Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 00:53:12 +0100
From: Dean Lidster <dean@deans-domain.nu>
Subject: The Exchange - part EIGHT
T H E E X C H A N G E
by Dean Lidster
=======================================================================
PART EIGHT
(Chapters thirty-two to thirty-four)
DISCLAIMER
~~~~~~~~~~
This story contains sexual acts between boys. If this is not to your
tastes, then why in God's name are you reading this in the first place,
huh? If you're curious, then that's fine by me - just remember: an open
mind and an open heart is the secret to a good and happy life. If you
are UNDER the age of concent for state / geographical location / planet
that you're in / on etc, please leave now (unless you want to be
educated and have an open mind that is!)
I spose this story is copyrighted. By this, I mean that I wrote it and
would not particularly want anyone to subtly alter it and pretend it
is their own. However, you MAY post it to any newsgroups, archives
etc, print it, give it to friends without my prior permission PROVIDED
THAT I STAY ACCREDITED AS THE AUTHOR AND YOU DO NOT CHARGE FOR DOING
SO. Easy :-)
The story is fiction, and whilst there are references to real live
people in here, none of this took place outside of my hormone-driven
mind...
If you like this story, mail me at dean@deans-domain.nu. If you don't
like it, mail me anyway and tell me why!
The latest version of this saga may be found at my web site:
http://www.deans-domain.nu/ourplace/stories
Cheers,
Dean
Dedicated to Lee - I will love you forever.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Spen woke with a start, sitting bolt upright, then gently lying
down again as he remembered where he was and the wonderful offer
Taylor had made. Damn that guy was so nice...
He smiled to himself and rolled over, expecting his arm to come
across his sleeping lover, but instead he simply found an empty, cold
sleeping bag. Once again he sat up with a start, looking round for
Mack and, when he couldn't immediately see him, wriggled out of his
sleeping bag and turned on the lights. In the mess of the blue
sleeping bags, a scrap white paper stood out like a sore thumb. Almost
afraid to do so, Spen picked it up, unfolded it and began to read the
scrawl that was unmistakably Mack's.
Dear Spen,
I've gone to try to talk to my dad one last time - if he won't
listen to me now then I promise I'll never go back there again, and
I'll be with you forever.
Love you,
Mackie.
Spen looked at his watch. 2:04am. When did he leave?! Not wanting
to take any chances, Spen leapt up the stairs and ran towards Tay's
room.
To say Spen surprised us was a bit of an understatement: to have
someone leaping into your room at two in the morning yelling and
babbling ant a completely incomprehensible rate is a little
disconcerting to say the least, and by the time we had woken up and
managed to calm him down assorted other people in the house came to
see what all the fuss was about.
Tay and I related to Walker what had happened earlier that
afternoon, and it was decided we would go to Mack's house straight
away to make sure he was OK.
We all pulled the clothes that were nearest to hand on and leapt
into the car, an obviously concerned Diane ushering the other lads
back into the house.
Walker gripped the steering wheel with a kind of grim determination
as we sped along the freeway to the other side of Tulsa, Spen just
hugging on to us both as if we were life itself. We did our very best
to comfort him but for some reason we both had this feeling at the
back of our minds that something bad had happened. How, I don't know,
but there seemed something peculiar about the whole scenario - the
whole night felt uneasy to me. I looked over at Tay who was gently
rocking with Spen in his arms and saw the same look of apprehension in
his eyes as I felt.
That apprehension was confirmed as we turned into Mack's road,
flashes of blue from the police and MediVac vehicles streaking across
our faces as we approached. Spen half moaned, half cried out as he
opened his eyes and saw the scene painted before him, a sound that
embodied the feeling of having a part of you forcibly ripped away.
Even before the car had stopped, Spen leapt from his seat and
jumped out of the car, barely managing to stay upright as he madly ran
for the door of the house. Just before he made it, he was fielded by
Mack's mother who hugged him tightly to her, sobbing uncontrollably.
"I'm so sorry," she wept, holding on to the last living remnant of
her son.
Spen tried to pull away and enter the house again, but she held on
to him. "Please, don't go in there... Remember Mackie as he was..."
"Bu... But I want to s... see him," sobbed Spen, locking eyes with
her.
Just then, there was a metallic clank as the wheels from a medical
stretcher dropped into place. On it was a black, zip-up bag.
Spen could do nothing but watch in horror as the body of his best
friend was wheeled to the back of the MediVac and unceremoniously
loaded as if he were a consignment of meat for the butcher's.
The police's timing couldn't have been worse for Mack's dad as it
was at this moment they escorted him, handcuffed, from the house. All
the emotion that was running through Spen immediately manifested
itself as pure rage, his soul purpose in life to do to him what he had
done to Mack.
