The Stars

By: David H
(© 2014 by the author)
Editor: Ken King

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

Chapter 4:
“The Weight”

Suggested Listening: “Freeze” (Jordin Sparks) 

Chris stayed in the hospital until the following weekend, until doctors determined, definitely, that he didn’t need surgery to correct any of the injuries that he’d sustained.  The concussion, it turned out, wasn’t as bad as they’d thought initially.  George, therefore, told Chris that he could, if he wanted, go home.  He said that he did, and so, Noah carefully drove him in the Dodge that he’d rented for a week, with Caroline and Tom in front of them and Caleb, Luke, and Katie behind them, back to Blakely.

They took their time, taking things slowly as they drove back, listening to some of the classical music that Noah had on his iPod.  It was calming to both of them: Chris was in some pain still, and Noah was worried that he’d cause more.  When the caravan got into town, Chris saw the sign on the high school.  “Hurry back, Mr. Williams!” he said to himself.  When they got to his house, Chris wasn’t ready for what he saw.  There were flowers, wreaths, some plants that had been planted right in the middle of his front yard, and a million notes taped or tacked to his front door and porch.  Of course, given the near celebrity status of educators in that small town, there was talk; there was gossip, and everyone, it seemed, knew what had happened.  He knew that some of his kids had seen it, and he was sure that they didn’t know what to do or think.  Acts of violence against minorities of any kind rarely happened anymore, but they still did.

Once home, his house was filled with people, all willing to do what they could to make his life a little bit easier in that moment.  He appreciated it all.  For a guy that had no family left, he had a lot of family that chose to be around him.  He felt honored.

For one reason or another, though, his heart skipped a little bit with every knock on the door.  The principal of the school, Ms. Cato, a woman with whom Noah had a very antagonistic relationship when he was in school and she was a PE teacher, stopped by to check on him.  Before she left, she asked to speak to Noah for a second, though, which was odd.  As it turned out, her son had recently come out of the closet.  In thinking about things, few of the thousands of kids had ever come out when they were in high school, and Noah was the only name she could remember.  She apologized to him for not paying better attention to him back then, something that he accepted from her quickly, offering a hug to seal the sort-of deal that they’d made.  When Noah walked back inside the house from speaking to her, Chris seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. 

That night, Caleb and Katie went to Caroline and Tom’s to spend the night.  Luke, though, stayed with Noah and Chris at Chris’ house.  All the sleep that Chris had gotten in the previous days was induced by meds.  To go to sleep in his own bed made the idea of sleep all the better.  To know that the bed was big enough for both him and Noah was even better.

The next morning, he woke to breakfast in bed.  Luke had gotten up early and started working on some food, sending Noah to the store when he got up around seven.  The only place open was the Food Lion, though, where Chris’ truck was still parked, behind yellow lines of police tape.  He tried not to look at it, but his heart knew that it was there, and that was wrenching enough.

When he got back to Chris’, which, for some reason, he’d been calling ‘home’ all morning, he had a few things that Luke needed, as well as a bag of coffee.  The smell was sickening to him, but he felt that he had to weather it for the sake of his man’s recovery.  He, like his sister, had grown up with the stench of the stuff permeating through the house.  When his mother wasn’t drinking whiskey, she was drinking coffee.  His father reeked of the stuff on Sunday mornings when he would make Noah stay close in case he needed/wanted something.

As Chris took the first sip, it was the worst cup that he’d ever experienced.  It was strong, dark, almost thick, but he told Noah that it was the best ever.  It was one of those times when Chris decided to spare his feelings.

He didn’t eat much that morning, but of what he did eat, he could feel, smell, taste, all the love that went into its preparation.  He savored it for what it was.

Showering was hell; dressing was even harder.  Noah had offered to help, but Chris wanted to do it by himself.  He needed to do it alone, but he knew that Noah was just around the corner, sitting at the computer working if he needed anything.

Then Sunday, it was filled with visitors, just as Saturday had been.  Caroline and Tom’s minister came by after lunch, and, again before he left, asked to speak to Noah.  “I know from your sister that you don’t care for Christianity because of what happened between you and your parents, and I respect that.  I want you to know, though, that I am praying for both of you, that God gives you peace.”

“Thank you,” Noah said as the old man, his wife standing on the porch with Caroline, reached up and hugged him.

Caleb, Katie, and Luke had to get back to Miami for work, but before they left, Caleb made sure that all his clothes were washed and dried.  Katie made sure that the house was clean, and Luke, knowing that Noah would try to cook if there weren’t something prepared, made sure that there were a few servings of several different dishes that could be easily refrigerated and reheated. 

Tom and John took them to the airport that afternoon, while Caroline and Gwen stayed with the guys.  While they were there, Brian stopped to check on Chris.  There was nothing work-related about the visit, just a visit with a man that might as well have been family after he’d suffered a rather serious injury. 

