Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 23:03:38 +0000
From: Java Biscuit <javabiscuit@hotmail.com>
Subject: Arjuna, chapter two

This is a story involving teen/adult, male/male graphic
sex and not intended for reading by minors. If you are a
minor, or this type of material is illegal where you live,
please stop now, and go read something else! This story is
a fantasy meant only for the purpose of pleasurable
reading.

Other stories of mine can now be found in the prolific
writers index.

Feedback, always appreciated, may be sent to:
javabiscuit@hotmail.com


Arjuna ~ chapter two

by Biscuit


Freddy grew quiet and heavy on top of me and then
passed out into a dead sleep. I was the one who wanted
to cry then, trapped under him in my sticky pants. Any
time I tried to move, to shift him off me, he'd wake
enough to grasp me tighter. I was like a pillow, or stuffed
animal, in the arms of an overgrown child. I don't know
when I finally drifted off. I don't know when he roused
himself and left, but I woke up alone in the morning
feeling like I'd ruined my life.

More stealthily than ever I snuck into the bathroom to
shower. I was cringing, inside and out, still tender from
the rasp of his beard. I felt like I'd done a horrible thing
with Freddy. So wrong. And the scummy, mildewed
shower stall only reflected back the feelings of shame
inside that made my skin crawl.

I fled to the ashram that morning like a stray lamb
crawling back to the fold. I'd missed the early meditation
but joined in the long chant that came after it. Gradually,
my self loathing dissolved in the spiced perfume of incense
and the building cadence of chanting. Images of Bhakti, the
man I loved purely, replaced Freddy's face in my mind.

Every time I caught myself thinking about what I'd
done the night before, I renewed my efforts at mantra.
I dreaded going home, afraid to see him. Part of me
was scared that he'd be angry at me for what we'd done
while he was so drunk. Part of me was afraid he'd think
he could come in my room anytime he wanted now, that
he'd expect me to do things with him. Maybe worse
things than we'd already done. I couldn't let that
happen.

I went to my first job straight from the ashram. A man
named Elliott Hurst, seventy-two years old, recovering
from a stroke, needed someone to make lunch for him
three times a week.

I was nervous on my way there though I knew my job
wasn't going to be hard. Just to walk into the house of
a stranger intimidated me. Elliott lived not far from me.
All the clients I'd been given, in fact, were within walking
distance of my house. His street was narrow, richer than
most, with beautiful single family homes and well tended
lawns.

He was nothing like I expected. Unsteady on his feet, but
lithe, a white haired sprite of a man with crinkly blue
eyes and sweeping gestures that I feared any second would
send him sprawling. I'd never met an elderly gay person,
not that I knew of, and certainly none who looked at me
like he did. His fluffy eyebrows quirked as he scanned me
on his doorstep, grinning flirtatiously.

"Oh look," he said, as if he was addressing an unseen
listener, his voice somewhat slurred. "They sent me a
twinkie for lunch." He laughed at his own joke and I
stared at him, puzzled. It was the first time, but not the
last, that I'd hear that expression.

I followed him to his spacious gleaming kitchen, ready
to grab him a thousand times as he teetered more than
walked, using the wall as a kind of constant reference
point. He had a walker, it turned out, but he hated it.

That first day, he felt his way into a kitchen chair and
merrily issued orders in a halting, fuzzy voice. I wasn't
sure how much of the way he spoke was caused by his
stroke and how much was just Elliott. But I soon got
used to deciphering what he was saying and made him
the ham and cheese sandwich he wanted. I sliced up
cucumber to order, very thin, and dolloped it with
sour cream to his specifications.

He had an old-fashioned hand crank coffee grinder
mounted on his wall. I didn't know what he meant at
first when he asked for Celebes, but it turned out to
be the coffee beans in the fridge. So I ground it and
brewed it and he urged me to drink a cup with him.
When he lifted a cigarette in a shaky hand, I lit it for
him and accepted one for myself.

"Let's hear about your boyfriends," he said.

"No boyfriends," I said, not disturbed by him assuming
I was gay. Even at seventeen I was used to that. People
just looked at me and thought it. What could I say? I'd
thought the same thing about him.

"None!" It was like I'd insulted him. His wavery hand
went to his forehead.

"Sorry," I said. And I was, in a way, to disappoint
him. I blushed, thinking of Freddy. Oh God.

"What?" he asked, seeing the color in my face and
sensing something. "You're lying." His cigarette hand
made a shaky descent toward the ashtray.

