First of all, please don't hate me for what I'm about to do to you.
I've been working as hard as I can lately on the final chapter for this story, as some of you are aware. So hard, in fact, that I've already written what amounts to almost 4 regular chapters in length. There was a lot more that I felt needed to be said than I originally thought. That happens a lot when you don't really plan anything and let it just happen.
Anyway, it was suggested to me that I should break the chapter into 3 or 4 sections and post them on their own to give you something to read and still give you something to look forward to.
After much thought, I decided to do that. I've broken down the final chapter into 3 distinct sections and will post Part 1 here today. Part 2 will follow before the weekend. The absolute conclusion, Part 3, will be posted next week.
I hope you find this satisfactory, and I hope you enjoy it.
Take care.
Neil
Sharon spotted the note first. It had stopped raining by the time we arrived home that Sunday morning after church and lunch at my parents' house. I was still disappointed that I hadn't found useful clues as to Kevin's whereabouts except for a suitcase with a few lightly soiled clothes. I held MJ's diaper bag in my left hand as I unlocked the front door with the keys I held in my right hand. Sharon stood just behind me to one side, holding MJ in her arms. "Was this here yesterday?" she asked.
"What?" I said as my hand turned the key in the lock. It clicked open as I turned my head to look. Sharon was reaching into the top of the mailbox beside the door. The little viewing slot near the bottom showed a splash of blue-streaked white paper. There was no flap on the top of the box. It had been missing when we bought the house and I had never got around to replacing it with a new box. Whatever was inside had obviously suffered a bit of a bath.
"Is it from Kevin?"
"I don't know," Sharon replied. Then she said, "Damn."
"What?"
"It's totally soaked and the envelope's ripping apart. I think I caught it on a screw or something." She reached even further into the mailbox and then slowly pulled out the envelope.
She held it out to me and my hand was actually shaking when I took it. The ink on the front of the envelope had virtually melted and a huge blue streak ran to one side. Still, I could see the shadow of my name. "It's Kevin's handwriting," I said. "I recognise the ‘M'."
I set the diaper bag down and swapped the envelope to my left hand. Anxious and nervous fingers grasped the envelope flap and, as I opened it, the whole front of the envelope peeled away. I could almost feel it dissolving in my fingers.
"Let me take it, honey," Sharon said as she lifted it out of my grasping fingers. "You'll end up with a handful of mush if you try to open it. Take Marty in for his nap and let me do this, okay?"
She gently took the envelope from my hands and I took MJ from her arms. I grabbed up the diaper bag and followed Sharon inside, pushing the front door closed behind me with my bum. Sharon headed immediately for the kitchen and I headed for MJ's bedroom. It took me a few minutes to change him and get him into his crib, then I hurried out to the kitchen to rejoin Sharon. She was standing at the counter, the opened envelope set off to the side and several layers of paper towel in front of her. I guessed that Kevin's note was somewhere between two of the layers. The clothes iron was plugged in and my wife was carefully pressing the heated base against the towels.
"What did he say?" I asked anxiously. "Did you look?"
"Not really except to see that it was still legible," she replied as she lifted the iron and carefully pressed her other hand against the paper. "Almost," she added as she returned to ironing the paper towels and the note. "We can read it together when it's dry. I tore the paper twice just opening it, Marty. The note is one step away from being pulp and the ink is spreading. He must have put it in the box last night and it's been getting rained on all that."
I leaned on the countertop with one hand, tapping my impatient fingers against the Arborite, as the seconds turned into minutes in my brain. It seemed like hours before Sharon was satisfied and set the iron on its support, turned it off, and began peeling away the sheets of paper towel until she reached Kevin's note. I thought she had ironed off all the writing. There were only rows of blue smears left. Then I realised that the note was face-down and I was looking at the back side. Sharon pressed her hand against the note for a brief moment before carefully peeling it away from the paper towel beneath it and flipping it over.
With a heavy sigh of relief, I leaned closer to read it. It was Kevin's writing, all right. Just big. The small letters barely fit between two lines and the capital letters reached next the line above. The dangly letters dropped right into the word below it at times. The ink had spread and smeared a lot in the waterlogged paper but, for the most part, I could fill in the bits that were too blurry to read easily:
"He's right," I mumbled under my breath when I finished reading the note. "I would have."
* * * * *
A week went by without a word from Kevin. Anxiety and fear for him once again became my frequent companions. I had lost him twice already. I wasn't too keen on losing him a third time. The next Sunday, we all went to church again, as we did each Sunday morning, and we prayed for Kevin's safety and I secretly wished for a quick return. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. When we went back home, it was to find our prayers and wishes unanswered.
All we could do, as my father was often heard to say, was to hurry up and wait.
It was the following Tuesday that I came home and found Kevin's car parked in my driveway. I was so excited I almost rammed my front bumper up his tailpipe when I parked behind him and I practically ran into the house and into the kitchen when I heard Kevin's voice there. He was seated at the table. It was set for three people. Marty Junior was sitting in Kevin's lap. Little MJ let out a squeal of excitement when he saw me and raised his arms to me and started bouncing up and down on Kevin's legs. I took him from Kevin's grasp and gave him his ‘Daddy's home' snuggles and smooches while Sharon came forward from where she had been working at the stove to give me my ‘welcome home' kiss. And then I turned my attention to Kevin.
As I looked at him, Kevin rose to his feet and approached me. At the same time, Sharon took MJ out of my arms and backed away a step. Kevin stopped in front of me and said in a jittery voice, "Sharon said I could do this." He hesitated a moment and swallowed hard, then pulled me into a great bear hug so great that I could feel the atoms of air popping out from between us. There wasn't any room left for them. I had no choice but to wrap my arms around him and hug him back.
Kevin's hugged me as if he didn't want to let go of me. I could feel his fingernails digging into my back as he buried his face into the nape of my neck. I could feel the warm, desperate puffs of breath blowing out of his nostrils and across my skin. I could feel my hair ruffling from its force. Eventually, after what seemed like minutes, he loosened his grip and moved his hands to my sides and pushed me back slightly. Air rushed in between us to fill the sudden void. I raised my hands to grip his upper arms.
"She said I could do this, too, Marty," he added somewhat nervously.
And then, with a brief glance toward my wife, he kissed me.
It wasn't a face-sucking kiss. It wasn't even a romantic one. It wasn't much more than his lips pressed against mine and the accompanying squeak that slightly suctioning lips make when they separate. It was over before I realised it had even begun. But it was nice and it left a pleasant tingling on my lips.
Kevin still had his hands on my waist and I still held onto his arms. This time, it was my tense fingers digging into his flesh, but he either didn't notice them or didn't mind. He wasn't crying, but his eyes were full of moisture. I'm sure mine were, too. "I've come home, Marty," he said. "I'm home to stay."