The next afternoon, the police released Chris’ car, and Noah and Tom, with his pistol a hand’s-length away, went to get it.  When they got back, Noah grabbed some stuff from “Tom’s Storage Shed” and washed it, freeing it of dust that had settled on it, as well as the smears of Chris’ blood that had landed on it during the attack.  Again, he knew from experience that his family’s cowardly acts left stains … stains that he didn’t want Chris to have to endure the same torment that he had carried with him over the years.

Two weeks later, Chris, after getting checked by a neurologist in Dothan, was cleared to return to work, which he was excited about being able to do.  On a blissful Monday morning, he and Noah woke and showered, together, and got ready for the day.  While Chris was dressing in a pair of khakis and a polo, for Noah, it was jeans and a loose-fitting, fashionable, t-shirt.  Some might have thought it was weird, but he’d made an arrangement with Ms. Cato that, for no longer than that week, for Chris’ mental health, Noah would serve as a ‘special volunteer’.  He would be in the office, helping the ladies that worked there get caught up on some things.  He would be in the building, though, and able to pounce into action if necessary.

On his first day back, Chris knew that he’d have to have a frank conversation with his students, and probably some of their parents, about what had happened.  What he wasn’t expecting, though, was that the substitute, the woman that he’d replaced, had them working on special projects.  Some parents vehemently objected to the projects, but Ms. Cato, after talking to Tom and a couple of other Social Studies teachers, and with the approval of most of the Board of Education, sent a letter home saying that the struggle for equal rights for gays and lesbians in the United States was as important a topic of historical study as the fights for equality that every other minority group had fought for throughout the nation’s history. 

That morning, his first period class, his ‘remedial history’ class, handed in papers about the Stonewall Riots that they’d written the week before.  The AP American History class he was teaching that semester had each been given a name of a person to research.  Among the names of people were Barbara Jordan, the first African-American woman elected to Congress and who most people believe was a Lesbian.  There were papers about Rachel Maddow, Fannie Flagg, Adam Lambert, who’d recently lost American Idol as a result of neo-con interference and misuse of the process of voting, and many, many other gay people who had helped to shape the world that they would one day lead.  During third block, right after lunch, Tom and Chris got a really good laugh to find that one of the second period folks had even done a paper on a famous model and entertainer who, mostly reluctantly, called Blakely his hometown. 

On Tuesday, though, Chris got back down to it, picking up where he’d left off.  Noah was still sitting in the office, but he’d taken his computer with him that day, in the event that he got time to work on answering the questions that the magazine’s editor had sent him.  He got through a few of them before deciding that he was really in the mood to answer questions that he’d answered a million times before, like ‘What was it like to do adult films?’ and ‘How does it make you feel to be recognized when you’re out at a gay establishment?’

Instead, he chose to focus on the very last question on the list of twenty: ‘What’s next?’

Like a fire, he started working on an answer to the question, putting it all down in a single Microsoft Word file.  Before he knew it, he’d typed out nearly two thousand words, and he was no where near being ‘finished’ in his mind. 

By Friday, he still wasn’t finished.  After leaving his final day of ‘special volunteer’ work at the school at around five in the evening, he and Chris went to Dothan for an early dinner and something that they’d never really been able to do: go on a date.  They had a nice meal and some great conversation between them.  They took in a movie, but, almost as if they were teenagers again, they didn’t see much of it.  Instead, they made out through most of it, until the usher allowed himself to be able to be convinced by Noah’s smile to let them stay on the understanding that it didn’t happen anymore. 

On Saturday of that week, the first weekend in October, the two went to the Zoo in Albany and then went shopping.  As they walked through the mall, Chris, on more than one occasion, made sure that he was right there with him, breathing relief as he found himself in the thick crowd of people. 

“So I’ve made two decisions,” he told Noah as they walked into a trendy clothing store on the mall’s second level.

“What’s that?” Noah said as he took a sip of the soda that they’d gotten at the Cookie Company.

“First.  I want to go to church tomorrow, and… I understand that you have your opinions, and so you don’t have to…” he started.

“What time?”

“Contemporary Service is at 10,” Chris answered.  “That’s usually what I go to with Tom and Caroline.”

“OK.  I’ll have to find a suit or something…”

“If you hadn’t interrupted me,” Chris smiled, “you would have heard that you don’t have to go.”

“Regardless of what it means to me, it’s important to you, so I’ll be there,” Noah smiled.  “Besides, I may make you go with me on a photo shoot one day… so…”

“Making you sit through a sermon and making me watch as my half-naked boyfriend gets his picture taken aren’t really on the same level,” Chris adjusted his hands as Noah smiled.