"No, really. I'm not, uh, sexually active." That was the
term I used for my virginity. If only I still was one,
I thought, guiltily.

"Why not?"

He was disgusted with me. My spiritual aspirations
annoyed him.

Does it ever it ever make a difference when an older
person tells a young one to stop wasting their youth?
I listened to the first of many lectures, taking no
offense -- after all, he was a senior citizen. Then I
left, politely refusing any extra money for the almost
half hour over that he'd kept me there. And when he
held those shaky but elegant hands out to me at the end
and said, "Come here," I hesitantly approached him and
let him bus me on the cheek. Not a good precedent, but
it was hard to say no to him.

Elliott liked company though he savaged his other
caregivers to me and swore he shuffled them out of
his house as quickly as possible. I doubted that very
much. You might think that a lot of my clients wanted
company, a sympathetic presence, but it wasn't that
way. Elliott was one of the few who did and he'd
always try to keep me there, stretching our hour as
far as he could. I eventually gave in and let him
expand our visits to two hours, even though I felt
guilty getting paid for doing nothing more than
sitting around talking. He called me his little whore.
"I don't mind paying for your time," he said.

Most of the people I worked for had a very different
attitude than he did, but then their physical challenges
were very different. Most viewed their caregivers as
extensions of their own limbs and they wanted as little
as possible of you or your personality intruding into
their lives.

That's how it was with Rob, the client I met later that
afternoon. Thirty-four years old and severely disabled
by something called ataxia. I showed up at his apartment,
a ground floor place you reached at the top of a slow
inclining ramp. I was bolstered by my successful time
with Elliott, ready to make a dinner instead of lunch.
I felt confident ringing Rob's doorbell. A buzzer
sounded and a garbled voice said something I figured
must be, "Come in."

God help me, I nearly went to pieces at the sight of him.
Slumped in his wheelchair, a man so handsome that he'd
have stunned you if he were upright and healthy. He was
waxy white under his dark hair, his face so distorted by his
diseased muscles pulling his face askew, that just looking
at him wrenched my heart.

Rob had the awkward use of one arm and hand and the
muscles in his torso heaved with effort. He could speak,
and like with Elliott I'd come to decipher the sounds,
but every word came hard with big breaths to propel
his voice out of him.

His home was uncluttered and orderly with large spaces
for him to maneuver his motorized wheelchair. Even so,
he lurched often and the walls were streaked with tracks
and dented from the many times he swung hard with an
errant motion of his hand on the control. In his presence
that first day, I felt almost ashamed to be in my own
whole, healthy body.

An intensely serious and private man, Rob struck me as
severe and pitiable at first. His kitchen, under bright
florescent lights, was spartan but marked by such an odd
color scheme that I stared. Every drawer was painted a
different, and to me, hideous color. The reason became
clear as soon he started telling me what to do. Rob knew
which color drawer and cupboard held every blessed thing
in his kitchen and with minimal effort ordered me from
one to another to get the utensils and supplies I needed.
I was overwhelmed by pity as my awareness grew. He'd
never seen the insides of those drawers and was totally
dependent on every object being in its appointed place.

The dinner recipe was printed out on a sheet of notebook
paper in a well worn folder. I'd learn quickly that all of
his food had to be cooked to mushy softness or he couldn't
swallow it.

What a mess I was and how patient he was! How many
hundreds of people had passed through his home in my
role? His attitude was brusque, maybe, but not unkind.
Part of my misunderstanding was not knowing that the
grimace on his face was from the disease, not an
expression of his feelings.

The worst moment came when he wanted a glass of
orange juice. He needed me to help him drink it and I
didn't really understand. His own hand was on the glass
with mine and he seemed to have such a strong grip on
it that I thought he was taking it from me. The moment
I let go of the glass, the juice went flying, flung by the
strength of his uncontrolled grip. Oh God. It seemed to
take hours to clean up the mess and then pour another
glass, apologizing abjectly the whole time. I'd never felt
more useless in my life. The second time around, I held
on tight, and it was a meditation in itself, drinking with
him in my mind as he paused between gulps, to breathe,
and I felt for the angle he needed the glass to tip. I was
terrified of spilling juice on his beautiful face.

I measured his breaths, the motions of his swallowing;
watching his lips hug the glass. I felt suddenly like I
never wanted to leave his side, like I had to be there if
ever he was thirsty again.

An ever present danger for caregivers, to fall in love.

