Discovering Love

By: Rick Beck
(© 2018 by the author)
Editor: Jerry W.

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

beck@tickiestories.us

Chapter 1
Hit by a Brick

It was a lazy spring day that followed a too long, too cold winter. It was the kind of day when you enjoy walking. Noticing everything around me coming alive was important to my mental health. Smelling the smells and hearing the sounds of spring facilitated my transference from winter recluse to an outdoor boy.

I was walking alone up the gravel section of Schultz Road that led into my subdivision and to my house. That's when I first saw him coming toward me from the opposite direction on Schultz. He was a new boy and he was walking with a townie I knew, Alfred. It wasn't Alfred who got my attention.

Alfred was old townie and I was newer townie. We didn't run in the same circles even though we'd lived within a hundred yards of each other much of our lives. I lived in the oldest housing development that had sprung up as a convenient suburb to the city. He lived on a hill above my subdivision. My house was on land that was once part of his family's farm, part gravel pit. One of the streets carried his family name.

Names were all that was left of the once numerous family farms in our section of the county. Now you had to drive down toward Hyde Field to find a farm or out just beyond the city center, consisting of an Esso station and three stores, at the only city stop light. That's how I first remember it. South of there was still farm country. In time farm after farm, they'd become memories over the next decade. The area was growing and my family moved into one of the first new houses that started the land rush.

My people lived in the city. I vaguely remember it. My parents chose this quiet suburb as the place where they wanted to raise their family. My parent's interests usually took them back to the city. The highways were all new as suburban sprawl began. I could hear the super highway that ran a mile from my bedroom, with woods making the noise a dull humming.

I had nothing in common with the sons of farmers. I had no ill feelings toward them. Farmers' sons who still worked their farms, looked down on the sons of farmers who no longer had a farm. They all looked down on the interloper city kids who were the first to move into their placid countryside.

It took two years for the city kids to outnumber old townies ten to one. There was rivalry. One class looking down on another class, and the hostility of losing your way of life. We were all kids and we all had to learn that we were victims of progress. No one was much different than anyone else. There had been a tentative peace for years and old townie and new townie nodded, some even became friends, and Alfred and I knew who each other.

New arrivals now came from the direction of the military base. It too had been buying up land, expanding, building, and was becoming a vital hub of military power. That's where the new kid came into the picture. Alfred had leaped over new townie directly to new Army. The two of them talked like they had something to say to each other as they considered me.

Alfred and I were restrained toward one another. We nodded, and if we came extra close, we'd say, “hello” and use each others name. There was the old question, what did we have in common. Until today, nothing. Today there was the fresh scrubbed new boy in perfectly faded jeans and perfect tapered white T-shirt. I'd never seen a boy like him or jeans filled quite like he filled those. It was as though he had walked out of a dream.

It was his eyes that I noticed first - not Alfred's. I've never seen eyes quite like those, and so there seemed to be a pattern developing. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him. This experience was the first of its kind. It wasn't simply the color of his eyes but the intensity in which he used them on me. He didn't take them off me and there was the smile that was really a sneer. The new kid had something no one I'd ever known had.

Then we were too close to avoid conversation, We all walked toward the middle of the road. there came a silent understanding that we were going to stop and talk, but we had to posture before that was possible. The new kid and Alfred had their heads together as if they were talking about it first.

His eyes were so rich a blue that no combination of colors in your crayon box could ever hope to duplicate it. It wasn't just the color, it was what he made me feel when he held them on me. And he held them on me. It's as though he was looking through me, into the depths of my soul, and I prayed he couldn't tell what I was thinking. What I was thinking shocked me.

As he drew closer he stared, causing my eyes to become hopelessly lost in his. I stopped moving while they were still ten feet away. I found myself standing there waiting for him to walk into my life. Protocol would dictate they must stop as well. I feared they'd keep walking and laugh at how stupid I was.

There was this knowing little smile that came to him before we'd ever spoken a single word. I don't know what he thought he knew but the smile was more a smirk. It curled his sensual lips upward with an expressiveness that spoke volumes, and it said he knew something about me that I didn't know about myself. Not until I saw him. He may not have read my mind but he had a good idea what was going on inside it.

There was a scar half way between his lower lip and chin. It was an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide, running at a sharp angle to just below his lower lip. On most people the scar would have been a deformity, but on him it only served to mildly compliment his intense good looks. It added character to a self-confident boy who thought he knew me at a glance.