“Once you’ve been to a couple, you might disagree with that statement,” Noah admitted.  “So what’s your second decision?”

“I’m gonna start looking next year for mid-year teaching positions outside of Blakely,” Chris told him.

“Whoa.  That’s big.”

“Yeah,” Chris smiled.  “I’ve talked to Tom about it, but he swore he wouldn’t say anything to Caroline…”

“Which he won’t,” Noah stated as he knew that from first-hand experience.

“And I talked to Barbara,” Chris said, referring to a woman that Noah had always known as Ms. Cato, “and she’s agreed to talk privately with a few members of the board so that, if I find something, there will be enough support on the board so that they won’t hold my certificate.”

“Good.  What about school?  You don’t have much more left, do you?”

“Noah.  I’m not sure I want to finish.  I’ve got a Master’s Degree already, which is better than most people.”

“How many?”

“Classes?”

“Yeah,” Noah answered.

“One six-hour class,” Chris told him.  “And it’s an independent study.”

“Do you have to be in Athens to do it?” Noah asked.

“I have to meet with professors at least three times during the semester, but it doesn’t matter where I do the research and work.”

“OK…” Noah told him.

“What are you thinking?”

“That it would be a good thing for you to finish, and that you could do it from Ft. Lauderdale.  I mean, I would like to think that you’d like to be there, even if only because you’ve got a super sexy boyfriend.”

“And you were thinking about me as you came up with this idea?” Chris smiled.  Noah looked at him only to realize that he was smiling, really, genuinely smiling.

“I was thinking all about you!” Noah grinned.  “Of course, now that I think about it, I would get some benefit out of it.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about where your next lay was coming from,” Chris said as he realized that he and Noah hadn’t had sex since they saw each other over the Labor Day holiday.  Noah didn’t want to push him into anything until he was ready, but the thing about that moment was, Chris realized that he wasn’t ready yet for the sensations that would come along with more than just a kiss or a hug from this man that he loved.

“That’s not it, actually,” Noah smiled.

“Then what is it?”

“I need to know that you’re OK,” Noah told him. 

Chris was silent for a second.  He wasn’t sure how to respond, but he knew that whatever he said would be intended as a positive response.  “So when I was in the hospital, did Tom and Caroline tell you anything about the parts of my past that you don’t know?”

“Nothing,” Noah looked at him.

“Then I’m gonna give you the short version for now, and then explain why what you said means so much to me.”

“OK…”

“My dad died in the first Gulf War; My mom, when she found out, killed herself.  My grandmothers were both insane, and both of my parents were only children.  So when my grandmothers decided that they didn’t want me, I was put into foster care.  I was in my third placement when I met Brian.”

“Hence why y’all are still close,” Noah put the pieces together.

“Yeah,” Chris answered.  “So when you say that you need to know that I’m OK, it’s almost like…” he stopped, to choose his words, “…that I have found a place, for the first time in a long time, where I fit.”

“Baby,” Noah said as he stopped them, in the middle of the mall, and wrapped him into a hug.  There were eyes; people were watching them, but it didn’t matter.  Noah and Chris were the only thing that mattered in their petite little world in that moment.

“OK.  So church,” Chris said as he pulled away and wiped a tear that was coming from the eye that had previously been closed shut in the attack.  “Um.  I wear jeans and a button down.”

“Shoes?”

“What I’d wear to school,” Chris said.

“So I’m fine with what I’ve got here?”

“Yeah,” Chris told him as they walked from the mall out into the parking lot.

They got back to Blakely to find that Caleb and Luke had come up for a single night.  Both of them talked to Noah multiple times a day, but there was something in the connection between them that made it difficult to go too long without see, experience, living with the other one.  Caleb brought some things that he’d been working on, guy’s clothes that were in Chris’ size.  Luke, unlike usual, was sitting back, enjoying as Tom and John, while drinking, were grilling steaks for everyone.

As they all sat outside eating on the balmy October night, Chris asked for a second, and they all turned their attention to him.  “So I’ve decided that, next semester, I’m gonna finish my Ed.S.”

“NICE!” Caroline told him.

“The other part of that is that I’m not doing it from Blakely,” Chris said.

“Are you going back to Athens?” Caroline inquired.

“A couple of times, but I’m not doing it from there,” he smiled.

“Fort Lauderdale?” she smiled.

“Yeah…”

“Yay!  Another hot guy in the building!” Caleb did a little dance.

“I so thought y’all were about to tell us that one of you was pregnant,” Tom joked.

“It’d be me!” Chris answered.

“It’d be him!” Noah said, at the same time, to chuckles from all over.  “Oh.  And I’m going to church with y’all tomorrow, if that’s OK.”

