If I Should Fall

[ChrisGibson]

Before lunch, because Ross went to Mass, Anigel would respectfully go to Mass, and because they were going and Russell missed church, he would go too, and because he was going, Flipper, who was a reluctant Catholic was there as well.. Sister Pat said she’d never seen so many people under fifty at daily Mass before, and laughed. On the way to lunch, Russell remembered the first reading:

By faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they were passing through dry land; and the Egyptians, when they attempted it, were drowned.
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.
And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground

And Russell had thought, those saints and the people in “Howl” are the same. For the world as it is is not good enough. They can’t help but desire more, the same faith which raised the dead was the same faith that could lead men to sleep in holes. There was no difference between the man who stood in camel hair in the desert and cried “The kingdom of God is here!” and the wandering homeless man on the street, smoking cigarette after cigarette and sleeping under the Brigham Street Bridge at night. Jesus had died naked and forsaken on a cross. Both were the outcast and the beloved of God.
“Yeah,” Flipper said as the two of them chained smoked in his room after lunch. “It makes God more real.”
“It makes God terrifying,” Russell said.
“Yes,” Flipper agreed, blowing smoke out of his nose, “But I can live with that.”

When Anigel shook Russell awake and told him it was time for dinner, he was surprised by how hungry he was. He looked out the window of the common room at the heavy grey sky and wondered :What time it is?”
“It’s almost six, and do you know you smell like a pack of cigarettes? I’m not judging. I’m just assessing.”
Jimmy was there in his coat, hood pulled up, grinning.
Russell already felt part of this family. Money was coming downstairs with Flipper and Jack Yeager who lived down the hall, and Russell went up to get his coat in Ross’s room where Ross was searching for his hat and pulling on his gloves.
They all headed toward the cafeteria, threading past the football dorm where Andy Lagger came out and joined Flipper, and Russell knew it was Andy Lagger because, shyly, Flipper introduced him. Andy was well built but funny looking, but handsome at the same time. He was hard to describe. He looked like a young gym teacher. He and Flipper made sense together.
“We’ve been hanging out all day,” Flipper said.
“Yeah, whaddid you guys get up to?”
“Poetry. Philosophy. We talked about Ginsberg and Pound— fuck him—and T.S. Eliot.”
“We went to church,” Russell threw in.
“Well,” Andy said.
“Andy’s a scientist,” Flipper explained.
“I thought you were a football player,” Russell said.
Andy burst out laughing. He had a wide mouth and looked a little bit like a sexy jack o lantern.
“Yes,” Russell said, feeling stupid. “People can be more than one thing.”
“And here you better be.” Andy said, jamming his hands in his pockets. “No one who plays for Saint Alban’s is making it into the NFL.”
As they were coming from the west, Macy and Bernadette were skipping, keys dangling from their hands, from the south where the night was already settling. Macy punched Russell affectionately though, as Russell rubbed his shoulder, he decided he could have dealt with a little less affection, and Bernadette complained, “They’re already starting that party over in Halleck Hall.”
“I know,” Macy said in a very different voice. “Are any of you assholes going?”
“We’re going,” Flipper turned around, pointing at Yeager and Russell, and Andy, “Aren’t we?”
“Uh….”
“What are you looking at me for?” Anigel said to Russell.
“Because you are a parental figure,” Ross said, sternly. “So act like one.”
And then taking his own advice, Ross said, “We will go. But we’re not coming till nine.”
“It’s not really starting till ten,” Macy said.
“I thought Bernie said it was happening now.”
Bernadette, who walked faster than them all and had already entered the dining hall, skipped down the flight of steps to the ground level, and stood in line, so she could not hear Macy say, “That bitch just means they’re coming back with the liquor. I love her but she’s like an old woman. She worries about EVERYTHING.”

Macy said they would make a feast.
“The proper feast,” she told Anigel, “is to come here as soon as the caf opens and not leave till it shuts. You want to know everyone’s business, see everyone, check in on all, and maybe have three courses of what’s up there.”
“The food here isn’t good enough to be a feast,” Coral declared and Bernadette looked at Macy and said, as if Coral was not there, “That’s the problem with her, ya know?” and Macy nodded in sage agreement.
There was a sort of country fried steak with white gravy for a first course, though Anigel had the chicken Caesar salad instead. They ate this and talked about the party and Russell remained mostly silent listening to his cousins and eating country fried steak. In fact a lot of them took turns being quiet. There was much to hear and observe. Macy got up and had half coffee half cocoa and Anigel, in the spirit of the feast now, brought back an ice cream cone.
“I didn’t know school was so much fun,” she said.
“There are classes too,” Ross, who had gone for coffee said.
“Well, I’m doing that now at Soubirous. But the social life! Not that there isn’t social life there too. I just didn’t think there was any place to go after. But there’s here.”
“True. I mean, by the time you transferred we would be graduated, but Macy and Bernadette would still be here if you could deal with that. Ah, hell, who are we kidding? Flip and Jimmy changed their majors so often, they’ll be here too.”
“I want to sit up all day and all night and talk about poems and go to church and see philosophy in Mass too! Hell, Russell’s having more college than I’ve had in one day with Flipper.”
They went out to smoke, but not all at the same time for fear of losing their table. There had been a smoking section in the cafeteria, but only two years ago it had been closed down. Now, on the first floor there were couches and ash trays. When Russell came back from smoking clove cigarettes with Macy and the short, Bernadette was bringing them éclairs and saying, “Well, it’s almost seven, so I guess it’s time to wrap shit up.”


