Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 13:05:22 -0500
From: Charles Hughes <the.empty.room@hotmail.com>
Subject: EXPLORING WITH JOE - Chapter 5

This series is fiction, describing the developing friendship of two young
boys, including their sexual relationship.  If this subject matter offends
you, or if you are not at least 18 years of age, or if it is illegal for
any reason where you reside to read such material, you are to leave.

The series is an edited repost of a series originally written and posted by
me.  It is reposted at the request of two very good online friends who
requested it and to whom I am happy to dedicate it.

Copyright 2008 Charles Hughes, all rights reserved.

Other stories I've posted at Nifty will be found under my name on their
Prolific Authors page, though there are some broken links there. Email me
for good links and for other stories posted at Nifty but not listed there.

I will try to answer all emails: the.empty.room@hotmail.com


EXPLORING WITH JOE - Chapter 5


The first day of school was on Friday.  It was morning only, because the
teachers had to do something in the afternoon, then the first full day
would be on Monday.  Joe and I said we'd meet each other at the bike rack
in back before the first bell.  But we didn't have a lot of time then, so
we said we'd meet again at noon when school was over.

Springfield Middle School was bigger than the grade school I was in before
we moved, and it was a lot more confusing.  I knew it was going to be!  We
had different rooms for all the classes, and after the first one they gave
us 15 minutes to find our new lockers.  I was afraid I'd have to ask
somebody for help getting my lock undone!  But I finally got it.

We just went to every class for a little bit, and they said what the class
would be like -- everybody talked about homework! -- and we got our books.
Every time the bell rang, people were rushing around in the halls.  I
thought about peeing once between classes, but I didn't think I'd have
time.  I didn't see Joe once all morning.

Finally it was all over, and I put my books away in my locker.  Joe was
waiting for me at the bike rack.  We decided to ride out to our special
place to talk about it all.  The first thing we did was compare schedules,
and we didn't have a single class together!  We had the same teachers for
English and History, but at different times.  Joe took Chorus as his
elective, and I took Speech.  Joe had brought our history book with him,
and we looked at it for a little bit.  It looked okay, but I still wasn't
looking forward to this.

We decided that, as long as the weather was okay, we'd ride our bikes to
school and meet at the bike rack, like that morning.  At noon we'd meet at
the front door and walk down to the Diary Bar, just a block away, to get
lunch.  Then we'd meet at the bike rack when we got out.

"Joe, I'll never get used to running around to all those places, those
rooms, like that.  And Miss Harrison (the Engish teacher) sounds like a
real grouch.  I thought maybe at least English might be okay, you know,
reading and all."

"Yeah," Joe replied, "but I heard some of the kids talking, and it's new to
all of them, going to all different rooms.  Just not like the way it was in
grade school, Bobby."

"Fuck!" And I was mad enough to use that word.  "If this is what you have
to do to grow up, then I don't want to grow up!"

Joe started laughing, and I was still mad.  But he reached over and started
tickling me, and pretty soon we were lying side by side, still giggling a
little, and just looking up into the sky through all the branches above us.

"I'm glad we're us," Joe finally said.  I wasn't exactly sure what he
meant, but it made me feel better. Us.  We're us.

"Joe, you went to your gym class?  You have Mr. Bailey?  Did he tell you
all that, about what we have to get?"

"By Monday, yeah," Joe said.  "He said they had everything we needed at the
sports store in the mall."

"Joe, I've never had a jock strap, have you?"

"No, but I guess we'll need one now, for school.  And the gym shorts."

"Joe, I can't ask my mom to buy me a jock strap!"

"I'm not going to ask mine," he said.  "I was thinking about it, and you
can do the same thing, too.  I'm just going to tell her that for gym we
have to have some things from the sports store.  They told us how much it
would cost, so I'm going to ask her for the money and go get the stuff
myself.  You do the same thing."

"Tell her I need a jock strap?"  I'd die of embarrassment first.

"No, no.  You just say 'stuff for gym' and that's all.  She probably won't
even ask what stuff, but if she does, you just hand her the paper they gave
us.  And we can go and get it ourselves."

We had the afternoon, so we could go then.  I was going to stay over at his
house that night, and we could just go there from the mall.

