Discovering Love

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 42

(Name)

That night Ted called. He told me how nice George was. I told him that George was one of the nicest people I knew. Knowing George, he would keep Ted busy and that would make Ted's life better. He wanted someone to like and maybe love and if I helped him find what he wanted, that was pretty neat. I didn't hear from George for a couple of days but when he called he told me he had seen Ted every evening and they were having a lot of fun. George was finally learning how to bowl. Ain't love grand?

Greg wasn't as much on my mind. I had gotten to the point where whatever was going to happen was going to happen. He was still a sick puppy and I would try to see him through. I had to wait at the house for the air conditioning man the next morning and I ended up hitching out to the hospital. It was just before noon when I was finally emptied out onto Greg's floor.

The first person I saw was Nurse Attila and with fire in her eyes she charged toward me. Instinctively I started searching my pocket for my ID and I braced myself for the frontal assault.

"Where have you been? That boy is driving us crazy. He's the only patient I ever wished had stayed in a coma."

"I... well...."

This woman, whom we both knew couldn't stand me, had me by the arm and was guiding me to Greg's hallway, and eventually to his room. There had been some long looks and even some giggles from some of the nurses when I showed up some mornings. I'm sure they suspected that my constant attention was more than your typical friendship. At least they were hoping for something really juicy to talk about but on this morning things seemed different.

"He's on that buzzer 24/7. I got nurses going down passing nurses coming back. We got strict orders to answer his calls immediately or else. Get that boy under control. Please!" Nurse Attila begged in a pleading voice.

I had her exactly where I wanted her and there was never any trouble again.

"I'll try," I said. "He's pretty demanding. If he knows you've got to wait on him, heaven help you."

"He never buzzes when you're with him. Just don't be late if you can help it," she said. "Please! We're on ten-hour shifts right now.

Running up and down that hallway is wearing us out. Any help you can give us would be greatly appreciated."

"How is he?" I asked at our release point.

"He's a live-wire," she said sardonically.

When I went into the room there was a nurse bending over him. Greg still had the emergency buzzer in his fist. She seemed to be massaging his leg. I stood to one side until he spotted me. His face lit up when he saw me.

"That's cool. That's cool, don't bruise it," he said, brushing her away.

"Don't be calling me back down here in five minutes. I've got work to do," she complained.

"I can't help it if my leg is cramping. Show him how to do it. He'll be here a while. You'll be here awhile won't you Martin?"

"Sure."

The nurse turned and smiled when she saw me. There was a look of relief on her face. The relief pitcher had come in from the bullpen.

"Show me. I'll do it for him," I said. "I spend most of my time staring out the window. Show me a spot where it hurts him, just in case he gives me any trouble."

She smiled a pleasing smile and took my hand from me.

"His thigh is cramping. We've given him medication but the knotting keeps coming back. You just use your thumbs like this and try to work the muscle back into itself."

"That's it," she gushed. "You've got good hands."

"So I've been told," I said, looking at Greg who was trying to contain his laughter.

"Remember, always go up-and-down to smooth it out, never side-to-side. That's it. It's just a gentle massage motion until you feel the knot giving way. Yeah, like that," she said as I took over from her. "Well, I guess I can go."

The nurse turned and left the room as I continued to touch his warm soft flesh. I looked at his face as he watched me and I looked down to see his balls and a portion of his curly pubes a few inches from my hand. Of course he knew where my eyes went and he watched me swallow while fighting off the urge to grab it.

"You want me to keep doing it," I said.

"Where have you been?" He asked impatiently. "I figured you had finally had enough of me."

"Our air-conditioning is on the fritz. I had to wait for the repairman to come. Then I had to hitch over. It's hot."

"You're sweating," he said. "Here's my towel. I was afraid you weren't coming back after yesterday. Look, you know I'm a dick. I'm all hyped up on this crap they're feeding me. Martin, I'm not responsible for myself right now. Give me a little time, will you? One minute I'm fine and the next I'm in the dumper or high as a kite. It's getting me crazy."

"I had to wait for the air-conditioning man is all. If I say I'll be here I'll be here."

He seemed bright and more lucid then the day before. He seemed to be more like the old Greg. He was moving around without the caution he had taken before. The wires that held the traction together and that ran to the pin in his leg clanged and jingled with each major motion. He no longer seemed apprehensive that all the gear would cause him pain if he was too rough on it. Greg was rough on everything and everyone.

He looked straight at me and he was good to look at. He watched my fingers as I worked gently on his fine thigh.

"You ought to be a nurse. You're more gentle than she is. She's been down here five times. I keep them jumping," he said with some hostility.  He held up the emergency button still clutched in his fist. "Want to see how fast they get down here? Mom brought me a watch last night. We can time them."

"No, Greg. That's so juvenile. They've got an entire floor to take care of and you keep them running up and down this hallway because you have nothing better to do? I'll bring you some books to read. You can watch television."

I took the buzzer from his hand and hung it down by my leg. He looked at me like a wounded puppy. I could see I had hurt his feelings.

"I never thought of it that way. It's lonely down here. They aren't much to look at but they're better than nothing. There is a cute one at night. I'm not much of a reader. I thought you might not come back," he said, giving me a long look and putting his hand on mine as if he wanted to let me know he was serious.

"You're so self-centered and childish. I can only take so much of that. Every time I think we're starting to like each other, you get all pissy and bust my balls because I don't do exactly the right thing or say exactly the right thing. It gets old, Greg. Love only goes so far."

"I knew it would come back to that. Let's just forget what happened when we were kids. We're grown up now. This is different."

"You were never a kid, Greg. I don't guess I was either. I came up here to see if we couldn't be friends. You're the one that makes it difficult. You have a talent for that."

"Give me some time to get these drugs out of my system. I still feel like I'm not in control of my own body. They took the tube out last night. I can pee on my own again. Man I hope they don't do that to me again."

He pulled the sheet out from where it was stuffed down between his legs. His dick was pretty and pink and hung gently down to the sheet, partially obscuring his lovely balls. Its thickness was obvious even though it was completely at rest. Even so, and understanding his circumstances, mine was stirring and the giddy, horny attraction I always felt around him had me wanting to seize it and work it over. He would be helpless to stop me.

"It's dead. I tried to jerk off last night. Not because I was horny or anything but because I wanted to see if I could. I've tried a couple of times. Fucker won't get hard. I might be ruined."

He looked down at it like we were talking about an old friend of ours. I watched the one big vein that seemed to emerge from his unruly dark blond pubes and ran half way down the limpness before stopping. The head was so perfectly cut it was like artwork. It wasn't difficult for me to image it back at attention. That memory was etched into my brain. That was the way I saw it most in my dreams.

It was a tad sad that it was dormant, even for the time being. It was a subject we'd get back to because there was no way I could be around him for long without getting back to that. It was like a giant magnet and I was always aware of the pull it had upon me.

"No sense in getting us both frustrated," he said, pushing the sheet back to cover his nakedness, while my mouth watered helplessly. "Meds'll wear off after awhile. I'll be fine."

His thighs ran uninterrupted up to where his lower stomach started. His pajama top was wide open, giving me a clear view of him. Looking down the other side took me on a similar journey around his body. From the silky tufts of hair below his arm to the blaring white cast that came up to his ruddy knee, he was uncovered, save that sheet that stayed stuffed between his legs.

"No doubt," I said, pulling my eyes away, but he knew what was on my mind. Not that it was ever far away when I was around him.

The day went nice. We chatted and we held hands several times. I left while he ate lunch, still mostly glasses of this and that. He did get both ice cream and jello, the red wiggly cherry kind that excites your taste buds. It was all the solid food he ate but he said that too was changing and he was getting real food for breakfast.

"Hey, thanks!" He said as I stood by the door.

