Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 16:00:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Douglas Grant <dlgrantsf@yahoo.com>
Subject: gang-of-five-14

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 -- Part Five

Chapter 14

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


And that's how things started getting weird, between me and Zach.

Well -- it's how I started getting weird AROUND Zach; that might be a
better way of putting it.  Except, some of it was his fault, too.


I got confused.

It wasn't Zach fucking me, that got me confused; not really.  I mean, that
part was great, fantastic, life-changing; life-affirming, even.  So, so
wonderful . . . .

But Zach's fucking of me -- it opened up all sorts of feelings.  Memories;
emotions, lots of them, so many memories of Zach and me together as kids,
all the things we'd shared, the love, the losses, the closeness --

And then, the memories my early times in the UK, when Zach was kind of an
icon I held on to, in the middle of a strange country and strange people; I
think -- even while I was talking to him, in emails -- I USED Zach, as an
emotional life preserver, as a crutch.  My memories of Zach; my -- well,
yeah, my idolization of Zach.

I'd always looked up to him, even as a little kid; that's just what people
do, with Zach.  And it was easier still, from thousands of miles away.

I loved all of them, of course; Liam and Tim and Jarod, and I missed them
all, I really, really did, while I was away --

But not as much as Zach.  Not nearly.

And I hadn't ever, quite, totally, admitted that to myself.


"Christian?  Zachary's here . . . " my mum's voice came floating up the
stairs, and I heard the smile in it.  He'd always been embarrassed by his
full name.

"Coming!"

I grabbed my backpack and headed down the stairs, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk,
skipping the tread that squeaked; like I always used to do, three years
ago.  Old habits.

And there at the bottom of the stairs was Zach, again, and I felt my face
burning hot, hot, hot, and I couldn't exactly look him in the eyes, just
mumbled something like "Hey," and then we were out the door, headed down --
all the way down -- the hill, and along the road, to Zach's high school,
and the pool, to informal swim practice.


                                     *


After a time, in London, Philippe had come along; and he was perfect.
Darker than Zach, almost the same build, almost (but not quite) as
beautiful --

And straight.  And that made him -- safe.

I even knew it, at the time.  Even while I was trying not to look at him
too much, while memorizing his face -- even while my stomach was doing
flip-flops whenever he sat next to me in the library, or made a joke to me
in his accented English -- somehow, I think I knew, it was okay to agonize
over him, because he was SAFE.  Unattainable.  Perfect.  Sans peur and sans
reproche.  No possibility of anything every happening, between us.

And this storm of new feelings inside me was overwhelming, whenever I
looked at him, regardless.  It coloured my whole time, in London; made my
whole time there -- what it was.  What it turned into.

And here I was, now, trudging down the hill, next to Zach.  And my stomach
was doing the same kinds of flip-flops; and I was just as afraid to look at
him directly.

No; it was worse.


                                     *


"Those DVDs you brought over Monday night were really cool," went Zach,
after a long silence.  "Especially `Blake's 7'; I'd really like to see the
next episode."

"Thanks."

Zach had dug out his old desktop system, with the big monitor; I'd brought
over some of my UK DVDs, and we'd played them on it.  Zach didn't mind
switching the DVD drive to European encoding.

Trudge, trudge.  The early August sunlight beamed through the dust we
kicked up with our feet.

"Maybe," said Zach, kind of neutrally, "you could bring it by tonight?  The
next episode, I mean.  If you want."  Pause, as I was starting to open my
mouth.  "Tim and Jarod are coming by.  After their run."

He said it -- casually.  Not looking at me.  Like it really didn't matter.
But it was so clear -- it did matter.

"That would be great."

Two and a half weeks, since Zach fucked me on the beach.  And we'd come to
this.


                                     *


Like I said -- I got really, really confused, about Zach.  About this new
way I was feeling, about him.  My best friend; my more-than-brother.  Well,
once upon a time, more-than- brother.

I wondered over and over if I was getting -- weird.  I mean, on one hand,
it was glorious; it was like I'd woken up, after years, and was really
SEEING Zach, for the first time.  My new feelings kind of combined with my
old feelings --

And on the other hand, I wondered if I was being a freak.