Nehru Alexander, who had always been a person of reason, having forsaken that reason, did not know how to return to it. He had always been so wise, and it was tiring now. Wisdom had kept him virginal. It had kept him ideal. Good, wise, sensible, Nehru, and now he wondered, if he’d been less wise would he have been more fun, had more fun? Would he still be alone?
Wisdom told him that it was he who had told Brad to go to Marissa, and that it was he who, like a mad pervert, had stared in the window and watched them having sex. But wisdom, which sounded a lot like a tired, scolding woman, could kiss his ass, and all that night he curled into a ball and cried into his pillow. He was numb and hurt by rage and when Brad came by the house the next day—no one else was there—he stayed in his room and did not answer the door. He would not take his phone calls.
During the time when he’d been sleeping with Joshua from the synagogue, some of that was revenge, the desire to get back at Brad, to say, if you do this then I do that. But now his heart hurt too much for revenge. When he turned to the online personals, it was after the hollowness, when what he desired, was desire.

HARD , round & tight - m4mm 41 (U-HOST - G.F./PORT GREG) pic
55/w/m looking for younger 55 (East Sequoya)
Are you Here? 28 (GF)
Black Man Wanted 51 (East Sequoya) pic
Looking For Friends...Possibly Someone To Date 22 (Little Poland)

Looking to suck a nice thick cock. - m4m 19 pic
Horny oral bottom visiting looking for local dick 27 (St joe/colona koa)
60/w/m looking for younger male 60 (Geshichtuh Falls)
Seeking LTR in Lothrop County area (Lothrop County/Fort Atkins) pic
60yrs male wanting to give head to younger 60 (atkins)
Black men you wanna put-now - m4m 49 (atkins)
Top Seeking Young Bottom St8 Acting 36 (Falls)

Are you Here? - 23 (GF)
age : 23 body : averageheight : 5'7" (170cm) status : single

Wanting to make some new friends. I really need to be with another man. I never understood that till recently, but having done it a few times, I want to do it again. There’s someone I have in mind, but I can’t be with him right now. I am told I am well muscled and have shoulder length brown hair.

do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers

There was a picture of the man, the other boy, from the neck down. He looked almost too good. He wasn’t tall, like the add sad, but he was thick necked, strong armed and his penis sent a thrill through Nehru’s stomach.
So Nehru began to type. For the very first time, as he thought of meeting this man, he was not thinking of Brad at all.

MORE IN A BIT

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Russell is having a good day leading into what promises to be an interesting night in this new setting. Poor Nehru, just when he thought things were going well with Brad he is alone again. I kind of hope he meets someone else, I don’t know if Brad is good for him. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That's a good insight. At this moment Brad really isn't good for him, and he might very well need to find someone else.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT EVERYONE GETS A SHOCK


Life was a Sacred Net, Cody Barnard was absolutely sure of that. Everyone was caught up in it, and God was a fisherman. He would catch you up with the people who belonged to you, and everyone belonged to you in some way. It might take you a long time to understand how.
The waters we swam in were dangerous. Just look at the Choctaw River. At some points it was shallow and narrow, but when you got to other parts, like Royal Street, it was broad and dark, and only the Brigham Street Bridge could span it. Freighters trawled across it. Its cold depths were unknown.
But humans were different. They had hot depths. Cody didn’t apologize for his. He was sometimes amazed by them, but not ashamed. He was dismayed, but not terrified. When those parts of him arose, he simply decided something had to be done about them.
Something had to be done about Russell Lewis. Put him away? No. He couldn’t bare it. He loved Russell. Russell made more sense than people twice, three times his age. He was linked to him, certainly. But Russell was not even seventeen, and he had barely known Russell two weeks before feelings began to well in him that had never been there before. His desire to touch Russell’s red hair, to place a hand over his was so strong, that the night Anigel Reyes’ sister had her baby, and Russell had been left with Jason, Cody had brought Ralph back to his house and had sex with him. The whole time they’d been traveling, Cody had been feeling Ralph up, wondering if he’d be up for it. Upstairs, in his small junky, room, Cody told Ralph to wait. He’d cleaned himself come back, shone Ralph his beautiful body, played with the boy’s cock which was huge—Ralph didn’t seem like a kid—and then taken off his clothes and let Ralph fuck him.
It wasn’t that he pretended Ralph was Russell, not at all. He didn’t have nearly enough imagination for that, but Ralph was sex, the intense meltiness of sex, the need of it and the forgetting of ego. When Ralph begged him, though Ralph said he’d never experienced it before, Cody fucked him. The confusion he’d felt over Russell turned to bliss as he came inside Ralph.
It had only been a few days later that he and Russell had been driving around and just like that, in his truck, Russell had given him head. Not much later Cody, feeling more fuck it than anything, in Russell’s own house had sixty nined with him. The broad side of his hand, rubbing up and down in the cleft of Russell’s ass, Russell’s strawberry hair in his face, his spearmint breath in his mouth, their tongues linking, Russell, thick and long and hard in his mouth, Russell’s mouth doing duty on him, was ecstasy.

Brad Long had happened in order to forget Russell. He had happened because he was attractive. The first time Cody had seen him he sort of wanted to fuck him, but they were both trying to forget someone and they were talking about music, and surprised to have answered each other’s ad, surprised at whom the ad had revealed. They touched and kissed and stripped timidly, but again, the feeling of slaked need, the sacred feeling of giving someone what they needed and being humble enough to accept that you needed was in this too. He and Brad had gone at it all night. He didn’t call Brad after that. He didn’t want to intrude. And Brad did not call him.
It was ten minutes from the garage on Thompson Road to Colum Park. He parked and climbed out of the car, excited by the white quiet of the winter night. He was here to answer an ad again and wondered who—whom?—it would reveal. There was the Zen garden, and after it the little pagoda which Cody noted was Chinese and therefore inappropriate in this fake Japan, and he walked down the long hill to the stand of bushes, black in the night, and saw who was waiting for him, sitting on the bench, sensibly hooded and in a winter coat.. Now he stood up, and as Cody stood there, the cold air stinging his ears through his thick hair, the other man, a little shorter, stood up, and began to undo his hood.
Cody Barnard blinked in surprise.
“Nehru?”