When I got home, mom was sewing in the kitchen and asked me how I thought I
was going to like it.  I said it was okay.  She wouldn't understand.  It
was a long time ago when she was in the seventh grade.  And I asked her if
I could go with Joe to get the stuff we needed for gym class.

"What stuff do you need, honey? she asked."

"Well, we need gym shorts, special ones they make you wear for gym class,
and... stuff..."

"What other things, honey?"

I had lost the paper from gym class!  I looked in all my pockets, and I
hadn't brought any books home... No, it was back there in my locker!

"Well, it's just one other thing... that I need... you have to wear
them... uh... a jock strap, I need to get one."

My face was hot -- I knew I was red as a beet!  I glanced up at mom, and
she was looking at me, like, but you can't need that yet.  I had to say it.
To my mom!

She smiled and said, "My purse is in the bedroom, hon; run get it for me,
and I'll get what you need."

I ate a quick lunch and called Joe.  We met at the little park to ride to
the mall.  We'd been in the sports store lots of time, just looking around
-- they had lots of cool stuff.  But we'd never gone there to buy anything.

We went in, and the man said, "You boys looking for gym togs?"  And he
pointed to the right asile.  There was a sign that said "Springfield Middle
School, and there were lots of white gym shorts in clear packages with the
sizes on them.  But I didn't know what size I needed, so Joe decided I
needed a Small.  He didn't know if Medium was too big for him or not, but
he decided to get that one.  I looked at him, then at me.  Yeah, he had
grown a little more than me during the summer.

The jock straps were in little boxes right next to the shorts.  They had
sizes, too.  He thought a Small for me, and he opened one of the packages
and said, "Here, try it on."

"What!  You asshole," I whispered.  "Stop horsing around."  I tried to be
real serious about it, but we wound up giggling so much the man came over.

"You boys get what you need?"

Joe took a Medium for him, and we went up to the front to pay.  We rode
over to Joe's then.  His mom wasn't home from work yet, so we went upstairs
to his room.

"Okay," he said. "Now you try them on."

"What?"

"Oh, I will, too.  Let's see what we'll look like for gym, okay?"

We were used to seeing each other naked all the time, but I always liked to
watch him take his clothes off.  He was watching me, too.  He handed me the
box with my jock strap and took his.  We pulled them out and held them up.
Joe started first.  He gave little giggles first, then started laughing,
and that got me laughing.  I'd never seen anything so wierd.  We had to
wear things like that?

We finally could stop laughing, and I watched Joe put his on and stepped
into mine the same way.  That felt so really wierd.  It was like putting
clothes on, only when you had it on you were still almost naked, with your
butt hanging out.  I watched Joe mess with that pouch thing on the front
around the dick and tried to do the same thing with mine.  It was really
uncomfortable!  We had to wear this?

When Joe started to walk over to me, I started giggling again.  He just
looked so funny, like on the front he was partly dressed, but in the back
he was still naked.  I could see his asscheeks moving around.  But he knelt
down in front of me to pull my pouch thing around a little, and he reached
in and moved my dick some, too.

"Getting a little hard, huh?" he grinned.

"Oh, come on, Joe."  I pulled away a little, and when he stood up, I got in
front of him.  I moved his pouch thing around some and poked my finger
inside a little.  "You're getting hard, too," I grinned back at him.  And
when I stood up, I could tell that his Medium was the right size for him,
because his dick was pushing it out a little.  And Small was right for me,
but my little dick was kind of loose in there with all that elastic around
it

He walked around behind me and pulled a little on those straps.  That made
it tug some at my dick. He started running his hands over my ass, and that
made my dick start to get hard for real.  He moved around to my front, and
we put our arms around each other and began one of those kisses I like,
where our tongues lick around each other for a long time.  He moved his
hands down and started rubbing my ass all around.  That made me push into
him more, and I could feel his hard cock pushing at me.

"You are so sexy," he whispered in my ear.  Then we went back to kissing.
It really made my heart beat so I could really feel it.  He was so warm
against my chest and legs.  The only thing between us was those jock
straps, so it was almost like being naked.  I could even feel his cock
throbbing through that elastic.