“That’s fine,” Caroline said as Gwen reached over and patted his leg.  Caleb and Luke looked at each other with a ‘yeah… he’s in love’ kind of look.  After dinner, Caleb and Luke went with Noah and Chris back to Chris’ house.  They stayed up for a while, watching TV and shooting the shit as they always had done.

The next morning, Chris and Noah went to church, meeting and sitting with Tom and Caroline in the same sanctuary that Caroline had married in several months before.  Having never been to a service outside his parents’ church, he was expecting something straight laced, with a half-cup of fire and brimstone to taste.  He wasn’t expecting a full band, with songs of praise that had been written in his lifetime.  The minister was in a suit, but few other people were.  The thing that brought them together, though, was their mutual love of the Lord.  It was nice, as he explained to Luke and Caleb when they got back to Chris’ house.

Caleb and Luke left that afternoon, to return to Miami after rounds of hugs.  For the websites that he owned, he, himself, needed to return to the Gateway City, but he wasn’t quite sure if he could leave Chris. 

On Tuesday of that first full week in October, some shit hit the proverbial fan, and while he tried to take care of it from Blakely by telephone, Noah knew that to resolve the issues that had come up, he was going to have to show his ass.  One of the producers that worked for him, had been skimming off the top.  He’d been charging Noah $1,000 per sitting, from which he was supposed to be paying $500 to the model.  He was paying models $100 and pocketing the rest.  Knowing what it took for guys to go into a studio and jack off for cameras, as was the case with that site in particular, he returned to Miami with the express purpose of ripping him a new asshole.

When he got there, he realized that the man that he’d trusted with one of his sites had not only been doing shady stuff with models, but that he’d been selling videos for which Noah had paid for the site, to other sites.  He went to his lawyer’s office, got receipts for equipment that he’d purchased, and then went to the guy’s house, from where he worked, with police.  The guy offered no resistance as Noah took cameras, three laptop computers, a desktop iMac an all-in-one printer/copier/fax machine, and sets of lights, putting them into his car after the police had a chance to check records.  The guy also gave up records, financial and otherwise, that Noah was planning to take back to his accountant and lawyer for their perusal.

When he got back home and unloaded the stuff from his car, he was tired.  It was about four in the afternoon, and so he picked up his phone to call and check on Chris.  Hearing the other’s voice did amazing things to improve their moods, each of which had been darkened by a bad day.

The next morning, Noah got a certified letter from the producer that he’d cut off the day before.  Inside, there was a check to cover what he’d taken and a letter explaining his reasons.  Noah wasted no time in running to the guy’s bank to make sure the check was good.  When he found out that it was, he converted half of it to cash and the other half into a cashier’s check.  Since it had been going on for some time, it was a rather substantial amount that the guy had taken out a loan to cover.  He immediately went to his bank and put most of the money into his account. 

He opened another checking account while he was there and put in enough of the money so that Chris could pay for his final semester, as well as the plane tickets, hotel, and car rentals that would be required for him to finish his final semester of school.  He wasn’t rich, in fact, he was far from it, but he had enough money to maintain his lifestyle without that hurting him at all.  He’d paid off the condo quickly, having found an amazing deal on the unit, a better deal than either Luke or Caleb had found on theirs.  He had the money to pay cash for his car, and investments in other businesses had helped him set aside a nice little nest egg in the event that something did happen to him and he couldn’t work.  Putting some money aside for Chris wasn’t much of a drop in the bucket of his financial situation, and he was more than happy to do it because it was Chris.  After all, Chris would have done the same thing for him.

The afternoon was spent deciding what to do about the site that had been screwed up.  As a temporary measure, it was taken down, and as people went to it, they were guided to one of the other sites.  He called the producer to talk for a second about the letter and check, and Noah told him that he wouldn’t press charges against him if he emailed the guy a list of people that had been underpaid and how to get in touch with them.  That afternoon, with Chris on webcam with him, he composed an email to each of the guys.  He explained what they should have been paid and offered to make it right.  Chris smiled, for even though he was a hot ass porn star and model, Noah always did what he could to do the right thing.

“So I talked to Barbara today,” Chris told him.

“Oh yeah?  What’d she say?”

“To tell you hello,” Chris smiled, “and that the lady that I’d replaced this year had agreed to come back for second semester.”

“Awesome,” Noah smiled into the camera.

“And I hate that you’re not here,” Chris admitted.

“I will be back as soon as I can,” Noah looked at him.  “I wish you were here, too.”

“Oh yeah?” Chris stopped what he was doing and looked at the screen.

“Yeah.  I would rather be able to look at your fine ass in person rather than on this screen.”

“So you’re horny, too?” Chris noted.

“Yes…” Noah answered, nodding big.  “Not even taking care of it myself helps.”

“So when do you think you’ll be able to come back up?” Chris asked, looking directly at the camera that sat atop his monitor.