"Hey, yourself," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

I felt bad leaving him there. I'd never seen Greg vulnerable. He was the most in-charge person I'd ever known, but he'd changed. I guess being in bed for a few months might do that to you. He was still the most handsome guy I'd ever seen, and he's still my captive audience for awhile yet. I did have thoughts of being the one to bring him back to sexual good health. That was important to me because he'd like that as much as my visits.

It simply wasn't time to get sexual with him. Right now I'd be playing right into his strength and he'd use my weakness against me, and that wasn't going to happen any more. I would help him out in a way he wanted but I'd do it in my own time. I wanted to enjoy the new Greg for now. I actually enjoyed being with him and there was no rancor anywhere in that day's visit. It left me smiling and him wanting more.

I thought about Greg constantly that night. Mostly I thought about how he looked when he pulled the sheet away. I couldn't get him out of my mind. I was up early and got some coffee in the cafeteria before going to his room.

Greg was watching television when I got there. He looked at me and smiled. I melted. He giggled.

"Well, sit down why don't you," he said. "You aren't planning on leaving right away?"

"No. How are you feeling?"

"Fine. I wish I could get out of this place. What's up?"

"Not much. Life isn't all that exciting."

"Oh, thanks a lot. You'll never spend any better time than the time you spend with me here," he said, but he smiled when he was finished. "We both know that. Thanks for coming back."

"It's the least I can do. I take in stray dogs too."

He no longer took himself as seriously and that was making our time together easier. He put his hand on top of mine when I sat down beside him.

"We have had some pretty good times together."

"Yeah Greg. Pretty good times," I said, trying to remember a time when my insides didn't ache for him.

"That why you keep coming back? You can't forget the good times we've had? You can't get enough of me. Admit it."

"I don't know. I enjoyed seeing you. I don't remember the times being all that good. You don't seem to have a lot to do and I don't have anything to do. Why not do nothing together is how I figure?"

"I just want you to know I remember them. I'm sorry about acting like an asshole so much. You have a way of getting me pissed off. I don't know what that's about. I like you. I always liked you but you never gave an inch, you know. You're tough, Martin. Now I'm putty in your hands."

"Right," I said. "You ain't putty in anybody's hands."

"No, but I don't want you to leave me. This is all I have to look forward to. It gets pretty boring up here."

"Why are we talking about this. It's pretty well established you're an asshole and I'm not going to put up with any shit from you. Let's get past that and be friends. It's what I've always wanted to be, and you don't make it easy."

'Being me ain't easy, Martin. Believe me. I want to be one thing but I'm something else. It's hard trying to remember what I'm trying to be."

"Why not stop trying so hard to be something you aren't and be what you are?"

"Not. I can't be the other thing. It's too damn scary. I need people to like me. You know that. I need them to need me. I need you to like me but there are some things I can't change. Even though I might want to change if it would make you happy. I just can't change some things. You understand."

"You can do anything you set your mind to," I advised as he pondered the words more deeply than usual.

"Probably. Some things are harder than others."

"Greg, why not leave it alone for a while? You aren't going to do much but lay up here in this bed for the next few months. There's plenty of time for you to deal with that sort of thing."

"It was on my mind all night. You were on my mind all night. How easy it is being with you. You're the nicest damn guy I know. You've always been the nicest guy I know. I think that is what pisses me off more than anything. You put up with my shit and you're nice to me and the nicer you are the more pissed off I get because I can't be nice. I'm a dick. I wish I weren't a dick, especially around you."

"Well, at least you're a big dick," I said, really not going for humor, but it struck his funny bone and that was all that was left of the serious conversation he seemed to need to have.

He laughed so hard he cried and then I laughed. A nurse came in and after a minute, she laughed, and someone in the hall was laughing as she was leaving. We all laughed at nothing but it was cool. Greg forgot about his morose mood and I helped him eat his jello at lunch and he begged me to bring him some French fries back from the cafeteria, and I did, but he only ate two before remembering the Ranchero fries that he hadn't had in years.

I ate them for him and I left when they were serving him dinner. As I went up the corridor his mom was coming down.

"High Martin. Long time no see. I'll drive you home," she said with a wide smile and Greg's twinkle in her eyes.

"You don't have to do that. It's not that far," I said.

"It's three miles and you look absolutely frazzled. It's the least I can do. How is he?"

"He's starting to get back to normal," I said.

"Oh!" She said sounding disappointed. "I was hoping he might get beyond that."

"No, he's doing good. I mean it's fun being around him for a change. He doesn't usually make things too easy for me."

"Tell me about it. I've been his mother for nineteen years. I know how difficult he can be. He's a special boy, Martin. Not sweet like you but Greg has something most of us don't have. Unfortunately he doesn't use it for any good purpose. I've always hoped he'd grow up. Some times I wonder if he ever will."

We were in the big blue limo before I knew it and in five minutes we were crossing the highway and driving down my road. It would have taken me the better part of an hour and I was grateful for the ride. Instead of being totally wiped out I was only mildly worn down. I still ate and lounged rather than consider going out to be around other kids. I suppose I didn't feel much like a kid. I never had. For as long as I could remember I was old. Even with making progress with Greg, it didn't make me feel all that young.

The next day I was beside Greg's bed looking up into his more-alive eyes when Nurse Attila arrived. I took my hands off the bed and sat up straight so there was no reason for her to give me orders.

"I thought you might like coffee. I see you carrying a cup in the morning when you come in. We keep these for the officers. They won't miss one," she said, smiling with her lips and her eyes.

She sat down a tray on the cabinet beside me. There was a white carafe and a white cup and sugar and real cream. I didn't even get to thank her because she left so fast.

"What are you doing to her?" Greg asked. "She's like a caged-gorilla around me.

"I'm soothing the savage beast," I said, smiling while he wondered.

Greg again went into thought-mode and I'm sure he put two and two together. I usually put the buzzer out of his range while I was there. That seemed to earn me points as lunch showed up with two plates and I was told that one was for me. It wasn't half-bad food in spite of Greg's complaints. It did save me what little money I had. I did pass on the peas and carrots.

"Let me show you what I can do," Greg announced after lunch. "Hand me the bottle."

I watched as Greg pulled away the sheet and held his cock so the head leaned into the chrome piss bottle.

I looked up between his legs and admired everything I could see. He seemed to be straining and concentrating but nothing was happening.

"Give me a minute. It doesn't work like it once did," he explained.

On an impulse I let my arm cross his thigh and I ended up with my hand on his low hanging balls. I couldn't believe the silken texture of the smooth sack as I caressed it.

"Shit!" Greg said, looking at my hand. "I don't care if I piss or not. Keep doing that. Man that's so nice. I didn't think I'd ever get any feeling down there again."

"I'm only here to serve," was all I could get out of my parched mouth.

In a little while I heard the trickle of liquid turn into a flood as he finally pissed. He handed me the bottle when he was done. It was warm and I expected him to put the sheet back where it had been but he didn't.

"You can keep doing that," he said softly. "No one will come in until three. More meds. That's what makes my piss smell so rank."

"I didn't notice," I said, not wasting any time feeling him again.

His head fell back on his pillow as he stared at the ceiling. I could feel an ever so slight stirring in his cock. I massaged and felt it in every conceivable way I knew. Even trussed up as he was, he managed to get his legs further apart in an effort to facilitate my access.

"It scares me," he said in a sigh.

"What's that?" I asked, feeling the blood starting to course through the appendage.

"When I get off I'm usually pretty expressive, you might say."

"You just ease into it is all," I advised. "You won't hurt yourself. I'll help you do it right."

"You will? I really need to do this," He said, wanting reassurance.

"Just go with the flow. Let happen. You'll be okay." As I talked he started to stiffen more completely. The breadth filled my fingers as I massaged and squeezed it until it was throbbing in my fingers and standing at full arousal. The color was a magnificent display of passion and it twitched to my touch, much like that first day he allowed me access.

I had Greg exactly where I wanted him. Why it was so important to get him off, I don't know, but it was the most exciting thing I had ever done and I wanted it to be great for him.