"Turn around and bend over," he said.

I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was up to something.  But
I bent over, and he made me spread my legs a little wider.  He opened my
asscheeks with his hands, and I grinned.  I knew I was going to like this.
I could feel his breath on my crack, even on my hole.  Then his finger
started to rub over my hole real lightly.  My dick was so hard it pushed
harder against that elastic holding it in.  Then he was kissing my ass all
over.  He pushed me a little bit, so I could lean over onto the bed while I
felt his kisses all over my ass.

Then we heard the car door slam.  It was his mom!

"Shitfuck," he said.  "We got to get dressed."  But we were in our clothes
by the time she got into the kitchen.

Dinner was good -- it always was there -- and we talked about school
mostly.  His mom had a lot of questions.  And she asked if we had gotten
our gym things at the sport store.  I suddenly remembered what Joe looked
like with his pouch filled out and his ass hanging out the back, and real
quick I dropped my fork on the floor so I could bend over and hide the grin
I just couldn't stop.  By the time I raised up again, Joe had said
something, and they were talking about other school things.  But Joe
glanced at me and I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was.

We did the dishes like we always did, and then went up to his room. We
watched some TV and played a game of Monopoly, then we decided to watch a
DVD.  We went downstairs first to pop some corn, and we brought some cokes
up, too.

Joe put the DVD in and then said, "Let's watch it in our jock straps." And
there was the grin!

We stripped and were back in our jock straps really fast.  We lay on our
bellies facing the TV, but I was looking more at Joe than the TV.  He was
almost naked.  He was propped up on his elbows, and his shoulders and back
were so tanned from the summer sun.  I looked down at his ass, all round
and soft.  And then I started giggling.

"What?" he asked, turning his head to me.

"Your ass.  It's white! You're so tan, it makes your ass look white.
You're brown with a white ass!"

He looked back as my ass, and I knew I was whiter than he was, because his
skin was darker to begin with.  "You got nothing to talk about, sexyboy;
you're whiter than me!"  We grinned, and I looked back and forth at our two
asses.

He scooted over and started rubbing my ass cheeks real softly.  Oh, that
was nice.  I put my head down on my arms and closed my eyes.  His hands
were so warm on me.  I could feel him lay his head on my ass and rub his
finger up and down my crack.  I smiled.  His cheek on my cheek.  I could
feel that finger go up and down and up and down, just barely in my crack.

He jumped up all of a sudden.  I looked over, and I could see his cock was
really poking against his jock strap.  "Let's take a shower," he said.

"Movie's not over."

"Okay, sexy.  You want the movie, or you want to take a shower with me?"

That was a silly question.  We turned the TV off, pulled off our jock
straps, and went over to the bathroom.  First we peed at the toilet,
holding each other's dick.  Then we got in the spray and started rubbing
the soapy suds all over each other.  We held each other, like we had
before, and we washed each other's holes with our fingers.  Inside, too.
But we did that for a long time because it felt so good.

We washed our fronts faster than usual.  Until we got to our dicks and
balls.  His balls felt so good in my hand, with the warm water and suds.
But he was pushing his dick at me and groaning, and I think he wanted to
get in bed as much as I did.  We dried each other and had a nice long kiss,
then we went back into the bedroom and got into the bed.  We got our arms
around each other and just lay there for a while.  It feels so nice, his
chest and belly moving against me when he breathed.  He smelled so good
from the shower.  But Joe always smells good.  I like being naked with Joe.

As we were turning over a little bit and Joe moved his arm up above his
head for a minute, I decided I wanted to kiss him where I'd never kissed
him before. I raised up and looked at him.

"Joe, I want you to raise your arm up a little, over your head."  I
realized that I didn't usually tell him what to do.  That's right, he
usually told me.  But that's okay.  He put his arm up, and I moved it to
where it had been while he was holding it there a minute before.  "Joe, I
want to kiss you someplace I've never kissed you."

I didn't know if he'd like it, but he'd tell me if he didn't.  Sometimes he
was ticklish. I leaned down, and I kissed his armpit, that kind of hollow
place under his arm.  It wouldn't be sweaty or anything, because we'd just
gotten out of the shower.  He made a little sound, and I knew it wasn't
tickling him; he liked it.