Tay and I raced over to him, but he had already charged at Mack's
dad and with a cry that reverberated off the surrounding houses,
delivered a punch that carried the force of all his weight and
momentum to the man's genitals.
He fell to his, muscles tensing as he tried to cup the bruised
organs with his shackled hands. We grabbed Spen, doing our utmost to
prevent him from killing the guy but the strength that is present in
someone as emotionally driven as Spen was then is never to be
underestimated. Even with all our might, he managed to deliver two
further frighteningly accurate kicks to his face, the first one
dislocating his jaw, the second one sending his nose to a forty-five
degree angle to the front of his face.
I eventually managed to tackle Spen to the ground whilst Tay held
his upper body in an arm lock so severe I thought he had broken his
arm. The police took their cue and dragged the injured man to the back
of the patrol vehicle and sped off into the night, sirens blaring,
leisurely followed by the MediVac.
______________________
"Is he still out there?" asked Zac, not looking up from the huge
sketchpad he was busily scribbling on.
"Yeah," sighed Gareth, his breath fogging the cold kitchen window
as he stared aimlessly through it into the garden. "Been there for
almost four hours now, poor lad."
"How does shit like that happen?" asked Zac, putting the pad down
on the table, his pencil rolling across the table and bouncing softly
on the carpet beneath.
"I dunno," he replied, focusing his gaze on the still form of Spen
sitting by himself on the bench in the garden. Zac stood up and went
and sat by Gareth.
"I dunno what I'd do if anything happened to you," he said, the
sincere sound of his voice shocking himself as well as Gareth. He
really meant that. Gareth smiled and gave Zac a peck on the lips and
held his hand.
"Nothing's gonna happen."
______________________
I had never seen Tay so distracted. He was pacing up and down the
garage like a caged tiger.
"Tay? TAYLOR!"
"Hmm?"
I shuffled to the edge of the beanbag I was lounging on and patted
the freshly vacated section of material.
He smiled weakly and came and sat by me, gently pushing his golden
hair back behind his ears.
"I feel so guilty, ya know?" he said, quickly turning his head to
look at me.
"Tay, it wasn't your fault! There was nothing we coulda..."
"Not about that as such... More about us..."
"Eh? In what way?"
"Boy is gay. Boy comes out to parents. Parents still love boy as
much as they have ever done. Boy meets stunningly gorgeous British
boy. Boy falls in love with boy. Boy finds boy's parents ALSO love him
even though he is gay. Boy and boy live happily ever after. I have
everything, Dean: You, my parents, YOUR parents, a wonderful family...
Spen's got nothing now - the one and only thing he did have just
decided he wasn't worth the time of day and topped himself... This is
one fucked-up world, man..."
"OK, so we'll un-fuck it."
"What?" asked Tay, a hint of a laugh entering his voice as his mind
visualised the bizarre concept of something being un-fucked. "How?"
"Well, we could start by putting Mack's arsehole of a father behind
bars for as long as we can."
______________________
"Dad?"
"Not now, Taylor, I'm on the phone..."
Tay stood obediently in the doorway, feeling slightly guilty for
asking his obliging father for yet another favor, this one being
somewhat larger than the previous ones. He looked over his shoulder at
me and I smiled back to reassure him, then decided that wasn't enough
and hugged him from behind, kissing his neck.
Walker had the same frustrated look on his face as Tay had had, and
was even walking up and down the room in the same manner obviously not
hearing what he wanted to hear from the guy on the other end of the
line. As he turned for his umpteenth stride back down the room, he
caught sight of us in the doorway and stopped in his tracks.
"PETER! CAN IT!" he yelled into the phone. "I want that asshole put
away for as long as you can swing it, you hear me? No, this is non-
negotiable... THEN MAKE A BETTER CASE AGAINST HIM!" and with that he
hit the hang-up button and chucked the cordless phone onto the sofa.
Tay and I just stood there, frozen to the spot. I'd never seen
Walker angry before and from the way Tay had tensed as I hugged him,
it wasn't a sight he was accustomed to either.
He dropped down onto the couch and promptly swore as he lifted
himself up slightly and hurled the phone across the room.
Tay turned round and motioned for me to leave Walker in peace for a
while to let him cool off.
"Hey guys, c'mere a second..."
Walker was rubbing his face and then allowed his hands to continue
upwards, running his fingers through his hair.
We tentatively stood in front of him, side by side, not quite sure
what to expect.
"You two really love each other, huh?" he smiled.
I looked at Tay just as he looked at me and we both nodded our
heads vigorously, smiling.