“Is this a baggy jeans party or a short dress party?” Anigel asked. And then she said, “It’s the middle of the goddamn week in winter. It’ a baggy jeans party, and aren’t I cute no matter what?”
“If you put on these earnings and this Scrunchee,” Money said, you look like a fucking princess.”
Susan, who was not going to any sort of party, sat on her beanbag in the middle of her large room and said, “Anigel, you are so beautiful. You really could wear a sack.”
On impulse Anigel bent down and kissed the girl on the cheek.
“Everyone needs to hear that,” she said.
Flipper was in white shirt and khakis and had got out his pea coat and good gloves.
“I just want to look nice.”
When Flipper had said that earlier and gone off to the showers, Russell was aware that he hadn’t bathed since yesterday and smelled like Marlboros. Feeling it lazy, it took a while for him to go back upstairs. He got out his shampoos and soaps and housecoat. As he came into the shower room, Flipper was standing their naked, drying his face and hair and Russell took in his whole body, feeling the way he did about Cody, that this was a man, and a beautiful man at that. Beauty yes, and not lust. It actually hurt between his eyes to look at Flipper, and it ached to look away.
The door opened behind him and Ross said, “Goddamn, Richard.”
The spell was mostly broken, and Russell shook his head. Flipper wrapped the towel around his waist and went to the sink to brush his teeth and do his hair. Russell was standing hot and flushed and feeling like an idiot, but Ross had entered a large stall and closed the curtain, and thrust out his housecoat, hanging it on the hook. Russell went to the stall that had been Flipper’s to do the same.
“Russ,” Flipper had said, the razor to his cheek.
“Yeah?” Russell pushed the curtain back, aware of how naked he was behind it.
“I’m glad you all came.”

“So,” Coral was saying, “I’m basically a fucking basket case because my parents were wanna be psychologist.”
The music was a lot more mellow than Russell thought it would be, and the general color of the room from the black light was purple.
“My mother never finished her PhD, but she had all of these crazy pictures all over the house. Like, where the perspective was fucked up and you’d see this room with a pillar in each corner, but the pillar across from you didn’t come down on the floor, it came down in the middle of the room in the center of a fucking bed.”
“And I think the bed had needles in it,” Flipper said, handing Russell a sip of what was in his cup. Vodka, that burned his mouth. Flipper grinned.
“Yeah,” Coral said.
All of the second floor of Halleck Hall was given up to the party. The boys of Hally Deuce were a community of partiers. If you belonged to it, you planned to live on Hally Deuce. If you were there by accident, you resituated rooms or roommates as quickly as possible. Some slept four to a room so that one room could be cleared out for couches and refrigerators. What should have been a regular floor, became a—by college standards—regular old club.
“And there was that staircase,” Coral said.
“The staircase,” Shawn Hannon agreed, “and the fucked up waterfall.”
“The waterfall,” Coral and Flipper said together.
“Though I can’t remember why the waterfall was fucked up.”
“Are yawl high?” Anigel demanded, and Russell wondered as well.
“I am,” Coral confessed, “but that’s not the point. What did they call those things?”
“Escher drawings,” Andy Lagger said, entering the room.
He sounded completely sober, and when Flipper sat up, looking and smelling good, Andy seemed to barely notice him. He was in a track suit, looking out of place, and there was a girl on his shoulder.
“The fuck?” Anigel said.
“Well, they are bi and everything,” Ross murmured, but, looking at Flipper’s face, “I don’t think he was expecting that shit.”

MORE NEXT WEEK

 

[CharmedFan28]

Everyone did get a shock and a lot of things are up in the air. I look forward to reading what is next as I have no idea where it’s heading but I am enjoying it! Great writing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE NIGHT PROGRESSES AS WE RESUME THE STORY WE LEFT BEHIND LAST WEEK....


All of the second floor of Halleck Hall was given up to the party. The boys of Hally Deuce were a community of partiers. If you belonged to it, you planned to live on Hally Deuce. If you were there by accident, you resituated rooms or roommates as quickly as possible. Some slept four to a room so that one room could be cleared out for couches and refrigerators. What should have been a regular floor, became a—by college standards—regular old club.
“And there was that staircase,” Coral said.
“The staircase,” Shawn Hannon agreed, “and the fucked up waterfall.”
“The waterfall,” Coral and Flipper said together.
“Though I can’t remember why the waterfall was fucked up.”
“Are yawl high?” Anigel demanded, and Russell wondered as well.
“I am,” Coral confessed, “but that’s not the point. What did they call those things?”
“Escher drawings,” Andy Lagger said, entering the room.
He sounded completely sober, and when Flipper sat up, looking and smelling good, Andy seemed to barely notice him. He was in a track suit, looking out of place, and there was a girl on his shoulder.
“The fuck?” Anigel said.
“Well, they are bi and everything,” Ross murmured, but, looking at Flipper’s face, “I don’t think he was expecting that shit.”
The party, or at least the section of it they sat in, became strange then, as Andy sat down and began making out with this girl.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Yeager said in a voice that wasn’t entirely mean but wasn’t welcoming either. “Isn’t Wacker Hall more his speed? We’re doing shrooms by the way.”
“I’m loaded already,” Coral waved it off then said, “Well, since I’m loaded…” and held out her hand. “And I have no idea why he’s here. Or why she is.”
“Yeah,” Yeager said, giving vent to disapproval, “Cause he’s supposed to be Flipper’s plus one.”
“I really don’t mind,” Flipper said. “And we’re not really a couple. He can do what he wants.”
“Besides,” Russell said, surprising himself, “I’m Flipper’s plus one.”
He felt so bad for Flipper. He took him by the hand and walked him out of the room, and then Anigel and Ross followed, and the hall became an impromptu dance floor as suddenly, the trills of REM started and Michael Stipes announced:

Oh life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up

Anigel saw Andy walking away with the girl, leaving the party, wondered what his deal was. Flipper saw Russell. They were dancing together in that silly way that friends dance. They were all singing.