I kissed him there again, a little longer.  Then I licked him.  He was
really smooth.  He moaned a little.  And he tasted nice there!  I licked a
little more, and then I kissed there again.  Then I left my lips like they
had been, only I sucked a little.  He was really moaning now. He was moving
around on the bed, but he was keeping his armpit pressed into my mouth.  I
was glad I had thought about this.  He loved it.  And I did, too.

When I finally stopped, I lay my head on his chest, and he stroked my hair.

"What made you think of that?" he asked.

"I don't know.  I just thought of it.  I'd never kissed you there."

"Can it be my turn?" he asked.  So I rolled over and lifted my arm up.  My
arm was a lot smaller than his, so my armpit was, too.  But when he kissed
me there, I felt that kiss all over me.  And then he sucked and licked.  It
was so different.  And I'm always ticklish there.  But I wasn't then.

He lay back down, sort of across me.  "Can I kiss you someplace I've never
kissed you before?" he asked.

I giggled.  "You just did."

"No, I mean another place.  I won't if you don't want me to.  But I want
to... I thought about it.."

"Joe, you can kiss me anywhere you want to.  Where do you want to?"

"Maybe you won't want me to.  Maybe you'll think it sounds..."  He didn't
finish.

"Sounds what?  Joe, I love it when you kiss me -- anywhere.  You've kissed
me all over and I love it -- my cheeks, my neck, my lips, my chest, my
nipples, my back..."  I was thinking about how it felt so good when he
kissed me in those places.  "...my dick, my balls, my legs, my ass..."

Oh.  There was a place he hadn't.  But he didn't want...

"Yeah, Bobby.  You know how it feels when I rub my finger on it.  Bobby, I
love doing that to you, making you feel good that way.  Please... let me
kiss you there."

Oh my...  I never even thought about that.  But it's where I...  Well, we'd
just been in the shower...

"Okay," I whispered.  I still wasn't really sure I understood what he
meant.

He had me roll over on my belly, and he spread my legs wide.  He got
between them.  He pulled me up at my hips a little, so I was kind of
twisted around.  I could feel his hands pull my crack open.  I could feel
his breath on my crack, then on my hole.  I knew he was looking at me
there, just like I looked at him there for a while once.  I wondered what I
looked like.  He just looked and breathed.

And then he kissed me.  On my hole.  Oh my god!  Such a feeling...  Kissing
my hole... My skin got goosebumps all over, and my ass shook a little.
Somehow I could feel that kiss even inside me!  Inside!  How could that be?
And he kissed me again.

And then he licked!  On my hole!  I jumped, but then I moved back to where
I'd been, so he could...  He licked me again.  And then he was licking all
around it, and kissing it, and his tongue was so wet and so hot...  I could
hear myself whimpering like a little baby, but I couldn't help it.  His
tongue was pushing at my hole!  Was he trying to get in? Oh, Joe...
Anything you want, Joe.  Anything.  Then I realized I had said that out
loud.

His licking and kissing slowed, and I missed it so much.  He lay his face
against my asscheek, and stroked my ass, and it made me feel like I was the
most special person in the world to him.

"I love you so much, Bobby.  You're beautiful all over, all over."  I could
barely hear him.  "I love everything about you."

I scooted down and took his head and held it against my chest.  I stroked
his hair and told him how much I loved him.  And we lay back down and
didn't say anything for a long time.

"Joe.  Joe, what do I look like, back there?  What did you see?"

"Your skin is so soft and so white on your ass.  And then it's a little
darker, maybe a little more pink inside.  And your hole... your hole is
pink, too, real pink.  And the skin is smooth.  It's all bunched up around
your hole.  It's really little.  And it felt so good to lick it and feel
it."  Then, after a while, "You think that's... wierd, Bobby?"

"Myabe it is, a little.  I mean, I never even thought about doing that when
I was looking at you. What did it... was it... I mean, with the shower and
all..."

"It tasted so nice, Bobby.  It smelled like the soap, and it smelled like
you.  It smelled warm.  And it tasted good.  Bobby, it tasted so good,
because it was you.  I guess, maybe I'm kind of... wierd."