The soft moans came evenly as his stomach and chest tensed intermittently as we tested his limits. His hips moved gently at first and then they were more animated while he was moving closer to the orgasm he needed to have.

"We're almost there," he gushed as his chest pumped out air and his upper body twisted in the bed.

Both of his hands were flat on the sheet, bracing him for what was about to come as he continued gawking at the ceiling. I felt his pulsing flesh starting to pump out the thick white fluid. At first it ran out of the tip and over my hungry fingers as they encouraged it out of him. Only after he was sure he could control the discharge did two quick pulses of cum leap into the air a few inches above the flared open red cock head.

I kissed the underside and felt the hot swollen tissue on my lips. It was the taste of honey as I let my teeth grate the ridge in a gentle bite. He moaned deeply and fought for a breath of fresh air as his upper body undulated from side to side. I used my tongue on the underside of the shaft.

"Oh, Martin," he gushed. "I've never cut loose like that. Phew! I didn't think I'd ever stop. Oh man that was so good. Thank you. Thank you."

I got the towel and wiped off my hand and his dick, and down between his legs and off the sheet. I leaned and placed my mouth over his belly button and licked it with my most passionate kiss. He giggled and started to laugh as I gave it my full attention.

He had a hold of my hand when I stood up and he pulled me toward the head of the bed. The bulging in my jeans was obvious and I was surprised when I felt his fingers on my zipper. Soon he had me exposed and had somehow leaned down to lick the head as he caressed and kissed it, using his hand adeptly on my steaming excitement. It was during the second or third kiss that I started spewing forth my appreciation for this special attention. His mouth immediately clamped over the head.

He continued his adoration until I was holding on to the bed, hardly able to stand. He came off, and I sat still exposed to God and everyone. He looked extremely serious and watched me recover.

"I haven't done that since I was twelve," he said thoughtfully.

"What's that?" I asked confused.

"Traded nuts with a buddy. It got so much more involved after twelve. I forgot how damn good that could be. You were awesome," he said with praise in his voice.

"You weren't half bad," I said.

"Yeah, but I'm expected to be good."

"I'm not?"

"You're too damn nice for anyone to think you can do that."

"What did I do?"

"Get into it. Really get into it. You seem so uptight but you aren't."

Late in the day before dinner came he wanted me to massage his leg. Of course he started to get erect while I was working over his thigh. Suddenly, my heart was pounding and I was breathing hard and my cock was hard as stone as I thought about how I had been touching him before. I had to touch him but he knew I would and he watched without saying anything.

Soon I was pumping and jerking him off for all I was worth. It was like that first day I saw him; he was absolutely irresistible to me. I just loved being near him, touching him, wanting him. I would have done more with his vocal encouragement, but we heard the chow wagon in the hall. He held my hand on his erection until the door swung open, and then I was pretending to massage his thigh until he got his dick under the sheet.

The orderly was oblivious to the lovers as he bragged about the food, telling us what was on the menu tonight. I excused myself while he was still getting things where Greg could reach them and I made my exit before we could get going again. As much as I wanted to keep at him I also wanted to put some time and distance between him and my passion.

This was the way I imagined it could be way back when, and now here it was. I had to get some control over my emotions. We'd finally gotten to where I wanted to go and I wanted to make sure we got back there as often as we could.

Greg wasn't far from my mind and I had to stop to let off some steam before I got to the house. I'd always been horny and ready for sex but never like this. It was a dream come true and I took advantage of the excitement.

 

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 43

Putting Wheels on the Wagon

When I pushed through the door, Greg was propped up in his bed, laughing at something appropriately stupid on the television. He only glanced to see if it was me before going back to something more important. I went to my chair and sat down. He didn't speak until the first commercial.

"You're late again," he said, staring at me with those steely eyes.

"Do you know how long it takes to get up here from school? I can't always get a ride."

"You get a ride today?" He asked, seeming almost concerned.

"Part of the way; I walked in from the gate."

"It only gives us a few hours," he said. "I liked it better when you came in the morning."

"Greg, I've got to go to school. I don't want to end up being a dummy," I said.

"No chance of that," Greg said.

"You do worry about your brain a lot," he added.

"Well, I at least want to get through high-school. I don't know if my brain is equipped for continuing on to college,"  I answered.

"Where are your books? Don't you have homework?"

"You think I'm lugging those fuckers all the way up here? Get real! I go in early and do the homework before class."

"You hitch all the way over here. You stay until seven and hitch home. Then you go to school early to do your homework?"

"Yeah, " I explained.

"I get up when my old man gets up. He gives me a ride to the corner, and that only leaves a mile and a half walk to school."

"The janitors open the doors at six-thirty and I have until eight to get my homework done if I don't fall asleep."

"It sounds like a long day to me," Greg said, clicking off the television and taking my hand after giving me the third degree.

"I get my bath tonight, you know," he said, leaning back in the bed as the motor lowered him to about a forty-five degree angle."

"I'm happy for you. How do they get you in the tub?" I asked, considering how he was strung up.

I'd already seen them unhook him once, and it required an engineering degree, not to mention three men and a great deal of caution. I couldn't imagine them wanting to do that very often. He pulled my hand up onto the cast and over to the bunched up sheet between his legs.

I'd created a monster, or at least I had encouraged one quite often, and now it was always the first thing he wanted from me. How he could make an impression like that on a bunched-up sheet, I don't have a clue, but it always seemed to be at attention for me when I got there.

"A nurse does it with a sponge. She pretends she doesn't notice what happens. A couple of times it has been a really nice chick. Maybe twenty-five, or so."

"I don't know why I bother if you have a stable up here."

"Well, it's embarrassing. If you take care of it then the problem won't come up. It will only take a minute believe me. I've had all day to think about you, and it's about ready."

"You know, I used to be able to last for a long time but now it just goes off. I mean it's really nice and feels good and all, but I'm so fast. Maybe it's the meds or something, eh?"

He seemed concerned about his hair-trigger.

"You couldn't even get it up last week," I reminded him.

"That's before someone got me up," he said. "I was really worried about that. The first bath I can remember, it never so much as twitched. She had that puppy in her hand, scrubbing it like she knew something should be happening, only it weren't."

"Wasn't," I corrected.

"That's what I said," he said. "I didn't feel anything down there."

"You were all doped-up," I said.

"I've been doped up before and it only made me want to fuck all the time," he said.

"Yeah, but those was party drugs. Different principle.

"Yeah, well, it simply bypasses my mouth now and goes straight in the veins. Must be some good shit. Too bad I can't enjoy it."

"What happened to your girlfriend?" I asked.

"She broke up with me. She thought I was a dick. Can you imagine that?

Me, a dick?"

"Yeah," I choked, "I can't imagine that at all," not selling it, and looking up into his nowsad eyes.

He used the back of my hand to rub himself through the sheet. My mouth always went dry at that point. I couldn't get within a foot of him when he was like that, and not have hot flashes and dry mouth.

Maybe Greg was my chemical of choice. Whatever he was, no one ever made me feel the way he made me feel. Even if he was only using me to scratch his itch; there was no way I was going to say no .

"So who were you doing it with over there?" I asked.

"Nobody!"

"Greg! I wasn't born yesterday."

"There was a place a guy I worked with went. They did lap dancing. I liked that okay, only you never got pussy."

"Just enough to get you all worked up," I said.

"No doubt. One would give head in a little hall next to the men's room if she liked you. I never knew whether the guys who were stopping to watch were watching her or me, you know. Anyway, I did that a couple of times but she quit after a few bj's."

"Because of you?" I asked.

"I don't think it was me that time. My roommate had a girlfriend. She wasn't half-bad."

"What good did that do you?" I asked, already suspecting the answer.

"He didn't have a car. I drove him when he needed to go out. I always knew he wouldn't be back until he called to be picked up. I don't think he ever figured it out either. We worked together so there weren't that many chances. She said he was a lightweight compared to me but she still loved him. I was merely a good fuck. I don't think she even liked me."