My thoughts were shocking. There were few people I liked and fewer yet I wanted to be my friend. This boy was built and dressed to stimulate a lot of thinking. There was no way you could miss what he had. There was no way to miss that he believed he was skilled with it. This would be part of the confidence he possessed when facing other boys. It was the kind of confidence that comes with experiencing life. I was not confident.

I felt there was something seriously wrong with me as I stood waiting for him to speak. The stares and smiling continued. What was a kid like this doing with Alfred? If he knew what I was thinking he was keeping it from Alfred. I calculated he didn't want to make him blush.

After what seemed like forever, and was probably all of ten seconds, Alfred said, “Hi, Martin.”

“Hi, Alfred. How you doing?”

Alfred had to think about this. We'd never talked about anything we did before. Especially we didn't talk about what he was doing with the handsome new kid that looked a little fast for him.

My heart jumped in some sudden betrayal of my feelings as we all shifted from one foot to another, after we stood face to face. The new kid and I continued to be locked together with our eyes.

Alfred started to talk and the new kid stood too close behind him, still wearing that knowing smirk while he took advantage of his height, or Alfred's lack of it, so he could look over top of Alfred's head at me.

"Where you headed, Martin?" Alfred said, being the most he'd said to me at one time since we were about nine.

"Home," I said in a brilliant, if brief, reply.

"Haven't seen you around none. Where you been?"

Alfred had become a real conversationalist since entering high school.

"School mostly. Not much to do over the winter."

"Yeah!"

"I'm Martin," I said, not willing to let them get away without a name.

I reached my hand out as an invitation. I was ready to risk the instant rejection I always feared I'd get at times like this, only there'd never been a time like this. I needed to learn more about the new boy. My eyes stayed in his as my hand waited.

Alfred looked at the hand that was extended out beyond his elbow, and the new boy looked at it far longer than it should have taken to take it and shake it to get rid of the thing. I'm sure I was turning shades of red from the embarrassment of having my one arm hanging out uselessly in front of me for what seemed like an eternity. He finally shook it, taking his eyes out of mine long enough to inspect my hand first, and then he carefully curled his fingers so they'd fit in my hand.

“Greg. My name is Greg.”

The voice was perfectly for him.

If his absolute beauty hadn't been enough to set me on fire, the feel of his hand sure was. I loved his touch. I halfway expected his macho grip to squeeze me into submission, but the shake was an unexpectedly gentle affair. His hand was strong and soft at the same time. The brainstorm he created inside of me sent electricity through my body. Our handshake ended several long seconds before our hands went their separate ways. I was speechless.

Alfred seemed to become aware of us all at once. He was the middleman in an event that none of us could have foreseen. By chance I had met my first love and Alfred had become a catalyst but at the time he was only recognizing the fact that neither of us was paying any attention to him.

"You're new!" I said in an understatement of the obvious.

"We live on Old highway. I'm Army. We lived on the base until we moved up there."

"You go to our school?"

"Yeah! He's in some of my classes. That's how I met him," Alfred joined us. “He was going to school on the base. Not enough girls there, he said. He transferred over here to get girls.”

Greg waited respectfully to let Alfred finish. The smile was gone. He watched Alfred talk.

"Pop's a Colonel - stationed over at the base. I went to school over there until I got transferred over a while back. They're going to close the base school. There are new schools being built all over the place.”

“Must be cool seeing new places,” I said, before thinking about it.

“Yeah, cool. I'll probably graduate here. Pop's got his twenty in. They bought a house. You learn a lot from guys in other countries. When in Rome, do as the Roman's do. I like the idea of staying in one place for a while.”

"We're going up to his house to shoot some pool. He has a pool table in his basement. Ain't that neat, Martin? He's got his own pool table."

"Yeah!" I said. "Neat!"

Alfred's comment made Greg nervous. He shifted from one foot to the other. He faced Alfred but didn't say anything. I knew it was time to break up our meeting.

He was gone after that.

He walked away as quickly as he walked into my life. He seemed oblivious to what was just started, but I knew my life would never be the same. My stomach followed my heart into turmoil, while I watched him march up Schultz Road, He seemed to be walking out of my life as casually as he'd walked into it. The emptiness he left me with was confusing. I'd met a million people before and not one of them had much impact on me.

Now there was Greg.