And on the third hand -- it was impossible, totally, utterly impossible,
that Zach could feel even remotely the same way, about me.

I could never, ever, let him know.


I was so, so fucked.  And not in the good way.  Not in the way I really,
really -- desperately -- wanted.


                                     *


It wasn't something I could talk about with Tim, or Jarod, or Liam,
exactly.  Or at all.

We were still getting together; still getting really sexual --

Well.  Except for Liam.  Sort of.

About a week after Zach fucked me -- Liam finally, finally got into
Candace.  As in; real sex.  Coupled with real love.

Jarod made a kind of snarky comment, later, about us being lucky we were
outside the blast radius when it happened.  But he meant it in good fun.

He meant it in love, actually.  We all love each other; honestly, and
sincerely.  In different ways, maybe.

Anyway.  For Liam -- it was a completely life-changing event.  Shattering,
really.  Kind of like Zach's fucking me.  I guess.  But the result is --
it's not quite the same, between Liam and the rest of us, anymore.

He still comes around; he still gets naked with us, he still has sex with
us --

But only sort of.  He sort of helps US have sex; he helps get us off.  And
he still has orgasms with us, sometimes.

But -- without penetration.

As in -- we don't penetrate him; and he doesn't penetrate any of us.

We haven't even talked about it.

We -- the five of us -- have always been a closed group, since there WERE
five of us, anyway.  We all started as eleven- or twelve-year-old virgins;
it's why we never worried about condoms, or diseases, or anything.

And maybe it's part of how, and why, we got so, so close.  When having sex
is almost like putting your life in somebody else's hands -- it kind of
defines the word, trust.

So maybe, when Liam pulled back like that, did what he did -- maybe he was
doing it to protect us.  Or maybe he was doing it to protect Candace.  Or
maybe, both of us.

Or maybe he was doing it, because he wanted to save that INTIMACY for when
he was with Candace.  I don't know.

Still; just with his hands, and his talent, and his sheer sex drive, and
his love -- he helped us all get off, whenever he did come over.  With,
well, a lot of enthusiasm.

Maybe -- between all five of us -- Liam's got the most difficult situation,
of all.  Definitely the most difficult ethical situation.  But he lives up
to it.  And I love him for it.


But.  My point was -- I didn't really have anyone to talk to, about Zach.

I didn't even talk that much WITH Zach, the last two and a half weeks.  Not
the way I wanted to.  Not the way we used to.

Oh, sure; we still hung out, together.  At his house, some days; at my
house, a little.  He was taking a summer science program at the local
junior college -- a program for fast- track high school science students,
naturally -- and he didn't have that many free days, anyway.

Zach did get me to swim with him, in his school's (MY new school's) pool;
it's regulation size, and it was a huge relief to get back to swimming
laps, doing sprints, trying to build back up to where I was when I left the
UK.

Not that I was as fast, or strong, as Zach.  I doubted I ever would be.
But I wasn't bad; and I was getting better.

But.

Wherever we were -- his house, my house, the pool, Starbucks down the road
from us -- it wasn't the same.

Because I was weirded out, and I'd pulled back, a lot.  And Zach -- well.
Zach had put up a kind of wall.  To me, anyway.  The same kind of wall I'd
seen that first weekend, a few times.  When we did talk -- it wasn't about
important things.  Not our feelings, not our plans, nothing at all even --
intimate.  I don't even mean, intimate about us; just, nothing really
substantial.

I thought at the time, maybe it was just part of the new Zach; there was a
lot I didn't really know about him, anymore.  Three years is a long time.


And here's the really, really weird part.  We were still doing sexual
things; with each other.  Of course.


But usually, only, when Jarod or Tim or Liam or all three of them were
around, too.  Never just the two of us, alone, since that day on the beach;
not once.  We didn't talk about it; it just happened, like Liam pulling
back.

And he didn't fuck me again.  And I didn't fuck him.  WAY too dangerous; to
me.