He shuffled to one end of the sofa, and asked us to sit with him
for a moment. Tay sat down nearest his Father and I plopped down
beside him, subconsciously putting my arm around him. I quickly
realised what I'd done, and pulled my hand back as if I'd been
scalded, which made Walker laugh.
"Don't worry about it, Dean," he smiled. "Listen, I wanna tell you
something. Tay, when you told me you were gay it... well, it didn't
quite 'register' with me, ya know? Don't as me why but I guess I
thought it was some kinda stunt to get my attention, and I didn't
think you were serious serious about it. But when I see you guys
together... Oh man..." he threw his head back and laughed slightly.
"Do you know how much you two remind me of me and Diane? I suppose we
were about the same age as you two when we met in highschool. It may
have been a crush at the time, but I swore then and there I was gonna
spend the rest of my life with her. I just see so much of us in you,"
he smiled, but the smile gradually drifted from his face, being
replaced by a frown.
"I want you to know that I will never, EVER let anything happen to
you like it has to poor Spen and Mack. I love you both more than you
can realise, even if I didn't know it first... I promise you guys that
if I can stop something hurting you, I will. I... I'm sorry I didn't
say that sooner..."
"Oh dad," smiled Tay, leaping into his father's lap and hugging him
tightly, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Thankyou,"
Walker hugged his son tighter than he could ever remember and felt
a closeness more vivid than he ever had done before. I felt honored to
be able to witness that and, although it sounds corny, it was
beautiful. It was the way things should be. Taylor was right, we do
have everything.
They broke the hug and Walker immediately hugged me tightly too.
"You're family now, Dean - remember that. I'm here as much for you as
I am for Taylor."
"Who was that you were on the phone to, dad?"
Walker sighed. "I called Mack's mom this morning and offered to
help in any way I could: Jesus Tay she's in a mess... I swear at one
stage she sounded as if she was going to follow Mack's example. She
said she was sorry for ever marrying 'that asshole' - apparently he
was real unkind to her when Mack wasn't around and he threatened if
she ever let on to anyone she'd get it..."
"Sooo... What are you doing? To help I mean..."
"I'm gonna try to keep that shit in prison for as long as we
possibly can... The lawyer was trying to coax me out of being
involved, but the family was already mixed up in it, so what
difference does it make?"
"What can we do about Spen?" I asked. "He's just... Existing at the
moment..."
"Just be a friend, Dean: He sure as needs as many as he can get
right now. He'll pull through eventually, but he needs guys like you
to look after him right now... How long are you with us, Dean?"
"Uh, until the end of next week," I said, a kind of reality
storming into my disoriented mind with all the subtlety of a Rhino in
heat.
"OK... Go see if you can make contact with Spen, but don't push it
- he has to take it at his own pace."
Tay and I thanked Walker and left him in the Den, thinking.
______________________
We pulled on our coats, walked into the garden and saw Spen still
sitting, motionless, on the bench. We walked over to him and sat down,
me nearest him.
"Listen, Spen - if you ever want to talk, man..."
The unbelievable noise of absolute silence surrounded us for three
or four very long minutes, all three of us now sat staring vacantly at
the dark green hedge at the bottom of the yard, thinking about what
had happened.
Then I noticed that Spen was crying: Not sobbing, but tears were
rolling down his cheeks. Taking a gamble, I put my arm round his
shoulders and almost immediately he collapsed into me, his crying
muffled by my fleece.
"Why?" he sobbed, not daring to move from me.
That flawed me. I really didn't know why he'd done it, or at least
could never really understand how someone could possibly get
themselves into that state of mind.
"I should've told him I loved him more..."
"Spen, listen to me - you did everything you possibly could for
Mack: I saw you two together - he was genuinely happy when he was
around you. You made everything worth while - you were what he lived
for."
"S... So why did he do it?"
"When people are upset, they do crazy things, Spen... Mack's dad is
an arsehole. I don't know what he said to him or what he had done to
him, but whatever it was I can guarantee that it wasn't true. The guy
is narrow-minded and can't accept anything outside what HE believes to
be right, never mind the rest of the world... Remember that Mack knew
his dad for a lot longer than he knew you, AND he was his father... I
know it sounds harsh, but even though you might know your dad is lying
to you or saying things about you that deep down you knew weren't
true, because he's your dad you may believe for a while that what he
said was Gospel..."
"But why did his dad say that shit?"
"I don't know, Spen... There are some evil people in this world:
That bastard's one of 'em."
