would have to do it did weigh me done and she, of course, noticed it. Eventually, she sat me down and wanted to know what was going on.
"You know that kid that lived across the hall, Carter? The preacher from Vidalia's son? He's gay. It turned out really bad. He tried to hang himself. His family basically locked him away to get cured and then disowned him when he didn't."
"That's just wrong, Dylan. Just wrong. Your children are your children, no matter what" she said.
"Yeah" I said non-committedly
"Is he someone special in your life?"
I looked up at her. This was the moment. She knew. She just needed me to say it. "Not so much him. Well, yes. But more his roommate. The blonde kid. Xander. He's ... my boyfriend."
She nodded, a little teary eyed. But she didn't say anything. I think partly that confirmation did change things. I think she secretly harbored hopes that I would go off to medical school and come back to Colquitt as the town doctor, top of the heap in the social heirarchy of a small town. Not now. It wouldn't work. Not here. She could still be proud of me but I would be a doctor in a big city somewhere, probably far away.
"You're not suprised" I said finally.
"No, Dylan" she said with a wan smile. "I've known you since before you were born. I'm not surprised"
"Sad?"
"I worry. Worry about diseases and how gay people sometimes get treated by other people and how I don't want to see you sick or mistreated or worse"
"Well, we're careful"
"Good. And I wish you could be a father because I think you would be a good one. But, don't you for one minute think that I love you any more or less because, son, there is no way I could love you anymore than I do. There is nothing about you that will make me love you any less."
I had to cry a little bit. I had feared for so long not measuring up to their expectations, for disappointing them. In the end, all my mother really wanted for me was to be happy and to be true to myself. But there was still Daddy. She advised me not to beat around the bush. If I was going to tell him, tell him.
We were in the broiling sun, brutally humid as the inevitable afternoon thunderstorm was all ready beginning to build, putting up fence posts. It was hard, sweaty work and he and I had been doing it for a while. I am young and fit, running and working out, but he could outwork me without much thought. I was used to the gym and not so used to the field anymore. We still had a bit to go when he decided that we could take a break under a big pine tree and get some water in us. I gulped mine down and stared out across the corn field.
"Dad, there's something I need to tell you" I said, hesitantly, trying to find the courage. When I couldn't immediately, he looked over at me. I felt committed. "I'm gay"
He looked off and didn't say anything for a long time. Then, slowly, he took a drink of water and took off his cap and mopped the sweat off his brow. "Well, I don't guess anybody would say that if they weren't sure of it"
I was surprised. It was so non-committal. I also took it as disapproving. "I am sure"
He was silent for a time. He nodded. "Well, I suppose you would know"
"I do"
He nodded. "It isn't what I would have picked for you and I don't understand it, not really. But I do know that you are my son, my flesh and blood, and who you love has no bearing on that. None. We need to get the rest of those posts in the ground before it rains."
"Sure" I said
He stopped. "Some people say that it's choice but I reckon it ain't. Some people you just know, even when they are real young. You just know. Like you, I didn't see it when you was young. Now when you started growing and didn't seem interested in girls, I did wonder if you would but then you never were. No, I don't reckon you choose. You are what you are. Everybody is, I guess."
"Yeah, that's right. That's what I think"
"Well, it don't change nothing" he said, giving a pat on the shoulder. "Still got posts to put out"
He and I didn't discuss it further. He accepted it. I don't know if it was tolerance, I suppose it wasn't, but it was a better reaction than what Carter had gotten. The next day, my grades were posted and I had made a 4.0 again, Dean's List. They were proud and congratulations were offered up. But it was a bit strained. OUr relationship had taken a turn. THey loved me and I loved them but it wasn't ever going to be the same. I was almost relieved, and I think they might have been too, when it was time for me to go. I still had another week on break but it didn't matter. I wanted to be somewhere else.
Xander was in Tampa being a porn model. I understood that he needed the money but I also increasingly understood that he enjoyed doing porn. He enjoyed the attention and the sense of breaking taboos and he enjoyed having sex while people watched. It satisfied a need for him, a need I didn't have. I was happy where we were at. I packed my truck and left home, not sure when I would be back and having made no promises and headed out to Danny's. After a couple of trips now, I knew the way. They were expecting me too. I was part of the tribe now. I had a goal too: synthesize mescaline. Danny could help me, obviously. In fact, he was the only one who could. He had the chemicals, the lab, the interest and, needless to say, wouldn't rat me out to the lab director.
Carter was happy to see me and I was happy to see him. We made love, just the two of us, and it was nice. Slow, gentle, loving. I pitched my idea to Danny and we was enthusiastic. Shulgin had a description in PIHKAL of the synthesis, actually several variations, that I actually found confusing. I found better explanation from a German chemist, I think German, of the reduction, Lemminger's procedure. I used that. You use zinc powder and HCL to reduce nitrostyrene in alcohol at low temperatures. It was tedious and required enormous amounts of stirring. It should have taken a long time but I stopped at 6 hours because there was no more nitrostyrene left (since it is insoluble in alcohol and the reduced product is soluble, it was easy to tell). Then I added 25% NaOH and that was a finicky part. Zinc hydroxide precipitated out and I had to keep diluting before it dissolved back again. Finally, I got what I wanted, after evaporating the organic layer: an orange-amber liquid. Adding sulfuric acid precipitated out the salt. Gathering that up, dissolving into alcohol and cooling gave me what I wanted. It wasn't easy, mostly because it was just finicky, but it could be done. I had 750 mg. Danny seemed satisfied.