"Why me, Greg? I mean, why not the nurse. Why not some girl you know from god knows where?"

He moved the sheet so my flesh and his flesh met for the first time that day. He put the sheet back once I was where he wanted me to be, but he didn't let go of my hand and this was to get my mouth off of my inquiring mind.

"You're different."

"Yeah, tell me about it. Just your basic house fag, eh?"

He looked at the ceiling and I could see the relaxation coming onto his face. He held my hand tight so it pressing very hard against him. I watched his moist lips separate some as his breath became heavy and he was making an ever so slight moaning sound. He pulled my hand even harder against his stiffness as he moaned out a sharp gush of air.

"Oh yeah!"

"Now you want me to do you?" I asked incredulously?

"I was going to do this as long as I was young, you know. Kid stuff. Kids do that kind of thing. Fool around and like that, but you had me thinking maybe stopping wasn't all that great an idea," he was panting when he leaned his head up to look at me.

"Greg, we never did anything. You acted like I had the plague," I complained as he dropped his head back down.

"You know, you still scare the hell out of me. Your coming up here every day, I hate that I can't wait for you to get here. I know I shouldn't feel like that about a guy, but you've always upset my applecart Martin, every time you're around!  Well there, now you see what it does to me. It's not the way it's suppose to be. Little boys and little boys don't go together. Only when you're kids is that okay. It was supposed to end when we got older, like it did with the other guys."

He let go of my hand and leaned his head back over his pillow so he was looking more toward the headboard. I could feel him pulsing as his chest swelled and his muscles tightened. He was swollen up like just before he lost it. I knew by the way he reacted to my fingers, he was a stick of dynamite ready to go off. I wasn't in a hurry and preferred feeling the incredible activity stirring in his hardness.

His hips moved ever so slightly. I used my free hand to feel across to his strung up leg. It had been shaved and was like velvet. He was still ever so slightly tanned and he had the obligatory tan line from summer time fun. His skin was like no one else's skin I had ever felt. Doug's was of a similar delicate softness, but Doug was delicate everywhere all the time. Greg was only delicate to the touch just after the stimulation started and before it led him to the promised land.

Greg wasn't delicate. He was hard and tough, except now he was a captive audience that needed me to help him to feel alive. I was the only one that knew what he liked and how he liked it and everyone else had deserted him. He had been denied by those who had once loved to love him. Being strung up in a hospital isn't the doorway to fulfillment.

Well, it was for me and in turn, I shared my satisfaction with him. I'd admired him before for his lusty appetite and his ability to feed it. Knowing what I knew, it wasn't hard to get him going and to keep him going on those days when I was feeling particularly randy or devilish. Well, to say it wasn't hard was a misnomer of sorts. It was almost always hard while I was there and he always wanted me to know.

He snorted and groaned and blew billows of air against the headboard while churning as far and wide as he dared while rigged up the way he was. It left no doubt in my mind that he was completely lost in my hands. I saved other temptations for later so the stakes were raised as my visit went on. The first one was always worth the all day wait and the discomfort the thought of it gave me in my classes.

"You have your drivers license yet?" he asked, looking at the dinner menu. "You think submarine sandwiches and chips sounds good? I'm getting my appetite back."

"God yeah! I haven't eaten since lunch. You going to give me a bite of yours?"

It was a shameless solicitation but I was hungry.

"Surely you jest? I only get three squares a day. You can eat any time you have a notion to."

"That's the problem. If I want to get up here I don't have time to stop. The only food places are in the other direction unless I eat downstairs and I can't afford that very often. I'm fine until I get home. There's always something in the fridge."

"You need a car and then I wouldn't be waiting for you all the time. You do have your license, don't you? Didn't someone ask you that once?"

"Thanks for letting me know what I need. You can jack yourself off from now on. You really get on my nerves some times, Greg. You're really a prick deep-down."

"Big prick if you please. Let's not understate things if you're going to be rude and bring my genitalia into our discussion. Does that mean I've got to blow myself too? I'm not like Herbie or Kent. I do have some dignity, you know. Although I'd probably go for myself if I had the chance."

"Yeah, right, the only reason you don't is because you can't," I said.

"Not because I haven't tried. So, you didn't answer me."

"Fuck you, Greg. I don't know why I waste my time. You never think of anyone but yourself. It gets old after a while."

"Not true. How would you like to drive yourself home this very evening?"

"Yeah right. Why don't I just stay here and sleep with you," I said.

"Now, that makes me want to rethink what I was about to say. No, I'm going to say it anyway because I like making you feel bad. Open my nightstand."

I got up and walked around to the other side of the bed and opened the drawer to look at his wallet, papers, nail clippers, and an assortment of paraphernalia too numerous to mention.

"What?"

"Right on top."

"These keys to your heart?" I asked. "Sometimes, I've got my doubts that you even have one."

"You really make it hard to do anything nice for you, Martin. Why do you always think the worst of me?"

"Sorry. It somehow comes natural. What up with these keys?"

"My car is parked right below my window."

"Now I'm taking someone else's word for that but my mother rarely lies to me. It's the ugly green four door jobby, and don't bother saying anything mean to me about my taste, my old man got me a deal on it. Anyway, mom thought, since I'm not going to be driving for a while, and you are such a "nice boy"," he said, rolling his eyes back in his head, "to come visit me every day, well, you get the idea. By the way I didn't tell her you only came up to blow me, so you don't have to avoid her because of your embarrassment."

"I only come up here for what? Excuse me?" I said, my usual indignant self.

"You're always accusing me of stuff. Tell me why shouldn't I make up stuff about you."

"Let's lay off of each other for a change, okay?" Greg continued.

"What are you saying, Greg?" I asked nervously, "Are you really suggesting that you're thinking about letting me drive your car?"

"Well Martin, as you can see, I'm in no condition to drive and letting my little brother tear up my car isn't really in my best interests. It needs to be driven and who better to drive it than the guy that spends so much time putting smiles on my face?"

I was flabbergasted.  I stammered, "You're a real piece of work," leaning over to hug him.

While I hugged him, and with his car keys in my hand and with me in his, he relieved me of my most distracting problem. That is, he sucked me until I came, and then didn't come off until I was complete. Two very pleasant gifts in only a few minutes and the second had me weak in the knees and very grateful for his loving attention. He seemed unwilling to relent until he had me where he wanted me, which just happened to be where I needed to go. He took special care not to miss anything.

When he was finished with my dick, he rolled onto his back and his head disappeared over the back of the pillow again. I sensed something in his posture that didn't please him. I didn't know it was. His had just completed an act of contrition and love that was the most logical course in my mind, but I didn't want to go there at this point.

"I think I'm turning queer," he said in a sorrowful voice after an appropriate lull.

"Greg, get real. You like sex. Who don't?"

"Doesn't," he corrected."

"I've done that to you twice and I've never done it all the way for anyone before, you know. Not since I was thirteen, anyway," he confessed.

"Who'd you do when you were thirteen?" I quizzed.

"Any German boy who wanted me to," he lamented. "That was then. This is now. I stopped that before I came back, or at least I thought I did. Guys there don't call you queer. They just call you when they're horny."

"We love each other, it's okay," I said. "I won't tell anyone."

"Lots of people say it isn't," he said.

"Well, fuck them. Look around you. Look what people do to each other. No one seems to object to the cruelty and hate everywhere. I hardly think what we do hurts anyone enough to worry about it."

"Didn't hurt you at all. That's for sure. You trying to gag me or some thing? I can't only eat so fast, you know."

"Your are gross," I said, not liking the sound of it.

"I'm gross. You're the one doing it in my mouth," he said, but he was smiling as he lifted his head to peek at my reaction to his reaction. "If I am I am, that's all. I just don't want that."

"Am what?"

"You want me to say it, don't you. You would love for me to tell you I'm queer. I know you, Martin. You've been waiting for that since that first day. I still knew what you wanted. I knew what was on your mind."