The conversation seemed to leap all over the place as it followed
the random emotions and thoughts that were streaming through Spen's
distraught mind. He was perpetually blaming himself: What if I, if I
had said, if I had done... It was a long haul, but we gradually
managed to convince him that he hadn't done anything wrong - hell, he
had probably been the best thing that could have ever possibly
happened to Mack: He had the same love for Mack as Tay and I did for
each other. Spen was his guiding light - the one thing that kept him
on the straight and narrow. Mack had lived for Spen, and it was
because he had been blindfolded from Spen's absolute devotion to him
for that short period of time by his arsehole of a father that he had
done what he had done.
"But what if I had been there with him? I could have told him that
I still loved him..."
"His father would have shouted you down, Spen... The man was full
of hate and because of who he was, Mack would have listened to him
first... You mustn't blame yourself..."
We carried on talking and eventually managed to steer the
conversation round to the good times he and Mack had shared in the
past. He remembered sitting in one of the Cafes in the Tulsa mall and
wolf-whistling at any cute boys who walked past, and then just
pretending to be talking to each other as the lad looked round for
whoever it was whistling at them.
He remembered the time that they arranged for Mack to sleep over at
his house while his mother was in hospital for a couple of days for a
check-up: They had managed to 'obtain' a few bottles of beer and
decided to stay up all night watching TV. They had ordered pizza and
he remembered how Mack, being slightly drunk, managed to embarrass the
hell out of the pizza delivery lad by making a couple of very un-
subtle passes at him...
Then there was the hour they had spent before coming to the
Hanson's house carefully painting their message on each others'
buttocks before getting rather more excited than they had planned to,
nearly missing their bus in the process...
Spen sighed and rubbed his red-ringed eyes and smiled a feint
smile. "I'll miss him," he breathed, just managing to utter the
sentence before he cried once more.
______________________
Spen had asked to be taken back home that evening, so naturally
Walker obliged. We offered to go with him, but he said that we'd
already done more than enough. He smiled genuinely, thanked us once
again and gave us both a peck on the cheek before following Walker out
to the car.
Tay and I meandered back down to the garage.
"D'you think he'll be OK?"
"I hope so," replied Tay. "I told him to call whenever he needs to
talk, even if it sounds really dumb..."
"It's usually the dumb things that are the most important,"
"Yeah..."
Tay sat himself down infront of his Kurzweil keyboard and flicked
the power switch, a soft thud emanating from the monitor speakers on
the floor infront of him.
The instant I heard the first chord, I knew what he was playing and
it practically made me burst into tears there and then, Taylor himself
having a hard job fighting them back.
"If I'm gone when you wake up, please don't cry
And if I'm gone when you wake up, it's not goodbye.
Don't look back at this time as a time of heartbreak and distress
Remember me, remember me,
'Cause I'll be with you in your dreams, woah..
I'll be with you.
If I'm gone when you wake up, please don't cry
And if I'm gone when you wake up, don't ask why.
Don't look back at this time as a time of heartbreak and distress
Remember me, remember me,
'Cause I'll be with you in your dreams
Don't cry, I'm with you,
Don't cry, I'm by your side,
Don't cry, I'm with you,
Don't cry, 'cause I'm by your side:
And though my flesh is gone, wow-woah,
I'm still be with you at all times
And though my body's gone, wow-woah,
I'm gonna be there to comfort you at all ti."
Tay's voice failed him, the reverb applied to the keyboard's sound
echoing earily away as he stopped playing. I rushed over to him and
sat facing him in his lap, hugging him to me.
"Dean, you must promise me something: Promise you'll never do
anything like that, no matter what happens to you, me or to us..." he
sobbed, pulling my shirt into bunches with his shaking hands.
"Only as long as you promise that too," I whispered.
We relaxed the embrace slightly and made that infinite eye-contact
that allowed us to communicate without words, seeing that we truly
meant what the other said.
"I promise," we both said in unison, then sealed the pact with a
kiss.
Chapter Thirty-Three
"Hi, could I speak to David Lidster, please,"
"Speaking,"
"Oh hi, David - it's Walker Hanson here, Taylor's father,"
"Hello, Walker, good to speak to you at last! Is Dean OK?" asked my
dad, immediately assuming that the only reasons warranting an
international phone call would be something terrible happening to me,
or me doing something terrible. Terrible? Moi?
"Yeah, he's fine - I don't think I've ever seen Taylor so happy!
Don't those two look just great together?"
"You're right - they act just like Fran and I did when we were
their age."
"You too? Man - I only just told them that I thought they were like
Diane and myself! Thing is, I'd like to do anything I can to keep it
that way: I've seen teenage crushes before and this seems a whole lot
deeper than that, ya know?"
"I've thought the same... Four thousand four-hundred and forty-five
miles is a long way, though..."
"Four thousand four-hundred and forty-five?" chuckled Walker.
"Dean's corrected me on the distance so many times I've kinda
remembered it..."
"I see... Dean tells me you're in computers, right?"
