by Sam Haywood
"That was great. You're very talented."
"Just comes with practice."
We sat pretty quietly the rest of the way. The last couple of miles were on a gravelled road that would not appear on many maps. Then there was a section of fencing with an automatic gate built into it, and a line of "No Trespassing" signs extending in both directions.
Roman reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a transmitter unit, which he hung on his sun visor, pushing the button. The fence began to slide down the fence-line, allowing us to drive through.
"Yours is in the glove compartment of the Caddy." I had wondered what that was, since it did not open the garage door at the house.
The driveway within was a smooth, well-maintained two-track lane, with six-foot shoulders on each side, neatly mowed. At their edges, natural South Carolina woodland began immediately, heavy with a screening of pines at the sunny edges, yielding to more hardwoods deeper within the forest.
The drive turned down a slope and emerged into a partially cleared park. Ahead, I could see the lake sparkling in the sun. Over to the left, the cabin sat nestled in a grove of trees. Tranquil silence settled over the entire property like a blanket of peace. It was an idyllic setting.
Roman explained that most anything we might need would be in the cabin, though he approved my bringing picnic foods, since it would spare us having to thaw and prepare anything. He showed me through the house, and I found it oddly familiar. I knew the layout of the rooms but had no memory of what each one looked like, beyond a general impression. Each of the three bedrooms held one double bed. As a child, I had shared one, naked, with Roman, and had thought nothing of the fact that our fathers and our grandfathers shared the same in their rooms, too.
"I wonder why Dad only brought me out here that one time," I mused.
There was a pause, as Roman considered his response.
"Jack, did you know our fathers were lovers?"
I felt relief to hear him say that, and I realized that I wanted it to be true.
"I had a feeling about that," I acknowledged.
"I really liked your dad. He was a great guy. The handsomest grown-up man I ever knew. I wanted to be just like him. You see, I was out here several times with Dad and him, when you didn't come."
He laid his hand on my shoulder in response to my hurt look, which he seemed to have anticipated.
"Your mother found out about them, and she forbade him to see Daddy again. Remember, you were still very young then. He couldn't put the responsibility for keeping his meetings secret on you, it would not be fair. So he only came out here when he was alone, or you were in town with his parents. But I was older, and there was no pressure on me-my parents had already split up. Mother knew all about it.
"I'm sorry you didn't get to come, though. I often asked him to bring you."
I still felt very left out of a boy's perfect childhood, running naked in the South Carolina woods with Roman and the men of our families.
I wondered aloud why Dad and Dalton had not gotten together later, when my parents divorced. Why did he go with Andre, and not Dalton? Then, why kill himself? On these questions, Roman could shed no light. All he knew was that Dad had been the great love of his father's life. Dalton had had friends and lovers, but no one who was both friend and lover in the way Jim was. They were only a year apart, those two, and they had been pair-bonded from childhood.
We decided to shake off the gloom and go out to the lake. The path down the gentle slope was smooth. We had no need even for sandals. We passed the pump house, and I told Roman about seeing our fathers making out there. He laughed. He told me he could top that. Once he had gotten up in the night to tell his dad that he had a stomach ache, and he walked in on my dad fucking his dad, missionary position. He said they just froze in place, Dad's crotch plastered to Dalton's rump, Dalton's long legs bent around Dad's shoulders, while Dalton calmly but briefly told Roman where to find some pink liquid for his stomach, and how to take it. Then, as Roman departed, Dad resumed his humping. At the doorway, he could hear them slapping wetly together. Half-an-hour later, Dalton came in to Roman's bedside to see how he was feeling, and to answer any questions he might have about what the two men had been doing.
"I already knew that I was gay, even if I didn't know quite what that was. I was excited to find that my daddy would understand my feelings, having them himself. Seeing Jim on him that way, his ass flexing, man that turned me on even then. I knew I would be doing that one day, too. But since then, I've seen Daddy having sex several times, and he has seen me, too. We just accept it as part of life. He and your dad often kissed and even fondled one another with me around. But there was no more open sex. And, in case you're wondering, neither one of them ever came on to me in any way at all."
Yet another form of father-son bonding I'd been left out of. Somehow, though, I doubted that my dad, who was a more tightly-wound type than Dalton, would have been so cool about such things with me. Perhaps fear of my mother played a part in that, also.
By this time, we had reached the pier, with the boat house nearby. We decided to swim out to the raft, a twelve-foot square float made of decking atop sealed foam bales, moored a hundred feet out in the lake. Side by side, we dove in and rose to break into an easy crawl toward the platform.
Roman was like an otter in the water, I supposed from skinny-dipping out here all his life. I envied that. I was a strong swimmer, too, having had the club swim team, with my cute little Speedo to strut around in, showing off for the other boys.
After we climbed the ladder and flopped down in the sun on the float, I asked him about that, and he had to remind me that he actually grew up in Columbia, where he had his own cute little Speedo, and the swim-meet trophies to prove it. I associated him so much with this area that it was hard to remember that his real home had been elsewhere just as mine had been. He just got to come here a lot more often than I did.