“I don’t know,” Noah said.  “This is some shit, though, for real.  Why don’t you come down this weekend?  I’ll get you a plane ticket, you can fly down, let me spoil you a little bit…”

“We’ll see,” Chris said, knowing that he couldn’t afford to go down on his own.

“OH!  I just remembered something.”

“What’s that?” Chris wondered.

“You’ve got the whole week of Thanksgiving off, right?”

“Yeah,” Chris answered.

“OK.  Then we’re going to go to L.A. for a couple of those days,” Noah smiled.

“What for?”

“A photo shoot…” Noah smiled.  “I owe a guy some shots.”

“And you want me to go with you?”

“Of course!” Noah told him.

“You know I’m gonna bring down the hot average of that shoot…” Chris started.

“Um… NO!” Noah said to him.  “If anything, you’ll be the hottest person there.”

“Whatevs!” Chris smiled.

Luke and Caleb walked in a few minutes later, as they usually did, without knocking.  Chris sat down on the couch beside Noah, waving at Chris through the cam and smiling.  Caleb did the same thing, just lying down across their laps.  “Hey Chris,” he said as if it were nothing and as Noah and Luke shook their heads.

“Hey guys,” Chris smiled.

“Mind if we steal your boyfriend for a little while?”

“We were about to cyber, but I suppose that’s alright,” Chris joked with them.

“So that’s not a neck supporter in your pants!”  Caleb noted as Luke laughed hysterically and as Noah blushed a bit.

That night, the three of them went out for dinner and a couple of drinks.  It was the first time in a while that they’d had a chance to get together, and an awesome time was had by all. 

That weekend, though, Chris flew down late on Friday, and neither of them heard anything from either of the guys until Sunday afternoon, when they both bore proud looks of satisfaction on their faces.  Chris returned to Blakely that night, but not before a quickie that almost caused him to be late getting the airport for his flight.

The next two weekends, Noah went to Blakely after disastrously long weeks dealing with the website.  It was over one of his weekends in Blakely that he got a moment with Caroline, to tell her about Chris’ Christmas gift from him.  She loved the idea and promised not to say anything.

November was, by all standards, better than October had been.  Noah got to spend a whole week with Chris in Blakely, and while he was there, charges were formally brought against his brother.  He felt almost evil as he sat in the courtroom, between Chris and his family, enjoying as his brother stood there trying to convince everyone of his innocence. 

By the week of Thanksgiving break, though, it was all over.  In exchange for leniency, Jimmy changed his plea to guilty.  He wouldn’t have to serve any jail time, but he was on weekly probation for five years.  Noah wasn’t happy with the outcome, as he’d wanted his brother to become a prison pin-cushion, but Chris was fine.  As he told Noah, he wouldn’t have to be there much longer.  He could live through a few weeks of shit until he got to Ft. Lauderdale. 

On the Saturday before the holiday, Caroline, Tom, Gwen, John, and Chris caravanned it to South Florida, as they’d done for so many Thanksgivings in the past.  They had a great weekend, but on Monday morning, Noah left everyone at his place and took Chris out to the West Coast for a couple of days.  They checked into a nice hotel, soothed a couple of angry beasts before heading out for an evening of nothingness between them, taking in the sights that Chris had never seen and that Noah had never known were in L.A.  They got back to the hotel about eleven, local time, and hit the sack.  It had been a long day, and nothing excited them at that late hour more than climbing in the king-sized bed and cuddling up to each other.

The next morning, Chris woke to find himself along in the bed but not the room.  Noah had found just enough room in the small place to do crunches.  He wasn’t counting or anything; he was just doing them for the sake of doing them.

“Getting ready for this morning?”

“Yeah,” Noah responded as he flexed and relaxed the muscles of his midsection.  When he was satisfied that he’d done enough, he just stopped and quickly picked himself off the floor.  He was wearing boxers that were sitting right on his hips, revealing the ‘v’ and almost a little more than that.  “You better start getting ready,” Noah smiled.  “Big day!”

“You’re acting like I’m getting my picture made,” Chris said, not thinking about it as he rolled onto his back beneath the covers.  “Wait…” Chris said as he threw the covers from across his body and walked into the bathroom, where Noah was bent over, turning on the shower.  “When you said that we were coming out here, did you mean that the trip itself was part of my Christmas present, or was there something else that you weren’t telling me?”

“Baby.  If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise,” Noah smiled.

“You know that I hate to have my picture taken,” Chris said.

“Do you trust me?” Noah asked.

“Yes…”

“Then please… trust me when I say that you will love what’s in store for you,” Noah kissed him on the forehead.  “Wanna shower with me?” he grinned naughtily.

“Like you have to ask!” Chris said as he pulled Noah close and popped his bottom.  “Damn… I think that hurt my hand more than anything.”

