Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 10:20:33 -0400
From: Jeff Allen <jeff_allen15@hotmail.com>
Subject: "Love of a Lietime" Part 43

This is a fictional story dealing with love and consensual sexual
activities between males.  If you are not of legal age, reside in an area
where viewing such material is illegal, or are offended by homosexuality
and/or homosexual themes, leave this site now.

The author retains all rights to this story.  No reproductions or links to
other sites are allowed without the permission of the author.

Note: I apologize for the delay between postings.  I've had some
work-related and family-related problems that had kept me from the
keyboard, and my posting schedule overtook my writing.  Please be patient.

As always, I owe a special thanks to Robb for doing the final proofreading
and catching all those silly little errors that I missed.

LOVE OF A LIFETIME


PART 43

     All hell broke loose right after Brad shot himself.

     Before I had recovered my senses from the sound of Brad's gun going
off so close to my ear, there must have been half a dozen cops in the room.
  Three of them pounced on me.  I could tell they were yelling at me, but I
couldn't hear any thing.  The gun shot had temporarily deafened me.  I
found out later that when they first entered the room, they thought I might
be Brad so they jumped on me to make certain I couldn't get at the pistol.
As soon as they realized it was Brad lying on the bed, they whisked me out
of the room and into a waiting ambulance.

     My hearing was returning by the time the emergency room personnel
finished examining me.  The Nashville police let me call Andy from the
hospital to let him know I was okay before taking me down to police
headquarters to make a statement.

     They told me that the credit card company had been alerted to watch
for any activity on my card.  When the transactions at the gas station and
the first motel came through the police were notified.  Of course Brad and
I were already out of the first motel by the time the police arrived.  The
authorities then checked every hotel and motel in the Nashville area to try
to locate us in the hopes that Brad hadn't taken me very far.  They struck
pay dirt at dawn when the desk clerk at the second motel recognized Brad's
picture.  They quickly got everyone out of the other rooms in the motel and
set their trap for Brad.

     Andy and Justin arrived at the Nashville airport in the afternoon.
  Our 4Runner was sitting in the police impound lot waiting to be processed
for evidence so Andy rented a car and the three of us were headed back home
by dark.  Justin and Andy took turns driving through the night to get back
to Adams as soon as possible.  I sat in the back seat and just stared out
the window at the countryside that Brad would never see again.

     When we got home, I was exhausted physically and emotionally.  I went
to bed and didn't get out of it for two days except to use the bathroom.
Someone was always with me.  Andy, Justin, Matt, and Doc all took turns
sitting beside the bed or lying next to me in the bed.

     I slept most of the time.  I had nightmares of those final moments of
Brad's life.  Could I have done something different?  Did I say something
that triggered his suicide?  In the end I realized that nothing I could
have said or done would have changed the outcome.  Brad chose a quick death
over the years of living death that were waiting for him in prison.  Brad's
personal torment had led him to torment Justin and me for years.  It had
caused him to attack David Cohen and Tim Walters and to kill Roger Hall and
try to kill me.  I should hate him, but I didn't.  I couldn't.  Not after
what he'd told me about the abuse he'd suffered from his father and
grandfather.  I forgave him.  And when I forgave him, I felt at peace.  I
was ready to move on.

     I woke up.  Justin was lying next to me on the bed.

     "Hey Justin."

     "Hey, sleepy head."

     "I need to get up.  I need a shower."

     His face broke into that thousand watt smile that all the Barnes boys
were blessed with.  "Hey, it's about damn time.  You smell like a pig in
heat."

     "If the smell is so bad, then what are you doing here?"

     "Just watchin' over my best friend."

     I was unsteady as I made my way to the bathroom.  He followed and
helped me pull off my tee shirt and shorts before stripping off his own
clothes.  He adjusted the temperature of the water, and we stepped into the
shower.

     He shampooed my bed-matted hair while I ran the soap over my body.
  He moved me back under the spray and rinsed the shampoo out of my hair.
Clean now for the first time in three days, I looked into his face.

     He was crying and smiling at the same time.  "Are you back with us?"

     "Yes.  I had to get to the point where I could forgive Brad.  I've
done that.  I'm back."

     He pulled me into him in an embrace.  We stood wrapped in each others
arms.  I had my face buried in the nape of his neck.  Both of us grew a
little hard, but neither made any move.  Finally the water turned cold
forcing us to break the embrace and get out of the shower.

     We dried off side by side in the little bathroom, grinning at each
other the whole time.

     "Are you hungry?"

     "Yeah, I think I am."

     "Good.  'Cause I'm starving.  Let's go raid the kitchen."

     And that's where Andy found us when he came back from class.  Sitting
in the kitchen feasting on cold, leftover pizza.