That's me in the corner
That's me in the spot-light
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough

Russell was daring to put his hands on Flip Sander’s hips, and the look on Flip’s face changed to recognition.
As friends danced together or side by side , Flip walked with Russell through the open door of 216 where the blacklight was more black than light, and they pressed together and kissed. As Flipper’s tongue entered Russell’s mouth, Russell pulled his face closer, and they were of a height. Russell was just a little lighter, not fully made. His finger kneaded the inside of Flipper’s palms. They pressed together and swayed in the dark. Russell had thought he would try shrooms tonight, but now he wanted this night to be whatever it was on its own merits.



Abelard Hall was to the northeast of the rest of the campus, attached to the chapel, and outside of Saint Alban’s chapel was a fountain that ran the whole year so that, though for three of the seasons it wasn’t much to look at, when winter came, it was a frozen sugar loaf, blue white, and little rivulets of water still forced their way out, to glitter in the December light.
Ross and Anigel, leaving Russell to the tender care of Flipper and knowing that Jimmy and Macy were somewhere at the party, walked around and around the fountain, hands in their pockets, hoods pulled high against the impossible wind. When she looked to the east of the school there was nothing but leveled fields and trees in the distance, and when she looked north there was nothing but a Wal Mart and a few other buildings. And then there was very wide sky, stretching on and on, white and unguessable.
“What are you thinking?” Ross asked his friend.
“I was thinking about how big and scary it was out here with no boundaries anywhere around. Last night, while we were taking the train up here, I was thinking the same thing. Russell was snoring beside me, and the further we got from Grand Rapids, the less we were anywhere. It was just turning into space.
“It makes me scared, Ross,” she said.
“You agoraphobic?” Ross raised an eyebrow and she punched her friend in the arm.
“No, I think that was just a metaphor because I started to realize my life... had all this space. You know?”
Ross nodded, because he did know. But he also knew it was best not to speak.
“I come here and it looks so much fun and it makes me think, what will I do when I get out of Soubirous? It’s only a two year college. What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”
“Maybe you should get through the rest of your first year at Soubirous!” Ross took this chance to hit his friend back.
She sighed and sent him a heartbreaking smile and Ross said, “So that’s why everyone thinks you’re so hot. I forget you’re pretty. I’ve known you too long.”
Anigel threw her arms around her friend.
“Oh, Ross,” she said. “It’s hard not to worry about the rest of your life when for so long I didn’t even think I had a rest of my life. You know?”



The change in Flipper was visible. He wanted to keep his arm wrapped around Russell, but thought it was a bad idea in front of Ross and Anigel. He just told them, he and Coral would watch out for Russell at this thing and they could leave if they wanted to, and they wanted to. Anigel and Ross quickly had their fill of these parties, and when they were gone and not long afterward, so were Jimmy and Macy, and Russell was relieved to be with Flip alone, dancing in the semi dark.
He thought of the Escher pictures, and how nothing in them made sense and the world was turned upside down, and now the world was turned upside down because a year ago he’d been scared of life and a retiring fifteen year old who was too much of an old man and too much of a virgin to enjoy anything, and now he felt like a philosopher slut, a whore saint, and he was away from the two adults and the cousins who should have been watching him, walking hand and hand with a twenty year old, smoking clove cigarettes Macy had gotten off of some bug eyed kid they’d met earlier tonight.
You could see stars out here. Out here, Saint Alban’s on the edge of a little town in the middle of farm fields was nowhere at all, and he felt totally secure. There was no need to say look at all those stars. There was no need to say anything.
The Hall was quiet when they returned. They walked up the stairs saying nothing, holding hands, and on the landing between the women’s floor and men’s, Flip turned and kissed Russell. They made out on the steps until they heard the squeak of a door above or below they could not say, and then Flipper walked him up, and pushed through the door into the men’s floor. Russell stopped by Jimmy’s room, and he could hear his cousin rough fucking some girl, hear her panting on the other side of the door, his small grunts, the squeaking of a mattress, the grinding of the bed on the wood floor. So he followed Flipper and stopped at Ross’s room, which was open, and laid his coat and his hat and gloves in a chair to let it be known he was home. Ross must have been down with Anigel, maybe in Money or Coral’s room. Russell followed Flipper to his door; he hung around Flipper’s neck while the black haired boy with the thick sleepy eyelashes kissed him, and then, leaning back on his door, Flipper opened it and passed through it with Russell, and lying on the bed, they linked arms and legs, and kissed.