"Yeah, well, I never wanted it from anyone before I met you. And if you knew what was on my mind, what the hell was on yours?"

"What I don't know is why you put up with my shit. You should have kicked my ass a long time ago, you know. I was way mean to you. I am so sorry about that. I mean that. It's only because you fucked with my brain all the time. I knew exactly what you wanted and it made my dick hard because I did. For some reason that pissed me off. I didn't want to feel that."

"Why do you need to put a label on it anyway? None of us are anything like they say. How can a word describe love? I could read the entire goddamn dictionary and never be able to describe what I feel for you. I could read all the greatest writers, Shakespeare, Whitman, King, and I'd never find the words that explain what it is that you make me feel."

"You should be a writer. That was nice what you just said."

"Greg, you say a word and think it describes something but all that word is is hateful. It's the way people make themselves feel like they're superior, only anyone that uses that word, or any word that diminishes others, they're totally inferior and always will be. I don't need a word. I don't need anything as long as I'm with you, and that's the god's honest truth. That's what I know about words. You taught me that."

"Martin, you know you should hate me. I'd ah hated you if it was reversed. I knew what you wanted. And I couldn't stand that thought either!"

"What's going to be is going to be, Greg. I don't think we could ever hate each other. Maybe it could have turned out different than this, but no matter what, we couldn't hate each other, ever," I said, moving back to the head of the bed to move his pillow so it was up under his head.

I was tired of looking at him holding his head up. I kissed his forehead, each eye, and then I hesitantly went for his lips.

He had no objection. It was always the hardest thing for me to do to Greg. I always feared he'd move his mouth out of the way just as I was about to find bliss in his lips.

This time, he didn't move his lips. Well, he did, but I'm not going to tell how absolutely wonderfully he did it. No matter what I said, it wouldn't be enough. I know the taste of his mouth was like heaven to me.

"Yeah, I got a feeling you're right about that. My dick got hard that day, right as I looked back over my shoulder at you. I knew we'd end up in bed together some day. I just never figure it'd be like this."

"I bet," I said.

I sat closer to the head of the bed and held his hand on my chest as we stared into the television later in the afternoon. My stomach started to growl and he kept giving me these weird looks. Eating once a day, and some times skipping that, my energy level was starting to crash. When I thought of the car waiting for me, it did perk me up a little. The almost hour walk would now be a five-minute drive.

At five thirty I could hear the food-cart in the hall as they dispensed the evening meals. My stomach started going nuts and I couldn't keep it quiet. He laughed each time it rumbled. He'd want me to stay even later since I could drive home, and my pockets were totally empty, I hoped the gas tank wasn't.

When the door opened, the airman brought in a tray overflowing with chips surrounding a foot long submarine sandwich. I mean it was a foot-long and stacked high.

"Oh man, that looks good," Greg said, grabbing half of the sandwich and starting to eat as I watched enviously without begging him for his food.

The orderly came back with another tray, equally overflowing with chips and milk and a big slice of yellow cake with a thick chocolate icing that called out to me. The second tray was set beside the first as Greg made room for it.

"Go ahead and eat. I asked the head nurse. She said you could have anything you want. What's that about anyway? You two an item or something? I'd ask her only she'd kick my ass. Oh yeah, I've got tomorrows menu in the drawer. You can pick out what you want," he said, smiling with some lettuce fowling up his front two teeth.

"God, I'm starved," I said.

"Tell me about it," he said, reaching for the second-half of his sandwich.

Some days everything just works out really good. This was one of those days for me. It was what made life worth living. Even if I only got a really good day once in a while, it would have been worth the wait if it was anything like that day, but of course every day was like that day as long as I had Greg to myself.

It was the most amazing time in my life. I had someone and I imagined he had me.

The car was full of gas, fully insured, and I had wheels for the first time in my life, and orders not to get carried away. I felt the steering wheel carefully, knowing my loves hands held it before me. I could smell him in there but I had to stay awake until I got home. It had been a very long day.

Oh yeah, the bath that night, no way he was going to get it up once I was finished with him. I really had a lot of energy after dinner and then I woke him up for a long goodbye before I left him.

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 44

These Truths Are Self Evident

Sitting with Greg was a bit like being at a porn show and a bit like being in the principal's office. I was always worried about saying the wrong thing and at the same time I couldn't keep my mouth shut. While I sat and kept him company, he went through his exercises and contortions as he honed the upper half of his body back to its natural rippling form.

One day I came in and he was chinning himself furiously. I don't know why I liked it when he sweat but I enjoyed watching the water running down his chest and into his lower reaches. It made his muscles shine in the most delicious way. The continence of his atrophied body had faded as he focused on exercising day in and day out.

It gave us less time to argue because he rarely said anything after he exhausted himself. That gave us time to stare at each other and the sight of him was no less exciting than the first day I saw him and I saw a lot more of him now.

The last five pull-ups seemed agonizingly slow as I stood just inside the door. His biceps bulged as he watched the crossbeam he was trying to conquer. His chest swelled with air as the water dripped down his stomach and into his rich pubic hair as he swung limply on top of his smooth balls, almost hiding them if they didn't flop. The big cast on his right leg had been cut down some time early that day or late the night before. Doctors here did things on their own schedule. It now only reached his knee and the new freedom exhilarated him.

Each time he pulled himself up the pin in his left leg pulled tight just below the knee and this challenge to his disability made me wince. The metal gear that held it all together clanked and yanked and he ignored whatever pain it caused if any. He pulled himself up twice more, struggling with near chin'ings and finally he let his bare butt come to rest on the pillow that usually cradled his head.

I don't know if he knew I came in or not but I suspect so. For the first time he looked at me as his head leaned back on the wall and he panted and tried to speak at the same time. His nipples were both erect and perky in the midst of the moisture that covered his chest and shoulders. I counted four rivulets of water running onto his stomach but his skin was damp all over.

"You bring the gloves?"

"No, I forgot," I said, rushing as usual to get to him.

"Damn it Martin, I don't ask you for much. This thing is tearing up my hands."

He looked at his hands so I'd know the thing was tearing them up, but he didn't go further.

"I'll go look for them and come back tomorrow," I said, standing up not long after I sat down, but the chair was close enough that he could grab my arm and he did. "Or, if you don't like that idea, I'll rub lotion into your hands for you. Unless you need it rubbed into something else."

Of course I knew he'd stop me and I kept the chair close enough so that he could touch me if the mood struck him. It usually only struck him after he was done talking me into touching him. Those conversations weren't very long but if there was one thing he needed more than his gloves it was relief from the boredom and his overactive libido. There wasn't much else to keep him occupied so we spent a great deal of our time keeping him satisfied.

At times it got raw and too sour for me to touch and I wondered how many times a day he got himself off when I wasn't there. He was good for two or three most days while I was there but these were secrets he kept until he got too sore and then I'd get to use lotion there as I often used it on other parts of his body to keep his skin smooth. It was a good way to get things started without me acting too anxious or him having to ask me. There were things about Greg that were almost predictable; his constant need for control and relief being one of them.

I understood he was never going to fall all over himself trying to let me know how he felt about me but he showed me in more ways than I ever thought he would or could. There were those days when he would go first and make me last and then he'd hold my hand until we rested or it was time for me to leave. There was a sadistic streak inside him that gave him great pleasure when he stopped just short of the moment of truth and forbid me to finish myself off. Sometimes I did anyway and did it on his chest and arm. He didn't hesitate finishing what he started once he was good and ready but I didn't complain. I had more of Greg than I ever dreamed possible. For the most part he growled little and rarely insulted me except when I bit him by mistake or sometimes not.

The hospital staff mostly co-operated during my visits. I heard stories about him taking spells when he was calling for a nurse constantly. Once I arrived they could all relax, because I waited on him. Doug was the only one that ever walked in when he was too far gone to stop. Of course Doug took it in stride. He'd seen it all and nothing surprised him about his brother. He told me later, it's good to know it all still works. It had worried him that what his brother once had might have been lost or damaged by the accident and I assured him he wasn't damaged in that department and if anything he was more horny than before. Of course Doug found that hard to believe.