"No, Joe.  I love you.  If you want to do that, then I love that, too.  It
did feel... it really felt...  Well, it made me feel good, Joe.  I guess if
you're wierd, then so am I."

We lay there for a little bit, then I felt his fingers on my dick.  I had
gotten soft when we were talking, but I got hard against real fast.

"Now I want to kiss you somewhere else," he grinned.  "Guess where."

"Let' see... could it be the top of my head?" I laughed.

"Well," Joe said, "I guess you could say that.  This head."

And he took my dickhead into his mouth.  He didn't suck hard at all, not
fast either.  I just lay there with my arms stretched out and his head on
my belly.  He moved my dick around in his mouth like it was... a piece of
candy he wanted to make last a long time.  Just a little licking, a little
sucking.  I thought, I'll give Joe anything, anything.

He began to suck me a little harder, then he started rolling his fingers
over my balls.  I moved my hips up into him -- I wanted all of me inside
him.  He sucked me in deeper, then began to let my dick slide out a little,
then suck it back in.  I had to moan at the wonderful feeling all over me.
He was pulling at my balls just a little bit when he sucked me in real
fast, and the feeling started.  Down there inside.  I knew it.  I knew Joe
knew it.  I was wiggling and pushing at him.  Make me do it, Joe...

It was like somebody had turned a switch on or something.  It didn't build
up for a real long time like it does usually.  I just all of a sudden felt
the hot bigness inside, and my dick jumped and jumped.

"Ooooo..... Joe I'm... aaaaaaaaaauggg!"

And as fast as it started it was over.  It was so big.  I was sweaty.  I
don't think I ever had been before.  Oh, I felt so wonderful, like... like
the most beautiful boy in the world, my boyfriend, had just sucked all of
me into his mouth.  All of a sudden I quivered, and then I felt so relaxed.
Like I was on a cloud, floating...

I jerked.  I'd fallen asleep!  Joe was lying beside me, looking at me with
that little smile he has.

"You are so damn cute," he whispered.  "Even when you're asleep."

I started to say something, but he put his finger over my mouth.  "Shhh,"
he whispered.  "Go back to sleep."  And he put his arm around me.  And I
did.

That was our last day before the new rules started.  No overnights when
there was school the next day.  Only on weekends.  We could play outside
after school until dinnertime, then we had to go home.  We could ride our
bikes until dark, but the time would change and dark would be an hour
earlier.  Homework after supper.  Saturdays were okay for playing, but not
for overnights, because on Sunday we had to finish any homework before
Monday.  Rules.  It was all something our moms agreed on, so that was that.

We got them to change it a little bit, though, after a couple of weeks.
Sometimes we could go over to each other's house to do homework together --
we had two of the same classes, just not at the same time.  For English we
were just reading for a while, and we did a lot of that together, anyway.
For History we would give each other little tests on stuff we read.  Joe
was really smart! And I got good grades, too, so I guess I was, too.

One of the really cool things about seventh grade is that we could get
different library cards -- not adult ones, but ones that let us take out
more than three books at a time.

Classes weren't as bad as I thought they might be.  I didn't even know what
Speech would be like, but you had to get up in front of the whole class and
talk about different things.  That's wasn't too hard.  I don't know why it
wasn't hard, but some of the others acted like they were going to get shot
or something.  I guess I liked English best, because of the stuff we were
reading in there.  We started by choosing a book to read from a list she
gave us, and I chose one by Robert Louis Stevenson, called "Treasure
Island."  I read parts of it to Joe sometimes because it was so good.

Even gym class wasn't as bad as I thought, but I still didn't like it very
much.  That was because we usually had to play stupid games Mr. Bailey made
us play.  And exercises.  The locker room wasn't too bad; at least, I
finally got used to it.  I found out that what Joe said was true -- there
were a lot of guys in there who had little dicks like me.  I was still
probably the littlest, but at least there were other little ones. Well,
there were eighth graders in there, too, and some of them were big, and a
couple had a lot of hair.

