Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 23:31:59 -0500
From: Sequoyah <sequoyah@charter.net>
Subject: Moon Watching 3

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Chapter Three

I don't know what Harold and Shawn told the director--how they explained
Shawn's messed up face--and I didn't care so long as they did not involve
me. I had decided if Shawn tried to push something off on me I'd tell
everything I knew about his sexual exploits. I'm sure he was smart enough
to know that and to know if I did he would be in major trouble. A scandal
like that would not only seal Shawn's future in any camp, but also be a
major black eye for the baseball camp as well. Nothing else was said or
happened and then it was time to leave camp.

The camp bus ran up I-75 to Atlanta's Five Points MARTA station and it was
up to the campers to get home from there. I had been to camp enough to
learn to pack light, so even though I had been gone two weeks, every thing
I had was packed in my backpack except my sleeping bag and it was rolled
and strapped to the backpack. I had learned that while all the brochures
asked you to bring your musical instruments for nights around the camp
fire, neither my fiddle or mandolin were ever used so I left them home.

When I stepped off the bus, the driver had the luggage compartments
open. All I had to do was reach in, grab my backpack and head for the
turnstile. This year there weren't even goodbyes since I was the only guy
from metro Atlanta in my cabin. I got the train to College Park and decided
I wouldn't bother my parents. They would have, of course, come to pick me
up, but my place was only a mile from the station and even though the late
afternoon was hot, I was in good condition after two weeks in camp. Besides
College Park didn't know what HOT is compared to middle Georgia.

I expected to find Keith waiting for me at my place since he should be back
in College Park, even if just for the weekend. As I walked home, I was
thinking about how much I would tell him of what happened the day
before. Who was I fooling? I knew I'd tell him everything. No doubt he'd
have some things to say I needed to hear. Just thinking about talking to
Keith took a load off me. I smiled and stepped up my pace.

When I got home, Mom and Dad were surprised to see me. "Thought you'd call
from the station," Dad said as I dropped my backpack and embraced him in a
bear hug.

"Thought I needed the exercise," I said.

"You needed exercise after baseball camp? Are they getting soft?" Mom asked
as she came from the den.

"Not that I noticed," I answered as I gave her a hug. "Keith not here?"

"No, was he supposed to be?" Mom asked.

"I thought so. He was supposed to be back from Detroit in time to start
baseball camp tomorrow. Think I'll give his place a call."

Keith's mom answered the phone. "Mrs. Anderson, Tom. Keith around?"

"Hasn't he written you, Keith? I thought he would. He's in Detroit. Will be
for awhile longer I think. He went straight from his grandmother's"

"Something wrong, Mrs. Anderson? Something keeping him up north, I mean" I
asked.

"I sure hope not much longer, Tom. I hope he will be back in a week or
so. I'll tell him you called when he phones."

"Tell him to call me. Call collect."

"No need for that," Mrs. Anderson said. "How was baseball camp?"

I gave a noncommittal answer and hung up. As I did I had a feeling, a
hunch, something was wrong either with Keith or the Andersons.

I told Mom and Dad my suspicions. Both said they had seen little of the
Andersons during the summer, but had no reason to think anything was
wrong. "Maybe Keith just needed to get away from College Park to work
through some problems."

That didn't make sense to me, but I said nothing.

When I asked about the last session of summer school, Mom said, "I don't
know. I thought about forcing you to go to North Carolina for the rest of
the summer. Your dad and I are going. Leaving tomorrow, if we can get
ready."

"You mean you got off after all?" Mom and Dad both were due four plus weeks
vacation time, but thought they were not going to be able to get it.

"Indeed we have," Mom said. I grabbed her about the waist and swung her
around.

I called Mrs. Anderson to tell her we were going to North Carolina and
asked her to give Keith the phone number there^Śwe used dad's cell phone
there--and asked for his number in Detroit. Mrs Anderson said Keith would
have to call me because his auntie's number was being changed. She seemed
evasive.

Having gotten back from baseball camp Saturday morning and packing for
North Carolina the rest of Saturday, all three of us were pretty ragged out
by 10:00 and headed for bed. I had just fallen asleep when the phone
rang. I was still half asleep when Mom knocked on my door and said, "Tom,
it's Keith."

I jumped out of bed and ran to phone. "Keith! Where are you, Man? What'sup?

"Tom, my brother, I don't have long, Got a pencil?"