“This is my favorite hangout,” Cody said. And then he said, “Actually my favorite hangout is becoming the Noble Red, but before that, this was my favorite. And it’s still good.”
It was well into the night, and they were all close and comfortable in the dark lounge of the little old house attached to gas station and mechanic shop off Thompson Road when Cody said, “I hadn’t planned to be this drunk. I don’t want to be quite this drunk.”
“We should get some coffee,” Nehru suggested.
“There’s some at the gas station.”
“I’ll get it.”
“Do you know how to get there from here?”
Nehru admitted that he did not.
The gas station on Thompson oad was one of the last of its kind, only half way modernized. An old house with a convenience shop on the first floor and gas pumps and a macadam out front, the repair shop built off to the side. No one lived in the house, what was left of the first floor behind the convenience shop was a lounge for the mechanics, and the upstairs which once were living quarters was now for storage.
It wasn’t that anyone would have minded Cody being there. It was simply that Cody was here when he wanted to be alone, when he wanted to be with his thoughts and get high as fuck, float on the Sacred Net. He had no wish to call the existence of a whole house which people seemed to forget to attention, and so he walked out of the back where, in the summer there were overgrown weeds, where he kept his truck, and rounding the house rather than simply coming through the mechanic’s, he entered the convenience store.
He came back with coffee and cigarettes and they smoked weed and Nehru said, “This is really nice. I’m having a great time,” and Cody, choking on mariguana, coughed and said, said, when he had recovered.
“This night is the best.” And then he said, as Nehru bent to pick up the cigarette he’d dropped:
“And you have a really nice ass.”
Nehru laughed, more flattered than he wanted to admit. He was close to telling Cody how good he looked too when Cody spoke.
“My fucking lips are numb.”
Nehru didn’t feel especially high, just mellow. Cody’s hand was comfortably on his thigh and his arm around him, and everything felt right. He thought of his friends. Of Josh, and Anigel and Rob who had sent him to Josh and he thought of Rob and Chayne making love, and he thought of Gil and Mark Young and wondered when they would fuck, and he was so moved while he stroked Cody’s head against his breast. He blew smoke into Cody’s mouth while Cody stroked his thigh, and now they were kissing.
“I’ve always thought the world of you,” Cody said.
And then Nehru stood up. And he was so stiff and so hard, that he loosened his trousers and then pulled down his briefs and he pushed his cock into Cody’s open mouth, and Cody pulled on him so sweetly, and he heard, behind him, Brad say, “Yes, Nehru.” In a corner of his mind Brad and Marissa were fucking and it didn’t matter, and Nehru was aware that he’d wanted something like this all night, and then he sank to the couch, closing his eyes while Cody went to his knees, sucking him. When he finally did open his eyes, when he was half dressed with Cody, he blinked into the darkness and realized this lounge was a living room. They were in an empty and unknown house.
Cody said nothing, but led him upstairs. In that room, Cody undressed him and they were on the bed, Cody sucking him, licking him, massaging him. Cody saying, “Fuck my face now.” And so Nehru did fuck his face on the edge of the bed, a thing he’d never done, and it felt so good to plunge his dick into someone’s mouth while they sucked on it, to rub his own body the same time he rubbed Cody’s, to tease his own nipples and then, when he slid across that same face, and Cody licked his balls, and the place between his balls and his ass and finally darted his tongue deep into his asshole. God, it felt so good! As Nehru slid across him on hands and knees calling out, he was dimly aware that when Cody, under him, said, “Fuck me now.” he would.



MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well Russell and Flipper have made their feelings known. Russell has one complicated love life! I am glad Nehru is sleeping with Cindy rather then waiting around for Brad to somehow come back. Great writing and I look forward to reading more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, it's a good thing Nehru and Cody getting together, and Russell certainly is having a busy love life for a sixteen year old. He really is the IT guy this season.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“You could live here,” Nehru said. “You could make a home.”
Cody had brought him upstairs. There was no lock, just a stairway behind the kitchen the mechanics half used to an upstairs they rarely thought about.
“Sometimes I do.”
It explained why the hallway and the bathroom were clean, if stacked with boxes, and this room, which did not face the gas station, but the plot of overgrown land leading to the trees, was box free. The bureau and bed were clean. Cody lay down on the bed after Nehru, and it smelled fresh, smelled of fabric softener. Nehru kissed him. He held out his hand.
Now Cody understood. It had been Nehru that Brad was trying to forget-or to remember-that one night. Nehru had been his lover. Surely.
Cody took Nehru’s hand in his larger one. They reclined on the bed, on the pillows, kissing and cradling each other. They kissed for a long time. They had left their clothes downstairs, Nehru with his thick and rounded body, strong thighs and shoulders, Cody with thick hair, thick thighs, thick arms, heavy sex. No one was going anywhere tonight. He lay on his side, letting Nehru stroke his penis. While it grew like a tall, stocky, helmeted soldier, Nehru stopped to kiss him on his hips, on his stomach, stopped to take Cody’s penis deep in his mouth, as far as possible. Cody moaned to receive Nehru’s mouth. He clenched his teeth, hands opening and closing impotently, finally playing with his own nipples, rubbing his own chest and stomach, swearing before he sat up and, laying Nehru down, returned the favor.
There was not much certainty of what would come after, only what was right now. After they’d been steady at tasting each other for the better part of an hour, Cody opened the bottle of lube Nehru had brought, spread it on his fingers, and slid it into Nehru. Nehru shook a bottle, unscrewed it, inhaled in one nostril, next the other. Passed it to Cody. Cody shivered and went hot and light all at once then, as Nehru moved to lay on his stomach, pushing his ass up, with deliberation, Cody placed himself in him, and slowly began fucking. He felt Nehru’s smaller, stronger hands on his waist, drawing him in, Nehru’s body under him, pressing back. They passed the bottle back and forth, now and again, floating on hot waves, going hard as rocks, tingling with lightning, as the bed became an ocean, the sex shooting through them on the thin lines of their capillaries.




While Flipper rode Russell, pressed deep into him, high on the fumes of poppers, Russell pulled him deeper inside.
He rode Russell like a wave in the sea, and he was not lost because, like a vice, his penis was pulled deeper and deeper. Flipper’s hands gripped Russell’s shoulders, and then his hands and they moaned line one creature praying, until the moaning was cursing, until the one creature was Flipper raised up, his body slapping into Russell’s, and Russell’s voice was raised in shouts that no one would hear.
They stopped now and again, to laugh, to catch breath, to suck and suck, and kiss. To fuck hard against the side of the bed and shout with the thrill of it. Flipper’s dick pounded through Russell.. Flipper’s hands massaged his back like no one ever had. His tongue entered his ass and made him sing.