"Yeah - I'm in what you could call a dead-end job right now - over
here you can only move sideways within a company - not up - if you're
anything to do with I.T. I'm giving serious thought to going freelance
before I'm too old to break out of the loop..."
"Really? Well in that case I have a proposal for you..."
______________________
"Zac WATCH OUT FOR..." yelled Gareth as Zac leapt. Too late.
I opened my eyes to see a lump of junior Hanson flying at an
alarming speed directly over the back of the couch, his arse heading
straight for my and Tay's mid-sections.
Give him his due, he did try his best to alter his trajectory, but
Newton's laws were not to be argued with. He landed on us with all his
weight, producing a combined "umph!" from both of us.
"Morning guys," he grinned.
Tay pulled a cushion over his head and groaned. "Zac, can't you go
fuck Gareth for a half hour or sommat?"
"Or what?"
"Huh?"
"You said 'sommat'... Hahahah Tay's even talking like Dean now!"
"I never said 'sommat',"
"Did too,"
"Did not!"
"Did freakin' too!" bounced Zac. Tay brought his right leg up
sharply behind Zac's back, levering him abruptly from his sitting
position and onto his feet.
"Did too," I whispered into his ear. "But I think it sounded cute."
"Yeah, well, as long as I don't start talking like Ringo Starr -
just ask Ike about that one!"
"Huh?"
"He's just got something" said Tay, shooting a glance at Zac,
"about Ringo right now."
"And Puff Daddy,"
"Yeah, and Puff Daddy..."
"Anyweih," I said, putting on the broadest Derbyshire accent I
could, "ahm teachin' Tay the speak proper,"
"Oh, that's good - we can sing 'Bloke from Burminum' and 'I'll be
wiv yer when yer kippin''..."
"Just coz you're upset you ain't got English as eloquent as wot I
got."
"So," said Tay, butting in to diffuse the mad 'kill Zac' session he
could see rapidly approaching, "what are we gonna do today?"
"How about we go trawling?"
Now this had me confused. Was my geography so naff as to have
misclassified the state of Oklahoma as non-coastal? And going
trawling?
"Hey yeah! We haven't tried that for ages,"
Tay hauled himself off the couch and slumped himself in front of
the PC that was presumably buried within the mixing console. A few
mouse clicks later, the oh-so-familiar sounds of a modem warbling and
chirruping to some distant computer over the phone.
"Trawling?"
"Yeah - for stuff about us! Some of the shit the fans come up with
is seriously funny... I mean the stuff they write about: It's so...
well, intense; so real to them it's almost as if it really happened!"
Tay surfed over to Yahoo and did a search for Hanson. A few moments
later, yahoo spat back a page full of links, declaring it had found
about thirty thousand matches.
Tay raised his eyebrows and flicked through the first five or so
pages, then clicked on a link at random. Again after a short pause
(quite horribly unlike the Internet I loved to hate) the screen was
filled with mini-windows full of the advertising blurb that seems
intrinsic to the "free" web hosts. After the standard ritual of "X"
clicking, Tay eventually managed to unearth a half-decent site.
The page began with a large banner declaring that its owner was the
ultimate Hanson affectionado and, as such, knew everything there was
to know about Hanson. Surprisingly, the page did seem rather
levelheaded about Tay and his brothers and after the initial
skepticism we all held, we decided it was actually a very good site.
"It's a pity Hansonline can't come up with some stuff like this,"
said Zac. "The best they seem to be able to do is tell everyone where
we happen to be in the globe, as if people need to know..."
"The fact that the guy who runs it hates our guts doesn't help
matters," grinned Tay.
"Huh?"
"The Hansonline Web Master - the guy freakin' hates us! Of course,
he'd never say that to our faces - he's too weak-willed - but we've
heard enough from our 'moles' to know the truth. I dread to think what
would happen if he actually wrote the page,"
"You mean he doesn't?"
"He'd have problems writing his own name! No, he sub-contracts all
the work out to a few web design outfits..."
"That's so cheap!"
"Thing is, for some reason Mercury seem to think he does a good
job! You win some..."
We clicked our way through the site and ended up on a links page,
listing another twenty-odd pages that the author thought worthy of
being her site. Instead of leaping off to another site from that links
page, Tay clicked on the e-mail link and typed a short message to her.
"How will she know it was from you?"
"She won't - but she'll enjoy the concept that it might possibly
be..."
Tay sent the message and went back to Yahoo, this time doing a
search for "Gay Hanson". A few moments later, a whole new set of links
were presented to us, Tay clicking on another one at random. We were
whisked away to a completely different style of site: This one seemed
'tatty' in comparison with the previous site, but something about it
caught Tay's attention. It was run by a lad about our age in Canada
and, as we read a little, found he was very gay, very out and had a
very big crush on Taylor. Just below his 'mission statement' was his
picture: He was also very cute!