Those guys -- the ones with big dicks and some hair -- sort of let guys
look at them.  I finally figured that out, because they walked around just
holding towels sometimes or took more time in the shower.  The thing that
scared me most -- getting a stiffie in the shower -- never happened.  Joe
said maybe it was because I was a little scared of it. But I did see some
stiffies sometimes.  Not often, and they weren't real hard, like straight
out or up, but you could tell they were stiffies.  Once I saw one of the
eighth graders with a sort of stiffie, and it was really lots bigger than
Joe's.

And everybody joked around a lot, sometimes about dicks and asses and sex
and all.  We could say fuck and shit if Mr. Bailey wasn't around.  Joe
liked this one that I told him about.  One guy stuck the end of a towel in
his ass and walked around making sounds like a horse.  And another guy
yelled at him, "You're not a horse -- not with that dick."  That made
everybody laugh, but I felt a little bad for the guy with the towel.

The guy with a locker right next to me -- a seventh grader -- said he was
developing a lot of muscles, and he would sometimes put his foot up on the
bench and tell people to look at the muscle in his thigh.  Only he was
naked, so his dick was right there to see.  Joe asked me what I did, and I
said, "I looked as his dick He said, 'Look,' so I did."

Not everything was okay, though.  Mr. Alerton, the assistant principal,
stopped me in the hall one day between classes and bawled me out for
running in the hall.  I was hurrying because I was almost late.  But he
bawled me out right in front of everybody.  I really was embarrassed.

And then there was the big kid.  He was in the eighth grade, but he was a
lot bigger than most eighth graders.  I was going back to my locker after
the last class, and when I walked by this guy, he said, "Where are you
going, shrimp?" and pushed my books out of my hand.  I wondered what was up
with this guy as I picked them up, and as soon as I stood up with them, he
knocked them out of my hand again!

I getting pissed when I picked them up that time, but something rushed by
me and slammed that big kid into the lockers.  It was Joe!  He almost
growled at that guy -- I'd never heard him sound like that before -- "Fuck
off, asshole.  He's my friend and you don't mess with my friend."  The guy
was bigger than Joe, but Joe slammed him against the locker again, and the
guy kind of looked sick and left.

We had Labor Day off, so I could spend that Sunday night at Joe's.  That
was twice in the same week.  When we woke up Saturday morning his mom had
said she was going shopping in Scottsboro and we could come along. The pool
was closed, so we couldn't go there, but that mall is really, really big,
and she let us wander around by ourselves before we ate dinner there.  Then
we went back to his house and spent another night together.

Sometimes on our Fridays we spent a lot of time talking about school.
There were a lot of things Joe didn't like, either.  But we spent lots of
time in bed, too.  Joe started calling it "making love."  Well, sometimes
he called it that.  I liked that.

We spent as much time as we could at our special place, too, since the
weather was still okay, but we usually did more of the talking -- about
serious stuff -- when we were in bed.  A couple of weeks after Joe kissed
me down there I decided to tell him something I had done a few times at
home.

I couldn't lick my own ass, but I figured I could taste it.  That sounded
really terrible when I first thought of it that way.  Because of poop.  But
Joe had done it that time.  So once in the shower I stuck my finger in my
hole just as far as I could get it; I had to kind of stoop over to get in
all in.  I felt good.  And when I pulled it out -- I had to do that real
slowly -- I smelled it.  It just smelled like the soap.  Well, I had just
used soap in there.  I washed my hand off real good and stuck my finger in
again, and this time I tasted it.  It didn't really taste like anything.
That's not what I expected.

Then another night when I was in bed, I pulled my briefs down and started
to play with my dick.  I decided to try it again.  It was harder to get my
finger in, but I got it real wet from my mouth and finally got it in a
little bit.  I didn't want to use lotion, because I didn't want to taste
that.  When I pulled my finger out -- and that kind of hurt a little -- I
smelled it.  It didn't smell like soap, because I'd taken my shower right
after supper.  It had a smell.  But not a real bad one.  I had started
getting it real clean when I showered.  And I licked it.  It just tasted
like finger to me.