* * * * *
Kevin stayed, and it started with him staying for supper. He was like a different man. The troubled, tortured, haunted look was gone and the happy-go-lucky young man I sat behind on the motorcycle so long ago had returned. I remember than day clearly. I remember holding on to Kevin as if my life depended on him. I suppose it did, actually. I remember how I had pressed myself against him out of undeniable terror, how my crotch had been shoved against his butt, and I also remember getting an erection. Kevin had explained it as being caused by the vibrations from the bike and his own hardon (which I discovered when I shoved my hand in the front pocket of his jeans trying to find his cigarette lighter as we tore down the highway) seemed to be a practical explanation at the time. In hindsight, though, I tend to think it was my cock stuck in the crack of his ass and my arms wrapped around him that had caused it.
My own hardon? Well, the bike vibrations might have been responsible for a tiny portion of it, but now I'm pretty sure Kevin was had a lot to do with the rest.
To this day, I still don't know where Kevin went when he took off for a year that first time. He never told us. Dad figured it was probably a part of his life that he wanted nothing more than to forget so he never talked about it. And nobody asked.
This time was different. He told us everything, and we didn't even have to ask.
We were enjoying Sharon's roast beef dinner with lumpy gravy and baked potatoes scooped out and made au gratin from a recipe she found in a magazine and steamed veggies. It was a good dinner. Kevin sat to my left and Sharon sat to my right. MJ's highchair separated me and my wife. He was too busy squishing his veggies into an unidentifiable mass and playing patty-cake with his mashed au gratin baked potato and lumpy gravy to be bothered listening to the adults chattering away.
"We didn't find your note until we came home from church on Sunday," I said as I sawed off another bite of delicious roast. "By then, it had been rained on all night and all morning and was one step away from being wood soup."
"Yeah. Sorry about that. I was about two hours out of town when I drove into it. I figured it would get here but I hoped the note would stay dry. I just hope your Mom isn't too pissed off at me for sneaking away like that."
"She'll got over it pretty quick," I smiled.
"I hope so," Kevin grimaced. "I'm kinda counting on her letting me use your bedroom again for awhile. Only Fred Flintstone would find the beds at the Y comfortable enough to sleep on."
"Trust me, Kev," I said. "We were over there for lunch that Sunday after you left. Your room was just the way you'd left it. I went through it looking for a note or something but didn't find anything except a few dirty clothes in the closet. We didn't find the note you left in our mailbox until we got home after lunch. But you can bet your ass that Mom had already changed the bed sheets and the dirty sheets and the dirty clothes you left in the closet were already in Mom's washing machine before we got home. You know you'll always be welcome there. You're like their second son. They care about you very much."
"Yeah, I know. But still. . ." There was no need for him to finish his sentence. We all knew what the rest of it was.
"So, you went out west, did you?" I said to break the sudden silence.
Kevin looked at me, surprised. His hand, holding his fork which had a good-sized piece of beef stuck on the tines, stopped midway between his plate and his mouth. "How did you know that?"
"You drove into the rain," I reminded him. "Rain doesn't usually roll in from the east."
"Oh, yeah," he said after a second or two of thinking about it. "Good catch. Yeah, I went back h. . . well, out west, but I'll tell you after we eat, okay? I don't want to talk about it right now" He popped the piece of beef into his mouth and began chewing.
"Sorry the roast is so tough, Kevin," Sharon apologised to him. "It's usually a lot more tender where I buy it. I must have got a cut from a really butch cow."
After he stopped laughing, Kevin said with a wide grin, "Compared to what I've been eating these past few days, this is like beef-flavoured chiffon cake. I might even have seconds."
"You can have thirds if you like," Sharon returned.
"It's tempting, but I want so save some room for a piece of that apple pie we made this afternoon."
"You made an apple pie?" I said to my wife. "A real one with real pastry?" I said it before I was able to disguise the surprise and skepticism in the tone of my voice. Sharon was better know for buying her pies fresh from the bakery. Cakes she could do. Pie pastry? Not so much. . . unless you were looking for a packing material.
"From scratch," she said proudly. "Kevin went out and bought all the stuff we didn't have for it and he showed me how to make it. Even the pastry. Did you know you need really cold water for that?"
I responded with a shake of my head.
"Well, it does. All Kevin did was peel the apples for me. Who knew a sprinkle of lemon juice would keep the apples from turning brown? I did the rest. Kevin just supervised. Can't you smell it heating in the oven?"
"I thought it was just one from the bakeshop."
As it turned out, the pie was absolutely, positively delicious and the pastry was as flaky as Mom's. It was warm out of the oven and had the perfect blend of brown sugar and cinnamon and a crumbly oatmeal topping. With a sizeable scoop of vanilla ice cream slowly melting on top, it was the perfect wrap-up to a perfect dinner.
When we finished eating, Kevin helped me do the dishes while Sharon cleaned up MJ and gave him his bath and got him ready for bed. She joined us in the livingroom when she was finished. Kevin was once again sitting in the chair. I sat in my spot on the sofa and Sharon sat down beside me with Marty Junior in her arms. He smelled fresh and clean with a strong scent of baby shampoo and baby powder. He held his favourite little stuffed doggy in his tiny little hands by its ears and, as soon as he was comfortably settled on Mommy's lap, began to chew on Scruffy's nose.
We let him chew and play for a short while before we settled him into his crib for the night. Kevin tagged along with us to observe and to give Marty Junior a kiss goodnight.
Sharon served fresh coffee and brought out a plate of assorted Peek Freans cookies. Kevin took the offered paper dessert plate and napkin from her. Then, after quick consideration, he selected one each of a jam-filled, pecan, shortcake, and cinnamon cookie.
"That's hardly a nibble," Sharon told him as she pushed the plate even closer to him. "Here. Grab yourself a few more."
"I'm fine, Sharon. Really."
"Nonsense!" she replied forcefully and set one more of each on Kevin's plate before he had time to object. She set the plate of cookies on the table in front of me and dropped a plate and napkin in my lap before plopping herself down beside me and began her own selection of her favourite cookies. "Now, eat up and tell us what you've been up to all last week."
I looked at her. "You mean you don't know?"
"No," she replied. "He wanted to wait until you were here before he told us both at the same time. We just talked today and sorted things out in between us. Now, hush!"
Kevin finished chewing and swallowing his Fruit Creme cookie before he speaking. "You were right, Marty. I went out west." He was talking to both of us, but his attention was mainly focused on me. "You know, back. . . um. . . back where I used to live. Don't laugh, but I went out there to talk to Mom." He looked down at his lap, trying to hide his blushing cheeks. "Sounds pretty silly and childish, huh?"