I made love to Carter but I held off trying it until Xander came back. I thought I needed him to be with me when I tried it the first time. I wasn't certain that I had done it exactly right and I wanted someone experienced to be there as a safety sitter. I think that disappointed Carter some but I knew if I had gotten it right that we might all get to do it at some point. I was horny that night but I also wanted the intimacy. I wanted to touch his body, growing more lean and hard under the regimen of a good diet and physical labor, and I wanted him to touch mine. He was hard from the beginning. Now that he was experienced man to man sex, he wants it more and more. Just like me.
I am on top of him as we sixty-nine, my hard dick in his hands but he is also fingering my ass as I suck his hard dick off. And he is stiff. Soon enough, it will be pounding me. I like the freedom here, unhurried and unjudged as we do what we need to do. I put my lips around his hard cock and dive all the way down, taking him in whole. All the way down to the root, my nose in his pubic hair, smelling his musk. My dick goes into his warm wet mouth too. I sigh, drawing in the air through my nose in pure delight as we both suck the other off.
When he enters me, it feels right. We make love unhurriedly, kissing and touching as he slowly and gently moves back and forth inside me. His stiffness fills me up. I like the sensation. After a while, a long while, he begins to fuck me faster. He is more confident as his horniness grows. It's at a good time. I am feeling it, my prostate being massaged by the tool in my ass, and I want it harder and faster. Even more. He pulls me tight into him and begins to give it to me in short stabbing strokes. I can't hold it. I don't want to but even if I did, I couldn't. The sensation was pure pleasure. I exploded, mostly onto my own chest and abs. My pleasure drove him over the edge. With a savage few strokes, he came in my ass.
"Is that It?" Xander wanted to know when I got back to school to begin summer term. "The whole thing?"
"Yep. All of it. The first truly illegal thing I have done, if you don't count kidnapping Carter"
"I don't and he doesn't" Xander said, looking the bag. "First time on yourself and I get what's left over, right?"
"Yeah, you sit for me and I'll sit for you. And Cass too if there's enough"
We were at his place in the carriage house, the grass beginning to wilt in the oppressive heat of summer coupled with drought. There was an encroaching brownness growing after the vibrancy of spring. I thought here better than in the dorm for the first time as I wanted a good set and didn't want the paranoia of people. I took 100 mg at first. Within about 10 minutes, I felt my heart rate pick up a little but otherwise nothing, which didn't surprise me. After about 20 minutes, I felt completely lucid but peaceful and benevolent. I chatted with Xander and didn't really concentrate on the drug. 20 minutes pass and then 30 and not much happening. I decide to take a second 100 mg.
Seemingly, the drug settles in slowly. Not much happens and I am disappointed. I wonder if I did it right and worry about the consequences if I made a big error. But I convince myself that I did it right. I am good at chemistry, very good in fact. I am certain. At an hour, I take another 100 mg, testing my luck.
Time slows down. The lights are amplified. Everything that glows sends out a golden hue. Reality is no longer real. The clock moves backwards and then finds it's steam to plow ahead forward. I settle in for the ride. The walls breath and I do feel a bit of a body buzz, a little nausea but not bad. I am dizzy. I close my eyes. Now I am floating in the middle of the room.
"Are you okay?" Xander asks.
"Relative to what?"
"You look upset"
"I'm not"
"Okay" he says
Is it okay? Everything is okay, I suppose. I play that game in my mind. Everything is ... what? Everything is ... soft. Yes soft. But no, it can't be. You can't have softness if there is no hardness. Everything is ...safe. Everything is dangerous. Everything is complete. Everything is broken.
"Everything is fine. That is the truth of it." I say
"Yeah" Xander answers, reassuring me
When I open my eyes, I can see extreme detail of every object, semmingly every bump, groove, line, valley and mount, however small on everything around me. But I am not troubled in any way. I am open, free and filled with the wonder of a child, seeing the world as if new, as if fresh. I cuddle with Xander for a long while.
We walk. I need to move. There is a dog. I think it is Kerry's but truly the dog is its own. I play with him for the longest time, he only wanting to please and have fun and unconcerned about the ethics of right and wrong. We walk some more in the growing darkness. He and I talk. I am open minded but lucid. I want him to talk. I want know. We talk about carter and we talk about love. We cuddle some more.
We drive to a store. He needs food. I don't. It would make me nauseous. In fact, I have to vomit. The smell of it causes that. It is brief and my stomach is tight for a little while but that too settles out.
"How do you think all of it will play out? You and me and him?" I ask
"I don't know. Do we have to know?"
"Of course not." I say. "I love you"
"I know" Xander said
"You ass"
Then he kissed me.
outside, I can hear music coming from the house, Kerry and Joe and little Finny I suppose, but it seem disembodied, like the lonesome howling of ghosts trying to talk me. It was there, in the heat and carefully sculpted landscape of plants doing our bidding, that I was sure. I knew what I needed to know. It takes hours to settle out, for the colors to lose their vibrancy, the shades of things to be less apparent. It was glorious while it lasted. A brief moment in time, a major life event for me but insignificant in geologic terms. The metaphor in my mind was the cherry blossoms. They are beautiful and volatile, the eseence of mortality and destiny. The transience of life. And yet, it matters. Life matters. Beauty matters. Love matters. I have been trying to figure out my place in all of this but now I can just sit back and accept destiny and karma for what it is. At last, I have found my passion: this. This thing. What happens within the mind. How it works and doesn't. How what we are is encased there. How we come to find pleasure and love and the warmth of safety in a cruel and harsh world through the mere chemistry of the brain. Serotonin and dopamine and 5HT and acetylcholine. I want to know how and why. I wanted to help other people know. I want to understand and explain it and manipulate it.
So much beuaty and so much love.