Can you get more pathetic, more weird, than that?  Here I was, getting
fluttery and melting and heart-speeding-up whenever I even SAW Zach; I'd
get all weird, waiting for him to call my cell, HOPING he would call me,
and I'd jump a foot whenever my cell did go off -- my family even noticed
-- and still I didn't say anything.

We were even having SEX; and still not saying anything.  Anything
important.

So I tried to control myself, and not be weird around Zach, and just gave
in to my feelings in little ways -- like, when we'd spend a night at Zach's
house, I'd be really, really careful to be touching him, as we arranged
ourselves to go to sleep; and sometimes, at night, I'd kind of lie awake
and watch him as he slept, my arm around his chest or something, and
whenever I could, I'd kiss him, like, on the back of his neck, just
lightly, but with all the feelings I didn't want to show . . . .

Yeah.  Pathetic.

All I can say now, is -- I've learned.  And if you've never made mistakes
like that, if you've never been a pitiful wreck over another person -- you
haven't been in love.


                                     *


It turned out, there was one person who could sort of understand what I was
going through.

I'd been spending more time emailing my friends Robert and Jose in London.
Not about Zach, of course; not even anything close.  But about almost
everything else in my life; the separate weirdness, of coming back to
California from the UK, and all the differences, and frustrations, and
things I missed, and how much I was not looking forward to starting a new
school; and future plans, and -- well, everything.

And surprisingly, I felt like I was getting closer to both of them; it was
the only good thing to happen to me, during this whole stretch.  I think,
maybe, at least sometimes -- having a little distance, from your close
friends, makes it easier to be more honest, with your feelings.  Especially
when you're doing it mostly by email.  At least it did, for us.

And it turned out -- Robert was going through a rough patch, too.  Rougher
than mine, probably.


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

. . . . well, it's been confirmed.  The F.O. told my father he's to be
posted overseas by the end of November.

The family feeling seems to be that, rather than uprooting me and getting
me into a school in Peshawar or Nairobi or wherever, I should stay here and
prepare for university.  I suppose that makes sense.

But as a result, there seem to be two options.  Either my mother stays here
too, which might after all be better depending on where my father is
posted, or I'm to be parked at a boarding school of some sort.  A Public
School.  Possibly even an Old School Tie Public School.

You can imagine my enthusiasm.

What do I do now, C, about E. M.?  I suppose it was idiotic to even think
about asking her out to begin with.  But I was all prepared to at least try
to talk to her, once term started.  What do I do now, introduce myself by
saying goodbye?

If I do have to leave, I'll never see her again.

Gloom.

-Roberto


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


`E.M.' was Elizabeth Marshall, a girl in our class -- and an American, from
Atlanta, actually.  With a story like mine; her family was in the UK
temporarily.

I felt terrible for Robert.

Not least because -- well.

The thing is -- I really, really like Robert -- (I always called him
`Roberto', and called Jose `Joseph'; I claimed I couldn't remember which
one was from Chile, and which one was from Kent) -- but.  He's not the most
attractive boy in London, exactly; he has longish, black hair which sort of
hangs down the sides of his face, and black frame glasses, and an okay
face, I guess --

He's my friend.  And it's who he IS that makes him attractive, not his body
or face.  Which really aren't that bad.  It's his cynicism and wit and his
quirks and his personality that make him attractive.  (Well, except for his
eating habits.)

The thing is -- Elizabeth Marshall -- well.  She's not exactly beautiful,
either; not like some of the girls in our school, like Ilse from Sweden
. . . .

But she's really smart, and really NICE, and she has a kind of cute,
animated, intelligent face --

They would make a good couple.  A REALLY good couple, and as I'd found out
from his emails, Robert was almost as hopelessly in love with her as Liam
was with Candace .  . .

I could only imagine how I'd feel, if I could never see Zach again.

So I wrote back.


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


 . . . well, you can look at it this way; you have absolutely nothing to
lose by talking to her.  And by asking her out.  I absolutely think you
should.

