Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 10:42:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Larry Butler <practicumscribe@yahoo.com>
Subject: Vernon, Gene, and Me 4

Vern took the time to make three big sandwiches. I cut the tomato and onion
to pile on top of four different kinds of lunchmeat. There was a pickle for
each of us and a bag of chips, ice cubes, and soda. He carried the three
places and I carried the rest back to the room. Gene hadn't moved and still
lie naked on the far side of the bed.

"All right! Brenda doesn't cook like this," he said, biting
enthusiastically into the sandwich, biting the pickle before he started to
chew.

Gene was like a human garbage disposal, vacuuming up everything that got
near the opening. The plate sat on his rounded stomach, rising and falling
as he breathed, talked, and laughed. The black hair shinned around the
plate and down into his crotch where his limp dick lay. Vern and I ate
politely and before we were half way done, Gene had finished with the
sandwich and was working on the chips, eating them out of the bag.

"What happened?" I asked, being careful to clear my mouth before speaking.

"I got hungry and thirsty and then I ate and drank," Gene said, drinking.

"To the kid at the boardwalk; at the bathroom? Did you get with him?"

"There were a lot of kids," Gene said, crunching potato chips and gulping
soda, being careful to rattle his ice each time he finished drinking. He
held out the glass and Vern reached to pour him more, and then Gene drank
again, until the new soda was half gone. Then he studied the glass after
putting the plate on the nightstand next to him.

"The one that you watched do all that stuff."

"Arnie. I don't know."

"You don't know? That was it? You never did anything."

"I touched his dick, didn't I. What did you want me to do, take it up the
ass, suck him down to the root, or what did you have in mind for me?"

"I touched a dick when I was nine," I said. "You only did it because he set
you up to do it," I explained. "That's not a sexual experience. It's
something that happened to you."

"This kid is so full of shit I bet his shorts have skid marks," Gene told
Vern.

"Cut it out," Vern said. "What did happen."

"Arnie never came back. Not while I was there that summer, but I left three
days later and we didn't go back until the next summer. So we might have
missed each other. What did he need me for? He had plenty to do without
me."

"Did you see him again?" I asked.

"See who?"

"You know who I'm talking about," I said.

"Why are you so interested in Arnie? He's even older than I am."

"I don't know. You took the time to tell us about him. There has to be more
to it than that or you wouldn't have bothered."

"Yeah, maybe. I didn't know anything then. I was a lot like you only
younger. You're older than I was back then and you know a lot less than I
knew."

"What, because I haven't fucked around with everyone that has a dick?" I
objected.

"No, because you object to guys who have," Gene said. "It's not your call
kid."

"There are limits. You can't just do stuff because you feel like it. If
everybody did that, it would be a fucked up world."

"If everyone did that the world would be a hell of a lot more peaceful. So,
what are the limits anyway? And do you get to do stuff if you don't feel
like it? Will that make you happy kid? Who decides who gets to do it with
who and how often? You?"

"No. You just can't do it with everyone you meet," I said. "It takes the
mystery out of it. Then it's just routine and it should never be routine."

"Who do I get to do it with according to Ted? I need to know so I can tell
Brenda. She enjoys sex with my friends."

"RC," Vern said, smiling.

"She'd ah married him if he had been old enough."

"I don't know," I said, feeling cornered by his attitude.

What's that you said?" Gene inquired loudly.

"I said, I don't know."

"Exactly. You don't know shit. Don't sit there looking all superior,
because I did things so I could have the experience. I wanted to know why
things were the way they were and why I felt the way I felt. I didn't want
to grow up being clueless. Whatever it was about back then, I wanted to
know more not less. I was certain experience would allow me to figure out
what was best for me."

"Did you see him again? Arnie?" I asked.

"His folks spent the summer there, too. His father anyway. He didn't have a
mother. I saw him the next summer. He'd grown. His voice got deeper. He had
some hair on his chin. It wasn't enough to shave but he hardly had any hair
at all the summer before."