                       **********

     Graduation was a blur of activity.  Everyone's parents, grandparents,
brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins were on campus.  Well,
everyone's except Jason's.  He still hadn't talked with his parents since
his dad had kicked him out for being gay.

     Of course Justin's entire family showed up for the event.  Afterwards
the Barnes Tribe and Megan's folks all descended on the neighborhood.
Kathy and Kevin had a huge barbeque for everyone.  The party lasted until
late in the evening.

     Many of us had too much to drink that evening.  I vaguely remember
Greg and Gary coming into our bedroom in the early morning, and I vaguely
remember noises coming from the kitchen and living room as the boys made
their own breakfasts, let Larsen out to pee, and watched their morning TV
shows.  My first truly conscious thought that day was when Greg shook my
shoulder and asked what he and Gary could have for lunch.

     Being a kind and gentle person, I growled, "Get your dad to make lunch
for you."

     Greg put his face in front of mine and sighed, "I tried, but he just
groans.  Come on, C.Z., Greg and I have been awake for HOURS.  We're
hungry."

     "Okay, okay.  Just give me a minute."

     I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up.  My head hurt.
Andy was snoring gently on the other side of the bed.  I loved the man
dearly, but at that particular moment I didn't like him very much.  How
could he sleep with so much noise from the other side of the house.

     I padded into the bathroom to relieve my bladder and then out into the
kitchen.  I opened the fridge to find something for lunch for the boys and
squatted down on my haunches in front of the open door.  Larsen chose that
particular moment to greet me.  His greeting consisted of putting his cold
nose on my bare butt.

     I rose up like I'd been shot out of a cannon and whirled around.  Greg
and Gary were rolling around on the floor in the living room laughing at
me.

     "You guys could end up making your own lunch if you don't stop
laughing at the cook."  I tried to look stern, but they just giggled even
harder.

     "How come you two guys are still naked?  Isn't it time to get
dressed?"

     Gary managed to respond through his giggles, "No one was up, and
besides you're still naked."

     David Barnes emerged from the back bedroom.  He too was naked.  He was
also sporting a semi hardon.  The boys giggled even more as David stumbled
into the kitchen.

     "Aspirin.  I need aspirin."

     "In the cupboard next to the sink."

     He shook a couple of pills out of the bottle and swallowed them with
some water from the tap.  "God, I have to remember to watch out when Adam
gets too much to drink.  He pounded my ass for hours last night.  I need
the aspirin for my butt as much as for my head."

     The boys went into a new fit of giggling, and my voice went up two
octaves, "David!"

     "Oops.  Sorry guys.  That was probably too much information."  He
turned red with the blush starting on his face and extending all the way
down his hairy chest and stomach.  "I think I'll just take a couple more
aspirin in to Uncle Adam.  He's bound to be a little hung over this
morning."

                       **********

     A college town becomes a very quiet place when all the students are
gone.  The campus was virtually empty with only a few cars in the
faculty/staff parking lots.  The streets of downtown were almost deserted.

     Our neighborhood was no exception.  Most of the larger houses on the
street had student apartments above the garages or on the top floors of the
houses.  Normally there would be cars parked all up and down the street.
The street now stood empty.  The cars having evaporated like the dew on a
summer morning.  In our little enclave, it was just Andy, Greg, Larsen and
me in the one house with Kevin and Kathy Williams and their children in the
other.

     Justin and Megan had moved out of the garage apartment the week after
graduation.  They had moved most of their stuff into the duplex down near
Chapel Hill before Megan headed home to Wilmington to put the finishing
touches on the wedding.  Justin was staying at the Barnes' cottage on
Sunset Beach.  Jason and Cory had moved to Atlanta to start their new jobs
while Brian, Stephen, and Mike were all back at their parents' places for
the summer.

     Andy and I were helping Kevin paint the now vacant apartments and
packing for our own move to Chapel Hill.  Greg and Gary were spending every
free moment with one another, and it seemed like every day Greg was asking
why Gary couldn't move down to Chapel Hill with us.  The two boys had
become even more attached to one another than before.  They spent every
night sleeping in the same bed either at our house or over at Kevin and
Kathy's.  Kathy was still insisting that they boys keep their underwear on
when they slept over there.  Andy and I had given up that battle long
before.  Greg and Gary had reasoned that since Andy and I slept nude they
could also.  When Gary stayed over at our house, which was most of the
time, they boys peeled off their clothes soon after dinner, well before
their pre-bedtime showers, and they didn't pull anything back on until they
were ready to go out of the house the following morning.  They were always
asleep and wrapped tightly around one another when we checked on them
before turning in ourselves.  They seemed to need the skin to skin contact.
Sometimes they were spooned.  Other times they were face to face with their
crotches pressed together, arms and legs wrapped in a human knot.  A couple
of evenings they were asleep in a 69 position with their faces lying only
inches away from the other's soft little prick and balls.

