Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 14:52:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Douglas Grant <dlgrantsf@yahoo.com>
Subject: gang-of-five-8

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

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

First warning; as the story develops, it also gets 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 8

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


After that conversation -- about me, and dual citizenship, I mean; it was a
little like coming out for the second time in two days -- things got a lot
more relaxed.  We drifted, for awhile; and swam, and splashed, and then we
were back to touching and caressing each other, some, and in spite of how
nice they were being, to me, I tried to fight the impulse to touch them
all, rub against them, pet them, all the time.

It was hard.  I think I had -- a deficit.  Kind of the same thing as a
sleep deficit, but a touch deficit; I'd been an my sensual shell for so
long, and I think my instinct was to try to make up for it, all at once.

So I floated, and hugged, and tried not be grabby, and I think the three of
them saw right through me and didn't mind, because it seemed like I felt
bodies against mine, hands roaming over my chest, my groin, my butt, and I
felt lips on me, a lot.

Maybe they were this physical all the time, though; I didn't know.

Eventually we got out of the water to rest, which meant taking a nap in the
half-shade under the leafy sun canopy, the pergola, by the side of the
pool; and I remembered how GOOD it feels, how much BETTER it feels, getting
in and out of the water, all bare like that; drying off and comfortable in
the warm air, no wet swimsuit, gentle puffs of breeze moving over my skin
--

Well, the part about half-cuddling with my friends -- that helped, too.

And the part where I just casually reached over and cupped Zach's balls in
one hand; just because I could -- and, no big deal, he just murmured
something nice and appreciative --

That helped too.  A lot.

It was going to take me awhile, though, to get used to it.


I actually fell back asleep pretty quickly; which wasn't surprising, I
guess.  I could still feel the bone-tired punchiness of jet lag, every time
I closed my eyes.

And I had The Annoying Dream again.

I started having The Annoying Dream right after we got to London.  It's not
at all complex, or tough to understand; it's actually pretty dull.  As
usual, it involves going to the airport, and waiting to catch a flight
somewhere; with my parents, sometimes, or with one of my teachers once, but
usually alone.

And also as usual, it involves me missing -- or almost missing -- the
plane.  My stupid unconscious seems to like it best when I forget my
passport (as if you could get anywhere NEAR the boarding gate without
showing your passport, like, every five minutes); but Losing The Boarding
Pass is also a popular one.

Once I lost the whole boarding gate; that was especially fun.  Running
through the airport, looking for my gate as the minutes ticked away, until
it was five minutes after my flight was scheduled to go and I had the
final, sickening realization that I just-wasn't- going-anywhere . . .

Like I said.  Way too obvious to be interesting.

Except.  This was the first time, for The Annoying Dream, since I came
back.

And this was the Lost Passport Variation.  The obvious question; was I back
in the UK, trying to get back here?  Or -- the other way around . . . ?

I jerked myself awake; and had a quick second of total disorientation,
before I remembered where I was.  We were.

"Uuummmpphhhh . . . ?", from Zach.  My head was pillowed on his tummy; I
felt him stir underneath me.

"Shhhhh . . . " I whispered.  I lay back and tried to stay still, feeling
Zach's breathing underneath me; but my heart was beating fast, and I was
way too tense to drop off again.

Zach could tell.  His hand was lying on my chest, right underneath my left
nipple.  I tried to control my breathing anyway.

"Bad dream?"  he whispered at my ear.

"Not really," I whispered back.  I twisted my head around, and
kind-of-kissed his tummy.  His hand came up and squeezed my pec, gently,
and we just lay there, like that, in the warm air, for a few more minutes.

"Come see my room?" he whispered down at me, eventually.  I twisted my head
to look at him and smile, and we -- carefully -- disentangled ourselves
from Tim and Jarod, without waking them up.


Zach's room really WAS different.  Way different.

I mean -- I remembered it, really clearly, from before.  I spent so many
nights here, it was almost MY room.

A little messy, maybe; back then.  Neither of us was much for making beds.
But totally Zach; travel posters all over the walls, and a mobile hanging
from the ceiling; a big desktop computer, and boxes of computer games, and
half-finished science projects on shelves . . .

But now it looked -- well, kind of adult.

He'd painted; the walls were kind of dark grey, now, without a single
poster anywhere.  Instead of the old desk, there was a glass-topped table,
with nothing on it but a super-thin Apple laptop and a pair of really
high-tech-looking speakers, exactly centered.

The kid-size bed was gone, too.  Against the opposite wall, there was a
really BIG bed.  King-sized?  And perfectly made up, with a plain,
rich-looking duvet.  Bedspread, I mean.

But the real surprise was the books.  Dozens and dozens of them; all in
dark, minimalist- looking shelves, floor-to-ceiling against two walls.

"Wow," I said, looking around.  But mostly at the books.  "You really
changed this."

"Yeah," he said, looking sideways.  "I guess."

"I think you actually have me beat, now.  With all of these."  I waved at
the bookshelves.  "Well -- except, they're neater than mine."