"Got one."

"Listen. I'm going to give you a phone number. Call it tomorrow night at
8:00 sharp your time. Can you do that?"

"Don't know, Keith. We're leaving for North Carolina in the morning and may
be on the road then."

"Can't use your Dad's cell phone?"

"Sure I can. I forgot that. Give me the number."

Keith gave me a number and when I was sure it was right I asked, "Keith,
what's going on? Your mom won't tell me anything. All I get is vague
answers. Mom and Dad say they don't know what's up."

"I don't either, Tom. Mom just called my granny's and said for me to pack
and be ready to leave for Detroit. 'And tell no one, I mean no one,' she
said, but told me nothing more. The next morning my Uncle Slim came to my
granny's, told me we were leaving and he took me into town, handed me a
ticket for Detroit and some money. I was on the way to Detroit an hour
later and I still don't know why. Have you seen LaTasha, Tom?"

"Not since the first of the summer. Something wrong with her?"

"Tom, I don't know. I have written her everyday, but got no mail back. I
have tried to call, but the phone here at auntie's has a long distance
block and I don't know the code to make a long distance call. I did call
from a public phone a couple times, but I got a message that her number was
disconnected. Tom, Man, I'm going crazy. See if you can find out anything,
ok?"

"Of course I will. Just hang in there. I'll call you tomorrow."

I didn't know what to do. How could Keith not be getting letters from
LaTasha or call her for heaven sakes?"

I hung up the phone and started back down the hall when Mom opened her
bedroom door and asked if everything was all right

"No, Mom, everything is not all right. I'm not even sure anything is
right."

"Wanta talk?" she asked.

"Yeah, I do. As a matter of fact, yes, I do."

"Your dad?"

"Yeah."

"Put the kettle on."

Talking when it was needed was a family ritual at our house. It happened
seldom, but I suspect because it could happen, it wasn't needed often. I
wasn't sure what would be involved in this talk, but I knew I needed my
parents.

Before going downstairs, I went to my room and grabbed a robe--all I was
wearing was a pair of boxers I had yanked on before going to the
phone--then went to the kitchen and put on a fresh kettle of water, got out
the cups and tea.

When Mom and Dad got downstairs, I said, "Sorry to get you up after a
tiring day, but I really need some help here."

"No problem," Dad said.

Mom and Dad sat down at the breakfast nook table and I went to the kitchen
and got the tea.

I took it in and sat down. "Mom, Dad, something is seriously wrong with
Keith or with his situation." I then told them about the phone call. "Do
you know anything about what's going on?"

Mom looked at Dad and then said, "Tom, maybe a little more than you know,
but not a great deal. I met LaLisa in the grocery when I thought Keith
would still be in south Georgia with her mother. She told me Keith was
going to Detroit to spend some time--maybe the rest of the summer--with her
sister Octavia. "We think it will be good for him to be away from LaTasha
for awhile. She's a nice girl, good family--well, so far as we know--but
they are definitely spending too much time together."

"'Well, LaLisa, you need to remember, absence makes the heart grow fonder,'
I said."

"LaLisa laughed, slapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Girl, you got that
right. Absence makes the heart grow fonder--for somebody else! That's how I
got Alexander. His mama sent him to Macon to keep him away from some hot
little thing in Albany, out of Albany into Macon where I was waiting! I
snapped him up right quick!'You could have heard her two aisles over! I
suspect that's what's going on."

I didn't know that," Dad said, "but isn't it strange, Rebekah? Unless I am
mistaken I have heard both Alexander and LaLisa say some pretty harsh
things about Octavia. I do know she lives in a really rough
neighborhood. Maybe not the projects, but what amounts to about the same
thing. I've heard Alexander say more than once Octavia was welcome here,
but he was not going into her drug infested neighborhood. I'd think that
would be the last place in the world they would want Keith to be. Son, I
think you're right. Something's going on here."

"But why is LaTasha's phone disconnected? Why is she not answering his
letters?" I asked.

"I don't know, Son," Dad said. "Maybe you can find out more when you call
him tomorrow. Rebekah, no reason we can't postpone the trip to North
Carolina a day is there?"

"None, none at all."

"Good. Maybe you can check up on LaTasha before Keith calls," Dad
added. "Anything else?"