"I don't think so, Kevin," Sharon said quietly and encouragingly from her position beside me. Kevin looked up at her briefly and quickly averted his eyes to his lap again. "I think it's nice that you feel you can still talk to her when you need her. Just because she died doesn't mean the loving and the caring stop. Those kinds of things last longer than time. I believe that with all my heart. I think it's sweet that you felt you could still go back and talk to her when you really needed her."
"Yeah. Well. It felt kind of stupid sitting there for four days talking to her gravestone," he said. "I felt like an idiot. He popped another cookie into his mouth and washed it down with a sip of coffee. "Anyways, I didn't start out talking to her. I just sat beside her grave so I could be close to her. I don't even remember starting to talk, but it suddenly dawned on me that that's what I was doing. And the more I talked, the easier it became and the more I told her."
He paused briefly for another sip of coffee. He still hadn't lifted his gaze from his lap. Sharon and I waited in silence, casting a brief, understanding glance at each other and returning our attention back to Kevin when he began to speak again. "Anyways, part way through the first day I was there, after I realised I was talking to Mom, a funny thing happened."
"Funny ‘ha ha' or funny ‘peculiar'?" Sharon asked lightly but curiously.
"Funny ‘peculiar'," Kevin replied seriously, then carried on as if he hadn't even been interrupted, "but it was more than that. It was almost. . . I don't know. . . supernatural maybe? I don't know. All I know is, as I sat there talking to Mom, I just sort of spaced out and it felt like I was separating from myself. You know, like I was leaving my body and standing beside myself so I could see and hear myself. I felt like I was watching a movie and I was the only person in it. So I started listening to what I was saying and, before I know it, I was talking as much to myself as I was to Mom. I started seeing everything that I was saying in my mind like a dream. It was like. . . I don't know. . . like everything that happened to me actually happened to somebody else and I saw it from a totally different point of view. For the first time, I started to see what everyone around me could see. I saw it happening the way you all were seeing it and not just the way I had always seen it in my mind."
Kevin looked up from the floor then and his eyes caught mine. There was a blended mix of understanding and apology. "I finally saw everything you did and I listened to everything you said to me. I finally began to understand that I didn't make it happen. I'd always blamed myself for it, for not being strong enough to prevent it. But you let it happen, didn't you? You wanted it to happen just as much as I did, didn't you?"
"I told you I did, Kev," I said quietly.
"I know, Marty," he replied, returning his gaze to his lap. "I guess I was just too busy wallowing in my own self-pity and misery to hear you."
Kevin fell silent then, deep in thought and absentmindedly eating the rest of his cookies. He was pensive, but he was far from sad. He looked quite content, actually. His lips weren't smiling, but his face was. He munched his snacks and seemed genuinely surprised to reach for another cookie on his little plate only to find that it was empty except for a few crumbs and a pink smudge of berry jam. He set his plate on the table, politely declining Sharon's offer of more, but he accepted her offer of a fresh mug of coffee.
He waited as Sharon retrieved it and topped up all our coffee mugs. I, meanwhile reloaded my plate and was happy to see Kevin reach for his and load it up again.
When Sharon had finished her little chore and was settled beside me, Kevin continued his story. "Anyways, after I started listening to myself, I started to tell her everything, Marty. Right from the weird way I felt about guys when I was growing up to the feelings I had for you before we moved away. I told her all about figuring out what all those feelings meant. You know, that I might be gay. And I talked to her about what being gay would do with my friendship with you and why I had promised myself that I would do everything I could never to let you find out about me." His lip curled up on one side and the eyebrow over the curled lip raised into a humiliated, sort of self-defeated expression. "Kinda screwed that up the first night at the pond, didn't I?"
He sucked in a deep, relaxing breath and continued. "Anyways, I told Mom all about what David did to me out there and the way he and. . . Dad treated me after she died." (I noticed that it was still an effort for him to say ‘Dad', as if the word itself was poison in his mouth.) "And then I told her all about everything that happened here. With you, Marty. I hadn't planned on it, but I got carried away and told her everything about coming back here and the bike ride to the pond, and then everything that happened there and later at your parents' place. I told her about running away in the middle of the night and almost. . . you know, almost killing myself. It felt good to talk to her, actually. You know, like the way you feel after you have a really good cry, except that I cried words instead of tears."
"A cleansing," Sharon whispered beside me.
Whether or not Kevin heard her, he carried on with his tale as if he hadn't. "I just talked and talked until I didn't have anything left to tell her. It took me three days from sunup to sundown to tell her everything I wanted to tell her, and then it took one more day to talk to her about what it all meant."
Again he paused and fell silent for a few long moments before taking a large swallow of his coffee. He took a big, deep breath and sat up straight in the easy chair. He crossed his grey-socked left ankle over his right knee and continued speaking once more.
"The whole thing was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. The more I talked to Mom that last day I was there, the more everything made sense to me. I started to think of things I hadn't thought of before. I started to seriously think about what was happening to everyone around me instead of only what was happening to me. I don't know why I didn't think about that before. Maybe I was just too worried about what was happening to me. I don't know. Until that last day with, I didn't see what I was doing to all of you. Maybe I didn't want to."
He lifted his gaze to meet mine again. He didn't look away again. Instead, his gaze switched back and forth between me and my wife as he spoke. "Talking to Mom changed all that, Marty. It let me see how everyone here was trying so hard to help me and all I was doing was trying so hard to shut all of you out."
We all care about you, Kev," I told him, "and we all love you."
"I know. I think maybe I was too scared to let you, though."
"Well, don't worry about it anymore. You're here and you're home and you're part of the family again, just like you've always been."
"I know," Kevin said. "Sharon straightened me out on that this morning."
"What!?" I said, more stunned than surprised at what I'd just heard. "This morning? But you . . . How? Where? I mean, you. . . I was home for. . . This morning!??"
Somehow Sharon and Kevin figured out what I was trying to say even when I couldn't make a complete sentence over two words long. Kevin actually laughed as I stumbled over my tongue, and if it hadn't been so long since I had seen my friend so happy, I might have been pissed off at him. But how could I have ever been angry at him with that beautiful grin on his face and that relaxed glint in his eyes. It had been such a long time since I had seen them appear so spontaneously without any effort on his part to make them appear. I couldn't be angry at a face like that. Not when he finally looked so happy and full of life.
I looked at Sharon. She gave me her ‘caught with her hand in the cookie jar' look and tilted her head to one side as she shrugged one shoulder until it touched her ear. "He showed up at the door a few minutes after you left for work." She curled her legs up on the sofa and snuggled into my side. I threw my arm casually over her shoulder and pulled her closer.
