Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 15:42:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Douglas Grant <dlgrantsf@yahoo.com>
Subject: gang-of-five-11

Copyright 2006 by dlgrantsf@yahoo.com; all rights reserved.

Next installment (of sixteen) in a short novel about friendship, growth,
and different kinds of love, in different combinations, between five
high-school boys.

First warning; the story can be very sexual.  If I were to code it
properly, it might be (BBBBB/group/oral/anal/mast/rimming/awholebunchelse).
Be aware.

Second warning; the characters sometimes talk about politics, the potential
for a military draft, and the state of the U.S. and the world, among other
aspects of their lives.  They have some fairly strong opinions, as people
will do.  Offense to any reader is not intended.

More after the end of this chapter.  Thanks for reading . . . .


***********************************************************************

Gang of Five -- Chapter 11

-----------------------------------------


It was later that night, back inside Zach's bedroom, when I had my real
revelations.  Or realizations.  Or whatever.  Two of them, anyway.


                                     *


"Christian?  Come closer, dude, I want to hold you."

I crawled over Zach -- all of us naked, resting, for the time being, on his
bed; twilight growing, outside the French doors -- and kind of slipped
myself between him and Liam.  Zach's arm came around me, low, from one
side, and Liam's arm came around my chest, from another.

"Christian," went Liam, moving his body against mine.  "God, it's so good
to have you back again."  He pulled me into a closer snuggle, a kind of
comfortable, stretching, snuggle, and I felt his free hand roaming over my
skin.  "Hey, it feels good just to FEEL you again.  Mmmmm . . . . " and he
followed up with a quick kiss on my cheek.

"Oh, yeah," I sighed, and I reached over, and snuggled him back, for a
second.

He just didn't know how good it really felt.  To me.


                                     *


I always used to always love nighttimes at Zach's house; in his room.  All
of us, together.

Used to be, we'd haul the mattress and box spring off of his bed, and fit
them together on the floor, to give us a big enough place to sleep.

Now -- well, Zach's bed is bigger.  Big enough.  If we cuddled up together,
anyway.

So, right then, the five of us were sprawled, kind of propped up on each
other, cushioned on each other --

Yeah, I know.  It sounds incredibly erotic.  But it weirdly wasn't.  We
were pretty thoroughly tired, fucked out, swimmed out -- it was more just
sort of LOVING, and free, and so, so very COMFORTABLE -- being bare, I
mean, and the warm of skin to skin, and the feeling of each others' bodies
--


That's when my first revelation hit.

I promised myself, then.  I promised myself I would never, ever, ever let
myself go so long without -- well, sex; I thought about it more as human
comfort -- ever again.

Looking back on the last three years -- I don't think I was, maybe,
entirely sane, in London.  Celibate; alone.

I don't think anybody can be completely sane, without some sort of sexual
outlet; well, any post-pubescent male, anyway.  I think, even if you're
wanking like crazy every day, if you don't have some kind of sexual contact
with another human being -- you get a little crazy.  Obsessive; kind of
warped . . . . the way I was obsessive about sex, and other boys, and The
Question.  Doubting myself, doubting my friends.

And I couldn't help but wonder -- how much misery, how many wars, how much
violence in the world, happens because -- well, maybe because people just
NEED TO LIGHTEN UP ABOUT SEX?  Maybe because people
just-aren't-getting-enough, or can't stand the fact that someone else is
getting-more-than-they-are -- ?  Call it sex, call it physical love, or
call it both physical and emotional, psychic love; it's all the same.  And
it drives so many people so, so crazy.

Not that profound a revelation, maybe.  Not all that original, either.  But
right then; coming from three cold, celibate years, back to this, back to
this bed, these boys . . . .  it was all so, so clear to me.  Clear, right
at that moment, to my body, as well as my mind.


My second revelation was simpler.

I promised myself, I'd never go so long keeping my body all covered up,
ever again.

After all this time, coming back to this -- Zach's pool, the air, the sun,
the water, this soft duvet -- I was just now, just this evening, beginning
to get back in touch with myself.  With my own body.  The way it looks,
bare; the way it feels, BEING bare.