"I'd been down to the bathroom and to the arcade, hoping to find him. I
went strolling into that bathroom the first afternoon I got there. There
were like three guys standing in there. I think it was the college guys
Arnie mentioned. They were all older, but not much older. Whatever was
going on, it stopped when I showed up. They all looked at me and I started
to pee at the trough, but I changed my mind and went into the first booth
to pee. None of them said anything the entire time I was in there; all of
two minutes. They watched me come out of the booth and kept watching me
until I went out the door. I heard laughter once I was outside. I'm not
sure what they were laughing at."

"What were you looking for?" I asked. "I mean the first thing you did when
you got back down there was to look for him."

"Yeah, why was this guy so important to you?" Vern asked.

"If you're looking for me to say I was looking for a dick to suck, I'm
sorry to report that I wasn't. I'm not sure what I was looking for, but
Arnie excited me. He scared me because of what I felt when he was near me,
but there was excitement to it and I liked it. I was young and didn't know
how to get where I wanted to go, but I figured Arnie could help. If that
meant feeling his dick or watching him suck guys off through a hole in the
wall, that was fine with me. I wasn't in charge. I was just curious."

"What was it that scared you, when you were with him?" Vern asked.

"Like I'd do whatever he wanted so he'd let me hang around him."

"Where'd you catch up with him?" Vern asked.

"What makes you think I did?"

"He had grown. His voice was deeper," Vern reminded him.

"Yeah, that's right. He was with a guy and they came into the arcade at the
end of the first week I was back. I didn't recognize him at first. His hair
was cut short. The year before it had been hanging over his face and
covered his ears. He was wearing a nice shirt and slacks and the guy with
him was about the same age, only he had dark hair. They played some games
and I lost track of them, but he came over and said, Gene, right? Yeah, I
said, not taking my eyes off the ball.

"He said that I looked older but nothing like how much he'd matured. He was
nearly a man. I was still growing up and not making a lot of progress. The
boy he was with had a deep voice and sparks in his eyes when Arnie stopped
to talk to me. I figured they were friends but I wasn't sure it was any
different than the boys he had hung around him the last summer. I kept
playing and they disappeared out the front door. I wanted to go see where
they were going but I thought they might be heading for the bathroom, and I
didn't want to go in there with two guys, especially two pretty good size
guys. I thought they might be able to make me do something I didn't want to
do."

"You said you wanted to be around him," I said. You'd do what he wanted you
to do."

"Him but not his friends. It bothered me that he had so many friends. I
wasn't sure how much time I could get from him, even if I could get his
attention. I didn't want to share him with other guys."

"When did you run into him again?" Vern asked.

"The following week. I was up on the boardwalk down by the place where they
had great French fries. I had just poured some vinegar on mine and was
walking away, lost in the taste of my treat. There he was, sticking his
fist in my fries and popping some in his mouth.

"He walked with me and helped me eat them. I always got more than I could
eat and they were never any good once they got cold, so I didn't mind the
help. We walked and he talked about the summer being slow and how a lot of
the kids he knew hadn't come back. He said it was good that I came back. We
walked in the opposite direction from the bathroom, so I liked that,
although I'd have gone there with him if he had said he wanted to go there.

"Hey, I got to go over a few blocks. You want to come along? he asked me. I
was eager to go with him. We came around the corner heading for the
riverside of the main drag and there's the dark haired kid I'd seen him
with the week before. The one he was with the first day. He doesn't look
all that happy to see me with Arnie. They talked about a she and the dark
haired kid wanted to know if she was going to be there, and if I was going
along. Arnie said she was and I was and we walked further away from the
ocean. We turned the corner and he starts up the steps of the first house
we come to. I trot up the steps with him and the other kid follows. Arnie
knocked on the door and this blond haired girl answered. She had long blond
hair and Arnie kissed her on the lips and she glanced at me and then at the
other guy and said, hi Joshua. How are you today? It was obvious she liked
him."

"Everyone agree that everyone else was fine and we ended up sitting in her
living room as she put ice in glasses and brought us tea. Joshua kept
staring at her and Arnie touched her every time she passed him. It was
odd. Not odd what was happening but odd that Arnie was involved with a
girl. They obviously knew each other pretty well, but then, I thought back
to the things I had seen Arnie do with guys and the way Joshua hung close
to him, like they were together.