"I watched you leave for work," Kevin added. "I was parked down the street in front of that yellow house with the hedge out front and waited for you to leave."
"When did you get back?" I asked.
"Late yesterday afternoon."
"Why didn't you come around yesterday?" I asked. "Or phone us?"
"I wanted to talk to Sharon first, Marty. I sort of needed to talk to her alone. I needed to know where the two of us stood first without you butting in. I already knew where we stood. I'd decided I would stay if Sharon and I could sort it out. If we couldn't, I would say my goodbyes to you and then go away."
"I wouldn't have said anything if you asked me not to."
"But you would have still been here, Marty. Sharon and I probably wouldn't have felt as free to say what we really wanted to say if you were here. That's why I left at noon when you came home for lunch. There were still some things we needed to talk about."
"That's when he went shopping for our dessert," my wife added.
I uttered a little ‘harrumph'. "So, I take it that you sorted it out okay?"
"Better than okay, Marty," Kevin said with a quick glance toward my wife. "After we finished sorting everything out between us, we just talked. At first, she did most of the talking, but then she started asking me some questions and I found myself answering them, even when they became more and more personal. I don't think anyone would have been more surprised than me to find someone - especially a woman - who could convince me to talk about my sex life in detail and enjoy listening to it."
"I don't have much choice, Kevin," Sharon interrupted with a laugh. "Marty's idea of telling me about it was ‘blah blah blah we had sex blah blah blah fellatio blah blah blah penis and testicles' blah blah blah. Seriously, Kevin. Those are the words he used! I can't build many fantasies on that now, can I?"
Kevin laughed and I exclaimed, "He-e-e-e-ey!"
Sharon turned her head to look at me. "Oh, come off it, Marty. You're as useless as tits on a bull when it comes to anything sexy. You can't even say the word ‘cock' for crying out loud! You call it your ‘Johnson'!"
"I can say it," I replied, "when I want to."
"Then say it," my wife challenged me.
"I don't want to," I said. "Besides, Kevin's in the middle of his story and. . ."
Sharon turned back to Kevin. "You see? You see!? I get better descriptions of sex in my Harlequins and you wonder why I enjoyed listening to you talk about it so much. I mean, every time Marty talks about his Johnson, I keep picturing some old farmer in a straw hat and overalls standing in a field spitting chewing tobacco out of the side of his mouth. How sexy is that!?" She looked back at me with a serious sneer long enough to grumble, "Husbands!" before returning her attention to Kevin, who was still laughing his head off.
Sharon folded her arms over her chest and pretended that she was furious at me. I gave her a loving, one-armed hug and bent my head to kiss her hair. "But you still love me, right?"
She twisted her head around and tilted it up to look at me. She was smiling now. "Yes, Marty, I love you. And I love your Johnson and I love his little twins, too. All four of you make me very happy." She kissed me on the lips. "Now shut up so Kevin can finish his story about how happy they made him."
It took some time for the laughter to settle down but, eventually, Marty was able to continue. "I don't know. I just found it very easy to talk to Sharon. I mean, before we moved away when I was younger, you were the only person I could really talk to, and I couldn't even tell you everything I was feeling, could I? As much as I wanted to, as many times as I tried to, I just couldn't. I was too scared to. Sharon was different. I felt very comfortable telling her the most personal and intimate details."
Sharon was like that. She had a knack for making people feel comfortable and relaxed. I made a mental note to ask her later, after we went to bed, just how personal and intimate the details were. I would discover that Kevin was just as open and forthcoming about what I did for him as he was about what he did for me. And I would also discover that it would add a whole new level and intensity to our sex lives. I even discovered how much more fun it was to say ‘cock' instead of ‘Johnson'. As Eric Idle was keen to say, "Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Say no more."
"When we moved out west," Kevin continued, "I didn't make very many friends. Maybe two or three. I was afraid to, I think. I mean, you were really the only friend I had back here, weren't you? Anyways, Mom was the only one I could talk to out there and I couldn't tell her everything either. I couldn't talk to anyone about what I was going through. I mean, look how long it took me to break down and tell you about it, Marty, and I knew you my whole life.
"Anyways, after Mom died, I didn't have anyone to talk to anymore. I lost the few friends I'd made out there because nobody would come to my house. They were scared to death of my brother and father. And David and my father wouldn't let me go anywhere to meet with my friends. I think David was afraid I'd tell someone what he was doing to me and Dad was afraid David would cut off his supply of booze if the authorities found out and took me away. He didn't care what David to me did as long as he had a beer in his hand and food in his belly. I was all alone out there."
He turned his eyes to look at my wife briefly before returning to me. "I don't know, Marty. Maybe it was because I grew so comfortable and felt so good talking to Mom. You know, getting things off my chest and all that helped me make a decision. Maybe it was what happened at the pond the last time we were there. Or maybe it was because of Sharon being so easy to talk to. She can really understand and appreciate the way I felt about guys when I was growing up. I mean, she had the same curiosities, right? The same questions? The same fantasies? She knew what it was like to look at a guy and get all tingly inside. She knew what it was like to get excited being around a guy. Especially around you, Marty. She could understand my feelings for you and why I was willing to do anything to make you happy. She wanted the same things. She's a girl, but she's just like me in a way. She understands me. I never had anyone like that before. Someone I could tell anything to without them judging me. After talking to her today, I know I made the right decision to come back home. I really think Sharon and I are going to become really good friends. Whether Mom or the pond or Sharon is the reason, or whether it's a combination of all three, it doesn't matter. All I know is that this is where I belong. This is where I'm happy. This is where I feel at home."
I've been working as hard as I can lately on the final chapter for this story, as some of you are aware. So hard, in fact, that I've already written what amounts to almost 4 regular chapters in length. There was a lot more that I felt needed to be said than I originally thought. That happens a lot when you don't really plan anything and let it just happen.
Anyway, it was suggested to me that I should break the chapter into 3 or 4 sections and post them on their own to give you something to read and still give you something to look forward to.
After much thought, I decided to do that. I've broken down the final chapter into 3 distinct sections and will post Part 1 here today. Part 2 will follow before the weekend. The absolute conclusion, Part 3, will be posted next week.
I hope you find this satisfactory, and I hope you enjoy it.
Take care.
Neil
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BEST BUDDIES PLAY HARD
CONCLUSION - Part 1
BEST BUDDIES PLAY HARD
CONCLUSION - Part 1
Sharon spotted the note first. It had stopped raining by the time we arrived home that Sunday morning after church and lunch at my parents' house. I was still disappointed that I hadn't found useful clues as to Kevin's whereabouts except for a suitcase with a few lightly soiled clothes. I held MJ's diaper bag in my left hand as I unlocked the front door with the keys I held in my right hand. Sharon stood just behind me to one side, holding MJ in her arms. "Was this here yesterday?" she asked.