Rob actually fed himself, his wheelchair pulled up close
at the table, the brakes set securely. He leaned way over
and scooped the food with a spoon into his mouth. A long
labor. While he ate, I did the first round of washing up
in the kitchen. The dinner dishes themselves I was only
to put in the sink. They were due to be washed and put
away by the person who came at night to put him to
bed. At the end, I sat at the table as he instructed me to
write out my own check from his checkbook, to which he
scrawled his signature. I was both relieved and grateful
that he did want me to come back.

One detail of Rob's kitchen nagged at me as I made my
way home. In the refrigerator there was a shelf of junk
food: cookies, a package of peanut butter cups, a tub
of processed cheese,a poorly wrapped package of hot
dogs. Things I found it hard to believe he ate. On the
other hand, I thought, it was none of my business if
somebody else fed him those treats.

My own dinner I hadn't given much thought to. I knew
I could stop at the Coop, a grocery store near my home
where Jerrie had gotten me a membership. In my room
was a jar of peanut butter and a bag of bagels, part of
my "housewarming gifts" from the girls.

One of the best things, I discovered quickly about
living in California, was the abundance of awesome
produce. I was walking through the Coop parking lot,
thinking of avocados, daydreaming of feeding them to
Rob, when I met up with Freddy.

"Hey!" I heard, and looked up. He didn't even know my
name. Big grin, if kind of sheepish; clear but very tired
eyes. He was wearing jeans and boots, a Forty Niners
tee-shirt and a suede jacket. His hair was brushed. "It's
you, right?" he asked. "My little neighbor."

"Arjuna," I said. I was relieved in a way, having dreaded
the moment. At least we were out in public and he was
being friendly. I didin't dare think about the rest, and
tried not to look at his body, my eyes darting from his
face to the store windows beyond.

"Cute name, kind of odd. Arjuna," he tested the sound
of it. Then he was the one averting his eyes. "Listen," he
said. "About last night." The humor went out of him in
the blink of an eye and I felt myself squirming to escape.

"Forget about it," I said, not wanting to hear any
more, my heart beating hard.

"No, no, listen...I've got to apologize." His hand balled up
on his hip and he seemed to have to force himself to look
at me then. "You're a sweet kid. That was bullshit of me.
I'm sorry." He kind of winced, and asked, "You have
dinner yet? I'd really like to buy you dinner or something."

"You don't have to do that," I said. "It's okay, really."

"I want to. I need you to know I'm not such a bad guy.
You like burgers?"

My mouth watered, in spite of my vegetarian intentions.

"Sure," I said. He was trying to be nice and it couldn't
hurt to let him. There was nothing in the way he was
acting that made me think I had anything to fear from
him.

"All right, RJ," he said. And so one of my nicknames
was born. RJ, standing for nothing but the syllable
sounds of my name.

We walked toward Berkeley and he took me to a burger
joint, then to a coffee house. There seemed to be millions
of those in Berkeley. I heard about his work as a house
painter, his battles with drinking, and I told him about the
ashram and my first day of work, about Elliott and Rob.
It was nice. I felt like I'd found a friend.

Feeling an undercurrent of lust was something I was all
too used to. In a way, it wasn't as bad as when I was with
Bhakti, who was more attractive to me. In another way, it
was worse. I knew how it felt to be touched by Freddy. I
got little jolts as I watched him talk, as I watched him eat,
remembering what we'd done. In the coffee house we were
crowded in a sea of small tables with barely enough room
for the waiters to walk between them. Our knees and legs
kept brushing under the table and I started heating up.

So transparent. I still am.

"I wish I was gay," he said, breaking a pause. I was
probably staring into my coffee cup with my cheeks
getting pink.

"That's crazy," I said. "You are what you are. It doesn't
matter to me." Only to my hard dick, I thought, miserably.
Shanti Om. Shanti Om. I was grateful to be wearing a long
Indian shirt and a baggy zip sweatshirt. If my unruly flesh
wouldn't behave, at least I wasn't going to have to stand up
and show it.

"If I was, I'd fall for you like that!" He snapped his fingers.
Jesus. The same song the love of my life sang to me. Well,
not the wishing he was part. Bhakti never said he wished he
was gay, but he'd tell me that if he was, that he'd scoop me
up in a second. When Freddy said it, he really meant it. He
was a man with a big, aching heart. Walking home that night
he slung his arm around my shoulders, asking if it was okay.
I said sure, though I wasn't really sure. It felt too good to
really be okay.

As we got close to the house, cutting through the park, he
stopped me and put his hands on my shoulders.