He had made friends in Hebron growing up, though, and had brought some of them and also friends from home out here a few times. He commented that no matter how straight they might be, every boy he had known had jumped at the chance to run around, fish, and swim naked out here. He had been the envy of all his friends for having access to this place. And he had lost his cherry out here on this very raft, to a teenage friend, now married, president of a bank, and father of four.
"I let him fuck me, and I still like to give myself to a man like that sometimes, but I do most of the topping myself, now. I guess I'm about 70/30 top man."
I smiled, because I really thought that little speech was largely a question.
"30/70," I answered.
Roman showed me virtually all of his perfect teeth in response to that.
Then, he leaned toward me and kissed me. I felt like I melted into the decking of the float. It was all I could do not to cry, I had longed for that kiss so deeply, and I now realized, so long. How could his lips be so soft and tender, yet so firm and masculine? How could his skin smell like lake water and cleanliness and a hint of manly sweat and a whiff of soap all at the same time? How could his breath on mine be so warm and so sweet?
I wanted him to have no doubt of my response to him, so I leaned into him and kissed him back right away. He rolled over toward me, and I felt his arm cross over my chest as he positioned himself with his chest over mine. His tongue delved into my mouth authoritatively. My eyes closed, and I submitted to his exploration.
In a few minutes, he pulled away to kiss my jaw, my ear, my chin, my Adam's apple. He worked down to my chest and licked my pecs and tits. His teeth grazed each one gently, and he gave them just a light suck. His tongue dragged down my abdomen all the way to the root of my now-erect dick, where he clamped his lips around the base of it. He slid up the long pole to the full, spongy head. Then he pulled away a bit to look at it appraisingly.
"Damn. You did grow up big," he pronounced admiringly. "You know, every guy in Hebron has seen this thing up close already, except me."
>
Then he went to work trying to swallow it, like a corn snake downing a rabbit. He slid up and down on it, each time delving a little deeper. At last, he reached the bottom and held there, letting his throat muscles swallow several times around my cock, without gagging. I had never felt anything quite so sensational. I let myself relax completely under his expert ministrations. He rose to the tip of my dick-head again, took a deep breath, and descended to bury his lips in my short pubes a second time, swallowing sensuously. This time, I gave him something to swallow. I erupted with a generous ejaculation of semen, firing it right down his throat.
Roman licked me clean as I had done him earlier. Then, he rose up to lie beside me in the sun on the raft. There was just a hint of gentle, sweet-smelling breeze. It was a moment of perfect bliss.
I could not stop staring at him, though. His lean, oval face with its perfect, beautiful features, now in repose. Those incredible eyes, the occasional bead of water still on his lashes. His wet hair plastered down in places, rumpled from his sexual exertion in others. The long, lean, and muscular body, not a hair where you wouldn't want it, top to toes an ideal specimen of young manhood.
"How come you aren't a top male model?"
"Oh, I've done some of that, haven't you?"
"Well, some, fashion stuff early in college. Then, someone wanted me to do nudes right away. I was barely eighteen. As far as modesty was concerned, I didn't give a rip. But I was going into law, and I didn't want naked hard-on photos to show up just when I was up for a partnership, so I declined, and suddenly the fashion jobs dried up, too. How about you?"
"Just like that, except for one thing," he responded, winking. "I did the nudes. My paediatrics career could end early and ugly, huh." He laughed.
"I don't see how it could work out, anyway," I retorted. "What young father is going to let his wife take the kids to see someone who looks like you?"
That left an opening for us to talk for quite a while about our respective career choices and current plans. Roman had just signed on with a large internal medicine group in Columbia. In fact, he had to be back on duty on Wednesday, having switched his conference leave to personal leave (and he would have to do the reverse later to make up for it). He had to be on call every other weekend, and every other night. It was a tough schedule and left little room to have a life of his own. Despite his devotion to the idea of helping children, he was beginning to be serious about a revision to his plan.
He could go back for some additional residency, and take a few classes, and become a paediatric psychiatrist. He wasn't that far away in course work. He felt good about the prospect of helping troubled kids even more, and there would be much more predictable and regular hours for him. He could then establish his own center for treatment, with other counsellors and psychologists on his staff.
He wanted to know about me and my law career, and the new responsibility for managing J. P.'s real estate empire. I explained that the further I went in my law studies, the less excited I was about it. It was one thing to be licensed to practice law, for the purpose of managing my own affairs, and quite another to be saddled with other people's legal problems day in and day out. I had already made some decisions about the real estate. For Grand-daddy, it was fine, as he knew the business inside and out, and he was masterful at making money at it. For me, it was something else. Real Estate was not my passion, any more than law. I had made up my mind to dispose of a large part of J. P.'s property holdings over the next six months to a year and roll the proceeds over into a much more diversified portfolio. I would keep some select properties for income and investment, but only a minority. Then, I wanted to be free to have a good time.
I confessed to Roman a dream I hadn't mentioned to anyone else. I wanted to buy a yacht and just roam the coastlines of interesting places, warm ones. And by the terms of Grand-daddy's will, I had six months minus one day per year to do it.
We lay quietly, each considering what the other had said, wondering, I guess, if there was a way to make those dreams mesh.