"What?" I said as my hand turned the key in the lock. It clicked open as I turned my head to look. Sharon was reaching into the top of the mailbox beside the door. The little viewing slot near the bottom showed a splash of blue-streaked white paper. There was no flap on the top of the box. It had been missing when we bought the house and I had never got around to replacing it with a new box. Whatever was inside had obviously suffered a bit of a bath.
"Is it from Kevin?"
"I don't know," Sharon replied. Then she said, "Damn."
"What?"
"It's totally soaked and the envelope's ripping apart. I think I caught it on a screw or something." She reached even further into the mailbox and then slowly pulled out the envelope.
She held it out to me and my hand was actually shaking when I took it. The ink on the front of the envelope had virtually melted and a huge blue streak ran to one side. Still, I could see the shadow of my name. "It's Kevin's handwriting," I said. "I recognise the ‘M'."
I set the diaper bag down and swapped the envelope to my left hand. Anxious and nervous fingers grasped the envelope flap and, as I opened it, the whole front of the envelope peeled away. I could almost feel it dissolving in my fingers.
"Let me take it, honey," Sharon said as she lifted it out of my grasping fingers. "You'll end up with a handful of mush if you try to open it. Take Marty in for his nap and let me do this, okay?"
She gently took the envelope from my hands and I took MJ from her arms. I grabbed up the diaper bag and followed Sharon inside, pushing the front door closed behind me with my bum. Sharon headed immediately for the kitchen and I headed for MJ's bedroom. It took me a few minutes to change him and get him into his crib, then I hurried out to the kitchen to rejoin Sharon. She was standing at the counter, the opened envelope set off to the side and several layers of paper towel in front of her. I guessed that Kevin's note was somewhere between two of the layers. The clothes iron was plugged in and my wife was carefully pressing the heated base against the towels.
"What did he say?" I asked anxiously. "Did you look?"
"Not really except to see that it was still legible," she replied as she lifted the iron and carefully pressed her other hand against the paper. "Almost," she added as she returned to ironing the paper towels and the note. "We can read it together when it's dry. I tore the paper twice just opening it, Marty. The note is one step away from being pulp and the ink is spreading. He must have put it in the box last night and it's been getting rained on all that."
I leaned on the countertop with one hand, tapping my impatient fingers against the Arborite, as the seconds turned into minutes in my brain. It seemed like hours before Sharon was satisfied and set the iron on its support, turned it off, and began peeling away the sheets of paper towel until she reached Kevin's note. I thought she had ironed off all the writing. There were only rows of blue smears left. Then I realised that the note was face-down and I was looking at the back side. Sharon pressed her hand against the note for a brief moment before carefully peeling it away from the paper towel beneath it and flipping it over.
With a heavy sigh of relief, I leaned closer to read it. It was Kevin's writing, all right. Just big. The small letters barely fit between two lines and the capital letters reached next the line above. The dangly letters dropped right into the word below it at times. The ink had spread and smeared a lot in the waterlogged paper but, for the most part, I could fill in the bits that were too blurry to read easily:
Hi Marty
I have to get away from here. I can't think here. Every time I start to think about what you and Sharon said to me my brain keeps replaying that night at the pond over and over again and that's all I can think about. I need to be thinking about other things right now. I need to be thinking about the future. I can't make a decision based only on what happened at the pond. I need to be away from you and everybody else for awhile so I can think better.
So much has happened to me lately, Marty. Stuff I didn't expect to happen. And now I don't know how to deal with it. I had it all figured out before I came back. At least I thought I did. But it's all changed and now I need to start figuring it out all over again. So much is different now. But being so close to you isn't letting me think the way I have to be thinking.
I need to not be near you right now, Marty. As much as I want to be with you and Sharon and everyone else (but especially you) I can't. Not right now. I hope you can understand.
Please don't hate me for running away again like this without saying goodbye. I know if I did you'd have tried to make me stay. Don't say you wouldn't Marty. I know you would have. And so do you.
I'll be in touch. Promise.
Love always. Kevin
I have to get away from here. I can't think here. Every time I start to think about what you and Sharon said to me my brain keeps replaying that night at the pond over and over again and that's all I can think about. I need to be thinking about other things right now. I need to be thinking about the future. I can't make a decision based only on what happened at the pond. I need to be away from you and everybody else for awhile so I can think better.
So much has happened to me lately, Marty. Stuff I didn't expect to happen. And now I don't know how to deal with it. I had it all figured out before I came back. At least I thought I did. But it's all changed and now I need to start figuring it out all over again. So much is different now. But being so close to you isn't letting me think the way I have to be thinking.
I need to not be near you right now, Marty. As much as I want to be with you and Sharon and everyone else (but especially you) I can't. Not right now. I hope you can understand.
Please don't hate me for running away again like this without saying goodbye. I know if I did you'd have tried to make me stay. Don't say you wouldn't Marty. I know you would have. And so do you.
I'll be in touch. Promise.
Love always. Kevin
"He's right," I mumbled under my breath when I finished reading the note. "I would have."
* * * * *
A week went by without a word from Kevin. Anxiety and fear for him once again became my frequent companions. I had lost him twice already. I wasn't too keen on losing him a third time. The next Sunday, we all went to church again, as we did each Sunday morning, and we prayed for Kevin's safety and I secretly wished for a quick return. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. When we went back home, it was to find our prayers and wishes unanswered.
All we could do, as my father was often heard to say, was to hurry up and wait.
It was the following Tuesday that I came home and found Kevin's car parked in my driveway. I was so excited I almost rammed my front bumper up his tailpipe when I parked behind him and I practically ran into the house and into the kitchen when I heard Kevin's voice there. He was seated at the table. It was set for three people. Marty Junior was sitting in Kevin's lap. Little MJ let out a squeal of excitement when he saw me and raised his arms to me and started bouncing up and down on Kevin's legs. I took him from Kevin's grasp and gave him his ‘Daddy's home' snuggles and smooches while Sharon came forward from where she had been working at the stove to give me my ‘welcome home' kiss. And then I turned my attention to Kevin.
As I looked at him, Kevin rose to his feet and approached me. At the same time, Sharon took MJ out of my arms and backed away a step. Kevin stopped in front of me and said in a jittery voice, "Sharon said I could do this." He hesitated a moment and swallowed hard, then pulled me into a great bear hug so great that I could feel the atoms of air popping out from between us. There wasn't any room left for them. I had no choice but to wrap my arms around him and hug him back.