"We're all sitting and talking but I'm mostly quiet. Arnie says she should
go put that "shortie nightgown" on Joshua likes. Joshua smiled and the girl
blushes as she smiles back. Joshua gets out of the chair. The front of his
pants are all tented out. He sits down at the other end of the sofa from
Arnie and seems really nervous. He spends his time watching the doorway and
looking at Arnie. The girl came back in what looked like a pink slip, only
you can see her pink panties because it is so short. Arnie says how lovely
she looks, only she's skinny and don't have much of a rack on her, but
Arnie and Joshua don't seem, too, worried about it.

"She sits in the middle between them and Arnie kisses her. I felt even more
uncomfortable all the time. This isn't what I'm expecting to find on my
return to the beach. I start thinking that Arnie has changed. She half
leans on Arnie and her feet are in Joshua's lap and he is right away
feeling them and then her legs as she gets into making out with Arnie. Then
the guy's hand has worked its way up the inside of her leg into his fingers
are feeling the front of her panties.

"She keeps kissing away on Arnie, acting like another guy doesn't have his
hands in places where guy's hands weren't usually allowed to linger, at
least not in a crowd. Joshua now has the front of his pants pressed hard
against her leg. He is leaning closer and using his hands more vigorously
as she wiggles a bit from all the attention she's getting. That's about the
time Joshua's fingers started to slip under the leg of her panties, so his
fingers are now rubbing the prize. His face is getting closer and closer to
her crotch and now Arnie's hand is on top of the pink panties, too.

"Joshua has a wild look in his eyes as his face presses against the silk
and Arnie's hand as his finger's probe deeper under the material. It was
all quite confusing because it caught me by surprise. I thought maybe I
didn't know as much as I thought I knew about Arnie, or maybe he had
changed. He was certainly into the activity on the couch, but why did he
want me there?"

"I got to pee, Arnie said and Joshua pulls his hand our from under her
panties. You got to pee, Josh, Arnie wants to know and Joshua says he
does. Then Arnie says the girl should ought to go change, because they will
be going after they pee. She heads up the stairs and Arnie goes into the
hall with Joshua behind him. I figured I had to pee, too, and so I got up
and went into the hall once they were out of sight.

"Then I see the light on and the door half opened at the end of the hall
and so I head for there before they finish, but what I see changes
everything back again. Arnie's leaning on the sink with his hard dick
sticking out of his pants. Joshua is in front of him sucking him
off. Arnie's grown there, too, and it's way thicker but no longer as far as
I could tell. I stand and watch as Joshua sucks up a storm and then Arnie
turns his head to look at me, and he smiles. He didn't care I saw, or he
planned on me seeing. I think Joshua might have objected to the view I had
but he was so busy trying to swallow Arnie's dick that he didn't look my
way."

"So, let me get this straight. Arnie's making out with a girl to make out
with a guy?" I say. "How weird is that?"

"Very close kid. You aren't far off the mark for once. Arnie and his
girlfriend use her pussy to get him guys. I was amazed that guys that
wanted girls would do stuff with other guys," Gene confessed. "Arnie played
all the angles and he hung with girls that liked the excitement he
provided."

"Like you do?" I asked.

"Yeah, like I did. It was quite exciting seeing a guy like Joshua do a guy
like Arnie, all the time thinking he was paying a toll so he could cross
the bridge to where the pussy is. All is fare in love and war. I had the
feeling that Arnie would educate me but I had no idea how complicated and
how varied the education might be. I had to rethink everything after that,
because everything I knew had turned 180 degrees and then it turned back
all in an hour."

"You decided you like girls and got married?" I deduced.

"You're getting way ahead of yourself kid. I liked watching them, both of
them, with the girl, but I didn't want in on that action. The action with
Arnie in the bathroom, I'm not so sure about. I was way more excited by
what went on in there than what was going on out on the couch," Gene
insisted. "I did enjoy seeing Joshua on his knees though. He was tough
looking and he had a tude and Arnie had make a cocksucker out of him. I
liked that action."