I guess Dad noticed I was stirring the tea leaves and staring into my empty
cup. I wanted to talk about what had happened at camp, but I didn't want to
either. I was afraid my parents would decide to do something drastic like
sue the camp or have Shawn thrown in jail--"not a bad idea," I thought to
myself. I realized I was depending on having Keith to talk to and that
wasn't going to happen. Whatever was going on with Keith alone was enough
to get me down and I didn't need the Shawn affair around my neck as well.

I didn't move my eyes from my tea cup as I said, "Mom, Dad, you know I'm
gay and that means if I have a lover, it would be a male. Right?"

I glanced up quickly and saw my dad with a tiny smile on his face.

As I looked back into my cup he said, "I think your mom and I had pretty
much figured that out, yes."

"For a long time when I thought about having sex, I dreamed of it being me
and Keith. I realize now that what I felt for Keith was pupp--I started to
say puppy love, but that's not so. I was as in love with him as anybody my
age could be. Getting over loving him was hard, real hard. Even after I
thought it was over, I'd see him sometimes and my heart would just about
burst. I survived, but it wasn't easy. There were times I just wanted to go
to sleep and not wake up."

I looked up and saw panic in both my parents' faces.

"Whoa, don't get upset. I said I HAD felt that way at times. I was pretty
sure I was over loving Keith when we could be together all day and I didn't
think about kissing him. I really knew I was over it when I saw him with
LaTasha and how happy he was. Yeah, that was a sure cure for any left over
ideas he might be gay."

"But there's one thing about my loving Keith that I did keep. I kept a very
romantic idea about my first time, my first time having sex I mean, making
love." I looked up again, hoping my parents knew what I was talking about.

"Good for you, Tom," Mom said. Dad nodded.

"I didn't know who he was or where he was, but somewhere there was a boy, a
man, waiting for me as I was waiting for him. I was going to be a virgin
for my first real love. But it's not going to be and my first time sure
wasn't romantic, or good or anything except cheap. Tawdry. I remember that
word from English," I smiled weakly. "Yeah, tawdry, that's what it was."

That did it. I had been angry at Shawn and busted him a couple. I had been
angry at myself for being a fool. But now I was sick again, sick that my
imagined beautiful first time was gone forever. I couldn't hold back any
longer. I started crying as if my heart would break--as if it was broken
and it was.

Both parents reached out and put their hands on my shoulders and just let
me cry. Mom reached in to the napkin holder and got a couple napkins for me
to wipe tears and snot. I needed a couple more before too long.

Every time I thought I had finished crying, I'd remember Shawn and Harold
laughing about Shawn "popping my cherry." Even though he lied about fucking
my ass, he had given me a blowjob and that was enough to win his bet. He
got to fuck Harold because I was a pushover.

I finally got some control of myself and Mom picked up my cup and I
nodded. While she poured us another cup of tea, I said to Dad, "Dad, I feel
so cheap and dirty, but I also feel cheated. I feel robbed of something
very precious."

Mom came back with our tea and as I stirred it I told the whole rotten
story of what had happened at camp. I started by saying, "Mom, Dad, I want
to tell you what happened, but you have to promise you'll do nothing
without talking it over with me. I don't want you doing something as though
I was all innocent. Ok?"

Mom and Dad nodded.

I poured out the whole story, leaving out nothing. Mom and Dad were taking
it in stride pretty much--I was even a little surprised--so long as I was
talking about the falls and what happened there. That was not true when I
told them Shawn had seduced me to win a bet and the lie he told about what
had happened. I could see Mom becoming very angry. Mom seldom gets angry,
but when she does, she's been known to throw things. Dad is the
opposite. The more angry he becomes, the quieter he gets and he was being
VERY quiet.

When I finished my story, neither spoke. Finally Dad said, "Tom, first, no,
I don't hold you entirely innocent for what happened at the falls. I know
how difficult it is for a man to say 'no' when he's aroused. I guess it's
fortunate that most men don't have to do that or we'd really be in a
mess. I never thought about it before, but if two gay fellows are together
and one doesn't want something to go beyond a point, it's a guy that has to
say 'No'. I don't know that your mother would agree, but in my experience,
it is always someone else, a woman, who has said 'No'."

I was surprised when I heard Mom say, "I remember that very well, very
well."

Dad sorta cleared his throat. "Anyway, it's unfortunate it happened and
particularly that it happened to someone so young--you're just fifteen. Had
that been all that happened, I think I might have just called the director
of the camp, told him he had a gay counselor who is predatory and let him
deal with the whole issue. Shawn does not need to be in a position where he
is a supposed leader of young men."