Kevin's hugged me as if he didn't want to let go of me. I could feel his fingernails digging into my back as he buried his face into the nape of my neck. I could feel the warm, desperate puffs of breath blowing out of his nostrils and across my skin. I could feel my hair ruffling from its force. Eventually, after what seemed like minutes, he loosened his grip and moved his hands to my sides and pushed me back slightly. Air rushed in between us to fill the sudden void. I raised my hands to grip his upper arms.
"She said I could do this, too, Marty," he added somewhat nervously.
And then, with a brief glance toward my wife, he kissed me.
It wasn't a face-sucking kiss. It wasn't even a romantic one. It wasn't much more than his lips pressed against mine and the accompanying squeak that slightly suctioning lips make when they separate. It was over before I realised it had even begun. But it was nice and it left a pleasant tingling on my lips.
Kevin still had his hands on my waist and I still held onto his arms. This time, it was my tense fingers digging into his flesh, but he either didn't notice them or didn't mind. He wasn't crying, but his eyes were full of moisture. I'm sure mine were, too. "I've come home, Marty," he said. "I'm home to stay."
* * * * *
Kevin stayed, and it started with him staying for supper. He was like a different man. The troubled, tortured, haunted look was gone and the happy-go-lucky young man I sat behind on the motorcycle so long ago had returned. I remember than day clearly. I remember holding on to Kevin as if my life depended on him. I suppose it did, actually. I remember how I had pressed myself against him out of undeniable terror, how my crotch had been shoved against his butt, and I also remember getting an erection. Kevin had explained it as being caused by the vibrations from the bike and his own hardon (which I discovered when I shoved my hand in the front pocket of his jeans trying to find his cigarette lighter as we tore down the highway) seemed to be a practical explanation at the time. In hindsight, though, I tend to think it was my cock stuck in the crack of his ass and my arms wrapped around him that had caused it.
My own hardon? Well, the bike vibrations might have been responsible for a tiny portion of it, but now I'm pretty sure Kevin was had a lot to do with the rest.
To this day, I still don't know where Kevin went when he took off for a year that first time. He never told us. Dad figured it was probably a part of his life that he wanted nothing more than to forget so he never talked about it. And nobody asked.
This time was different. He told us everything, and we didn't even have to ask.
We were enjoying Sharon's roast beef dinner with lumpy gravy and baked potatoes scooped out and made au gratin from a recipe she found in a magazine and steamed veggies. It was a good dinner. Kevin sat to my left and Sharon sat to my right. MJ's highchair separated me and my wife. He was too busy squishing his veggies into an unidentifiable mass and playing patty-cake with his mashed au gratin baked potato and lumpy gravy to be bothered listening to the adults chattering away.
"We didn't find your note until we came home from church on Sunday," I said as I sawed off another bite of delicious roast. "By then, it had been rained on all night and all morning and was one step away from being wood soup."
"Yeah. Sorry about that. I was about two hours out of town when I drove into it. I figured it would get here but I hoped the note would stay dry. I just hope your Mom isn't too pissed off at me for sneaking away like that."
"She'll got over it pretty quick," I smiled.
"I hope so," Kevin grimaced. "I'm kinda counting on her letting me use your bedroom again for awhile. Only Fred Flintstone would find the beds at the Y comfortable enough to sleep on."
"Trust me, Kev," I said. "We were over there for lunch that Sunday after you left. Your room was just the way you'd left it. I went through it looking for a note or something but didn't find anything except a few dirty clothes in the closet. We didn't find the note you left in our mailbox until we got home after lunch. But you can bet your ass that Mom had already changed the bed sheets and the dirty sheets and the dirty clothes you left in the closet were already in Mom's washing machine before we got home. You know you'll always be welcome there. You're like their second son. They care about you very much."
"Yeah, I know. But still. . ." There was no need for him to finish his sentence. We all knew what the rest of it was.
"So, you went out west, did you?" I said to break the sudden silence.
Kevin looked at me, surprised. His hand, holding his fork which had a good-sized piece of beef stuck on the tines, stopped midway between his plate and his mouth. "How did you know that?"
"You drove into the rain," I reminded him. "Rain doesn't usually roll in from the east."
"Oh, yeah," he said after a second or two of thinking about it. "Good catch. Yeah, I went back h. . . well, out west, but I'll tell you after we eat, okay? I don't want to talk about it right now" He popped the piece of beef into his mouth and began chewing.
"Sorry the roast is so tough, Kevin," Sharon apologised to him. "It's usually a lot more tender where I buy it. I must have got a cut from a really butch cow."
After he stopped laughing, Kevin said with a wide grin, "Compared to what I've been eating these past few days, this is like beef-flavoured chiffon cake. I might even have seconds."
"You can have thirds if you like," Sharon returned.
"It's tempting, but I want so save some room for a piece of that apple pie we made this afternoon."
"You made an apple pie?" I said to my wife. "A real one with real pastry?" I said it before I was able to disguise the surprise and skepticism in the tone of my voice. Sharon was better know for buying her pies fresh from the bakery. Cakes she could do. Pie pastry? Not so much. . . unless you were looking for a packing material.
"From scratch," she said proudly. "Kevin went out and bought all the stuff we didn't have for it and he showed me how to make it. Even the pastry. Did you know you need really cold water for that?"
I responded with a shake of my head.
"Well, it does. All Kevin did was peel the apples for me. Who knew a sprinkle of lemon juice would keep the apples from turning brown? I did the rest. Kevin just supervised. Can't you smell it heating in the oven?"
"I thought it was just one from the bakeshop."
As it turned out, the pie was absolutely, positively delicious and the pastry was as flaky as Mom's. It was warm out of the oven and had the perfect blend of brown sugar and cinnamon and a crumbly oatmeal topping. With a sizeable scoop of vanilla ice cream slowly melting on top, it was the perfect wrap-up to a perfect dinner.
When we finished eating, Kevin helped me do the dishes while Sharon cleaned up MJ and gave him his bath and got him ready for bed. She joined us in the livingroom when she was finished. Kevin was once again sitting in the chair. I sat in my spot on the sofa and Sharon sat down beside me with Marty Junior in her arms. He smelled fresh and clean with a strong scent of baby shampoo and baby powder. He held his favourite little stuffed doggy in his tiny little hands by its ears and, as soon as he was comfortably settled on Mommy's lap, began to chew on Scruffy's nose.
We let him chew and play for a short while before we settled him into his crib for the night. Kevin tagged along with us to observe and to give Marty Junior a kiss goodnight.
Sharon served fresh coffee and brought out a plate of assorted Peek Freans cookies. Kevin took the offered paper dessert plate and napkin from her. Then, after quick consideration, he selected one each of a jam-filled, pecan, shortcake, and cinnamon cookie.