While Cody rode Nehru, pressed deep into him, high on the fumes of poppers, Nehru pulled him deeper inside.
“I’m gonna… fuckin… come,” Cody declared in a ragged voice more desperate than Nehur had ever heard.
He turned around so he could behold Cody, neck arched, mouth parted, eyes wide and shining as they looked down on him with a demon light, and them back up to the ceiling. Cody stood on the edge of the bed, fucking him deeply, the long arm reaching down to stroke his cock with a gentleness countering the fierceness of his fucking until, with a startled shout, eyes shut, dry mouths open, hands clenched into fists, they came so hard into a fiery whiteness beyond the dark, both all but passed out.










In the early morning they lay together like two spoons, and in the radiator heat that filled Abelard Hall, Russell and Flipper were just barely covered to the waist. Flipper’s cheek was on Russell’s side and Russell was in arms that were long and strong, and certainly football player’s arms. They didn’t speak. They only lay there, and whenever a reason to speak came, it was not good enough. Flipper though of saying that they should get Russell back to Jimmy’s room or to Ross’s room before anyone woke up. He thought of saying the color of the sky meant it must be seven o’clock. He thought of saying so much, even, I’m sorry. You’re too young. I took advantage. But he didn’t believe that. He believed he loved Russell and he believed as long as this boy was here, he’d want him to come to his bed. He believed yesterday had been the best day of his life and ended in the sweetest night.
Russell, for his part, understood now that Andy was jealous. That Andy Lagger, who had seemed so fine with everything, must have got it into his silly mind that Russell was competition. Or maybe he’d seen something between him and Flipper that the two of them had not. Certainly, since he’d come here he’d been looking at the boy with the coal black hair. Certainly they’d given themselves to each other like old lovers. Russell had been having sex with Jason for a while, and had done things with Cody, but none of it had been like last night, and though he thought he should feel like a slut or like a kid out of his depths, though he did not want to share the story of being a high schooler that went off and had sex with a boy in college, being with Flipper didn’t feel bad or risky or naughty. It didn’t feel like Jimmy and all of his girls. It felt like being with a best friend. It felt like giving everything to someone he trusted absolutely, and whom he knew would never break that trust. How he knew it, he could not say, but he suddenly started to cry thinking about it.
“Russell!” Flipper sat up, and leaned over him. His voice was light and young and woody. He could have been a kid at OLM.
“Russell, are you—?”
Russell cleared his throat and wiped his face with the back of his hand. He was surprised by how large it was the same way he was surprised by how deep his voice was becoming. He was… a man in bed with another man. It was a little funny to him. He’d always thought of himself as a Russell sleeping with boys when he thought of himself sexually at all.
“I just feel happy,” Russell said. “And… glad to be here. With you, Flip. I just love you. I wouldn’t say that to anyone cause most people would react weird, but you’re great. You’re the best and…”
Flipper kissed him gently, and Russell was surprised his breath didn’t smell, and though he was worried about his own breath, he kissed him back. Words would spoil things, or fail to celebrate them properly, so turning from words, and using tongues and hands, linking bodies, the two of them found other ways to say just what they felt.

JILL BARNARD LOOKED OUT OF the front door of 1421 Curtain and saw Thom Lewis walking up the stairs. She opened the door up, let him in and said, “Hey, Thom.”
“Hey, Jill.”
Before he could ask anything, she asked him, “Have you seen Cody?”
“No,” Thom shook his head.
“Oh,” Jill shrugged. “I just thought you might have. Mom hasn’t seen him today and the two of you are practically attached at the hip. You and Russell are probably the best thing that’s happened to him. He looks at you like—”
Jill Barnard caught herself, even at twenty-one, aware of the vanity of men approaching midlife, she amended “father” to “an older brother.”
This gained the proper smile from Thom Lewis. He was a handsome man, Jill noted. He could be an older brother to Cody, a significantly older one, but still a brother.
Lost in the compliment, Thom almost forgot why he was at 1421. Then he said, “Is Chayne here?”
Jill thumbed boredly up the stairs. “I think he’s washing out the tub or something. Rob went to buy milk. It’s such a happy little home here.”
“Thanks Jill,” said Thom.
Jill said, “Sure, you’re welcome,” and only as Thom was heading up the stairs did Jill wonder if Chayne was supposed to be here or not.