After a while, Roman had another question for me.
"How do you feel about Romeo?"
I was glad to have that one out and on the table. I sat up cross-legged and looked at him seriously.
"Roman, I like him, and I think he's going to become a good friend. And I won't deny, I think he's a hot guy! As you already know, in the three days I've known him, which seems a lot longer somehow, we've been pretty busy, sexually. But there's nothing more than that in store for us. Besides, he's engaged to Byron!"
"He's what?"
"I saw the whole thing. He proposed, and Byron accepted. Yesterday, after the funeral."
Roman was incredulous. "You mean he...and Byron...and you're not...so then you're...."
"I'm totally un-taken. Odd man out."
"I was seriously afraid you had fallen in love."
"Oh, I didn't say I haven't fallen in love."
Now he sat up, perplexed. He cupped his toes, looking down, thinking, wondering.
"As a matter of fact, I think I have fallen in love. It's a new thing for me, something I've never really done before, not like this, anyway."
"Tell me," he said softly.
I enfolded his hands, and toes, in my hands, getting him to look straight at me.
"It's you, Roman. I'm falling in love with you. It feels really good, mostly. But it also scares hell out of me. I don't know what I'll do if you don't feel the same for me." I felt a little tear forming in the corner my right eye.
"I know what you mean. I fell in love once, too, a long, long time ago. I thought it was just too weird and too unlikely, and I've done my best to get over it, but I never have. Because I was only ten. And I fell in love with a seven-year-old, for Chris sakes- how strange is that. It happened here, Jack-- and the seven-year-old was you."
Now both eyes welled up with tears. I leaned forward to embrace the man I loved. As our lips met, I saw that he was blinking, too.
"You've known since you were ten? Why didn't you tell me?"
"It wasn't that simple, Jack. I didn't understand it, I didn't accept it, it was too weird, you were too young, I had too little hope, we were too far apart-I can give you a hundred good reasons. It just had to wait till the proper time, that's all, wondering if the proper time would ever come."
I sighed deeply, and a deep well of happiness rose up within me. He loved me. And that meant that somehow, we could work out the details. We could have a life together.
Chapter 11
One decision we made right away was that there was no reason for us to return to town tonight. We both wanted to spend the night together in that bed we had shared chastely as children so long ago. There were steaks in the freezer and makings for breakfast in the fridge. And when we did return to Hebron, it would be to my house, where Roman would take up residence. He had a condo in Columbia as well, and we would need to spend some time there, too, when I was free but he was working. But either way, we were going to be together as much as possible.
We were both getting pretty horny for one another, but the condoms were back at the cabin, and Doctor Roman was adamant about being careful until we passed two consecutive HIV tests. He was right, of course, but I wanted to have his baby batter in my butt so badly, I could hardly stand it. That gave us the opportunity to have "the talk," however. We talked about monogamy (neither had much use for it), bare-back sex (both longed for it), safety (neither could bear the thought of possibly infecting the other), being separated (it's hell, but we would do what we had to for one another), and even babies (we wanted them.)
"I guess there's always The Hand," Roman offered. "And then there's phone sex, and cam sex...."
As delightful as all that sounded, I wanted his dick in me as soon as possible. I suggested we go back to the cabin for a good long fuck session, right then. But Roman was serious in his desire to wait and tantalize me.
"Jack, we've both had plenty of good fucks. But you're not just a good fuck to me. A
nd I don't want to be that to you. This is a different thing for us. Let's do it differently, O.K.?"
"O.K., you're cute when you're so serious," I responded, "shit, you're cute when you pick your nose, if you ever do...but now you're scaring me a little. Wait how long?
"Till tonight, silly."
I actually fuckin' looked at my watch. The sun set in nine hours. I sincerely did not know if I could make it that long in his presence without having him dick me. But I promised to try.
For being such a trooper, Roman sucked me off again then and there, right on the raft where he had lost his own cherry. I offered to suck him, too, but he said, "Nope. I'm saving up for tonight. Let's go eat lunch."
So we swam to the pier, climbed out, and walked hand in hand up to the cabin. The warm June air had us dried by the time we reached it. Doctor Roman, of course, had phone calls to return, luckily no emergencies, but I knew I'd better get used to that. One was from his dad, and I heard this bit of conversation.
"Yeah, at the lake. With Jack. We're staying the night, then going to his place for tomorrow night. Yes. Together. Seriously. This is permanent, Daddy.... I'll have to check, but sure, I think so." He turned to me.
"Jack, Papaw and Daddy want to talk to us tomorrow night, before Daddy has to leave for Columbia. He has office hours on Monday. Is that O.K.? Your place, at the pool? And they say privately." I looked questioning, and he shrugged. "I guess that means without Romeo and Byron and about a hundred guys they invite from the club."
"Tell him fine. Let's have dinner out there, say six-thirty, so he can get home before it's real late?" This seemed mysterious to me, but I was pleased that Roman had cleared it with me first.
I tend to think of the worst thing that could happen. I wondered if the Dupree’s were intending to try to pull us apart. Maybe they had some debutante picked out for Roman and they did not want me screwing it up.