"They cut the cast down," he said, after catching his breath. "Thirty-six today."

"Yeah, your leg is pale."

"It'll tan up as soon as I get out of here."

"When?"

"I don't know. They keep staring at this one. There were three in here last night. All Colonels. I get the brass, you know. They had it X-rayed and just stood around shaking their heads and passing around the X-rays."

"What did they say?"

"Give it time. It's early. These things don't heal overnight."

"They've been saying that for two months. Overnight must mean something different to doctors," I said.

"Yeah, I noticed that too. Want to wipe me down. I don't want to get my sheets wet. Set the pillow over there so it can dry. Do my ass first."

He reached for his towel and tossed it at me. It was incredible how far he could get while being screwed to a damn bed frame.

"Do my butt first and then my back. I need to lie down," he said, leaning up away from the wall, pivoting on one arm after grabbing the chinning bar over his head. I tried to reach under him and do it from one side as he leaned forward.

"Move around the front to do that side," he said, keeping himself elevated.

Reaching around him with my right arm, I was chest to chest with him as I started to wipe his shoulder and the top of his arm. He put his lips on mine and had his free arms wrapped around me before I knew what we were doing. He always surprised me when he did something like that. I lost the towel and felt his still damp skin. His tongue had grown and he didn't hesitate feeding it to me. The passion told me he was firing up for a couple of go-rounds. It was still nice because he didn't rush me to do anything. We held each other and kissed without hurry. This would be one of the good days.

After awhile I sat next to him with my face on his chest. He seemed to be asleep as one of his arms was across my shoulders and his breathing became long and even. As always I couldn't leave him alone for long and I didn't. I used the towel to finish drying his legs and all of a sudden his arms reached up for the cross member and he pulled himself up.

"Do my bottom. You got me sweating again," he said and seemed quite innocent. "I don't think it even got soft."

His bottom was off limits for the most part. On a few special occasions, back when he was still out of it, I got away with stimulating him there with my roving hand but he'd let me know that it wasn't in play. Putting lotion there or drying him didn't take long. On this day he decided he didn't mind no matter how long I took.

He did about half of a pull up and I moved to the top of the bed and shoved the towel on his bottom end. While he held himself there I lost the towel and felt his round bottom. I sat on the bed behind him and let my fingers feel it and when there was no objection I poked at it with the tip of one, making sure I felt up between his legs until his balls were on my fingers.

The removal of the big awkward cast had created much more flexibility and mobility in his upper body. With the new strength in his arms he could stay airborne long enough for me to admire that which I had often dreamed of taking off of him. He finally had to lower himself and my state of excitement over his exposure to me was no surprise to either of us. What was surprising was that when I reached around him, he too was out standing in that department.

"Don't even dream about it," he said firmly, letting his naked ass rest on the front of my poking pants as I massaged his front end with long strokes.

Once he settled back on the bed he was totally erect. He leaned back against me and didn't say anything. The sheet he usually used to hide it from prying eyes was on the floor but he never tried to hide it from my eyes any more. In fact he more often than not drew me to it any time it demanded attention. There were no more inhibitions between us, well, maybe one, but that too seemed to be changing as Greg adapted to his circumstances and to mine.

He gave more and demanded less. We'd often sit and watch television, holding hands, and he'd ask the damnedest questions right out of the blue.

"Do you think two guys can fall in love?"

"Yes!" I said impatient with the question.

"Yeah, me too. I don't mean love love. I mean in love. I love guys. Herbie, Dougie, my old man. I know that's love. You. I just can't be sure guys can be in love, you know. I don't see how they can."

"Believe me Greg, they can."

I continued, "You said me. Do you love me?"

"I never said me. I said you. In a way I do. That's why I asked about it. I know how I love the old man, Dougie. I don't know how I love you. It's different than that. I mean it's like the sex is cool and all but I been with dudes and sex was all "just thanks and move on." Why is that do you suppose?"

"I don't know. I never think "thanks and move on. I don't suppose I've ever been with anyone I didn't want to stay with," I said, thinking about it in a way I hadn't before. "I want to be with someone all the time. I need to be with someone all the time. Being alone is about the scariest thing there is."

"You and me? That what you're saying? You think we can be together forever? You love me that much?"

"I don't know," I said, not willing to give him that to use on me.

"I wonder because I'm laid up here and you're about the only one that remembers I'm alive, except for Mom and Dad. Maybe that's why I'm starting to feel more like I.... I guess I don't know what I feel any more."

"A feeling is part of feelings. How can you take one and use that to explain anything? We feel a hundred things all at once. I feel all kinds of different things for you. There's no way to explain how that works. I don't know. Maybe when I get older I'll figure it out. Right now I just want to feel what I'm feeling."

"You do love me though, right? Spending all this time up here. Seeing me act like an ass and all. And you still love me?"

"Greg, I think I've always loved you, and I think I always will. I do know that."

Speaking about a conversation stopper. I was always afraid to express myself to him. I never knew if the silence was about him thinking or about him thinking I was some kind of a total nut-job. He didn't have anything to say about that but he didn't make me get up or leave him alone, so whatever he was thinking, he was thinking he didn't want to interrupt the flow just then.

There was no explanation. We were from two totally different worlds. I knew I liked guys for as long as I knew anything about anything. Of course when I was small, all I knew was that I was different. I didn't know how until I was old enough to find out. I suppose that's the way it is. We can't know what we know until we know it. I couldn't know about loving other boys until I could love other boys, but then I did love them.

Greg was nothing like me. He liked boys because they gave him what he wanted. It was more about what he felt than what he thought. There was no connection beyond what they did together. Once they were done the only time he thought about it was when he was ready for more. Once little girls came into the picture for him, everything changed. He still got what he wanted from little boys but it was just something he needed until he found something else.

Maybe there was no love of the boy for Greg. Maybe he could separate sex from the rest of his life and from his feelings. Maybe married guys who go out and buy prostitutes or have affairs are like that. It's just a biological need and it's not important where the relief comes from. Once the need is strong enough, you seek satisfaction. Then there were the guys that were married, and had families, and they drove into town from time to time, and went to gay clubs and gay theaters and baths to get that shot of whatever they needed, and then they went back to their family and their wives until the next time the need arose.

I didn't know how you figured all that out. We were all different. I was different. I never knew anyone so different as me. I was different enough to want to hang onto whatever I had with Greg as long as I could. Being in love was way better than anything else I'd ever found, and that would never change.

 

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 45

CHRISTMAS

I took a tree from Wal-Mart up to Greg's room. It was two feet tall and had blinking lights, which he liked. At any given time I'd find him watching the different colors blinking on and off. It certainly livened up the room some. He had become calm and resolved because there wasn't anything else he could be. Even the exercise was less intense, but regular as his muscles grew tight and hard.

On Christmas Eve I fell asleep with my face on his chest. It had been a long year. He kept his arm over my shoulders and when I woke up he was snoring. There was an envelope under the little tree with my name on it. It looked very much like one of the envelopes I'd seen them bring his X-rays in from time to time. I had a bag with a couple of gag gifts I'd picked up for him. I gave him a gold chain with his name on it that I had given him an hour after I picked it up from the jewelers.

He woke up when I opened the envelop and he sat watching me carefully examining the X-ray with my most astute medical expertise.

"Thanks! It's just what I always wanted."

"It's my leg," he said proudly.

"Yeah, nice leg," I said. "Looks good enough to eat."

"Yeah, well, that's not the leg I had in mind when it comes to fine dinning."

"I'm waiting," I said, waiting.

"Oh, good enough to eat and almost good enough to walk on."

I measured each of the words. I ran them back through my brain without asking him to repeat them. I was almost sure I knew what it meant but not sure enough to go without asking and the answer mad me giddy.