As soon as Chayne had rinsed out the last of the Comet from the bathtub, he heard a very quiet, somewhat amused voice say, “Chayne Kandzierski.”
Without even getting off of his knees, Chayne said, “Hello, Thomas.”
Chayne rinsed his hands, wiped them off on a towel and turned to Thom.
“As you have probably guessed, Russell is not on the East Coast.”
Thom, amazingly pleased with himself for outsmarting Chayne, folded his arms over his chest and nodded, smiling.
“No, Chayne,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”
“He is at my alma mater though.”
“Holy Cross?”
“Don’t be absurd, what the hell’s in South Bend? He’s running amok at Saint Alban’s.”
“What the hell’s up there?”
Chayne looked sourly at Thom, who was poisoned by thinking that Notre Dame was the only university this side of the Appalachians worth mentioning.
“Saint Alban’s is up there,” Chayne said, witheringly. He noticed that the Comet had made his hands dry, and turned from Thom to lotion them. “And if you think I’m going to apologize to you, you’re very wrong.”
Thom lifted the lid of the toilet and sat on the seat.
“I’ve known you too long. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I’m actually rather proud of your, Thomas,” Chayne said. “Did Patti tip you off?”
Thom looked insulted. “I tipped myself off.”
“Well, there is a first time for everything.”
“I’m a father,” Thom said. “A father knows these things.”
“No,” Chayne shook his head, disagreeing. “A father is usually the densest thing under the stratosphere. You had a rare insight into reality today, Thom Lewis. Have some lotion. Your hands look like monkey paws.”
Thom held out his hand, Chayne squirted lotion into his palm.
“Of course, maybe your fatherhood senses are getting twice as strong now that you’ve taken Cody under your wing.”
Thom’s dark eyes had a distant look as he scratched his chin.
“Don’t you think I’m more like a brother than a father to him?”
“There you go being stupid again,” Chayne said, walking out of the bathroom, followed by Thom,
“You’re old enough to almost be the boy’s father.”
“Am I looking old?”
“No, you’re looking forty.”
“I’m thirty-eight.”
“Then sorry.”
“Well, you’re almost forty too.”
“No, I’m almost thirty eight, because I’m two years younger than you.”
“You won’t let me win this?”
“Even though you lied to me about—”
“Many things,” Chayne said.
“Many things?”
“Yup.”
“Like… How many—?”
“Does it matter? Want some coffee?”
“No, I don’t want coffee, Chayne! And yes it does matter, and… Yes, give me coffee.”
While Chayne pulled a mug from the cupboard, Tom reflected:
“If I’m getting older—r”
“There’s no if about it—”
“Shut up.”
“Fine, but get your own cream and sugar.”.
“I was going to say,” Thom said, getting his cream and sugar, “that I should join a club. Like Bill Dwyer.”
“Bill Dwyer’s not in a club!” Chayen sounded incredulous took a cigarette from Thom’s breast pocket.
“Yes he is. It’s a spa in Grand Rapids.”
Chayne looked as if he was embarrassed for Thom.
“There’s a spa right here in Geshichte Falls. We might not have much, but we have a spa.”
“Well there must be a better one in Grand Rapids.”
Chayne raised an eyebrow, and lit his cigarettere.
“I don’t know what the hell is in Grand Rapids,” he said, “and I don’t pretend to know Bill Dwyer so well that I actually care. But I’ll bet my black ass he ain’t going to a spa."

AND TOMORROW, THE CONCLUSION OF IF I SHOULD FALL

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well Nehru and Cody and Flipper and Russell seem to be doing well as couples or whatever they are to each other. I think they suit each other. I liked the conversation between Chayne and Thom. I am glad they could be honest and Thom did not get too upset about Chayne lying about where Russell was. Excellent writing and I look forward to the conclusion tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND NOW, AT LAST, THE THIGH SPLITTING, TAINT TICKLING CONCLUSION OF IF I SHOULD FALL

So this is what it was like to not feel like a child. That night he invited Cody over. He introduced him to his parents and Mr. and Mrs. Alexander seemed to like him enough, but they made coffee and talked about writing songs and then began to work on them. Chilli Comet Sundae was still a thing, and it needed a bass player and now that Leon was gone, that bass player would be Cody.
Cody didn’t say anything about the fact that three members of the band would have slept with each other. Nehru pointed that out almost playfully and said, “Well, it might make the harmonies tighter.”
It was well past ten when Cody said, “Well, what do we do?”
In other words, he could get up and go home, or they could talk about the other night, or… And Nehru understood how some people were, shy, retiring, believing that there was was only so much they could do so often, but he leaned in and kissed Cody, and they fell on the bed, hands on bodies, Nehru’s fingers moving through his chocolate hair, Cody’s hand pulling up Nehru’s shirt to touch his caramel body.
They made love slowly, as two people who aren’t in a hurry do. When Nehru finally climaxed between Cody’s buttock’s, his heart was in his throat, and he lay in peace when an arc of heat jutted from Cody’s penis all across his stomach and chest.
The light in Nehru’s room was dim, and the window was open to the moon. On the clock radio, far away and tinny, Mama Cass sang:

Say "Night-ie night" and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me


THAT NIGHT JIMMY SHOWED RUSSELL how to enter Saint Alban’s chapel without ever going outside. They went to the priests’ floor which was quiet by eight o’clock, high ceilinged, long and painted white. Where the other floors above, that looked just like it, had main corridors ended with a window staring out into the fields, this one ended in a door.
When Jimmy opened it he whispered, “They don’t like us. The old fucks are a little upset that students live here, so this is definitely off limits.”
It was a very unpretentious room converted into a chapel, and as they walked across it, the floor boards creaked, but the door on the other side led up a flight of stairs, and when they were up it, Jimmy pushed another door open, and they were engulfed in a large darkness.
“Is this the church?” Russell asked.
“I don’t even go to church,” said Jimmy to Russell, “and even I know what a church feels like. Come on, stick to the wall.”
The only light was the flickering red one they approached, which Russell realized must have been where the Blessed Sacrament was kept. Jimmy told him to watch out for the steps just in time. There were three of them. Russell would have forgotten to genuflect before the Tabernacle, but Jimmy—to Russell’s surprise—did it first, almost out of instinct. Then he moved to a wall and began flipping switches and Russell saw Saint Alban’s chapel.
It was easily large as Saint Adjeanet’s with ivory colored plaster walls and an arcade running down each side. From here, Russell could see the rows of polished pews and above the choir loft, the large, round stained glass window.
“It’s beautiful in the day time. When you can see the stain glass,” Jimmy said. “We could go outside I guess, and look at them.”
“I thought you said you never come here.”
“I never go to Mass,” Jimmy said. “But sometimes, when I need to be alone I walk around in here. I don’t think God minds.”
“He’s real good about that kinda thing,” Russell said. “You know, letting people hang out in his house when they need space. Most people aren’t so courteous.”
“I play the piano in here some nights,” Jimmy pointed over the altar to the Grand.
“That’s beautiful,” Russell said. “that’s nothing like the junker we have at Saint Adjeanet’s.”
“I remember that church,” Jimmy said. “It’s cute.”
Jimmy went across the altar and pulled out the piano stool and then began playing. He was goofing around at first, and then Russell watched his cousin’s long hands on the keys, watched his back rise and fall, his shoulder blades become like wings, his eyes close. Keith was better than this?
Then Jimmy was playing a tune.
And Russell began to sing to it.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
how Jesus my savior should come forth
to die
for poor lonely sinners
like you and like I
I wonder as I wander
out under the sky