"That's hardly a nibble," Sharon told him as she pushed the plate even closer to him. "Here. Grab yourself a few more."
"I'm fine, Sharon. Really."
"Nonsense!" she replied forcefully and set one more of each on Kevin's plate before he had time to object. She set the plate of cookies on the table in front of me and dropped a plate and napkin in my lap before plopping herself down beside me and began her own selection of her favourite cookies. "Now, eat up and tell us what you've been up to all last week."
I looked at her. "You mean you don't know?"
"No," she replied. "He wanted to wait until you were here before he told us both at the same time. We just talked today and sorted things out in between us. Now, hush!"
Kevin finished chewing and swallowing his Fruit Creme cookie before he speaking. "You were right, Marty. I went out west." He was talking to both of us, but his attention was mainly focused on me. "You know, back. . . um. . . back where I used to live. Don't laugh, but I went out there to talk to Mom." He looked down at his lap, trying to hide his blushing cheeks. "Sounds pretty silly and childish, huh?"
"I don't think so, Kevin," Sharon said quietly and encouragingly from her position beside me. Kevin looked up at her briefly and quickly averted his eyes to his lap again. "I think it's nice that you feel you can still talk to her when you need her. Just because she died doesn't mean the loving and the caring stop. Those kinds of things last longer than time. I believe that with all my heart. I think it's sweet that you felt you could still go back and talk to her when you really needed her."
"Yeah. Well. It felt kind of stupid sitting there for four days talking to her gravestone," he said. "I felt like an idiot. He popped another cookie into his mouth and washed it down with a sip of coffee. "Anyways, I didn't start out talking to her. I just sat beside her grave so I could be close to her. I don't even remember starting to talk, but it suddenly dawned on me that that's what I was doing. And the more I talked, the easier it became and the more I told her."
He paused briefly for another sip of coffee. He still hadn't lifted his gaze from his lap. Sharon and I waited in silence, casting a brief, understanding glance at each other and returning our attention back to Kevin when he began to speak again. "Anyways, part way through the first day I was there, after I realised I was talking to Mom, a funny thing happened."
"Funny ‘ha ha' or funny ‘peculiar'?" Sharon asked lightly but curiously.
"Funny ‘peculiar'," Kevin replied seriously, then carried on as if he hadn't even been interrupted, "but it was more than that. It was almost. . . I don't know. . . supernatural maybe? I don't know. All I know is, as I sat there talking to Mom, I just sort of spaced out and it felt like I was separating from myself. You know, like I was leaving my body and standing beside myself so I could see and hear myself. I felt like I was watching a movie and I was the only person in it. So I started listening to what I was saying and, before I know it, I was talking as much to myself as I was to Mom. I started seeing everything that I was saying in my mind like a dream. It was like. . . I don't know. . . like everything that happened to me actually happened to somebody else and I saw it from a totally different point of view. For the first time, I started to see what everyone around me could see. I saw it happening the way you all were seeing it and not just the way I had always seen it in my mind."
Kevin looked up from the floor then and his eyes caught mine. There was a blended mix of understanding and apology. "I finally saw everything you did and I listened to everything you said to me. I finally began to understand that I didn't make it happen. I'd always blamed myself for it, for not being strong enough to prevent it. But you let it happen, didn't you? You wanted it to happen just as much as I did, didn't you?"
"I told you I did, Kev," I said quietly.
"I know, Marty," he replied, returning his gaze to his lap. "I guess I was just too busy wallowing in my own self-pity and misery to hear you."
Kevin fell silent then, deep in thought and absentmindedly eating the rest of his cookies. He was pensive, but he was far from sad. He looked quite content, actually. His lips weren't smiling, but his face was. He munched his snacks and seemed genuinely surprised to reach for another cookie on his little plate only to find that it was empty except for a few crumbs and a pink smudge of berry jam. He set his plate on the table, politely declining Sharon's offer of more, but he accepted her offer of a fresh mug of coffee.
He waited as Sharon retrieved it and topped up all our coffee mugs. I, meanwhile reloaded my plate and was happy to see Kevin reach for his and load it up again.
When Sharon had finished her little chore and was settled beside me, Kevin continued his story. "Anyways, after I started listening to myself, I started to tell her everything, Marty. Right from the weird way I felt about guys when I was growing up to the feelings I had for you before we moved away. I told her all about figuring out what all those feelings meant. You know, that I might be gay. And I talked to her about what being gay would do with my friendship with you and why I had promised myself that I would do everything I could never to let you find out about me." His lip curled up on one side and the eyebrow over the curled lip raised into a humiliated, sort of self-defeated expression. "Kinda screwed that up the first night at the pond, didn't I?"
He sucked in a deep, relaxing breath and continued. "Anyways, I told Mom all about what David did to me out there and the way he and. . . Dad treated me after she died." (I noticed that it was still an effort for him to say ‘Dad', as if the word itself was poison in his mouth.) "And then I told her all about everything that happened here. With you, Marty. I hadn't planned on it, but I got carried away and told her everything about coming back here and the bike ride to the pond, and then everything that happened there and later at your parents' place. I told her about running away in the middle of the night and almost. . . you know, almost killing myself. It felt good to talk to her, actually. You know, like the way you feel after you have a really good cry, except that I cried words instead of tears."
"A cleansing," Sharon whispered beside me.
Whether or not Kevin heard her, he carried on with his tale as if he hadn't. "I just talked and talked until I didn't have anything left to tell her. It took me three days from sunup to sundown to tell her everything I wanted to tell her, and then it took one more day to talk to her about what it all meant."
Again he paused and fell silent for a few long moments before taking a large swallow of his coffee. He took a big, deep breath and sat up straight in the easy chair. He crossed his grey-socked left ankle over his right knee and continued speaking once more.
"The whole thing was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. The more I talked to Mom that last day I was there, the more everything made sense to me. I started to think of things I hadn't thought of before. I started to seriously think about what was happening to everyone around me instead of only what was happening to me. I don't know why I didn't think about that before. Maybe I was just too worried about what was happening to me. I don't know. Until that last day with, I didn't see what I was doing to all of you. Maybe I didn't want to."
He lifted his gaze to meet mine again. He didn't look away again. Instead, his gaze switched back and forth between me and my wife as he spoke. "Talking to Mom changed all that, Marty. It let me see how everyone here was trying so hard to help me and all I was doing was trying so hard to shut all of you out."
We all care about you, Kev," I told him, "and we all love you."
"I know. I think maybe I was too scared to let you, though."
"Well, don't worry about it anymore. You're here and you're home and you're part of the family again, just like you've always been."