“You might have to massage it later then,” Noah said as he held back the curtain for Chris to go inside.

They spent an hour in there, but washing their bodies made up only about 10% of the time.  When they climbed out, they joked and ran back into the room.  In just a moment, Noah had put on gym shorts and a t-shirt, along with some sneakers.  Chris was wearing a blue polo and some khaki shorts.  On his feet were a pair of sandals that he’d picked up in Miami several weeks before.  It might have been November, but LA, like his man, was still hot.

Since Noah didn’t know LA all that well, the two of them climbed into a taxi that was waiting just outside their apartment for them.  He gave the man the address of where he wanted to go and waited a second while he put it into the GPS.

As they arrived, there were so many people standing outside, working to get things set up for the photographer with whom they’d be working.  Chris was nervous for some reason, but when he took Noah’s hand, to gently calm his nerves, there was no resistance.

As they walked inside, the photographer’s assistant was standing there, waiting for them.  In a whisking motion, she led Noah to a room upstairs where he could get ready.  Chris, taking in everything around, was following behind them.  The lady had Noah take his shirt off and sit in a chair while waiting for the guy that was going to be doing his hair.

“OK.  What are we doing today?” the guy, gayer than a box of glitter crayons, asked Chris.

“I…” Chris stammered.  “Noah?”

“Sweetheart,” the guy, putting on his best Southern drawl, “you are the director today.  Did he not tell you?”

“No… he didn’t,” Chris looked at Noah through the mirror.

“Aight gurls,” the guy said, “y’all talk this out, and I’m gonna get a beverage.”

“OK,” Noah turned around in the chair, looking at Chris.  “You know how I was feverishly writing some things a few weeks ago that I promised I would tell you about later?”

“Yeah…” Chris said.

“Well.  It was an article that is going to be in gay publication next year.  They wanted a photo shoot to go along with it, and since the whole article is basically about what you mean to me, I thought — if you want to — it would be nice if you directed the shoot… you know…telling me where and how to stand.”

“What’s the catch?”

“I want one picture with you.  One real, honest to God, professionally taken photo.  That’s all, then you can have your way with me,” Noah winked.

“One picture?”

“One picture,” Noah looked at him.

Chris took a deep breath.  “I can handle one picture,” Chris said.  “And as for your hair, this length is great.”

“Chest?” Noah asked.

“Manscaping is OK,” Chris said, “but you’re going mostly natural.”

“Yes sir,” Noah said.

The person assigned to make him beautiful was given detailed instructions by Chris as the photog’s assistant stood just outside the door.  While Chris was standing there, watching the guy work, the assistant came over to him and asked if he could come down to where wardrobe had been set up.  As he went in, the photographer walked in and explained how Chris should make it work, which Chris agreed to do.  He picked out some of the most interesting costumes that he could find, all of which would work for Noah.

For eight hours of that day, Noah did what he did, standing still for up to a half hour at the time.  He had amazing control, stamina.  He seemed to be able to keep the whole crew entertained at the same time.  Chris was impressed, but, then again, Noah always seemed to impress him in some way.  In one part of the shoot, he was a Roman Centurion, giving him a chance to show his body.  In another, he was completely naked, but he covered his goods with his huge hands and hung his head low.  It was sexy and artistic all at the same time.

The last costume change featured Noah in a nice pair of jeans and a graphic tee that snugly, but not tightly, fit his body.  It was the part of the shoot that he’d chosen, the part of the shoot that he wanted Chris to take a single picture with him.  It was almost with reluctance that Chris joined him in front of the screen which would be changed by the magic of Photoshop to a scene that was appropriate.  The only reason he was doing it was because Noah had kept his end of the bargain, wanting only one picture with him.  Adam, the photog, positioned them in several different ways.  It was probably the very last picture that he snapped, though, that would make the cut as “the one”.

Chris’ eyes were closed, and his head hung a little bit.  Noah, standing directly in front of him, wrapped him up in his arms and kissed his forehead, his eyes open so wide that Chris made his eyes, his naturally blue eyes, even more radiant, even more captivating and alluring.

That night, the pair returned to the hotel room.  As they walked in, Chris started by smiling, turning and jumping up on Noah, kissing him right on the lips.

“I wanna read that article,” Chris smiled.

“Are you sure?” Noah asked, looking him in the eye.

“Yes.”

“OK.  Then I’m going to get it open for you, and then I’ll run get us some dinner.”

“OK…” Chris told him, climbing down off him.

With a smile, Noah walked over to his computer bag and pulled out his laptop.  He opened it up, fiddled with it for a second, and then turned to Chris.  “So what would you like to eat?”

“Whatever you feel like, baby?” Chris smiled, unsure of how he would react to what Noah had written.

“OK.  I’ll be back in a half hour,” Noah said as he kissed Chris’ forehead, nervously, afraid of Chris’ reaction to the article with part of his usually confident soul.