"That's a problem all teachers have to deal with. By their very position,
they have power over students and if they cross the line, it is a very
serious situation. All our gay teachers are sometimes, I think, too
cautious, but as the incident last year at East River proves, maybe not so
you don't get tarred with the same brush as the predators."

Last year a science teacher gulled eight seniors and juniors into a
"scientific experiment" in which he video taped their being aroused by
movies, fondling, etc. He is serving twenty-eight years in the pen as the
result of one student being brave enough to say, "Yeah, he fondled me and
jerked me off while I was telling myself it was all scientific research."

"Anyway, that is the very least that should happen. Do you agree?"

I nodded and said, "Yeah, I agree. Now that I think about it, the whole
thing was too smooth. It was not on the spur of the moment."

"Certainly not," Mom said. "He had made a bet with this Harold fellow
sometime before."

I hadn't thought about that. Shawn was planning on having sex with me EVEN
before he asked me to go canoeing. "Dad, I've been stupid. I have been
blaming myself for, maybe leading Shawn on. He was good looking and I did
feel an attraction to him, but he was out to get me to--well, you know. I
mean from the very beginning."

"Right. And in that Harold's equally as guilty. He was as much a part of
the grand plan as Shawn."

"Dad, I didn't want anything terrible to happen to Shawn because I should
have said 'no'. Laying aside the fact that Shawn had planned to have sex
with me, I liked it. I really did. I'm kinda messed up about the whole
thing. And had I not heard Harold and Shawn talking, I'd never thought
anything about their having sex. I mean they are over eighteen and if they
want to have sex, it's nobody's business. Right?"

"Actually, no, not in the state of Georgia. You never get old enough for
gay sex to be legal in Georgia."

"And just who believes that nonsense?" I grinned. "Bet at least ten percent
of the men in Georgia are illegal or wish they were."

Dad laughed and when Mom said, "Tom!" Dad said, "I suspect the young man is
absolutely correct, excluding those of that ten percent who are past having
sex--over a hundred...."

"Thomas, be serious!" Mom said, but I noticed she was grinning a little
bit.

"A little joke helps," I said. "What do we do? I don't want my name spread
all over the state of Georgia as a tramp who put out for the counselors. I
know what kind of lies Shawn can spin. I heard him. Harold? I don't know
that he is as smart as Shawn, but he sure won't play down any sort of sex
story."

"I think we should call the camp director now, tonight," Mom said. "I have
learned that bad situations are not improved by waiting. We tell him he has
two counselors who are preying on campers, name them and have him yank them
out of the camp tonight."

"And let him handle Shawn and Harold?"

"I'm not sure. What do you think Tom?"

"How can he do anything about their mouths--telling stories I mean?" I
could feel my face burning with a blush as soon as I said, "their mouths."

"Do you want to face them? I wouldn't think that would be too pleasant,
something you'd want to avoid," Mom said.

"I think I'd like to set Harold straight and see the fear of God thrown
into both of them. I'd like to know that every time they thought about
telling some cock tale they'd cringe."

"Thomas?" Mom asked.

"I think it's the boy's call," Dad said and looked at me.

"If Sarge, the director, can take care of the two, that's fine. If not,
then I guess he and they have to be faced.  Have him bring them up here if
he's not convinced they should be black balled as camp counselors," I
said. "I don't want them around any longer than I have to, but I do want to
let them know how bad their lives can be made. But what if they deny the
whole thing?"

"I'm sure they will," Mom said.

"I'm not so sure. Remember this was not something new for them. I think
there might be enough stink to nail them to the wall if they try to deny
anything. We'll just have to see."

Dad looked at me and asked, "That's it?"

"Yeah, that's it," I answered. "Mom, Dad, thanks. Really thanks."

"I wish I could save you from such hard knocks, Tom," Mom said. "Every
mother worth her mama pin wishes she could keep her children safe from the
raw side of the world, but we can't. Your dad is more of a romantic than I
am, strange to say, but I, too wish you could have had a wonderful first
night of expressing your love for someone who loved you deeply."

"I wish you could have gone to him as a virgin, and Tom, you can. I'm fool
enough to believe that when your truly love someone and are loved by them
in turn, it creates a purity. In giving yourself totally, you will be
giving much, much more than Shawn could even have taken from you. Beautiful
Child, when you find the one who loves you, he will know that, to him and
for him, you are a virgin."