"You're gay," I said. "Arnie's gay. Joshua was being used so Arnie could
get what he wanted from him and both Joshua and Arnie were using Arnie's
girlfriend, but what was she getting out of it?"

"Well, thank you very much, Sigmund," Gene said. "I s'pose you don't need
to hear the rest of the story since you've already figured it all out?"

"I didn't say that," I said. "My name is Ted by the way."

"You're a dick," Gene said.

"Gene!" Vern said.

"He's a dick. He don't listen and he thinks he knows stuff without ever
having been there. He's the kind of fag that gives fags bad names."

"I'm not a fag," I protested vehemently.

"La Tee Dai. Who the fuck cares? It's not about you, Ted."

"I have my opinion and I'm not a fag."

"You have an opinion based on what?" Gene argued.

"Based on my opinion."

"You need to have experience to develop an intelligent opinion about simple
concepts, but you want to share you opinion with something as complicated
as sexuality. Forgive me if I don't come to you for advice. Come back in
ten years and then you might have something to say."

"I'm hoping we can achieve that in a little less time than that," Vern
said.

"I never said it was intelligent. I said it was my opinion," I said. "I
want experience but not from the varsity sex club. I think I can figure
things out if Vern's helps."

"Vern is all in favor of that," Vern said. "I think we can come up with a
plan we can both agree on."

"Why don't we put a hold on your wise ass remarks until you do that?" Gene
said.

"Yeah," I said, not being particularly in favor of keeping quiet.

"This is all sounding quite familiar," Vern said. "Is Arnie your mentor?"

"I suppose I got a certain amount of instruction from Arnie. What he taught
me was that you don't need to label everything you do. I'm not gay because
I screw Vern. I'm not straight because I screw Brenda. I'm not asexual when
I'm not screwing anyone."

"So you're telling me I might not be gay?" Vern said. "I'm going through a
stage, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure you're gay. From my observation your interest has
always been in dicks," Gene said.

"When put in the right place, yes, you could say that," Vern said.

"But you're not because your interest is in assholes," I said, unable to
control myself.

"I'm not because I'm more flexible. I can go without guy's assholes but
that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. I also enjoy my wife and I love her
and we agree on most things, especially guys. I don't particular think the
available labels fit me," Gene said thoughtfully.

"Bi-sexual," I said.

"Sexual," Gene said. "I like sex. I can enjoy it with men, with women, or
with both, or many variations on the theme."

"So what's that make me?" I asked.

"You are an unknown quantity. You think you like guys now. I only liked
guys when I was your age. I'd met Brenda but I was having sex with only
guys. Once I found out I could appreciate being with Brenda, it was easier
being with her than being with guys. Way easier. We had more in common. We
did everything together."

"She changed you?" I asked.

"No, nothing changed. Guys are dicks. I'm a dick. We can hit and run, get
our needs met and then go back to the acceptable life."

"Acceptable life?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure. If you date and have a girl around your apartment, everyone
assumes you're straight. Then if a guy or two show up, stay the night, and
aren't too wild in bed, no one thinks about it. They're just buds because
he's got a girlfriend."

"So you're living a lie to convince people you aren't fucking guys, but you
are fucking guys?"

"I'm living my truth. My reality. Even when I saw it, I questioned it. I
saw Arnie with Peggy. I saw him with Joshua. I saw him with any number of
younger guys, older guys, and guys his own age. Almost every time I was
around him, he was having sex, planning to have sex, or just had sex. He
liked sex and adjusted to all its facets, during his summers at the
beach. He told me he never found anything like it anywhere else. At home,
Newark, New Jersey, he had very few chances to have sex with guys. Once he
found out what went on at the beach, he made up for lost time."

"So you became friends with Arnie?" Vern asked.

"No, I don't think you became friends with him. You were having sex with
him or you weren't. Everyone he showed up with he was having sex with. He
was having sex with the young guys during the day, college guys in the
afternoon, and old guys at night. When I hung around him, something always
happened pretty quick. He liked sex. He said it excited him and made him
feel alive and otherwise his life sucked."

"I bet," I said. "Sucked big time."

"What was with the girl?" Vern asked.

