Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:56:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Deep Diver <deepdiver_pr@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Master and the Mate - Chapter 10

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After parting from Edwin, and being reminded by him, Ryan surfed over to
Nifty.Org hoping to find another chapter uploaded in one of his favourite
stories: 'The Road Home' by Tyler Peel or 'Danny's Rehab Program' by an
anonymous author who hid behind his web address but was a fellow eminent
psychologist aided by a loyal proofreader who lived across the lake


The Master and his Mate - by Deepdiver

CHAPTER 10 -

That night as they shared a pizza, Mark asked Ryan if he had married, if he
had children of his own and why he lived alone.

Ryan hadn't expected these questions so quickly nor that the boy would be
so straight forward..  "Well, Mark, I'll try to be frank with you.  What I
am going to tell you, I trust you will deal with discretely.  I am a
homosexual.  I had a long relationship with a younger man whom I still love
very deeply, but for various reasons, we cannot be together.  So to answer
your question, I have never married nor do I have any children.  I still
keep in contact with him, the man I was with, but only through the Internet
and a few rare visits.."  Ryan confessed.

"Well, aren't you lonely?"  Mark questioned further.

"To be honest Mark, I haven't had too much time to be lonely.  And more
recently I have been developing a special friendship with two young men.
One was working for me on the yacht and the other was a friend of his.  So,
I hope it doesn't bother you living with a gay man?"

Mark stopped eating and looked straight into Ryan's eyes.  "My parents
taught me not to judge people before I get to know them," he responded
sounding like a much older person.  "I hope you don't mind having a
straight kid in your house, I mean, I wouldn't want to cramp your style."

They both laughed.  They had only been together since the morning but had
already shared such intense feelings that there was already a bond of trust
between them that some never achieve in a lifetime.

"Dr. Loud, I don't want to sleep alone tonight.  Can I sleep with you in
your bed?"  Mark said both out of his own need, but also as a declaration
of trust in this man who had risked his own life to try to save his parents
and had shortly before sewn the seeds of faith in an afterlife in a boy
needing so desperately to have something in which to believe.

"Well, I suppose so, if you promise not to gay bash me or something."  Ryan
responded, trying to lighten the mood.  He was later surprised how easily
the young man fell asleep as he snuggled against Ryan's right side.

                             * * *

That evening the police contacted Ryan to inform him that the bodies of
Mark's parents had been recovered and that Ryan would have to bring the boy
to the morgue early the next day to identify them.  After Ryan took down
the information, he wondered how he was going to explain the situation to
Mark.  He barely knew the young man, and so far the boy was coping as well
as could be expected, but Ryan had no way of knowing if he had sufficient
resiliency to be able to identify his parent's bodies and to go through the
ordeal of arranging their funerals.

Ryan had to wake Mark and coax him out of bed early enough for them to get
a bite to eat and then head to the morgue.

"Mark, I have some news, and it means you and I need to be up and about a
lot earlier than we had planned last night . . . we need to do something
very difficult," Ryan began saying.

"What?  Tell me."  Mark said, beginning to get agitated by the way Ryan was
looking and sounding - - the boy could tell that all wasn't well.

"They've found your parents' bodies and they need you to identify them.  Do
you think that you can do that?"  Ryan said trying to ease a difficult
situation.

"Will you be with me?" Mark said anxiously

Ryan responded, "yes, I will be there with you.  I just need to call my
secretary and have her reschedule some of my clients.  But I can do that on
the way."

"I need to shower first.  I'll be ready in fifteen minutes," Mark said.

"OK, I'll shave while you shower and then shower after you; so leave me
some hot water."  Ryan teased, as he got the front desk to arrange a taxi
for them for 30 minutes later.  They both moved along nicely and as Mark
stepped out of the shower, leaving it running, Ryan jumped in to find the
water ice cold..

"I left you plenty of hot water."  Mark said as Ryan screeched trying to
turn on the hot water.  'Glad to see the kid has kept his sense of humour'
he thought to himself.  'This is a good sign.'