After all, you don't know right now what's going to happen; your mum might
stay here with you, and you'd finish the whole year with E.M.  And even if
you do have to go into a boarding school, you never really know what will
happen in the future.  You might end up at university together, after all;
it's not impossible.  People have a tendency to meet up again; look at me
and all of my old friends, from three years ago.

And either way, you will have tried.

You should just go up and talk to her, Roberto.

I wish I could help.  If I were still there, I could just approach her,
start the whole Americans-overseas-bonding-together thing, and then include
you in the conversation, and the rest would be easy.

(Maybe Jose could still do something like that?  They're both still
Americans overseas, just different hemispheres.  You could ask him,
anyway?)


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


And after I wrote that, and before I pressed Send -- I stopped.

And I thought; and I agonized, for awhile.  But in the end, I just had to
do it.  I needed to talk about it, with someone.

So I added a very, very carefully constructed version of what was going on
-- what was going wrong -- between me and Zach.

Without names; without anything about sex, of course; and -- without
gender-specific pronouns.

Oh, it was a masterpiece; if I do say so myself.  I didn't make it obvious,
with constructions like "that person" or "they"; it was much more indirect
that that.  Much less obvious.  But I did, finally, manage to get out the
bones of the story, and so tell another human being something of what I was
going through, something about the misery I was feeling.

Partly to make myself feel better; but also to make Robert feel better.
Less alone, anyway.


And the weird thing is -- I knew perfectly well, I wasn't going to fool
Robert, by avoiding "he" and "him".  It was just a way of -- well, not
forcing the issue.  Not right then.

You see -- while I never came out to anybody in my life, before that day on
the hillside a few weeks ago -- I never pretended to be straight, in
London, either.  I never ogled girls; I didn't have pretend-crushes, I
never talked about being attracted to girls --

I guess you could call it self-respect.

The closest I ever came to subject with Robert and Jose happened when I
mentioned once that I thought Emma Watson, the girl who plays `Hermione' in
the Harry Potter movies, was too pretty for the character.  There was a
long silence; then Robert sort of tactfully changed the subject.

It must have been the way I said it.  Or maybe the choice of words;
`pretty', and not `hot', or `brilliant'.

Like I said.  I never pretended.


Robert's reply came the next day.

When he got around to what I'd said about the me-and-Zach situation, at
first he used the same kind of cautious, gender-neutral wording I'd used,
but then --


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


. . . oh, sod this, it's getting too confusing.  Like one of those horrible
creative writing assignments; `Compose a letter to a friend on an intimate
subject in which the use of pronouns is restricted to `I' and `you'.'

Tell him how you feel, C.  For exactly the same reasons I should go up to
E.M.  (Well, I won't tell her how I feel, of course; but I'll talk to her,
and I'll show her how I feel.  Over time; if I have the time.)

I assume this is one of your old friends?  Probably it's Zach.  I think I
know how close you were, before you moved here.  I think you were half in
love with him, even then.

Tell him, C.  You don't know how he feels about you, after all.  And in the
larger sense, you're absolutely right, what you said to me before, you
never know what other people think until you ask them.  Simply ask them.  I
wish, so much, I'd talked to E.M. last term.  I wasted so much time, and
now I don't know if I have much of a chance left.  So talk to him, and tell
me what happens?

I do wish you were still here, to help me get to know E.M. the way you
said; that would be fantastic.  And no, I think Jose would be completely
useless for anything like that.  Can you honestly imagine him trying?

Besides, I miss all of your neuroses, and your dad's cooking.

If I have the gender of your friend wrong, by the way, no offense intended.

If I have the gender right, no worries.  You and Jose are my best friends
in the world.


Cheers

-Roberto


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


And just reading that email, with all its generosity, and gallantry, and
caring, and -- well, yeah, love, of a kind -- coupled with Robert's pain,
and the likelihood that anything between him and Elizabeth was doomed --

Well.  The screen seemed to get sort of watery, before my eyes, as they
filled up.  And at the same time, I was hit with a really short, intense
feeling of -- homesickness, I guess; for my old school, the Tube, Jose and
Robert, just EVERYTHING there --

Whatever else happened -- I knew I was lucky.  In so, so many ways.


