Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 07:22:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Macout Mann <macoutmann@yahoo.com>
Subject: IT STARTED IN A PARK 19

This story is completely fictional and any resemblance to actual persons or
events is purely coincidental.  The story also contains explicit sexual
acts between males, so be warned!

This story is also brought to you through the generosity of the many donors
to nifty.org.  Without their contributions this site could not exist.
Please consider a gift to nifty.org today.  You'll be glad you gave.

Your comments and criticisms are appreciated.  Please write me at
macoutmann@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2013 by Macout Mann.  All rights reserved.



			   IT STARTED IN A PARK

			      by Macout Mann



				Chapter 19

			 The Clarissa Controversy


As his sophomore year ended, Sammie certainly didn't need a summer job.  He
could have made more money with pen and brush than working construction.
But he chose to do as he had done the previous summer and spend most of it
working with Jim.  Whoring for Merritt would continue to offer diversion in
late August.

Christian effectively had become Sammie's manager.  If he hadn't, Sammie
wouldn't have known even to pay income tax.  Christian didn't disagree
Sammie's decision to do construction.  He felt that Sammie should be
Sammie, and his relationship with Jim was all important.

Sammie had finished the portrait of his parents, and Hyrum Gunther had
asked him to do an oil or two to test that market.  Sammie asked Jim to
pose.  He was to be the helmsman on a pirate ship in a storm at sea.  He
also wanted to use Win, Jim's son who was now six, in a picture of a lad at
a swimming hole.  He would paint the figures from life and add the
backgrounds from his imagination.

Christian suggested that Sammie pay both of his subjects for modelling and
Sammie quickly agreed.  He could certainly afford it.  Jim refused to
accept any money, so Christian and Sammie set up a college fund account for
Win.  If Sammie continued to contribute, even if Win didn't want to go to
college, there would be seed money for anything the boy did want to do.

Sammie undertook the project, painting Win on sunny afternoons in tattered
cutoffs after he and Jim finished work, and painting Jim in late twilight
some evenings and on weekends.  Before Sammie left for Atlanta he had
painted both the figure of a shirtless Jim fighting an imaginary ship's
wheel in an imaginary storm at sea and the figure of Win about to leap from
an imaginary rock at an imaginary quarry.

Occasionally, Jim would also take Sammie to Mike's Place after work.
Sammie, dressed as a hard hat, didn't attract attention, and the management
in deference to Jim never asked for I.D.

Sammie had peered into Dunbar's door back in Columbus sometimes, but he'd
never been inside a redneck bar before, and he was fascinated.  Seeing that
his charge could use further education, Jim took Sammie to a real roadhouse
one Saturday night, where there was a country band and the farm hands and
city boys alike were looking for gals to make out with.  If they couldn't
make out, they could at least dance and have their pricks teased.  Rather
than doing either, Sammie was busy making sketches.  Within a year they
would become the basis of another set of Sam Caldwell prints that would
sell even better than his first effort.

You'd think that with all this work and play that Sammie wouldn't have time
for sex.  You'd have to think again.  There was still Buck at the job site.
Much of the same crew seemed to gravitate from one job to the next.  Vernon
was having to teach in the Summer Session, but Sammie was still living at
his place, and they sought relief with each other more often than not.

The relationship that meant the most to Sammie, however, was with Jim.  For
all of the time they had known each other Jim had always been the top.  Oh,
he would blow Sammie all right, but Sammie had never tried to fuck Jim and
Jim had never offered his ass to the younger man.  And Sammie hadn't
thought it should be otherwise in spite of his more robust relationship
with both Vernon and George.

The night the two of them went to the roadhouse, however, Jim gave Sammie a
real surprise.  As they drove down the nearly deserted highway and Sammie
was giving road head, Jim pulled off onto a side trail and parked on the
edge of a large pond.

"Go ahead and get me off," Jim said.  "Then I'm gonna give you a kick.
I've been ready to let you do it for a long time...and I think we're both
ready."

In the darkness of the pickup's cab, Sammie sped up his ministration to
Jim's rock-hard shaft.  To Sammie the ejaculate seemed more ample than
usual.  Then Jim quickly removed Sammie's sleeveless denim shirt and jeans
and stripped himself down as well.  He grabbed a frayed blanket from behind
the seat, jumped out and spread the blanket on the truck bed.  "Come on,"
he called to Sammie.  "I want you to fuck me."