So, I promised myself.  Whatever happened to us -- to all of us, with
college, or moves, or Tim and Jarod (and THAT was still something I had to
think about) -- I was going to stay a naturist, a nudist, whatever anybody
called it.  I was going to live bare, as much as I could; when I could,
anyway.  Be comfortable with myself, again.  Comfortable with my body.
Comfortable with other peoples' bodies.  Not as a sexual thing -- well,
except with these friends of mine, anyway.

It'll always be exciting, and sensual, and sexual, being naked with them.


And yeah, if you're reading this, you probably know the one, enormous thing
I WASN'T thinking about, with all this.  I wasn't LETTING myself think
about it; namely, me and Zach, or more to the point -- how things, maybe,
just changed between us.

Or maybe just changed in my own mind.  Or maybe -- shouldn't have changed,
at all.

So.  I lay there, happy, warm, in the arms of my old friends, and just sort
of blocked it.  Pretended it wasn't an issue at all.

Yeah; I know.  Pretty dumb, huh?

Actually, it got worse.  Before it got better.  But that's jumping ahead
too far.


                                     *


Liam's free hand was roaming over my chest, now, caressing it, feeling it,
making me feel just a little less innocently contented . . . but also
reminding me of the way he'd felt up Tim, earlier; and reminding me what
he'd said about Candace.

I had to ask.

"Uhhhh . . . Liam?"

"Mmmmm?"  His hand kept up a lazy kind of squeezing and caressing rhythm,
on my left pec.

"Couple of things I'm not really . . . sure I understand," I went, slowly.

"Oh.  Yeah."  He kept on feeling up my chest, and I felt him kiss my cheek,
lightly.  "Like -- ?"

"Well.  Does it matter to you that I -- we -- maybe don't have all the
right, uh, parts?  For your taste, I mean?"

Muffled "mmmmphh" of laughter, from Tim's general direction.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Liam; but I could tell he was kind of
smiling, as he said it.

"Well -- I mean, you and Candace."  I tried to put it a little --
cautiously.  Slowly.  "I know you're like, a couple now . . . "

"I love her," he said, simply.  I blinked, for a second.

"Yeah.  So . . . well.  You, uh, like girls, then."

More muffled giggles, from Tim; and now I could see Liam really stifling
his own smile.  "Yee-ahhhh, I think Candace would say so."

"But . . . you're also, here.  I guess you're, like, bi, then -- ?"

"Oh, Lord, labels again!"  He lifted up on an elbow, and looked me in the
eyes.  "Christian.  Have you decided you're gay?"

"Well -- it's more like a factory setting, than a decision," I went, a
little weakly.

"How do you know?  Have you ever done anything with a girl?  Have you ever
even KISSED a girl, before?"

"No . . . but to be honest, I never really wanted to.  I've always been,
like, really focussed on boys.  Really focussed."  Even before Zach, I
didn't add.

I'd had time, in England, to wonder what my life would have been like,
without Zach.  Which was another way of saying, without Jarod, or Tim, or
Liam, either.

Pretty bleak; that's for sure.  Frustrated; lonely . . .

"Dude."  He looked down at me, kind of gently.  "All I'm saying is
. . . don't, don't let yourself be labeled.  Don't accept it.  Don't let
the label, like, define you."  He plopped back down on his pillow, still
holding me, tight.  "It's SEX, dude, and LOVE, it's not an on-off switch.
It's who you love, and when, and, and, it's, like, letting yourself be
HUMAN."  He lifted his head up, and looked around at all of us.  "I mean --
I love you guys, I LOVE you, and what we do . . . but I love Candace too --
just, differently."

"We know," went Jarod, soothingly, from further down the bed.  He reached
over Zach and caressed Liam's calf.

"She's just so different," Liam went on, his voice getting a little softer,
a little dreamy.  "She's so different; the way her hips curve . . . and,
and, her chest . . . oh my god, her breasts are so SOFT, and, like, her
whole BODY is so soft . . . "

I glanced down.  Yep; he was getting -- tumescent.

"No, you're right, Liam," Zach said.  His head was sort of pillowed on my
chest, his arm still around me.  "You know we're not arguing.  It's just
that, well, maybe we're not as, as versatile as you are."  I reached down
and squeezed his hand.  "Maybe I wish I was.  But speaking for myself --
I'm not."

"Don't say that yet!  You just don't know.  Someday, I swear, I'll bring
Candace around with me, here.  For a swim; you know.  You'll see.  You just
-- haven't met someone like her.  Yet."