"You know, I can't imagine you'd want a guy like me,
but I want you to know, if you did, if you feel lonely
sometime ... I'm right next door, RJ." I felt pretty damn
lonely right that second. My dick had a quick trigger, it
filled up fast and hard with his big hands moving on my
shoulders and his face so close to mine in the dark.

"Thanks," I said, fighting the urge to leap at his mouth.

"Okay if I kiss you?" Torture. His hand was sliding down,
circling over my flat chest like he was wishing I was a
woman, cupping at my nothingness. But it electrified me,
my dick surging painfully in my pants. I groaned and
my hand dropped to my fly trying to angle my hard cock
into some breathing room. He laughed at me. That's how
it was with Freddy. He was drawn to the feminine things
about me and my dick just amused him. I tried to back
away from him, hurt by his laughter, but he pulled me
back and started kissing me, murmuring between the
pressure of his lips and swipes of his tongue, "It's okay."

I hugged him. I hugged him hard. His body was so solid.
I felt like I could squeeze forever and never hurt him.
Not mine, not gay, but still he was mine in my heart
because he was the only man I'd ever kissed, who'd ever
held me and made me come.

Unlike the drunken night before, when he pressed his
crotch into me, his cock felt as hard as the branch of an
oak tree. He had a hand in my hair, holding the back of
my head and was bending me backwards a little, reaching
down to my ass. Oh God, oh God. Even my mantra was
gone when his fingers curved around my butt cheek and
he squeezed.

In Freddy's room, still reeking slightly of beer and
smoke even though he'd aired it out, surrounded by
posters of bluesmen, I got fucked for the first time. I
was scared, but I trusted him. The tears and intensity
of the first night, the gentleness of him the second; for
me it all added up to trust. He knew I'd never done it
before. He told me that he had. Fooling around when he
was younger, he said.

Not ideal, maybe. Not the man I loved, but my lust for
him knew no bounds. At least he didn't balk at wearing
a condom. Everybody was trying to be safe, and his
girlfriends insisted on it, so he was used to it.

The light was dim and I was trying to breathe. Doing
mantra as I lay on my stomach with his knees making
pits in the mattress to either side of me. I wished I
could see his face, but he probably liked it better, not
seeing my hard dick waving at him. His pillow smelled
like him. Even the hint of beer I found erotic.

On our way into the house, we'd run into a couple of the
other guys who lived there and Freddy had introduced me.
I'd blushed like a fool, knowing that I was heading to his
room. Guillermo, a slight Colombian guy, who struck me
as being very handsome, was a student at Berkeley. The
one ws older, with long dark hair and pale skin, and a
scraggly mustache and beard, a graduate student named
Phil.  His long ponytail said "straight guy", as much as mine
"gay guy", which pretty much goes to show it's not the hair,
it's who's wearing it. He looked me over, but not in a sexual
way, like he was curious.

"Welcome to the monkey house, kid," he'd said to me. I'd
only find out later that it was a literary reference, to Kurt
Vonnegut, a hero of Phil's. I wouldn't have known a thing
like that if it had bitten my ass.

Did they have any idea what Freddy and I were doing?
I tried really hard to be quiet, so conscious of the landing
outside the door. We heard their footsteps when they came
in the house. Only Phil climbed the stairs and his voice was
so loud out there, saying good night to Guillermo, that it
filled me with dread of how easily we could be overheard.

I bit the pillow to stay quiet as his cock pierced me. It
hurt going in, in spite of him using his fingers first and
the ton of junk he'd slathered on me.

"Stop," I whispered in a panic, as loud as I could, I felt
like I was constipated and stuck with it halfway in and
halfway out. Agony. He did stop, leaning down over me,
his face warm at the side of mine.

"Relax baby, breathe. It won't hurt for long, I promise."

Mantra didn't help but his kisses on the side of my face
did. I breathed in his breath and shivered when he ran his
lips over my ear and down my jaw. Like magic, I felt my
body start to open with him nuzzling me and stroking in
slowly.

Unbelievable, unimaginable how it felt when I was full
of him. Why didn't I know it could feel like this? Wave
after wave running through me, almost overtaking the
sensations of pleasure in my hard cock. I loved him, I
had to love him. How could I not love the man who was
doing this to me? The bed was creaking with every
thrust. Freddy was panting and groaning and by then I
didn't care if somebody heard us. All I cared about was
feeling him pump into me.

I soaked the towel that had gotten rucked up under me,
the hardest I'd ever come in my life.