As Noah walked out, Chris took Noah’s computer from the desk and sat on the bed that they’d shared the night before, peacefully, quietly.  As he started to read, he could almost hear Noah speaking the words that were on that page.

*******

When I was asked for an interview by this magazine, I agreed on the condition that they send me the questions and allowed me to work on them at my own pace.   They said OK, and a couple of days later, I got a list of questions a mile long.  Most of them could be answered with single words and short phrases, but there was one, number eighteen, to be exact, that I seemed to be gravitating toward.  It was simple, just two words: ‘What’s next?’. 

I thought about all of the questions for about a minute-and-a-half before deciding that, for the fans and naysayers that I knew would be reading this article, I needed to focus on that question, and that question alone.

Several people have asked me that, and, honestly, until I actually started writing a few seconds ago, I didn’t know that I could or would ever answer.  I’m the kind of guy that has, since his youth, lived life in a very ‘day-by-day’ sort of way.  I’ve always done who and what I wanted, when and where I wanted to do it.  In short, I consider myself the epitome of ‘carpe diem’. 

Though, since I turned thirty in March of this year, I’ve started giving credence to the fact that I won’t live forever.  I’m not the same, indestructible twenty-something that I once was.  I’m in my thirties now, and I’ve got to start thinking about things that grown-ups think about.  It’s for that reason that I think that I have been able to really enjoy, and appreciate, falling in love with a wonderful man who, in the months since we first laid eyes upon each other, has grown to take up a significant amount of my time, whether in person or in thought.

I’m not going to lie to any of you, but this man is hot.  Chris is a little shorter than I am, with a nice body.  His voice has a depth to it that I can’t explain in words, and the smile that graces his face from time to time, lights my world.  His smooth, black skin, contrasts with the tan on my body.  His eyes, truly the window to this man’s soul, are both light and dark brown at the same time.  Just his appearance, though, isn’t what captivates me about him.  In fact, they are just a small fraction of what makes me feel as though I’m going to trip over words when I see him. 

He’s my exact opposite, in so many ways.  He’s masculine and confident, enough so that he can spend his days slaving to educate the nation’s youth on the history around them.  In reality, part of the confidence I have, stems from years of constantly hearing my sister and brother-in-law telling me that I wasn’t the worthless trash that my parents insisted me to be.  The other part comes, of course, from the size of my penis.

He’s so incredibly smart.  He’s the kind of guy that you can give him a date, and he can tell you why it’s important.  Even obscure ones like 28 June 1969 register for him.  (That date, by the way, is one that every gay person in the United States should know, appreciate, and keep.)  I, on the other hand, am perceived as the idiot muscle-head who should just stand there and look pretty.  I do that well, though.  I’m not saying that I agree with that image of myself, but it’s closer to right than anything else.

It’s not just history, though.  He works well with numbers; he can understand things that are both too simple and too complex for most people.  The man balances his checkbook to the penny once a week, and I hold my breath when I make a purchase, hoping that there’s enough money in my checking out to cover whatever purchase I make. 

Where I’m physically strong, he also possesses emotional and mental strength.  At my sister’s wedding this past summer, he was willing to stand up for me to my brother.  While I felt angry and hurt by the presence of the grotesque man that my mano is, Chris stood in his face and defended me, having only met me two days earlier.  Over Labor Day weekend, when some dumb fag had the audacity to say that he didn’t deserve me, Chris kept me calm enough to keep from getting dressed and going to find them.  The next week, when I learned that he’d been attacked, I rushed to Montgomery, Alabama, to be with him.  When he woke up, it was he who comforted me. 

While I thrive on the energy and glamor of the limelight, Chris a relatively reserved man.  I don’t mind people staring at me, having lascivious thoughts, using me, in their mind, to fulfill some sordid fantasy involving me and my ample endowment.  Chris, though, hates to have his picture taken.  In a crowd, he hates to be the center of attention, and I, perhaps wrongly, often point him out as ‘my man’.  He hates when I do that, but I always seem to figure out some way to weasel my way back into his good graces.

I’m sorry that I can’t more adequately describe what he means to me.  Honestly, my very limited vocabulary just doesn’t have the means to describe him for you as I see him.  I guess I could say, though, that it is I who doesn’t deserve him.  He’s kind and sweet, generous, smart, warm, both in his soul and as he peacefully sleeps next to me whenever possible.  If we lived in Canada, I would actually look forward to spending those bone-chilling winter nights curled up next to him beneath a heavy blanket of some sort. I guess that’s how I, whether as Jesse Edwards or Noah Barnes, would define true, genuine, unadulterated, emblazoned, passionate love.