I've always gotten teased, for all the books I have; I read a lot.  And
somehow, my books tend to wind up -- on top of desks, or chairs; or piled
in stacks, against walls.

"I just kind of got into the habit, I guess.  The more I read, the more I
WANT to read; you know?  About the real world, I mean."

"Yeah."

 I looked at Zach; it was -- well, maybe not weird; since we didn't really
know each other that well anymore, not the way we used to -- but.  He was
acting kind of -- shy.  Not really looking at me, much; being a little
tentative; smiling, a certain way.  Just -- shy.  I could tell.

The Zach I grew up with was a lot of things -- kind, loving, generous,
courageous -- but shy?  Not one of them.  Zach can be quiet; really, really
quiet.  But -- he's always had that openness thing going for him; that face
that just, shines . . .

"A lot of my mom's books are over here," he was saying, looking at one
wall.  "I'm starting to get into them; a little."  He half-smiled.  "She
always used to tell me how everything we see, and everything we are, is
just large-scale molecular biology."

"Yeah," I said.  Looking at his face.  He hadn't really ever talked about
his mom, much, after she died.  "So . . . you've definitely decided you're
going to do that?  As a major, I mean."

"Uh-huh.  It's really . . . interesting.  I mean, my mom was right; it's
how everything's put together; it's how everything works."  He glanced over
at me, quickly, and paused.  "I was thinking . . . maybe next summer, after
I get to drive . . . I might try for an internship in one of the biotech
companies in Emeryville.  You know; for early college credit?"

"Wow," I said.

Thinking -- again -- how maybe I had come back . . . a little late.  Just
when we were about to start drifting apart . . .

"Hey," he said, looking at me.  "I figured we could carpool.  You'll
probably be doing something in International Relations at U.C. Berkeley
. . . if you haven't applied for political asylum in the E.U., by then."

He made it all sound like a joke; but I didn't look at him.

"So," I said, after a second.  "What happened to all your posters?"  I
looked around at the grey walls.  "I really liked them.  Remember how we
said we were going to that one little village in Norway, some day?  The one
in the picture?  Underneath the mountain, on the fjord?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging a little, still kind of not looking at me
directly.  "I've still got them, somewhere.  But they got a little old."
He gave me a quick smile.  "Besides -- I keep most of my pictures on my
laptop, these days."

He padded over to the desk, flipped up the screen on his laptop, and turned
it on.  And as we stood there -- instead of watching the screen, I watched
the light from the screen on Zach's bare skin, and face, his long, lean
body --

And I couldn't help but notice.  Everything; that we were both, well, bare;
and, yeah, that Zach had turned beautiful, with the light from the screen
showing up his slender muscles, his smooth chest -- the light really
highlighted his pectorals -- and his FACE, damn it, that open face that
showed so much of his soul, but was so, so, sculpted-beautiful, these days
. . .

I looked away, fast.  Because in the space of time it took for his laptop
to boot up -- and it was a lot less time than my laptop took -- I started
to, well, get hard.  Chub up.  Become tumescent.

I told myself it was because, duh, I was nude.  We both were nude.  Three
years ago, I was used to it; heck, I'd grown up like this, really.  Now,
I'd caught myself trying to put my hands in my pockets twice in the last
five minutes.  And I was still really, really conscious of being naked.

But I knew it wasn't just that.  It was standing next to Zach, nude.  Zach,
with his sixteen- year-old-boy's body, close enough to feel the heat from
his skin.

And that bed, right next to us.  With that soft-looking duvet . . .

"Here," he said, touching me just lightly on my hand.

"Oh, no," I said, looking at the screen.

It was one of the first jpegs -- of me -- I'd sent back from London.  The
three of us, my mum, dad and I, standing in front of Westminster Abbey.
Yeah; original.

"Why, `oh, no'?  I think it's nice."

"Look at me.  God, I was so young.  And look at that hair."  Way too long;
I thought I looked like a brown dandelion.  A scared, brown dandelion.

"Hey!  You know I've always loved your hair.  Well -- how about this one,
then?"  He clicked again.

This one was me, alone, almost as unsure, with the Houses of Parliament
behind me.

"I think these were all from our first weekend there.  I had to get them
scanned.  I remember how weird it was, going into the store alone and
asking them to do it."

"Why was it weird?"

"I don't know.  The accents.  How different everything was."

"Well.  I'm glad you did."  He paused a second.  "It was so cool, getting
these pictures, actually seeing you there.  Kind of unreal."

"It felt unreal."  I looked back at my stalky, thirteen-year-old self.
"Did you keep ALL the pictures I sent?"

"Well . . . "  He clicked again; and I was looking at myself from last
March; on the highest walkway above the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in
London, with the Thames shining in the sun behind me, puffs of white clouds
almost covering the sky.  I remembered when it was taken; Jose, Robert and
I had skipped an afternoon of school.  Which was why I was grinning like an
idiot at the camera.

"That one, I don't mind so much.  I'm sort of presentable."