"Almost good enough to walk on?"

"It's healing. The calcium has finally joined and it's fusing the bone. I get to keep it. I had grown rather attached to it over the years. Pretty neat eh?"

"Thank you," I said through my tears. "That's the best thing you could have given me."

"I'll be here until spring," he said, holding my hand.

"After that?"

"I get to go home."

"They're sure?"

"No sign of infection and everything is as it should be. I don't think they are going to tell me anything they aren't sure about."

The kiss lingered and after we were done with it I handed him a box from under the tree.

"I sense something for both of us inside," he said, shaking it and holding it to his forehead.

"You psycho or something?"

"Or something me thinks," he said, as he ripped up the red paper.

"My favorite. Trojan, lubed and ribbed. You trying to tell me something?"

"What could I possibly tell you that would involve rubbers that you didn't already know."

"Yeah, but you see, I'm locked up in this fine hotel, and I get tested and checked on a daily basis. We know I can't possibly have an STD. Now, the question comes to mind, are we having a guilty conscience and this is your way of informing me that you perhaps are sexually active beyond my room?"

"No! I don't have the energy to do anything beyond this room."

"So you are thinking I'm getting with one of these lovely nurses who are mostly men might I add."

"I'm a man," I said.

"Well, I don't think of you as a man," he said.

"Oh, and what do you think of me as?"

"My one and only soul mate and companion."

"I feel a little like Robin must feel," I said.

"Robin?"

"Batman & Robin," I said. "Loyal sidekick and like that."

"Those fags? I think the loyal sidekick is Tonto."

"That's in Canada right."

"You're hopeless," he said, kissing me on the cheek. "What else you got there? I'm sensing a sexual theme here. Are you trying to make me horny."

There was a long thin box wrapped in shinny green paper that I gave him.

"Get real. You couldn't get any more horny."

He looked at it and then me and he ripped off the paper to find a vibrating dildo equipped with batteries and a ribbed and lubed Trojan. He turned it on and put it in his mouth, looking a little silly while doing it.

"It's the wrong end," I said.

"I thought you were trying to tell me I need some practice with my oral technique."

"No, that's for when you miss me most."

"You really think I do that because I like it?"

"Let's not go there."

"You wait until I get out of this harness. We're going to go there for a week without stop. You're going to need a retooling by the time I get finished with you."

"I think you've gotten bigger since you've been in here. I don't know if it's going to fit. I didn't think it would fit before."

"No problemo. I'll work on it until it does fit. If I wasn't worried about doing serious damage to myself I'd ask for that for Christmas. I know you can't refuse a request on the day of Christmas."

"I think that's the Godfather on the day of his daughter's wedding."

"Almost the same thing. It's Christmas Eve isn't it?"

"Anything you say," I said.

"I'd go nuts. I don't have any control when it comes to that. It's hard enough when I cum and I'm not doing that. Too risky and it pains me to say it but I won't be in this rig forever."

"Maybe we shouldn't get you off so often," I said.

"We're on minimum daily maintenance for self-preservation now and I don't tell you all the times I jerk off when you aren't here."

"I'm shocked. The Gregor still pounds his pud."

"Nothing like keeping your instrument tuned."

"Yeah, well maybe I should play it more often then?"

"It is Christmas but they're probably going to run you out of here before long."

"There was only two nurses on when I came in. Nurse Atilla and one of the young ones from weekends I've only seen a few times."

"Yeah, most guys have gone home and no one's getting surgery this time of year."

He ran his hand through my hair as I leaned on his chest. His muscles were solid but he was soft from all the lotion I massaged into his skin. He moaned when my hand moved down to his stomach and he raised up to slip the dildo down between his legs.

"You want some lotion on that?"

"No, it's cool."

I let him have it his way and watched the rising tide as the stimulation had him standing tall and throbbing in short jerks as the dildo slowly disappeared except for the small sound it made as the battery helped it do its thing.

"I feel like I've been replaced," I said, watching the serene look on his face.

"Not at all. Now I can get fucked and blown at the same time. It's a dream come true."

When I reached down to touch him, after resisting temptation for as long as possible, it pulsed and twitched against my fingers. He was well on his way when I started to use the lotion on him and he moaned each time my fingers tightened. He was still quick to excitement and often came without warning while I was trying to give him pleasure and make it last. We both knew that would change as soon as he got his body back but it still bothered him to lose control too quick but he always assured me there was plenty more where that came from and he proved it more often than not.

It was about perfect as he snorted and moaned and the white liquid shot into the air with a gasp and a groan for propellant. He grabbed my hand and held it tighter and tighter on him and the tan cock turned deep purple and the head was fierce looking with its sharply cut design.

"Oh, yeah, you do know how to squeeze a dick."

We held each other after he let me have a small portion of his bed. He kept the vibrator vibrating up inside him as he only partially wilted and was born anew in no time after the kisses started. I wanted to replace the vibrator with something a little more lifelike, but I decided to let him have it his way without interference tonight.

"Put your face down there," he suggested after a particularly long make-out session. "Just give it a few of those kisses and I'll give you something for your troubles."

He was so hard I had trouble getting a grip on him with my mouth. My tongue only found rock hard ridges in my mouth while my lips nibbled his incredible erection. His moans were like an aphrodisiac in my ear and gave me incentive to go further and faster and with more lustful intent. It never occurred to me that it could get any better, but it could, and did, when he unzipped me and quickly made out with my cock.

I could taste his discharge on my tongue and I could tell he was enjoying himself by the way the hardware was clanging against the support rigging that held his leg in place. These were the times I worried that he'd hurt himself but there was no turning back once we got to the point where we were both fully engaged. Apprehension gave way to passion as he moaned and maneuvered until he could feed me all I could take. My jaws would be sore for the next week but who cared. Once you were driven into ecstasy by your lover's dick and his lips, not to mention the modest dildo that he gave up to me so that I could shove it all the way in at the first sign he was starting to finish, there was no turning back.

The clanging grew louder as he gasped and sucked me dry and at the same time thick gobs of cum squirted on the roof of my mouth and into the back of my throat. It never ceased to amaze me just how much cum he could unload after already unloading a considerable amount only a few minutes before. Greg was indeed a stud.

We stayed locked together in that fashion until I had stiffened again under the tender loving care of his lips. The easy persistent sucking had me delirious in no time but when I started working on his now soft appendage, he moved my head back away so I'd know he was through for a minute or two. I watched his mouth and how he used it to drive me to distraction and my mind started to lose contact with earthly matter. My brain was spinning out of control as he took me beyond the beyond and into orbit around his heavenly body.

It was like being shot out of a cannon and he never stopped as I flew through the air and bounced off the walls like a red rubber ball before settling back down on his bed, spent, and worn down to a limp shadow of myself. My mind flickered on and off as my heart jerked in my chest and my mouth hung open, gasping for air and the calm, which was a long time coming.

He was staring at me with the oddest look on his face when I finally recovered my wits. My dick hung limp against his cheek and my cheek rested on his fat limp cock that really was off duty for the rest of the night.

"I can't believe you," he said softly.

"What did I do?", I asked.

"Fell in love with me. I don't deserve you. No matter what ever happens to us, Martin, we are everything to each other tonight. Remember that. Don't think I don't know how important you are to me. I do know and I still find it hard to believe that you stuck with me. I never expect anyone to stick with me. I'm a real asshole most of the time."

"I'm stuck like glue to you, stud."

"Come up here and say that," he said, giving me his longest and hardest look.

I made no other changes except to put my head where my dick had been. We held each other and the kisses came and went. It was like heaven up there in that room with him chained to a bed and having no one else to love but me. There was no other person that I could conceive of loving the way I loved him. I had loved him from the first time I saw him and I would love him forever, and of this I was certain. That night we loved each other totally and completely and there was no one else in our world and there was no other love like our love.