As I stood there alone in the middle of the road, I couldn't take my eyes off him. The way his ass filled every bit of fabric in his jeans gave new definition to the front of my own. He more swaggered than walked. This boy had the world by the balls and he knew it. He was way older and way wiser than I was, even if we were close to the same age.

They were talking as I stood immobilized. I was going to watch him until he disappeared. When they got a suitable distance away from our meeting place, Greg took a look back over his shoulder at me. He knew I would be watching him and I knew he'd turn to check to see if I was still watching him. It left me disgusted with myself for letting him catch me standing there like some goofball, totally captivated by him.

His head was cocked slightly to one side, and there was that smirk. Once he saw what he was looking for, he turned his head away in a flash, as if he didn't care about it at all, and he didn't look again. He was a boy who was in control of everything in his world. All he needed to do was let the boys come to him.

I felt like a fool. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I couldn't get his face out of my brain and it made me sick to my stomach. I made up my mind I didn't like Greg. He was everything I hated about guys. He was arrogant and cocky and hung up on himself, and not only that, he seemed to know that a boy like me couldn't get enough of a boy like him.

He was dangerous and I'd avoid him if I could. What he made me feel could get me into more trouble than I was ready to get into. I only knew one gay boy at school, and he was up against it all the time. Everyone picked on him. The boys despised him when they found out he was gay and the teachers despised him for not standing up for what he was. I could see that was a double edge sword that cut you either way you went. How so many boys knew so much, there was no way to find out, but it wasn't a road I would go down. I stayed to myself and it wouldn't be too long before I went out on my own.

I woke up seeing Greg's eyes the day we'd met. He was this gigantic cat, watching the mouse he was about to eat, waiting for just the right time to pounce. I'd never met anyone so self-confident or self-assured, but I lived in a small town, and as much as I needed to know about him, I couldn't afford to take the risk. Greg was someone I needed to leave alone, away from the eyes of other boys. If Alfred hung around him, he couldn't be all that bad. Alfred had a girlfriend and he was popular with all the old townie boys.

I didn't have a clue why I was thinking about him. I'd met the guy once and everything I knew about him told me he was a trouble. We hadn't exchanged two dozen words, but it wasn't the words I was worried about. He seemed to know plenty about me. He knew more about me than I knew about myself. He thought he was in control but I wasn't going to get caught playing his game. I was smart enough to know better. I wasn't going to complicate my life.

I always wondered why I hadn't chased after girls the way my friends did. They disappeared from our group one by one, each finding a girlfriend, until I was the only one left. Only I never developed an interest in girls. Maybe I was a late bloomer, or maybe meeting Greg told me everything I needed to know about why I was more likely to have girl friends than a girlfriend.

There were hints, when my buddies began to go through puberty and wanted to show off to the rest of our group. There were jokes and noncommittal touches to verify one boys pecker exceeded all others in the group that day. Everyone laughed and smacked the other boy's erection, pretending it was no big deal. My mouth got dry. I wanted a private showing and I wasn't laughing.

I was a loner now and it was best to keep it that way. I didn't want anyone to know me too well and especially I didn't want anyone to know more about me than I did. I was in no hurry to make decisions that were going to alter my life. What was the hurry? I might meet a girl or take interest in an activity that kept me too busy to think about what other boys felt. Up until now, it was a good plan.

Greg invaded my brain when I was least able to prevent it. I would wake in the middle of the night with his eyes, those lips, and that sneer figuring vividly in my dreams. There was another thing I dreamed about, the imprint in his jeans running down the right side of his leg. Its definition was remarkable considering he had his clothes on, and that image frequently woke me out of a sound sleep for purposes best left untold.

The thing about it that was more distressing yet, even with a hard-on, I barely reached the top of my leg. Greg's ran for a ways down his leg and you could see he was circumcised. Most boys I knew were circumcised, but I had to see them showering to know that. Greg wore his dick like a badge of honor. I didn't like it, but I loved it.

Why this got my attention more than other things I noticed about him, I wasn't sure. I took a passive interest in the boys in the showers after gym. I made sure I got a locker close to the boys I found most intriguing. Some guys popped a woody from time to time in the shower, though I'd only witnessed the half-hard in my classes. Thank heaven I was never one of those who became suspect once they hit wood while cavorting about with other naked red-blooded adolescents.

There was always talk that so-and-so had gotten on a hard. To do it a second time was the kiss-of-death if the first time didn't do it. You became persona-non-grate even amongst your best friends while at school. No one dared to befriend such a randy lad without fearing the talk about him would then include you. Adolescence wasn't a good time to part with your peers on such things as a woody in the shower. While they all seemed overjoyed to see one, once the novelty wore off the question was left to explain the break with propriety.