Joe had never done that again.  So when I told him all this, I asked him
why he had kissed and licked me there.  He just lay there for a little bit,
and then he said he didn't really know.  He said it was a place on me he
just wanted to kiss.  And he hadn't even thought of licking it, he just did
it when it was down there.  When I asked him what he thought I tasted like,
he grinned and said, "You taste like you, Bobby, who'd you expect?"

"You haven't done it any more," I said.  But he didn't say anything.  We
sucked each other that night, and even played with our holes, but he didn't
kiss it.  I didn't really care, as long as I could make him happy.

One of the things we really liked was what we'd done several times before.
He called it "69" because of the way the numbers are.  We could suck each
other at the same time.  And use our fingers on balls and even holes.  I
really liked to make him cum that way.  And since I couldn't give him any
cum, he really liked it when I turned around so we could kiss.  I started
trying to keep some of his cum in my mouth so he could have it.

I never asked him about it, but I wondered if there were other guys in
school who did what we did.

One afternoon we were riding back from our special place, and we rode by
the grade school playground.  Brent -- that big guy -- was shooting hoops
with some guys, and he yelled out, "There's the two guys who are queer for
each other."  I turned so red!  I knew what that meant.

"Not as queer as a big guy who lets the coach play with his dick," Joe
yelled back.

"Fuck you!" Brent yelled, and he threw the ball so hard it hit the fence
right in front of us.

Joe just laughed, and we kept on going.  After a little bit, he said,
"Don't let it bother you, Bobby."  So I didn't say anything.  But the next
Friday night, when we were finally in bed, I asked him about it.

"Joe, are we like that?  Like he said?  Queer?"

"You know what it means, Bobby?"

"Yeah, it means... it means boys who don't like girls but they like boys.
And everybody hates..." I hated to say the word "...queers.  Every time
somebody in the locker room starts to get hard or something, guys start
calling him queer."

"That's how it is in my gym class, too."  He sat up and pulled me up, and
we sat crosslegged from each other.  "Look, Bobby, that's just how guys
tease other guys sometimes.  It's like calling a guy a cocksucker or
something."

"But, Joe, we are cocksuckers."  I shocked myself by saying it, just like
that.

He took both of my hands in his, and he kissed them.  "This is what I know,
Bobby.  I know I love you.  I know you're the most special guy in the world
to me.  I know I'm lucky to have you as my friend.  I know I'm lucky
because you love me back.  I know I really like making love to you.  And
you making love to me.  I know you make me happier than I've ever been.
I... I love you, Bobby."

Then he stopped.  There were tears in his eyes.  He'd never really said
things like that before, not all at the same time.

"I don't know if we're guys like he said.  Maybe we are," Joe said.  "It's
none of his business, none of anybody's business.  It's just you and me,
and we're the only ones who count on that.  We can't tell anybody
because... well, you see how it is with people.  They'd never understand.
And as far as that shit Brent is concerned, he doesn't really think that,
anyway.  That's just a way assholes like him try to scare other people,
hurt them.  If bullies ever start giving you static, you just give it right
back to them.  That'll turn them off."

"Joe, does he really let the coach play with his dick?"

Joe laughed.  "No, I doubt it, but it's a sore spot with him.  He helps the
coach with the basketball team, so he stays around a lot after school and
after practice.  I've heard guys tease him about being the coach's pet,
letting the coach suck him and sucking the coach and all.  Nothing to it, I
don't think, but it's something guys say to him to kind of keep him in his
place.  You just avoid the shithead.  Okay?"

"Yeah, I will," I said.

And then he said something that made me feel cold all over.  "Bobby, I'd
kill anybody who hurt you.  That's how much I love you."  He pulled me to
him and hugged me so tight.  He wouldn't really do that, I know.  It's just
his way of saying, well, how much he loves me.

He was crying!  My Joe was crying.  I pulled him back down on the bed and
cuddled him, held him real tight, stroked his hair.  "Joe, Joe, Joe.  I
love you so much.  Nothing will ever happen to make me stop loving you.
It's you and me Joe, like you said.  I'll always be here, Joe.  I couldn't
be anywhere else."

I held him for a long time, until we finally went to sleep.  We didn't need
to make love another way that night, because what we'd said was making
love, in a way.  I think that sometimes you can make love with words.