Robert's email almost -- almost -- did it.  Almost changed things, for me.

It was my own advice to him, of course; thrown back at me.  But I KNEW I
was right, about him and Elizabeth.

And, coming from Robert -- it sounded right, about me and Zach.  It FELT
right.

But I didn't do anything about it.  Not then.  I was still too scared.
Scared of losing Zach, even as a friend.  Forever.

The thing that changed -- not just me, but everything, for both of us --
was so, so simple; so minor, so basic.  Just a gesture . . .


                                     *


It happened at the beach.

Another cool, foggy day; cool and breezy enough, we may have been the only
ones there.  `Nude fog-bathing', as Jarod put it, dryly; but it still felt
good.

We were walking along the beach, right at the edge of the water, with foam
from the waves just covering our feet, every once in awhile.

Tim and Jarod were walking together.  Zach was a little in front, on their
other side; I was a little in back.

Yeah; that kind of sums up how it was, between us.

All of a sudden, Zach stopped.  "Hey -- look!"  He pointed.

There, in the gentle surf -- I swear, just a few yards away -- a brown,
whiskery head was poking out of the water, watching us.  US!  A sea lion, I
could tell.

And the thing is, he just kept watching; you could see the movements as he
just tread water, looking at us so -- curiously?  I hoped it was just
curiosity, anyway.

Tim had the same idea.  "Do you think he's . . . . . . wondering, what the
hell we're doing on HIS beach?", and he laughed.

"Maybe he's just never seen naked humans before," went Jarod, smiling.

Hmmmm.  Could actually be, I thought.

And then Jarod just casually -- just, like, unconsciously -- put his hand
up on Tim's shoulder; and left it there, as they laughed together, waved to
the sea lion together, and basically just enjoyed the whole phenomenon.

Two smooth boys; one tan and dark, one milky pale and red.  So intimate
. . . so together.

I wanted that.  I wanted that, with Zach.  So badly; so badly.


                                     *


It changed me.  That one moment -- changed me.

I thought about it, a lot, that night; at home, alone.  I didn't sleep real
well.  As in -- at all.

Okay.

So, maybe I was -- weird.

Maybe I was a world-class freak, for feeling like this, for falling in love
with my oldest and best friend.

And maybe the hardest part would be looking at him, watching his
expression, as I told him.

I constructed the whole scene in my mind.  First he'd be -- confused,
maybe.  Then embarrassed.  More for me, than himself; and trying, so hard,
not to show it.  For my sake.

And then, because he's compassionate, and caring, and, well, Zach -- he'd
Talk to me.  Gently.  Letting me down.

But I was going to do it, anyway.  I finally decided, about four in the
morning.

Partly -- I guess -- because, over the last few weeks, I wasn't so confused
about MYSELF, anymore.  I loved Zach; I really did, I admitted it to
myself, now, and I didn't really think it was bad or warped or creepy --

It was the single, biggest, most beautiful and noble thing I'd ever felt.
It was like my soul had just -- flowered, or something.  Germinated;
matured.

It wasn't like Philippe; it wasn't pretend-love.  It was -- real.  I loved
Zach.

And as much as I was going to hate that scene, when I told him -- as much
as it was going to HURT, and risk creeping Zach out -- I had to tell him.

It was that moment, with Tim and Jarod.  Jarod's hand on Tim's shoulder.
The closeness.

Zach and me were so, so far apart, right then.  We'd been brothers; and I'd
weirded us out, and we were farther apart than when I lived in England, and
he lived here.

Maybe, after I talked to Zach, and we got over the hard part -- maybe, just
maybe, we'd get some of that closeness back.  Some of it, anyway.  Maybe.

And way down deep inside me, a little, small voice was thinking, just
maybe, over time -- knowing how I felt about him -- maybe he'd start
feeling -- something -- back . . .

The walls of my old room were just beginning to glow red with the dawn, as
I finally fell asleep.


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

Chapter 15 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.