     Andy and I shared that information with Kevin and Kathy, and Kevin
related that he'd found them sleeping in a 69 position also.  We decided it
was likely that one or both of the boys was gay.  Of course that was fine
with all of us; our concerns centered around when to "talk" to the boys and
just how much information to give a nine-year-old and a six-year-old.
After some discussion and another couple of glasses of wine, we came to an
agreement that Kevin would talk with Gary and Andy would talk with Greg to
give the boys some information on the differences between straight and gay,
a gentle warning about how a lot of people weren't as accepting of gays as
we all were, reassurances that we all loved them no matter what, and an
invitation to ask questions.

     The boys got the talk the next day, but it wasn't Kevin and Andy doing
the talking.  It was me.

     Andy went back to his office after dinner to finish up the monthly
financial report on SportStuff, Jamal's company.  The boys had taken their
showers, brushed their teeth, and had disappeared into the bedroom.  Larsen
decided he needed to go outside.

     I waited at the door while he checked all of the bushes and trees in
the yard.  After lifting his leg on nearly every vertical surface in the
yard, he finally came back in wagging his tail.  The door to Greg's room
was closed.  I knew Larsen would be scratching on it in a few moments so I
opened it for him.

     Gary and Greg were in a 69 position and actively sucking on the
other's cocklet.  They quickly separated when they heard the door open.

     "S..sorry, C.Z.  Are you angry with me," Gary stammered out.

     I thought to myself 'I guess this is the time for some talking'.  I
walked over to the bed and sat down between the two naked little boys.
"Guys, I'm not angry with either one of you, but I think we'd better talk
about some things.  Okay?"

     I got responding nods from both of them.

     "Guys, do you know what it means when someone is 'straight' and when
someone is 'gay'?"

     Gary responded, "Straight is like my mom and dad, and gay is like you
and Andy or Matt and Doc."

     "Greg, do you know the difference?"

     "Yeah.  Gary 'splained it to me."

     "How did Gary explain it to you?"

     "He said that a boy and a girl can be in love and make a baby and
that's straight.  He said two guys or two girls could be in love but
wouldn't be able to make a baby, and that's gay."

     "Okay.  That's pretty good.  Sometimes things that you do are going to
be called gay or straight.  What do you call what you guys were doing when
I opened the door?"

     "We were licking our penises."  It was Gary responding.

     "Why do you do that?"

     "'Cause it feels good when we do it."

     "Do you think licking each others' penises is gay or straight."

     Greg answered this time.  "Gay, I guess, 'cause we're both guys."

     "C.Z, is being gay wrong?"

     I pulled Gary toward me in a hug.  "No, Tiger.  Being gay isn't wrong,
but most people are straight, and many of them don't really understand what
being gay is like.  Sometimes if people don't understand something, they're
afraid of it.  Others think that gay people have made a choice to be gay,
but no one chooses to be either gay or straight.  That's just the way God
made them."

     "Then I think I'm gay 'cause I love Greg, and I really like playing
with his penis and putting it in my mouth."

     "I think I'm gay too."  Greg pushed his body against mine.

     "Guys, you may be gay or you may be straight.  You won't really know
for a few years yet.  Maybe when you get to junior high or high school
you'll be able to know for certain whether you're gay or straight."

     "But I know I love Greg."

     "We all know that you and Greg love each other, Tiger, but that
doesn't mean that your gay or straight.  You may love each other like
brothers, and brothers, even straight brothers or straight friends,
sometimes play with each other and explore each others' bodies.  It's a
natural part of growing up.

     "You guys do need to keep what you're doing at night as a private
matter just between the two of you.  Lots of other parents and lots of your
friends at school wouldn't understand.

     "What's important for you guys to know is that we all love you very
much.  It doesn't matter to us if you're gay or straight when you grow up.
We're going to love you either way.  It's also important that you guys feel
free to ask us any questions.  We'll try to answer those questions, and, no
matter what the question is, we will always love you.  Okay?"  I gave both
guys a squeeze.

     They both nodded their heads and returned my hug.

     I gave them goodnight kisses and went back out into the living room.
Later that night when I checked on them before Andy and I went to bed, the
two of them were sound asleep.  Gary was spooned against Greg's back with
his arm draped over Greg's side and his hand cupped over Greg's cock and
balls.

     I thought to myself, 'They may be gay; they may be straight, but they
certainly aren't going to have any problems showing affection.'

(To be continued)