I looked carefully down at Zach, and met his eyes.

I didn't think for a second it would ever happen either, but -- his
expression said what I was thinking.  A kind of horrified, `THAT would be
interesting . . . '

"Anyway," Liam went on, "just think about it?  About girls, I mean?  Just
-- keep your eyes open; keep an open mind, okay?  Tim said he would, right,
Tim?"

I looked over Zach's smooth chest, to where Tim was sprawled, mostly on
Jarod, legs kind of draped over Liam's, a bare foot casually caressing
Zach's thigh.  "Right," he said.

And one eyelid just fractionally, almost unnoticeably, went down.  And then
back up.  Tim's always had depths.


Talk went on, and came around, pretty much inevitably, to me, and my time
in London; Liam hadn't been there earlier to hear much about it.

So I was kind of going on about my life there -- the good parts about it,
visiting my grandmother and grandfather, seeing Oxford, a weekend trip we
took up to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, that sort of thing -- and
when I came to a pause for a second, Liam went, "I didn't have any idea,
about most of this.  It sounds like you really miss it."  He paused for a
second.  "But I thought the Brits mostly aren't really happy living there?
A really low satisfaction level?  Like, they mostly want to move to Spain,
or something?"

"True.  Totally true; and, you know, I could tell you so much, about all
the bad stuff . . .  their own politics, and the war, and all the
surveillance, and . . . . "  I shrugged, then kind of smiled, wryly.  "But
I've always been weird.  And maybe it's a little easier to appreciate a
place, coming from the outside.  When you don't grow up there."

"He's thinking about moving back," said Jarod.  Maybe a little pointedly.
I opened my mouth again -- and closed it.

"For real?" Liam asked quietly.

"I -- no.  Not anytime real soon, anyway."

"Good.  I TOLD you not to go away like that again."  He squeezed me against
him, gently.  "I meant it.  But you're thinking about it -- someday?"

Long pause.  That slightly lost, slightly misplaced feeling, again.

"Yeah.  Maybe."  I caressed Zach's shoulder, his smooth upper chest, his
neck, with my free hand.  "Maybe for postgraduate work.  Or -- I don't
know.  But I think it will happen, for a while at least, someday."

Zach didn't say anything.  And he didn't caress me, back.


                                     *


After we rested a bit, Zach booted up his laptop again, and Liam did his
too, and we looked at some of pictures and videos of us -- of them, really.

We were tired, but we were going to do some more -- sexually, I mean, and
we all knew it.  This was one way to ease into it.  And besides, I had an
awful lot of catching up to do.

"I can't believe this!"  I said, for the fourth or fifth time.

It wasn't just the sex; I swear, it wasn't just the sex.  It was seeing,
like, a chronological record of what I'd missed; I was actually WATCHING
them grow up, almost, in pictures.

And not just their bodies; their poses with each other, their smiles, their
growing maturity -- everything.

Including what they did with each other.  I found out pretty quickly, they
must have started having anal sex pretty soon after I left.  To me, it was
beautiful, and still kind of -- exotic, maybe, or unattainable; I'd only
really seen it for real twice, now, and I still hadn't done it, myself, but
to all of them, it was no big thing.  Normal; comfortable.

Even with my dick getting hard, I felt a kind of twinge, watching it.
Self-pity, maybe?

Feeling left out; more like that.  Not something pleasant.

But the videos . . .

It turns out, Tim was the one who made most of the videos; it's his camera.
And, it turns out, Tim's really, really good at it.  And it's something he
wants to do.  Not pornography; film.  As a major, and as a career.

"You've got so, so much here!", I went, at one point, looking at the open
windows, and at all the file icons.  "Can I get copies?  I really, REALLY
want to spend some time with these^Å"

Looks between them, all around.

"Sure," said Zach; pressing up against my side, arm around my waist.  Both
of us, with boners wagging out front, again, working up to the next
session.  He kissed me on the cheek.  "We already agreed, a long time ago,
we all share these.  But -- just between us, okay?  And obviously, we have
to keep it all totally safe.  I mean, totally safe.  You can see, we use
some pretty decent encryption."

Again, that feeling; the faintest echo, of being a little left out.