They had both finished and Ryan had made a quick sandwich for them both
with some OJ so Mark had something to calm his butterflies before they set
out. They were down in the lobby waiting for the taxi with only a couple of
minutes to spare and then quickly on the way to the morgue.  Ten minutes
after they left the phone in Ryan's apartment was ringing; Kyle was
calling, hoping someone would answer and he could obtain some information.
He let it ring for a while, but no one answered. Kyle had gotten very
little sleep the night before and now was not thinking clearly.  His father
had already left for work so Kyle went out to the front door and retrieved
the newspaper, but the paper was full of the news about Bush's plans to
escalate the situation in Iraq by sending more soldiers.

After hunting desperately through the paper searching for news about Ryan,
the 'Gardie' or the accident, without finding anything at all, Kyle was
getting despondent as well as tired. Then it occurred to him to call Ryan's
office; he had to find the 'Want ad' he'd kept from when he had first made
the appointment for his job interview.  He finally located it in a small
basket filled with notes and different scraps of paper with numbers on them
located near the house phone.  By the time he was able to dial, the number
was busy and was so whenever he tried that morning as Ryan's secretary was
trying to get hold of various clients to rearrange their appointments.
After nearly three hours he finally heard the office phone ringing.

"Dr. Loud's office, Susan speaking."

"Susan, this is Kyle, Dr. Ryan's cabin boy - - you remember you arranged my
interview."

"Oh Kyle, we were worried about you.  Ryan is at the morgue."

Hearing this, Kyle dropped the phone to the floor as he clutched the wall
in distress at this apparent confirmation of his worst fears.

"Hello?  Kyle are you there?" the secretary called, but Kyle was too
emotional to hear her. He sobbed quietly to himself and soon all his pent
up fears, regrets and emotions overtook him and he started to feel
physically sick. Gathering himself he staggered off to the bathroom leaving
the phone dangling in midair - - his worst fear had been confirmed.

                          * * *

It was quite a while before Kyle felt composed enough to leave the bathroom
and doing so, he replaced the handset on the phone on his way to the living
room. Kyle moped around there, lost in despair at the news that the friend
he had found, loved and rejected in such a short space of time was dead
before he'd had a chance to repair the damage done by his
leaving. Eventually, finally accepting that Ryan was gone, he called Kirk
at the machine shop to tell him that Ryan was dead.  Kirk was shocked, but
now understood why the berth the 'Gardie' usually occupied had remained
vacant.

"I was hoping you had some news?" Kyle finished his tale of what [he
thought] he knew.

"Just that my daughter said that Ryan had called here one night looking for
you."  Kirk informed Kyle.

"He did?  He was looking for me?"  Kyle asked, so glad for even a glimmer
of good news.

"He and Bill have both been running around looking for you."  Kirk
continued.

"Where's Bill now?"  Kyle inquired.

"Not really sure, the owners of the 'Mon Cheri' have been in and out of the
marina a lot these last few days and I think he's been going out with him."

"Well if you see Bill would you give him my number?"  Kyle requested.

"Sure thing, buddy.  Let's keep each other informed."  Kirk suggested.

After wishing each other well they ended the call.  Kyle felt so much
better knowing that Ryan had tried to find him.  He felt like such as ass
hole for running off like a dumb shit and now in his grief he found comfort
knowing that Ryan hadn't given up on him completely.

                                   * * *

Meanwhile, Ryan and Mark had found their way to Mark's dad's lawyer, a Mr.
Malcolm James.  Apparently they were more than just business associates and
the man was quite shaken by the news of his client's death.  He explained
that Mark's Dad and he had been college roommates and that his Dad had left
a will in which he was named executor of the estate and that there were
sufficient investments to take care of Mark's needs.

Mr James also told them that Mark's parents had left a prepaid funeral
arrangement with The Cypress Funeral Home and that they could pass by there
and make the final arrangements. He assured them that there was plenty of
insurance to cover everything and requested more time to reread the will
and then get back to them with the details; he said that as far as he could
remember, there was only a distant cousin on Mark's Mom's side out in
California apart from Mark mentioned in the will.

     * * *

By this time, Kyle was more settled and decided to call the secretary again
to see if she had any more information on what had happened.

"Hello, Dr. Loud's Office, Susan speaking."