"Even if you are wearing clothes in it," he said, flashing his eyes at me,
with another little smile.

"Hey!  What about all your pictures?  The really good ones, I mean."  I
deliberately bumped my bare hip against his, and I felt my dick getting
bigger again.

"Which ones?  The stills, or the movies?"  He smiled with one side of his
mouth.

"MOVIES?  Oh, Jesus, I want to see those!"

"You will."  Zach closed down the viewer program.  "But I thought we should
do it with Liam here.  He's got some of his own; he's bringing his laptop."

"No!  Come on.  Just a few?  I mean, you guys were out here taking
pictures, and movies, and, and, stuff, and I was, like, barely able to wank
off in private . . . "

"Wank off?"  Zach sort of laughed, but gently; then his face got really
kind of serious.  Kind of sad, actually.  "Christian . . . I really am
sorry."

"What?"

"You know."  He looked down, then back up, at me.  "For letting it get
. . . like this.  Like it was.  For not, like, coming out, to you."  He was
looking at me really, really directly now, right in my eyes, totally
serious in that way Zach has.  "I . . . let it get weird, and I shouldn't
have.  I guess I do that, sometimes, with . . . things that are really
important to me."

The thing about Zach is -- he's so, so open.  Anybody can read his face;
his body, his posture -- just about everything about him just, shines.
It's part of what makes him so beautiful.

And now, all of Zach was, well, focused on me.  He was really, really
sorry; he was really concerned about hurting -- having hurt -- ME.

"Zach -- no.  It's not your fault.  It was me, too."  I shrugged my
shoulders, still looking at him; then I looked down.  "I should have
. . . well.  I think it was too important to me, too."

"Yeah, but I should have done more."  He paused, for a second.  "You've
always been -- well, you FEEL things, so much; you care, so much.  You're
sensitive; and I should've realized that, I never should have let the
silence build like that . . . "

He went on, a bit, still shining his concern, his compassion, and as he
said it -- something kind of changed, inside me.  Something big -- started
to change.

I don't know.  Maybe it was a combination of things; his new (to me) body,
his beauty, the new maturity and humanity shining out of him --

See; when we were thirteen -- well.  When we were thirteen, sex was --
great, fantastic, FUN; we -- all of us -- were a set of almost-brothers,
really, really fiercely and loyally devoted to each other; (mostly because
of Zach's leadership).

Yeah, we loved each other, in our special way, our thirteen-year-old way;
we even said it to each other, often enough, when nobody else could hear
us.

And Zach and me, if anything, had been even closer; brothers without the
rivalry, closer than friends could ever be.

But now -- standing there, close enough to smell his breath, close enough
to feel his warmth, almost close enough to TASTE --

Now it was different.  I FELT different.

And Zach had stopped talking, somewhere along the line.  And we were facing
each other, a few inches apart.

And I was growing a full, hard-on boner; which was weird.  Partly because I
was embarrassed about it -- like, when had I EVER been embarrassed, being
hard in front of Zach? -- and partly because it was, well, kind of an
EMOTIONAL boner.

And Zach, standing so close to me, smooth and muscled and beautiful and
quiet -- he was getting hard as fast as me.

"Zach," I said, softly, not-quite-meeting his eyes.  Then I looked up at
him, and I slowly reached out my hand and just, gently, touched him, on the
side of his waist --

And he shivered.

Twice; close together.

I kept my hand on his waist, and leaned a little closer, still looking in
his eyes; and our hard dicks kind of bumped against each other, in that
wobbling, rubbery way hardons have.

And then -- still barely touching -- we were kissing.

I mean -- weird, again.  I've kissed Zach hundreds of times, and more.
We've tried to time our orgasms, more often than not, since we were old
enough to HAVE orgasms, to when we were kissing.

This was -- different.

Wet; soft, and gentle -- but that wasn't it.  We'd kind of kissed like
that, a couple of hours ago; this was still different.

This was -- well, a kind of rush I'd never felt before.  I began to feel
something for Zach I'd never felt before; and I felt like my brain, and
maybe my soul, were, like, sort of naked to him, exposed to him, in a way
I'd never, ever felt before . . .

And this new, weird kind of kiss just kept going on, and on, us moving our
tongues and lips together, saying things without saying them, and I reached
down without looking and took both our hard dicks in my free hand, gently
pulsing them together --

Splash, from the pool outside; then the sound of Tim's voice in a kind of
`Whoop!', then a bigger splash, a cannonball-to-soak-somebody kind of
splash.

I'm not sure which one of us pulled back first.

I know I was -- I don't know.  `Confused', maybe?

`Needing to process this'; a lot.

Yeah.  I needed to process this.

"Maybe . . . we should go back out there?" I murmured.

"Yeah," whispered Zach, to my face.  Then he leaned in for another soft,
warm, wet kiss, and back out again.  "We should."  Another shock, of his
mouth on mine, in mine, then out again.

And then he'd pulled himself away, sliding his dick out of my fist; and I
wondered what I'd just done . . .


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Chapter 9 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 written me; and, thanks again for reading.