Tay scrolled down the page slightly and clicked a link, a smile
appearing on his face as we were presented with "Taylor and me" - a
story that this guy was in the process of writing.
"Fancy a storytime?" asked Tay?
"Yeah! Storwy!" grinned Zac as he pulled Gareth to him in a hug.
______________________
Spen smiled weakly back at his mum as she thanked him for the cup
of coffee he'd just made for her.
"You're a good boy, Eugene - I don't know what I'd do without you."
Spen did his level best to keep the smile on his face as memories
of Mack surged to the forefront of his mind once more. What would he
do without him? It would've been bad enough for him to have moved or
something but this... It was so ultimate - no comeback, no
negotiation: Mac was gone. Forever.
"Eugene, I... I'm sorry about what happened to Macaulay. I know he
was a very dear friend to you."
Spen looked up through teary eyes, a transparent prism forming from
one of them, hanging precariously from the end of his nose before
falling gracefully, twinkling as it fell.
"Mom I have to tell you something... You remember I told you I
thought I may be gay?"
Mrs. Spencer smiled reassuringly back at her son. Life was hard
enough for teenagers nowadays without the added agro of having to deal
with their sexuality. She cared not a jot if Spen was gay, bi or
whatever else there was to be. He was her little boy, and she wouldn't
hear a single word against him.
"Yes, dear,"
"Well, I... I guess..." damn this was hard... "I guess Mac was my
boyfriend," he sniffed.
The realisation of why Spen was so upset suddenly became all too
clear to her - Spen wasn't just fond of Mac - he had... no - did love
him! He had lost the love of his life and, all too well, she
understood what that meant.
She put the cup of coffee down on the table next to her chair and
spread her arms to her baby who was hurting so much and embraced him
as tightly as she could.
She just hoped that her cancer would hold off long enough for him
to come to terms with his loss slightly more before she had to be
taken back into hospital...
______________________
"He can be charged with what?"
"Pre-meditated murder," confirmed Walker's lawyer.
"But he didn't kill him as such... What evidence do you have
against him?"
"We have the testimony of the mother, and the phone was left off
the hook after the boy dialed 911 - the whole thing is on tape."
"Peter, you're a star! That is wonderful! So there's no chance of
him getting off lightly?"
"None - in a case this severe the judge will, in all likelihood,
sentence him straight off without a trial and revoke all applications
for parole. He'll never see the light of day again. No one takes
crimes against minors lightly. It may be a while before the case comes
to court, but that shouldn't be cause for concern."
______________________
"How often do you do this?" I asked as Tay connected to an IRC
server.
"Quite often - unless we want to make people think it's us, no-one
has any idea who I am on IRC... But I fancy some fun today," he
grinned.
PiRCH informed him that he was connected to the server and Tay
started typing.
/nick JordanTH
/join #HansonChat
NOTE: JordanTH (Taylor@hansonline.com) has joined #HansonChat
JordanTH Hi guys! What's up?
TAYLOvR Don't be so _SAD_!!!
JordanTH Who?
TAYLOvR YOU!! I wish people would quit pretending to be Tay...
JordanTH Who said I was pretending?
^Denver^ Yeah, right!
JordanTH Finger me
TAYLOvR I'd rather not
NOTE: JordanTH bashes his head against a brick wall that has
miraculously appeared in just the right place.
"Have you ever managed to get anyone to believe it's you?"
"Nah - but it's always fun trying!"
NOTE: DCC Request from ^Denver^ (sublime@prodigy.com)
Tay clicked 'accept' and opened a private chat window with this
Denver bloke.
JordanTH Hi.
^Denver^ Err - hi Taylor...
JordanTH So why do you believe it's me? :-P
^Denver^ Well, I checked your IP address and it came from
HansonLine, so I guess it really is you!
^Denver^ I really don't know what to say!
JordanTH Well, as long as you don't start yelling "I LOVE YOU!"
all over the channel we'll get along fine!
^Denver^ LOL! I think I can curb that desire...
JordanTH So, stats and location, please :-)
^Denver^ 16/m 5'10" alburn hair (:P) and I live in Colorado.
JordanTH Denver, right?
^Denver^ How did you guess? :)
^Denver^ Is Dean with you? I saw you guys on TV - it was soooo
cool the way you handled that!
^Denver^ is proud :)
JordanTH Be who you wanna be, say what you wanna say... :-)
^Denver^ Yeah! Listen, I got to go because my mom's got the lunch
ready... Cool talking to you, Taylor! Send my best to Ike, Zac and
Dean...