"Hello, this is Kyle calling again.  I'm sorry that I got cut off before."
Kyle said, more than a bit embarrassed that he had reacted so violently to
the news.  "Can you tell me anything about what had happened?"

"Well, I don't have many of the details.  Dr. Loud was involved in a boat
accident.  Apparently, there was an explosion caused by a collision.  The
police are still investigating."

"You said something about the morgue.  Was the body recovered?"  Kyle
pressed for more information amazed at how cool the secretary could talk
about the whole thing without getting emotional.

"Yes, two bodies were recovered, but they need to be identified before they
can be released."  She said calmly and then added, " I will call you back
later when I know more.  Right now I have to call several more of his
clients."

"Oh sure, I'm sorry to be keeping you.." Kyle said as he clicked off the
phone not hearing Susan's last words, "I'll tell Dr. Loud you called."

Kyle then decided that he should go over to the morgue.  He arrived about
two hours later and said that he was there to identify Dr. Loud's body.  He
was surprised to find that they did not have his body.

"But weren't two bodies recovered from the boating accident?"  Kyle
insisted.

"Yes, but those bodies have already been identified by their son."  The
clerk informed Kyle.

"So Dr. Loud's body wasn't recovered?" Kyle enquired.

"I don't know anything about another body from that accident, sorry."  The
clerk said coldly.

Since he was already close by, Kyle decided to drop by the marina and see
if he could find Bill.

                            * * *

In the meantime, Ryan had gone with Mark to the Cypress Hills Funeral Home
to finalize the arrangements for Mark's parents.  Everything had pretty
much been arranged by Mark's parents; but Ryan suggested that a Christian
Burial be added for the sake of the comfort that Mark could receive from a
religious service.  Since there was no written objection, and Mark trusted
Ryan's judgement it was agreed to call a priest to do a Response just prior
to the departure to the cemetery.  Ryan took the liberty of making the
arrangement and called his secretary to get in touch with a priest friend
who he knew would say just the right words to help ease the boy's growing
pain.  Susan took the information, but was so busy rearranging Ryan's
appointments she completely forgot to mention Kyle's calls.

Ryan suggested they have lunch out.  Mark said he wasn't very hungry, but
once they were inside Ryan's favourite Italian restaurant the smells of
garlic and olive oil had Mark's mouth salivating.  Ryan ordered Linguini
with a white clam sauce and Mark had an order of cheese ravioli.  When the
chef took a peak from the door to the kitchen and saw his old friend Ryan
he sent out a complimentary bottle of Chianti.  Later he came out and
greeted his guests.

"Ryan, its been ages since you have been here.  Where have you been?"

"Dominic, so good to see you.  Sorry, I haven't been around.  I've missed
your homemade pasta, but after Edwin left.  Well there were so many
memories.  You understand?"

"Understand what?  No, I no understand.  You lose a friend.  You no lose
Dominic!"  They both began to laugh.  "So is this your new friend?"
Dominic asked looking at Mark's handsome face, but suddenly realizing that
he was much younger than Ryan.  Dominic was around Ryan's age, dark haired
and typical hairy Itallian, with a Sicilian accent.  He had the kind of
face and smile that easily won people over.  His clients enjoyed his
hospitality as much as they enjoyed his homemade cooking.

"Dominic, this is Mark.  He's just lost his parents and we have just come
from the funeral home where we were making the arrangements."

"Oh, that's so sad.  A young man like you shouldn't have to bury his
parents, too sad.  I'll tell you what, you come here after the funeral
... and bring your friends...  The dinner is on me!"

"Dominic, that won't be necessary."  Ryan began protesting to his old
friend.

"I insist.  You are a friend of Ryan and Ryan is like a brother to me.  You
come and don't worry about nothing.  You come, hear?"  Dominic said
ignoring Ryan and talking to Mark.

Mark didn't know what to say, so he just nodded his head in acceptance.
Dominic smiled at him and patted Mark's head, saying. "Good boy; with me
and Ryan as friends you will be OK."  Later Dominic sent out his famous
ganolies for desert and watched the expression of delight flicker across
the boy's pained face.



Again thanks for D's proofreading which has saved me from a red face more
than once.  But I am told he missed something in chapter seven.  Did you
notice?

Remember Safe sex or no sex!!!