As if breathing wasn't enough to get some adolescent boys exciting.

I had a certain interest in my friends as we were stumbling through puberty together. I'd never been overly curious - just comparing notes in my own way kept me from looking stupid, when we were of an age when boys like to talk and brag about what they've done and with whom. These activities never led to ongoing activities. It did require a need to relieve the tension once I got home after an eye opening evening of hearing about how my friends were becoming experienced with the equipment that still had a fair amount of peach fuzz surrounding it.

Now I was waking at night with only one thing on my mind. Being a loner kept me out of trouble. Outside of gym and a random glimpse of something I interpreted as sexual. It was fun but lacked the intensity to get e going for more than a night. Now I was running on all cylinders and the intensity made sleep an iffy proposition even after I wore myself out.

Upon discovering the activity, I masturbated to one degree or another. At first it was as often as I could find privacy. Then it was once a day, because it needed to be done, no matter what was said in Sunday School or amongst the teenagers who claimed to know blind boys with hairy palms, after they'd masturbated for a week straight. I would need to take my chances if I hoped for a few hours of sleep each night. I'd monitored my hands carefully and there was enough visual activity in gym to assure me I was seeing fine.

After a couple of years, it became upon waking, before sleep, and as needed at all other times. Greg's presence in my brain had altered the equation. What had been a routine had become a constant necessity. I couldn't remember what I looked like and I could describe Greg in detail, down to his voice, and especially including the bulge in his blue jeans that kept me up nights, worrying about if I'd ever get to see what was in those jeans.

I found him interrupting my sleep night after night. I'd wake long before dawn and go at it until I was worn down, using his face, his sneer, gradually working my way down to the bulging in his jeans, and that could keep me going until I was being told for the second or third time that I had to get ready for school if I didn't want to be late.

For the first time there was a face and a person attached to the fantasy that powered the lust in my hand. The most worrisome thing was that the image of him no longer left me after the deed was done. For the first time I couldn't depend on once being enough to cause me to drift on wings of ecstasy and toward a few more hours of sleep with the messy evidence still in hand. Greg was having his way with me whenever he cared to visit my brain.

I knew a secret about myself that no one else knew. That's to say that no one else could possibly be certain of it. I certainly hadn't been certain until I met someone who triggered more thought and possibilities than I had ever considered before. For the first time in my life I was left to question my sexuality as well as my sanity. I was having powerful feelings about another boy, and if anything I knew about sex was true, that left no doubt what I was.

I knew about going through stages of sexuality. This was how minor diversions from the accepted norm was explained away without explaining anything. Yes when Johnny Gansett began sprouting hair and his dick got as long as the hot dogs we bought for lunch, all of us took turns feeling it and he even began to drip out of the end after the second or third time he told us he was sure it grew more the night before. It took a little more than a month for Joe Dorn to start growing his half smoke, and Johnny was first in line to get a feel. We'd all entered the dick derby over the next few months.

There were no provisions at school for any oddity in behavior. Of course when you had a few hundred adolescent boys all jammed into one building, oddities abounded. We were all assured we'd mature, but I had my doubts. No matter how much I liked certain guys, they were all at least as crazy as I was, and I'm being kind.

I never stopped stealing glances at the naked guys I liked, because it excited me in a mild way and it was reassuring to know that I wasn't the only one who didn't measure up to what Greg was showing off in his jeans. The variety in dick and body types truly amazed me. There was no more than mild excitement that came from my curiosity, but I learned a lot about who might be competition for Greg and which of us weren't even in that ballgame.

Getting Greg out of those skintight jeans and naked in my bed was a developing idea. The evidence was mounting and I was already feeling guilty about my constant desire. To date I hadn't lusted after any girls. I could no longer say that about boys. There was only one of them, but the intensity of my feelings for him didn't seem to leave any doubt. Girls were way smarter and way easier to talk to than boys at school, but not one of them had showed even a passing interest in me, beyond whatever purpose it was that brought us together.

When faced with the truth it's best to yield or you risk living a lie. Admitting something to yourself and broadcasting it for public consumption were two different things.  Because I knew I knew I was attracted to Greg didn't mean he had to know. He's the last person I'd tell.

To be continued...

Posted: 02/02/18