"She fell in love with him. He told her it wasn't going to work but they
kept seeing each other until he realized that it worked fine. She knew. She
wanted to be with him, and she accepted the other guys as part of the
package. Whatever Arnie wanted was okay with her."

"Brenda?" Vern said.

"Brenda," Gene said. "Thank heaven for Brenda or I'd be looking for cock
every day. She helped me to realize that I could take it or leave it as
long as she stuck with me. She's loyal. She has no competition as far as
women are concerned and she likes my friends. We've got similar taste and
the one rule is that I'm home at night with her."

"Like tonight?" I said.

"I'm getting there. It's different because everything is upside down. Day
is night and night is day and she knew I needed to get out of there. Brenda
loves me the way I am and I'm there when she needs me."

"You're a gay guy having sex with a woman," I said.

"That's your problem? You need to label everything. That's the trick of the
government and religion. Label everything and then make certain things less
likeable. Sex! Drugs! Rock and Roll! Give people a hard time for not
conforming to their rules."

"What's any of that got to do with what we're talking about?" I asked.

"You divide people up into groups. You, you, and you, are okay. You say the
right things and you act right."

"Go with girls," I said.

"Bingo. If you don't go with or aren't seen with a respectable number of
chicks, you're suspect, especially if your buddies sleep over or if you
laugh too much or touch guys in ways that appear to be too
affectionate. Guys mustn't be too familiar or show affection, unless they
don't mind the jokes and the whispers."

"I don't go out with girls. I have a few girl friends, but nothing
romantic," I said.

"You're already suspect," Gene said.

"I don't think so? I've never done anything with anyone."

"Ah, but you haven't done the right thing with the right people to be
acceptable either. Did you go to the last school dance?"

"Nah, I have no interest in staring at guys with girls."

"Oh, you stare. Yeah, that's one of the signs. Not dating is a sign. Being
a loner is a sign, because you are afraid if you are with a guy you'd lose
control."

"That's bullshit. I'm not interested in guys who aren't interested in me. I
want to love someone not rape them," I argued with him.

"Maybe! How do you know? How do they know that's true? You don't do what's
acceptable. You aren't seen with the right people."

"I don't' see why it would matter to anyone else," I said, irritated by his
supposition.

"That's where you have gone astray. It matters very much that someone isn't
sitting next to a fag in class, or at lunch or, heaven forbid, in the
shower. It's very important."

"That's bullshit. I'm in all those places every day."

"Exactly! Don't think they aren't looking to find you out. You think any
self respecting guy wants a fag sitting next to them?"

"Gene, don't be ridiculous, every ten guys and you come to one of us."

"Which one? How gay? Does he date? Is he married? Does he have children?"

"I don't know," I said, more confused than informed.

"So, you love guys and...."

"Not yet I don't. I have high hopes."

"You love guys. Call yourself gay, quite convenient for those who would
like to ferret you out for a little special treatment, and you make no
attempt to do the right things to throw the haters off your trail. You do
nothing to make it appear you are acceptable in society. Therefore you are
suspect. People, good normal people, must keep an eye on you, until you
make a mistake and are found out."

"You're paranoid," I said. "I don't give a damn what people think?"

"No, I'm a realist. You're an idealist. I can cohabit with the female of
the species, and I do. It's all quite acceptable and what I do with guys is
immaterial, just as long as I appear to be in compliance with the rules and
regs society likes to say are the gold standard of goodness and virtue."

"You fuck guys up the ass," I protested in laughter.

"Ah, as do many other guys who appear quite acceptable. The quarterback,
the congressman, the judge, all fucking guys up the ass but appearing to be
quite regular guys, when they aren't fucking guys up the ass, and just how
long is spent in that pursuit anyway, two, three hours a months at most?
Who will know as long as the other 600 hours that month are spent in
honorable pursuits."

"That's totally whacked," I said.

"Yeah, but true, too. I haven't done a guy since I was twenty-one or
twenty-two. I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind, but Vern lost interest,
after I stayed with Brenda. RC lost interest once he thought someone was
going to accuse him of being the father of one of my kids. I saw Vern
tonight and one thing led to another and here we are, Ted, having totally
intellectual intercourse together."