Before Mom was half through speaking, I felt large, hot tears streaming
down my face, tears of pure wonder and joy.

When I looked up, Dad was standing in the kitchen door, holding the
phone. "Sarge, sorry to get you out of bed at this hour, but I think you
may have had your night's sleep. My wife and I have been sitting with our
son, Tom, for some time now while he told us of an experience yesterday at
camp...Yes, I know he punched one of the counselors. The only problem was
he didn't do it the day before...Yes, I do know what I am talking about and
I think you need to listen for a change...I don't care what time of night
it is. One of your counselors seduced my son to win a bet then not only
claimed the bet for seducing Tom, but also told a lie about having anal sex
with him... Sarge, don't play dumb and dense with me. YOUR counselor Shawn
claimed he fucked my son's ass...Yes, I thought you'd understand that...No,
sending Shawn home is not enough. Unless you want your camp put out of
business and your life ruined, you need to do something...I think you
better just bring the two...Shawn and Harold...Yeah, Shawn seduced Tom to
collect a bet he made with Harold. Yeah, both here in College Park at 9:00
sharp...It will be easy to locate us. Just stop by the police station and
an officer will be happy to direct you...No, Sarge, there's nothing to talk
about. It's late and I need my sleep."

"And just who is this Sarge?" Mom asked when Dad put the phone on the
table.

"Sarge Martin. He's the camp director. Actually, he owns the camp. He's a
retired Army NCO."

"NCO?" I asked.

"Noncommissioned Officer," Dad said. "Officer, right!" Dad said and reached
for the the phone again. He walked on into the kitchen as he was dialing
and didn't come back into the breakfast nook until he finished and when he
did, he said, "About the police. I know the assault--technically I think
that's what it's called, Tom--took place in Gray county and I suspect any
legal action will have to take place there, but I hope it won't come to
that, but I told Sarge to go by the police station for a reason^Śwell, I
didn't know it at the time, but I had a reason. I just called Officer Joe
Turner at home, told him briefly what is going on and asked him if he could
come by for breakfast and then meet the camp crowd and bring them
over. He's actually off duty tomorrow, but not everyone needs to know
that. He'll drop by for breakfast at 7:30 and to talk to you, Tom, and then
go to the station and drive a cruiser over."

"Someone else who will know I am a fag," I said. "I may as well hang a sign
around my neck."

"Tom, I think you'll like Joe. He's a Georgia good old boy in some ways, I
guess, but there's a hell of a lot more to him than that would suggest. I
had him in English his junior and senior years. His senior year his parents
threw him out of his house and he was living in a homeless shelter. He had
been there a couple weeks before Queen Joyce found out about it."

Queen Joyce was, and is, a counselor where Dad used to teach. I don't know
that I ever knew her real name. She is large, black, suffers fools not at
all and is a tiger protecting her cubs when it comes to her
students. Apparently she had married--again or maybe he was number three or
four, no one knew Queen Joyce's business--over the summer and the principal
messed up her name as he was introducing her to the students. When he did,
she stood up, sashayed across the stage and said, "You can just call me
Queen Joyce." And Queen Joyce she was and is and is to come.

Dad continued, "As Joe told me later, 'Ain't no white boy got a mama any
better than this honkie's Queen Joyce.' She had noticed Joe, who was guilty
of almost terminal neatness, was disheveled and not too clean. When she
asked him about it, he told her he had been put on the street. His old man
had caught him kissing another boy who was, he said,'not only a cock
sucking faggot, but also a god damn black nigger.' Anyway, Joe said Queen
Joyce grabbed him, hugged him to her bosom--'almost smothered me with those
big tits,' Joe had laughed. He lived with Queen until he finished high
school and rounded up enough scholarships to go to Clayton State and get
his degree in criminal justice."

"The boy he was kissing managed to get through high school before his
parents found out he was gay and sent him packing. He and Joe got a place
together, both worked full-time and went to school full-time until Trey,
Joe's boyfriend, got very sick. The doctor allowed him to finish out the
semester, but he had to quit work. Eventually, the two worked out an
arrangement so they could go to school and work reasonable hours until they
graduated a a year or so ago. Son, I think one good thing may come out of
all this. You'll get to know Joe and I can't think of a finer role model
for a gay young man such as yourself."