"Do what?" Sammie couldn't believe his ears.

"I want your dick up my ass, Sam."  Jim vaulted up onto the truck and
stretched out on the blanket.  "I'm goanna be tight as hell, because it's
been a while, but I want your fuckin' dick right now."

Sammie climbed up next to his idol.  He could barely make out Jim's
beautiful body in the darkness, but he kissed his nipples, then pressed his
own bare chest against Jim's.  He slipped his index finger into Jim's ass
and felt that it was as tight as a virgin's hole.  "My god," he thought.

Shaking with passion Sammie slobbered over Jim's ass crack and began to
prepare his rosebud for the penetration to come.  When he had widened it as
much as he could, he tongued Jim's ass, until Jim spoke.

"Let me get your dick wet for you," Jim offered.  Sammie turned about and
Jim took his tool into his mouth and moistened it with as much spit as he
could.

"Take me, man," Jim commanded.

With Jim's legs in the air, Sammie directed his prong at Jim's asshole and
slipped the tip of the head into Jim's sphincter.

"Ugh," Jim cried.  Then, "Don't stop!"

Sammie's hips thrust forward just a bit.

"Ugh...yeah."

Sammie couldn't have been more thrilled if he were taking Jim's cherry.

"Ugh...yeah!  Fuck me, man.  I wanna feel that motherfucker deep in my
ass!"

Sammie was all the way in, and he began a joyous, rhythmic pummeling of
Jim's hard body.  Both men were in ecstasy.  Jim especially, because he
felt that he had now given Sammie the gift of real manhood.  Sammie,
because he so appreciated what Jim had offered him.  As he shot his load he
wept with joy.  Their bonding was complete.



The fall term was pretty routine.  Sammie completed both his oils.  He went
to the library and carefully studied diagrams and pictures of Eighteenth
Century sailing ships.  Soon, he had painted in the mizzenmast behind Jim,
the ship's wheel he was trying to keep control of, the quarterdeck railing,
and in the background the shadowy figures of the captain and another
pirate.  The fury of the storm was expressed in showers of spray and the
whitecaps barely visible beyond the deck.  He was familiar enough with
swimming holes to finish the study of Win from memory.  Both pictures were
complete in time for Christian to take them with him to Cleveland at
Christmas.

Hyrum Gunther was willing to buy both canvases outright, but Christian
insisted they be sold on consignment.  He felt that Sam would come out
better that way, and he was probably right.

Christmas break also brought the end of the fourth semester of Sammie's
swimming instruction and with it a Red Cross "Water Safety Instructor"
badge which he proudly sewed onto his swimming trunks.

Sammie took the portrait of his mom and dad home with him Christmas.  Even
his dad agreed the likenesses were good.  His mother seemed a bit more
receptive.  Taped to the frame was also an envelope containing a ten
thousand dollar check, Sammie's bigger Christmas present to his folks.

Sammie's mother was overwhelmed.

"Where the hell you get that kind of money?" his father demanded.

"Selling my pictures," Sammie proudly answered.  "If I put your portrait up
for sale rather than giving it to you and mom, it would bring at least
seven hundred and fifty.  My prints don't sell for that much, but in the
last year I've sold four hundred of them."

"Shit!  I wouldn't give you ten bucks for it," his father spat.



Even a fun and profitable week with Merritt didn't restore Sammie's good
spirits.  When he returned to Sparta he had a heart-to-heart with
Christian.  For the first time ever Christian embraced the fragile young
artist.

"I'm so sorry you've been hurt, Sam," Christian began, "but sometimes
parents just don't understand.

"I was lucky.  Both my parents were artistic.  Your father obviously will
never understand you, and I'm afraid you've just got to accept that.  I'm
sure that both your mother and your dad love you, but neither of them seems
able to express their love in a way that you find meaningful.

"But you know, Jim and Vernon and I, even Captain Worthington--and I don't
know how many other people here at Sparta--love you.  You can always count
on me...and Vernon and Jim.  Always."

"I know," Sammie said, fighting back tears.

"Your future relationship with your parents," Christian continued, "is
something only you can deal with.  A decision you must make for yourself.
You are obviously going to become a very successful artist.  You will be
able to support your folks as they would want to be supported, and I hope
you will.  But for now, don't let their lack of understanding depress you.
You've got a golden future.  Let us help you seize it."