"And some other kinds of intercourse, too," Vern said.

"You're still living a lie. You like fucking guys. You like guys and you
can love them but because you don't you think that makes you straight? Get
real. You're queer as a three dollar bill."

"No, safe. It's easier being married with children. There's less talk
around the water cooler. I see guys I like but so do most guys who like
other guys. It doesn't mean I've got to get in their pants. Using your
logic, Ted, I love someone and I'm with her. I have a lot of feelings about
a lot of things but the reality doesn't change because my dick gets hard
when a cute boy bends over in front of me."

"You even talk like a fag," I said.

"And as long as you keep labeling yourselves to be separated out for
punitive measures, you'll moan and bitch about gay men being treated so
wrongly. That's what fags like to do most of all. It's not about sex, or
love, or who you want to spend the rest of your life with, it's about
feeling wronged because you live in a society that refuses to accept the
biological reality of homosexuality. I, on the other hand, see the reality
and choose to live a life that makes it unnecessary to waste so much energy
on self-pity. I feel fine about my life."

"Everyone can't do what you do?" I said. "I like guys and I want to be with
them. I'm not cheating a woman by pretending I love her and then giving her
half the loaf. That's wrong."

"No, you probably can't make the decision I've made. There aren't that many
Brendas out there, but you get to do it your way. I get to do it my
way. There is no right or wrong. It's what everyone does. You take the road
that's provided for you. You take the path of least resistance if you want
to have any hope of happiness. That's what is open to you. The reality is
that you'll have it tougher than me, unless you latch on to Vern here and
never let go. Then you might find love in another man and live happily ever
after, and for that I'd be grateful, because I'd love to see Vern live
happily ever after. He's a wonderful guy and if I wanted to do only guys,
and stay with one guy, it would be Vern."

"RC Green," Vern said, turning his head to smile at Gene.

"Like I said, I'd want it to be RC Green, but he's so dumb it would never
work. He's straight, too, and that would be a handicap. He simply had the
misfortune to fall in love with another dude and that's a problem for
straight guys. I'm sure there are guys fucking him now and RC still hasn't
figured out that he's not gay. He merely loves sex and the feel you get
from letting someone get that close to you for however long it takes them
to cum and move on."

"He's not straight then," I advised him. "If he let you fuck him and now he
is letting other guys fuck him, he isn't straight."

"Oh, yeah, I forget, Sigmund. If I ever run across RC again, I'll be
certain to bring him straight to you so you can explain what he is to
him. You really need to have a relationship with Vern here. I think it
would do you a world of good to love and feel loved. You might learn you
don't know as much as you think you do, and please, quit reading
books. You've obviously read what's said by the experts, and they have
little expertise if they haven't had the experience. All they do is listen
to the ramblings of others and then form conclusions, all the time hoping
the person or persons they got the info from isn't a lunatic or
retarded. You know how lame that is? There is only one sex education that
works, Ted. Experience with honesty. You come back to advise me and RC and
millions of others, after you've experienced sex and love. I might take you
seriously then."

"How long have I known you?" Vern asked.

"Nearly six years," Gene said.

"Six years. Do you realize that you've said more in one evening then you've
said to me in all those years?"

"Wasn't much to talk about until you brought old Ted into the picture. He's
pretty far out there you know, Vern?"

"No, I don't think he's far out there at all. Maybe too far away from me
right now, and certainly too far once he goes home, but Ted's the real
deal. He does it to me in a way no one else ever has."

"Moi?"

"Gene, you're a good fuck. You've always been a good fuck, but you've never
been there for me. Like you said, you like sex, and you're good at it, but
there's more to it than that. I did love you for a long time but even a kid
grows up enough to understand that love is a two way street and with you it
was a dead end."

"Yeah, that is all very true, and maybe if I'm guilty of anything it is
that I like sex too much, but does that disqualify me from the human race?
Do I then not get to play because I like it, too, much? What of the other
guys who like it too much? Are we all disqualified? Isn't it sad that
someone has to put someone else down in order that they can feel good about
themselves?"

practicumscribe@yahoo.com