When Mary birthed Jesus,
twas in a cow’s stall,
with wisemen and farmers
and shepherds and all,
but high from God’s heaven a star’s light
did fall,
and promise of ages it did then recall

Jimmy went on playing until the last notes went off into the air of the church around them, until the very last note hovered in the silence of the church for awhile. The cousins sat together very quiet for awhile.
Russell wanted to ask Jimmy so many questions that were so inappropriate right now, in a church, after a Christmas carol, with the nativity crèche only a few feet away. He should have asked something holy, but Russell suspected that Jimmy wouldn’t be able to answer any holy questions anyway. He waited until they were leaving the church, going back into the house of the priests, and walking up into Abelard Hall.
“Do you remember at John and Jackie’s wedding when I asked you what sex was like?”
“Uh… yeah,” Jimmy said.
“And I told you I was going to be gay or be a priest?”
“Yup. Some people are both.”
“I don’t have time for that,” Russell said.
Jimmy cackled, “Well, how’s that situation going?”
“I’m not going to be a priest,” Russell said.
“Good, we’ve got enough of those in the family.”
“I didn’t even get Confirmed.”
“Do you…” Jimmy looked at him, “not believe in God?”
“It’s not God that’s the problem. It’s more like I don’t know if I believe in Christians.”
Jimmy chuckled.
“That’s fair.”
Then Russell said, “And, besides, I thought I didn’t understand sex, or want sex or…”
“Stuff kicked in for you!”
They were approaching the steps of Abelard Hall.
“I’m gay after all,” Russell said.
Jimmy looked very reflective.
At last he said, “Oh.”
He sat down on the step making sure there was enough coat to keep his ass warm.
Russell still stood before him.
Jimmy’s floppy hair hung in his eyes while he reached into his pocket for a cigarette.
“You, ah… You sure about this?”
“I have a boyfriend,” Russell said.
“You do? Is it that Gilead you always talk about?”
“Oh, no! God no! No.”
“Is Gilead a dog face?”
“No, Gilead is fine. I mean he’s fine looking. I mean… I mean, that’s not happening with Gilead. Jason. His name is Jason.”
“Oh…”
While Jimmy began to smoke and offered Russell a cigarette, he said, “So how does it work? Are you guys like… going to movies? He… takes you to restaurants.”
“No, he came to our house the night Jackie had the baby. He was with us the whole time, but that was one of the first times we went out out. I mean, he goes to school with me. I see him all day, and he hangs in our crowd.”
And then Russell said, “Primarily we have lots of sex.”
“Well,” Jimmy said, “there it is.”
“Yes, Russell said. “Exactly.”
Russell was watching Jimmy’s spidery fingers, watching the smoke leave his nostrils. His cousin knew about sex. This was why he was talking to him. Jimmy finally said, “You don’t love him.”
“What?”
“There’s someone else isn’t there? Someone you really love.”
Cody flashed through Russell’s mind. It hurt to think about him. Just like that all the silly moments they’d had flashed with the moment of intimacy when he’d been in the truck, his head between Cody’s legs, and the later moment in his room when Cody had done it to him, All of those moments were eclipsed by the one time Cody had kissed him, pressed those thick lips to his.
“This guy you’re with,” Jimmy continued, “you like him. Like a friend, but you don’t talk about him, and it’s not cause he’s a secret. You don’t go to bed thinking of him. You like him, but you don’t love him. You’re not… in love.”
The word love filled him. He was warm with the memory of Flipper that morning. Hot for the desire to be with him one last time before he had to go home. Everything felt innocent with him, not dirty. Even this morning, on the way to breakfast, when he had held onto the cold window ledge, and looked out onto the bare trees of campus, down on the campus radio station, and Flipper, holding to his shoulders, breathing hard, fucked him from behind, it hadn’t felt dirty. He was embarrassed to think about the black haired milk skinned boy he couldn’t have, who would be so far away, embarrassed because when he thought of him, as much as when he thought of Cody, he thought: Flipper is love.
“No,” Russell discovered, “I don’t guess I am. But… I like what we have.”
He saw half the cigarette was a long ash. As he lifted it to his lips the ash tube fell away and onto his scarf.
Russell had thought that Cody was right about life being a Sacred Net. But life was an Escher drawing and there was no top, no bottom, no telling anything.
“What should I do?” he wondered, inhaling.
“I like what we have.”
“Then that’s what you should do,” Jimmy said.
“Keep liking it, but don’t be too surprised it if ends.”



TOMORROW WE WILL RETURN TO KING OF ALL THESE RUINS, AND IN A WHILE WE WILL COME BACK TO GESHICHTE FALLS IN THE BALL TINGLING, THIGH LICKING, ASS FILLING CONCLUSION OF OUR STORY: NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN[/B]

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great conclusion to this part of the story! Nehru and Cody seem to be in a good place. I hope Russell and Flipper eventually become an item but who knows? Excellent writing and I look forward to more of King Of All These Ruins and eventually Nights In White Satin!