Over the next few weeks Sammie gradually lost his depressiveness.  Hunter
was his usual ebullient self, George his usual submissive bottom.
Gradually Sam Caldwell's six print set, "Honky-tonk Night" took shape.

When Christian, as his advisor, received his cumulative grade point
average, he was more than pleased.  3.7 out of a maximum 4.0.

One of the required courses at Sparta for all undergraduates was Public
Speaking.  That was one of the courses in which Sammie had made a B, and
Christian was glad that he'd advised Sammie to elect a second semester.
"One of these days, you are going to have to make speeches a lot," he told
Sammie.  "So you'd better learn to do it well."



In 1982, being outed was still traumatic, especially in places like rural
Georgia.

The tradition at Sparta was that each Spring a student from each department
of each of the undergraduate schools was honored by vote of the faculty as
"Outstanding Student of the Year."  A special edition of "Lamda" featured
their choices.

The Art Faculty did discuss the political implications of their selection,
but ultimately unanimously bestowed the honor on Sam Caldwell.

The day after the "Lamda" story ran, a letter to the editor from Clarissa
Estes appeared.  It berated the Art Faculty for choosing a junior for the
honor, since traditionally it went to a senior.  Her letter ended,
"Furthermore, Sam Caldwell is a homosexual.  The university should not be
recognizing people like that for honors."

Christian Ballard almost had a coronary.  "That fucking bitch!" he
shrieked.

He went to see Malcolm Pritchard, the head of the department.  "What can we
do?" he asked.

"She has a right to her opinion," Dr. Pritchard answered.

"And I have a right to mine," Christian responded.  "May I have your
permission to respond, not officially, but personally?"

"Your grave," Malcolm said.  "You have the same rights she does."

The next issue of "Lamda" featured the following response:

	"I do not write this officially as a member of the Art Department Faculty.  This is my
        personal observation.  In that capacity, I would like to point out that Miss Estes has every
	right to object to the Art Faculty's choice to select a junior rather than a senior to receive
	the award.  That is a departure from usual practice.  I, and evidently the other members of the
	faculty, found Mr. Caldwell's record worthy of our not respecting tradition.  So be it.  We can
	have that argument.  And I welcome it.  With Miss Estes or anyone else.

	"I find fault with Miss Estes, however, for her characterization of Mr. Caldwell as—we may as well
	say it—"a queer."

	"As Mr. Caldwell's faculty advisor, I have never had cause to characterize his sexual orientation,
	just as I never characterized Miss Estes'.  But as the university's art historian, I would point
	out that just as the Greek letter, "Lamba," adorned the shields of ancient Spartan warriors, also
	the "Homoioi," the citizens who bore those shields, were encouraged to bond together homosexually
	to promote their warrior instincts.

	"As to art, I would remind Miss Estes that artists from Michelangelo to...[the list was so long that
	the editors of Lamda had to edit out half the names] were gay.

	"If Mr. Caldwell, as Miss Estes alleges is, is a `queer,' he joins a distinguished list.

	"Christian Ballard, PhD."



The Dean of the College was incensed by Christian's letter.  He fully
expected a reaction from the President.  He called Malcom Pritchard on the
carpet.  "Did you allow this?" he demanded.

"He discussed it with me," Dr. Pritchard answered.  "I told him he had the
same freedom of expression as she did.  He was not to speak as an official
of the university and he didn't."

The next day another letter appeared.  It read:

	"Clarissa Estes is spouting `sour grapes.'  She thought she'd get it, but obviously Sam deserve
	it more.

	"Janice Abrams"

There was a flurry of letters.  The last one to be printed read:

	"I have been Sam Caldwell's roommate for the last two years.  You don't think I'd know if
	the xxx-xx-x-xxxxx was queer?

	"Hunter Bronson"

The Dean was mollified.



It was right after classes on Friday.  The gym was full.  Hunter demanded
that Sam go with him to work out.  They emerged from the locker room and
were besieged by a hoard of guys.  Sammie was lifted onto shoulders and the
crowd marched around the gym singing, "For he's a jolly good fellow..."

Finally, Sammie was able to be heard above the din.  "Hey, guys, let me
down or I might get a hard on."

The laughter wouldn't stop.