"I know," Kevin said. "Sharon straightened me out on that this morning."
"What!?" I said, more stunned than surprised at what I'd just heard. "This morning? But you . . . How? Where? I mean, you. . . I was home for. . . This morning!??"
Somehow Sharon and Kevin figured out what I was trying to say even when I couldn't make a complete sentence over two words long. Kevin actually laughed as I stumbled over my tongue, and if it hadn't been so long since I had seen my friend so happy, I might have been pissed off at him. But how could I have ever been angry at him with that beautiful grin on his face and that relaxed glint in his eyes. It had been such a long time since I had seen them appear so spontaneously without any effort on his part to make them appear. I couldn't be angry at a face like that. Not when he finally looked so happy and full of life.
I looked at Sharon. She gave me her ‘caught with her hand in the cookie jar' look and tilted her head to one side as she shrugged one shoulder until it touched her ear. "He showed up at the door a few minutes after you left for work." She curled her legs up on the sofa and snuggled into my side. I threw my arm casually over her shoulder and pulled her closer.
"I watched you leave for work," Kevin added. "I was parked down the street in front of that yellow house with the hedge out front and waited for you to leave."
"When did you get back?" I asked.
"Late yesterday afternoon."
"Why didn't you come around yesterday?" I asked. "Or phone us?"
"I wanted to talk to Sharon first, Marty. I sort of needed to talk to her alone. I needed to know where the two of us stood first without you butting in. I already knew where we stood. I'd decided I would stay if Sharon and I could sort it out. If we couldn't, I would say my goodbyes to you and then go away."
"I wouldn't have said anything if you asked me not to."
"But you would have still been here, Marty. Sharon and I probably wouldn't have felt as free to say what we really wanted to say if you were here. That's why I left at noon when you came home for lunch. There were still some things we needed to talk about."
"That's when he went shopping for our dessert," my wife added.
I uttered a little ‘harrumph'. "So, I take it that you sorted it out okay?"
"Better than okay, Marty," Kevin said with a quick glance toward my wife. "After we finished sorting everything out between us, we just talked. At first, she did most of the talking, but then she started asking me some questions and I found myself answering them, even when they became more and more personal. I don't think anyone would have been more surprised than me to find someone - especially a woman - who could convince me to talk about my sex life in detail and enjoy listening to it."
"I don't have much choice, Kevin," Sharon interrupted with a laugh. "Marty's idea of telling me about it was ‘blah blah blah we had sex blah blah blah fellatio blah blah blah penis and testicles' blah blah blah. Seriously, Kevin. Those are the words he used! I can't build many fantasies on that now, can I?"
Kevin laughed and I exclaimed, "He-e-e-e-ey!"
Sharon turned her head to look at me. "Oh, come off it, Marty. You're as useless as tits on a bull when it comes to anything sexy. You can't even say the word ‘cock' for crying out loud! You call it your ‘Johnson'!"
"I can say it," I replied, "when I want to."
"Then say it," my wife challenged me.
"I don't want to," I said. "Besides, Kevin's in the middle of his story and. . ."
Sharon turned back to Kevin. "You see? You see!? I get better descriptions of sex in my Harlequins and you wonder why I enjoyed listening to you talk about it so much. I mean, every time Marty talks about his Johnson, I keep picturing some old farmer in a straw hat and overalls standing in a field spitting chewing tobacco out of the side of his mouth. How sexy is that!?" She looked back at me with a serious sneer long enough to grumble, "Husbands!" before returning her attention to Kevin, who was still laughing his head off.
Sharon folded her arms over her chest and pretended that she was furious at me. I gave her a loving, one-armed hug and bent my head to kiss her hair. "But you still love me, right?"
She twisted her head around and tilted it up to look at me. She was smiling now. "Yes, Marty, I love you. And I love your Johnson and I love his little twins, too. All four of you make me very happy." She kissed me on the lips. "Now shut up so Kevin can finish his story about how happy they made him."
It took some time for the laughter to settle down but, eventually, Marty was able to continue. "I don't know. I just found it very easy to talk to Sharon. I mean, before we moved away when I was younger, you were the only person I could really talk to, and I couldn't even tell you everything I was feeling, could I? As much as I wanted to, as many times as I tried to, I just couldn't. I was too scared to. Sharon was different. I felt very comfortable telling her the most personal and intimate details."
Sharon was like that. She had a knack for making people feel comfortable and relaxed. I made a mental note to ask her later, after we went to bed, just how personal and intimate the details were. I would discover that Kevin was just as open and forthcoming about what I did for him as he was about what he did for me. And I would also discover that it would add a whole new level and intensity to our sex lives. I even discovered how much more fun it was to say ‘cock' instead of ‘Johnson'. As Eric Idle was keen to say, "Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Say no more."
"When we moved out west," Kevin continued, "I didn't make very many friends. Maybe two or three. I was afraid to, I think. I mean, you were really the only friend I had back here, weren't you? Anyways, Mom was the only one I could talk to out there and I couldn't tell her everything either. I couldn't talk to anyone about what I was going through. I mean, look how long it took me to break down and tell you about it, Marty, and I knew you my whole life.
"Anyways, after Mom died, I didn't have anyone to talk to anymore. I lost the few friends I'd made out there because nobody would come to my house. They were scared to death of my brother and father. And David and my father wouldn't let me go anywhere to meet with my friends. I think David was afraid I'd tell someone what he was doing to me and Dad was afraid David would cut off his supply of booze if the authorities found out and took me away. He didn't care what David to me did as long as he had a beer in his hand and food in his belly. I was all alone out there."
He turned his eyes to look at my wife briefly before returning to me. "I don't know, Marty. Maybe it was because I grew so comfortable and felt so good talking to Mom. You know, getting things off my chest and all that helped me make a decision. Maybe it was what happened at the pond the last time we were there. Or maybe it was because of Sharon being so easy to talk to. She can really understand and appreciate the way I felt about guys when I was growing up. I mean, she had the same curiosities, right? The same questions? The same fantasies? She knew what it was like to look at a guy and get all tingly inside. She knew what it was like to get excited being around a guy. Especially around you, Marty. She could understand my feelings for you and why I was willing to do anything to make you happy. She wanted the same things. She's a girl, but she's just like me in a way. She understands me. I never had anyone like that before. Someone I could tell anything to without them judging me. After talking to her today, I know I made the right decision to come back home. I really think Sharon and I are going to become really good friends. Whether Mom or the pond or Sharon is the reason, or whether it's a combination of all three, it doesn't matter. All I know is that this is where I belong. This is where I'm happy. This is where I feel at home."
Part 2 Coming Very Soon!