JordanTH Will do: Take care man... See ya!
NOTE: DCC session closed.
Just then, Walker came rattling down the stairs into the garage
with a rather large grin over his kind face. Tay immediately smiled
back and raised his eyebrows in anticipation.
"Guess what, guys?"
"Your beard's been eventually classified as a wildlife reserve?"
Quipped Zac. Walker grabbed Zac, flipped him upside-down and draped
him over his shoulder provoking screams of mock outrage from him.
"Peter reckons that getting Mack's dad behind bars is almost a
hundred percent certain - he can be had for murder one!"
"Does Spen know?" asked Tay, torn between the good feelings of
'revenge' against Mack's dad and the horrible emptiness created by the
recollection of his suicide that he had temporarily forgotten about.
"Not yet... Peter needs to have a proper talk with him and possibly
even use him as a witness to the way Mack's father acted around him to
prove that the whole thing was pre-meditated malice. I'm going to give
him a call now..."
"Perhaps it'd be better if we called him," volunteered Tay.
"Yeah, probably... Tell me what he says, OK?"
"Sure dad, thanks,"
Walker smiled and turned and walked back towards the stairs,
chucking Zac onto the sofa as he did so.
Chapter Thirty-Four
"He's offered you what?"
"A job."
"Doing what, exactly?"
My mum was being her usual cautious self as my dad recounted the
contents of Walker Hanson's second phone call to him.
"Well, he says he wants to take his oil company into the twenty-
first century technology-wise: He has one of his employees running
their computer systems at the moment and, good though he is, Walker
needs him to do just his job, not that of an IT manager too."
"And he's going to fly us over and give us a house and a car?"
"Yes."
"Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. I suppose it's Dean we have to thank for
this."
The thinking behind Walker's seemingly bizarre choice for a
computer guy suddenly made sense: My mum reasoned that if she had as
good as unlimited funds available to her, she'd do anything she could
to keep her son happy. He didn't want to see Taylor and I split up.
"Well, what about the family over here?"
"How often do we see them, Fran?"
"I suppose. What could I do over there? I mean we'd have to sort
out all sorts of bits and pieces. Emigrating can't be done overnight!"
"Walker says we just have to give him the go-ahead and 'his people'
will take care of everything for us, even the packing!"
"So, we're just going to up-sticks?"
My dad wrapped his arms round my mum and gave her a hug.
"Remember twenty years ago? We used to just leap in the car and
drive somewhere whenever we felt like it - do whatever took our fancy
whenever we wanted too. I'm stuck in a rut here, Fran - it's a dead-
end job and in all realism I don't have the wherewithal to set up the
business without re-mortgaging the house. He's giving me a break. If
you don't want to go, we won't go - things usually turn out for the
best."
My mum sighed and looked around at the old Tudor house they had
lived in for the last sixteen years and sighed.
"I'll miss this place,"
My dad smiled and kissed her. "I love you."
______________________
"MOM! Zac won't give me the Maple syrup!" whined Avie as the
offending Hanson continued to squeeze extortionate amounts of the
sticky liquid onto his pancakes.
"Zac, that's enough syrup - give it to your sister,"
"Almost. done." he replied as he tried to finish off the near-
perfect geometric shape he'd been tracing with the bottle's excretion.
"NOW Zac!" snapped Diane, causing him to jump and send a string of
syrup in completely the wrong direction. Gareth giggled at Zac's
reaction.
"What's so funny?" he asked defensively as he relinquished control
of the syrup bottle to his sister.
"You messed up," he grinned. "That looks really kack now!"
"Yeah? Not as kack as your face," he retorted.
"Knock it off, you two," smiled Walker over the top of his
newspaper.
I was completely stuffed on pancakes, my body still not used to
eating more than a half-bowl of cereal for breakfast.
"You eating that," mumbled my gorgeous boyfriend through sticky
lips and a mouthful of pancake, motioning at the abandoned food I
simply could not manage.
I shook my head 'no' and watched as he deftly lifted it off my
plate, timing the drips precisely so that not a single one soiled the
tablecloth and then proceeded to eat it. It was a simple action, but
because it was him doing it, I was enchanted.
He noticed me looking and froze.
"What?"
"Just watching you," I admitted.
"Uh. OK," he smiled. "Why?"
"Because I like watching beautiful things," I smiled back.
"Oh please!" groaned Zac, shoving two fingers into his mouth and
pretending to wretch.
Before the standard routine of Zac-suppression could be deployed,
the doorbell rang. Walker looked up from his paper again, then at his
watch and then asked me to answer the door.
Seeing as I was the only one not eating, it seemed only fair that I
go and see who it was calling so 'early' in the morning and ambled out
of the kitchen into the hall.