"Well, of course."  I tried to make a joke out of it.  "I promise.  Unless
-- if they bring the draft back -- these would be perfect for getting you
all out of it . . . "

Jarod gave a kind of quiet snort.  "A little late.  Zach?"

"What?" I asked, after Zach didn't say anything for a second.

"You know . . . . . . about recruiters coming to campus?" said Tim, into
the silence.

"Huh?"

"Military recruiters," went Jarod.  "They come to our school, trying to
sign up kids for the Army and the Marines.  Especially the Army.  And -- by
the way, you should tell your parents -- if you don't fill out a form, they
get your phone number, and your class schedule, and your grades, and lots
of other personal information, and they start calling you.  At home.  A
lot."

"I didn't know."  I looked at Zach.

"So there's Don't Ask, Don't Tell, you know about that, right?"  Still from
Jarod.

"Yeah."  You can serve in the military, but if you tell somebody you're gay
-- or if somebody even THINKS you're gay -- they kick you out.  And make
you pay back tuition fees, if you're in officer training, I think.

"This coming semester, Zach's going to tell.  He's going to go up to one of
the recruiters at lunchtime, and tell them he's gay, and see what they
say."

"In front of . . . . . . as many people as . . . . . . . possible," from
Tim.

I looked at Zach, without saying anything.

That basically meant -- coming out.  Coming out as openly gay, in our
junior year of high school; with more than a year to go, before graduation.

Coming out for all of us.  Well, all of them, at least; most other kids
wouldn't remember me, or recognize me.  Right away, anyway.  But with how
close Zach and Jarod and Tim and Liam were, all this time --

Liam.  It might make things . . . . complicated for Liam.

But it wouldn't be like I was immune, either.  Like, I was going to claim
some distance from Zach?  My best friend, my more-than-surrogate-brother?
Was I going to, like, distance myself from the other three of them, too,
because I didn't want to go public?

In the light from the laptop screens, Zach's smooth, beautiful face was --
set.

I knew what that expression meant.


                                     *


I remember, really clearly.  Once, a long time ago, when we were all
twelve, and in middle school -- not too long after Tim started in with us
-- we were all eating lunch one day, in the playground; sitting on the
asphalt at the side of the basketball court, our backs up against the chain
link fence, lunch sacks in front of us.  It was Zach, me, Jarod and Tim, in
a line.

A boy we really didn't know all that well sort of wandered over, and wound
up standing right in front of us.

"Hey," he said to Zach.

Of course he'd talk to Zach first.  That's just how it was.

"Hey," went Zach.

 "So," the boy said, without any hesitation at all, "I hear you guys like
to take off your clothes for each other, and show off for each other, and
swim naked, and other stuff."  Not sneering; not accusing; not smiling or
joking either.

But the way he said `other stuff' made it pretty clear he knew about us.

I almost choked right there on my peanut butter sandwich, and I felt my
stomach tie up in a knot.  Jarod next to me went still as a stone statue.

Zach just looked up at the boy from where he was sitting, totally composed,
totally casual.  Totally fearless.  Afraid of nothing.

"Yeah.  So?"

Long pause.  Then the boy smiled.

"Cool," he said.  "Mind if I eat lunch with you?"

And that boy's name was Liam.


                                     *


I twisted in Zach's arm, used my free hand to turn his face towards mine,
and gave him a long, tender, and wet kiss; as tender as I knew how to give.
Remembering that middle- school moment; and all the other times he'd been
strong, and brave, -- and compassionate, and ethical -- in the past.
Mostly for other people.  Including all of us.  Including me.

"Cool," I said.  "I'll go with you."


***********************************************************************

Chapter 12 will be uploaded shortly.

Comments, reactions, and criticism are welcome at dlgrantsf@yahoo.com.

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who may have had similar
physical and emotional friendships with other boys; similar friendship
groups.  I get the impression that such arrangements used to be a lot more
common than they are now, which is -- in a way -- a shame, I think.  Even
if it does indicate progress, in a way.

I'm also interested in hearing from expatriates.  Christian's predicament
is partly based on experiences of several friends of mine.  I have enormous
(retroactive) sympathy for them both.

Many, many thanks to Nifty for providing this priceless service.

My previous Nifty story is `Naked with Connor', in the High School
directory.

Thanks, to everyone who has already written; and, thanks again for reading.