So… to answer the question that I’ve selected:  After Christmas, I plan to take some time out of such a public eye.  I want to be with Chris, to enjoy him as often as possible in both a physical and emotional sense.  (He’ll so grin when he reads that part, which will then turn me on!)  I plan to be there with him as he finishes up a higher-level graduate degree, and I plan on finding a field somewhere and just enjoy looking up toward the stars at this man that is, in my humble (or not so much) opinion, more of a star in my world than I will ever be in anyone else’s.

I’ve been neglecting my websites of late, and while I probably won’t be doing much ‘acting’, I will be an integral part of their growth and development.  (Y’all… Chris just snickered.  I promise!)

I plan on doing some charity work at some point during the break, and I might even try to squeeze in a couple of classes at a community college close to where I live. 

Part of me wants to tell you guys and gals of some grand plan to change the world, but, in reality, I’ll just be doing the same thing I’ve been doing my entire life, seizing the day, hopefully with an amazing man there to push me, challenge me, support me, and love me for both sides of the person that I am: Jesse and Noah.’

*******

It wasn’t until he finished reading that Chris realized that he was bawling like a child.  He climbed from the bed, believing beyond belief that Noah was the guy that he was always meant to find.  There was a reason why he’d gone to UGA for grad school, why he’d befriended a professor that then recommended him for a job in the middle of the woods.  Most people thought he was insane to cut himself off from society as he was by moving to Early County, but if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have met Tom and Caroline, who had introduced him to Noah.

He had just enough to wash his face before Noah returned, carrying Chinese take-out in little white cartons.  He’d thought about so much that he wanted to say to Noah, but looking in his eyes, he realized that his finite bank of words weren’t enough to even speak to that man in that moment.

Noah set the things onto the desk before walking back over to the doorway that separated the hotel room from its bathroom.  He smiled as he wrapped his arms around Chris, as he’d done in the picture, and embraced him.  Bending his arms at the elbows, he put his open palm on the back of Noah’s arm, slipping the tips of his fingers beneath the stretched armband of the t-shirt Noah was wearing.  The two, rather than enjoy a kiss in that moment, though, allowed their foreheads to meet. 

For a myriad of reasons, they both found themselves in the mood that evening.  It was more than just sex, as it had been for a while.  They were making love, and quite passionately.  As their bodies melded together, their minds, on more than one plane, were as one.  Whereas they were comfortable in their usual roles, Chris decided that he wanted control.  Noah, on the other hand, was willing to give up his usual dominance, and as the two did what they were to do about it, they realized that they’d never had any better sex than what they had with each other.

The next morning, they returned to Miami, or home, as Chris had started calling it.  It was the first time in a very long time that he felt like a single place was the right place to be.  Chris, at one point an avid member of tumblr.com, decided to post something for GPOYW (Gratuitous Pic Of Yourself Wednesday).  He and Noah, at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, snapped a picture which Chris then immediately uploaded to the site.  “Maybe this week, I’ll have more ‘likes’ than iwasjustsayin, bowlingalleylawyer, lickystickypickyme, and thebeautythatisman combined!” he joked as he put the caption as ‘GPOYAYBW!”  (Gratuitous Pic of yourself and your boyfriend Wednesday).

They ate their meal, as they always did, and then, on Black Friday, sat on Noah’s balcony with John and Tom, enjoying cocktails as everyone else went Black Friday shopping.  A couple of weeks later, Chris and Tom finished up the semester, packing up all his things from his house and started loading it into the cars.  The next morning, Noah flew up to help with the ‘heavy lifting’.  Just days before Christmas, they were on their way to Fort Lauderdale.  As a gift, Noah gave him a keychain on which to put his own key to the building and to his apartment. 

Leaving Noah’s money alone, Chris finished up his Ed.S. at UGA that spring, graduating in May, the same month, incidentally, that Noah’s article and their pictures were published in the magazine Details.  Caroline laughed her ass off at some of the pictures, but the last one in the set, the one of Noah kissing Chris on his forehead, moved her a little bit.  She’d read the article already, even before Chris, and was happy that he’d made as much to do over that man as he was.

That summer, Chris got a job with Broward County Schools as a curriculum designer for the county’s social studies program.  Noah took a couple of jobs, but they were both shot in Miami, which was OK by both of them.  While he didn’t take any classes, Noah did start another website, with Chris’ help, where the two put up articles and information on gay and lesbian history.  The first day it was online, the site crashed, as they weren’t planning on as many hits as they actually got. 

On one of only three weekends that they were both free, they flew to Blakely to visit Caroline and Tom.  While they were there, Noah got a chance to work on the Green Bean with Tom for a little while, getting it fixed to the point where Noah and Chris could take it that night, drive out to a secluded little spot on the Chattahoochee River, lie on a sand bank, and with each other, just look up at the stars.

The End.

Posted: 07/28/14