Two silhouettes were being projected onto the frosted glass by the
early morning sun - somehow, they seemed strangely familiar. I
dismissed the thought in my mind and opened the door.
My parents spun round to face the door as I opened it and smiled
broadly as our eyes met.
"Mum! Dad! What are you doing here?" I smiled, giving them both a
tight hug and ushering them into the house.
"Well, we were looking for our house but got slightly lost," smiled
my mum.
"Huh?"
"David! Frances! Great to see you! Good flight I trust?" smiled
Walker as he shook their hands vigorously.
"Hang on a second - your house?."
"Hi Mrs. Lidster, Mr. Lidster," smiled Tay as he joined us in the
hall, hugging them both.
"Does someone want to expla."
"Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?" interrupted Walker, evading
my question.
"Tea would be good,"
"Two teas," added my dad.
"Do you know what's going on?" I asked Tay. He just shrugged his
shoulders and smiled back.
"Dean, I think you should congratulate your father on his new job,"
smiled Diane.
"Huh?" Something strange was going on here, but by the smiles on
everyone's faces it was a good strange. Being kept in the dark about
things is one of my pet-hates, and I was getting more and more wound
up by the second.
"You are looking at the new Director of Information Systems for my
business," smiled Walker.
"You quit LanLogic? Cool!" I knew how much my dad had grown to hate
the monotony and distinct lack of career prospects that that company
had provided him with, and was genuinely pleased for him. "So we've
moved over here? I mean, moved permanently?"
"Well, yes! You know what they say: 'A change is as good as a
rest.'"
"But what about all our stuff? What's happening to the house?"
This whole thing seemed to be going a little to quickly to be
practical and I still couldn't quite believe that they were serious.
"Well, when you lot go back to school next term we'll go over with
you so that we can have time to get everything packed and so that
you're not left in England 'by yourself'."
"So we're going back to school in England?" asked Zac, eyes
lighting up like a Christmas tree.
"Just for the rest of this term," affirmed Walker. "The headmaster
seemed more than happy to have you back. Why I'm not quite sure," he
smiled.
"We do have seats in the house, you know," smiled Diane as she
realised we were just standing round in the hallway, my parents still
with their coats on and holding a suitcase each.
______________________
"Kiss the boy to the left if you think you're the luckiest lad in
the world,"
Tay leant up on one elbow and planted his luscious lips directly on
mine, his hair tickling my upper chest in the way only his could.
He settled back down next to me and hugged me, his hot breath
rumbling gently in my right ear.
"It feels so weird to be sleeping without Zac and Gareth," smiled
Tay, the sound of his voice almost echoing around the bare room that
we were sleeping in. Tay and I had decided to christen 'my' new house,
just across the road from his. This arrangement was given the blessing
of the Hanson parents as it greatly relieved the congestion in their
house now that the young'uns were back and space was at a premium.
"What did I do to get you?"
"Huh?"
"I mean why did the powers that be decide that we should be
together?"
"You know," said Tay, stretching his arms and allowing his left to
come to rest over my shoulders, "the quickest way to end a miracle is
to ask it why it is or what it wants."
"I spose so. Taylor?"
"Mmm?"
"I love you."
"Love you more."
"Like hell you do!"
"Do too!"
"Do not!"
"Too!"
"Not!" I yelled, digging my fingertips into his ribs causing the
comforter to fly rather ungracefully into the air as his limbs began
to flail around. Tay's hidden muscles very soon came into play as he
managed to get on top of me and we rolled in a giggling heap onto the
floor with a thump that reverberated around the all but empty house.
We rolled, wrestled and tickled until we were both breathing hard,
the light but remarkable smell of our sweat making itself known to the
other's nostrils. That universally beautiful blue-white glow of the
moon was the only lighting available, but it was more than enough for
me to pick out the silhouette of Taylor's beautiful face, coated in a
delicate sheen of sweat. He gently lowered himself onto me, his dick
making its presence known as it came into contact with my own.
"I've got you now," he whispered, the feintest of smiles on his
lips.
"Always, forever."
"Dean?" asked a strange voice, one that I knew, but somehow didn't
fit.
"DEAN!" the voice repeated. The room Tay and I were in started to
swirl into darkness and I felt myself being shaken.
"DEAN!" yelled my dad for the third time. My eyes slowly began to
open and a horrible reality began to dawn.
"We're here: better get your stuff before they send you back to
France!"
I was on the EuroStar.
I was back where I started
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This ain't the end - it's just the beginning :-)
Watch out for the next story - "Better than a Dream" coming to a
Nifty mirror site near you soon!
Hope you've enjoyed it so far,
Dean