If there was heaven it was in his room on Christmas Eve. There was no way for me to be any happier. It was the ultimate.

"Merry Christmas," he said, waking me from a sound sleep.

"Christmas?"

"Yeah, it's 12:01a.m."

"I fell asleep."

"You sure did. Your parents are going to skin you."

"They've given up on me. I don't see them too often. Did you sleep."

"No, I just held you while you slept. You snore."

"I do not."

"Yes you do."

'I don't."

"Yes you do."

"Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas!"

Peace on earth and good will to all men and women and children of all faiths and cultures.

 

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 46

Return of Herbert

New Years came and went and I was once again allowed to stay with Greg. After discussing it with Nurse Atilla, I brought him a beer in my coat pocket and acted like I had smuggled it in. I couldn't have given him anything that would have given him a bigger smile. He took his time drinking it and we stayed awake for the New Year celebration and I left after he fell asleep in my arms.

There were three doctors in his room when I got there the next morning, closer to noon than usual. They were all smiles and stood way closer to the bed then ever before. Everybody laughed and seemed to be in good humor as the concern over Greg's leg lessened which made things easier on all of us.

While Greg was never mellow, he did seem more relaxed. There was talk of the future and of "getting out". I still hesitated in asking for the commitment I wanted, because there was always the fear I wouldn't get it, and not only that, speaking the words might somehow upset the perfect balance we'd established. The status quo was so much better than anything I had ever known that I didn't dare risk it. I didn't feel I could ask for much more than I already had, since I felt pretty luck to have as much of him as I did. There was a never-ending battle inside my head that went between securing the future versus holding on to what I had.

Time of course wasn't standing still and neither was Greg. The regular exercise was part of each day. He didn't seem to be gaining any weight, but maybe the exercise accounted for it. He was buffing up and while he was limited in what he could do, anything he could do he did do. Mostly I watched, wiped him down when he was finished, and told him how good he looked. He didn't always seem to believe me but he appreciated the comments, which often led to a massage.

Our intimacy ran in cycles. There were days he wanted me to stay close and there were other days it didn't matter. I tried to keep a regular schedule but there were days I had to study and get the more detailed papers prepared in a way that would look like I spent some time on them. Of course this gave Greg something to complain about, not that I paid much attention.

On the days when he gave me the hardest time, I made a point to be even later the following day, and sometimes I would leave early just to make a point, and he hated that. Nurse Atilla and the gang, who did all they could to make my visits happy visits, weren't pleased when I cut a visit short or arrived late. Greg could still run them ragged if he didn't have anything else to do or was pissed at me. Nurse Atilla seemed to be on my schedule, coming to work in the afternoons, but all summer she had been there when I arrived between seven and eight in the a.m. In the evening when I stayed late, Greg was usually falling asleep, so whatever time she had left would be peaceful. She didn't think I noticed but I did.

As the days moved forward there was the talk of going home. Greg was going to sleep in the living room until he was able to negotiate the stairs and then he would move back into his old bed. I did get invited to his house for dinner on several occasions over the holidays and I was treated like a member of the family. The Colonel was always on and up- beat, although there were always questions about his son's real state of mind. My impression was Greg was almost always in control and nothing got him down for long. They seemed reassured that I felt that way. They were also grateful that I spent so much time with him.

I'm not sure what they knew or admitted to themselves, but I was never questioned about the reasons why. They seemed grateful for it and the reason wasn't important to them. There was talk of the first mountain visit in the spring and the standing invitation for me to go along was made clear. I must admit it was a neat place that I hoped to see again. I had quizzed Doug about August Moon and he said he was still shining brightly.

His parents had specific times when they went up to see Greg, often before I arrived in the morning, and only Doug came while I was there a few times. Whatever had troubled the brothers before, it seemed to have gotten lost after Greg's accident. Doug seemed sincerely concerned and couldn't wait for Greg to get back home. While Greg got more and more studly while he punished his body on the frame of his bed on a daily basis, Doug became more handsome and he seemed more sensitive to me. I loved seeing him and I hated seeing him leave.

He did ask me to come around more often but there was always something to do and I didn't do temptation too well. While I had no reason to think Doug wanted to get things started up again, I wasn't sure and playing it safe seemed best, not that I had time to play at all, not once I was done with Greg each day. He could have worn out two good men but there was only one available and he made the most of it, although I had no complaints.

Speaking of two good men, it wasn't long after New Years that I came up and found Herbie sitting on the heater beside Greg's bed one afternoon, in an army uniform no less. On the foot of the bed sat another uniformed wonder. He looked all of fourteen. I didn't find him all that amusing, although both Herbie and Greg laughed at everything he said. After he got off the bed so I could sit in the chair without interference, Pat stood between Herbie's legs and they did a bump and grind behind me, and Greg couldn't keep his eyes off of them.

After they spent a half an hour in the bathroom together, Herbie came back with a big smile on his face while Pat came back with a big wet spot on his crotch and dirt on his knees. I could only imagine why it took them so long to take a piss, but then I was too busy trying to keep Greg from entertaining thoughts of going off with them. Had he not been chained to a bed, I have no doubt he'd have followed them anywhere for some of that action, and yes, it pissed me off, even though I knew Greg needed to see someone besides me all the time. Herbie was good for him and there was a definite glow in Greg that was good to see.

Of course I suppose Greg had every right to be jealous of his long lanky buddy. They had learned their sex games together. Greg watching Herbie's long dong swing in his pants as he walked hand in hand with his new friend gave me dry mouth. Greg and Herbie swapped tales I'd heard before but they had a great visit and I just listened and smiled a lot.

I must admit that I was dying to ask Herbie about Kent but I knew better and felt evil for thinking about him. When Greg asked about him, I was surprised and listened closely to the information.

"He's still a pain in the ass, but not in a good way. He's got a girlfriend he's had since shortly after we got out West. I'm not sure how serious that is. I'm not around that much but one of the guys from his school sleeps over a lot, and I know Kent well enough to know they don't spend all their time sleeping. Didn't catch them doing anything though."

"You tried?" Greg asked.

"Shit yeah. The guy was adorable. If he was doing what I think he was doing for my brother, they had to do it in stages because he couldn't hold all of Kent's dick at one time."

"Was he cute?" Greg asked as his only half-erect dick started to stand at attention with Pat watching its rise to prominence as it pushed the sheet to one side while Greg was occupied with Herbie's tale.

"Cute? He was like this totally smooth kid with no hair on him. He was only a little over five foot and Kent's almost as tall as I am now. Man I wanted to... well, he was only in high school."

"How do you know about the hair deal?" Pat asked, taking his eyes off of Greg long enough to ask.

"I walked in on him while he was showering. I don't miss anything if I can help it. He watched me piss but didn't express any direct interest in my Polish sausage."

"You didn't shower with him?" Greg asked. "You're slipping. Since when did age ever matter to you. You always liked them young."

"Nah, I'm an adult now. I don't really want to spend large amounts of time incarcerated."

"Oh, I hear those places can be interesting," Pat said, pulling himself away from Greg's thick dick for long enough to put in his two cents worth.

"Yeah, well, you like that action. I'm purely a top man these days. You don't always get the option in jail, Patrick."

"Ohhhhh!" Pat oozed. "We could go over to the motel and you can show me the options."

"Pat! Don't tell them all of our business. They might still think you're a nice boy."

"No, I don't have any such illusions," I said too quickly.

"I'm hurt and I was trying to make a good impression," Pat sighed at me.

"Well, an impression none the less," I said, not being nice and taking in all his stares because I wasn't being nice.

"He doesn't get out much," Greg said. "It's not that he doesn't do the same things you do."

"The green eyed monster rears her ugly head," Herbie said.

"He's interesting, but I got him," Pat said, hugging Herbie while groping him while they slobbered on each other while we watched. "Can't we go to the room now? You said an hour an hour ago."

At another time I might have thought Pat was cute. He was certainly Herbie's cup of tea. He might have been seventeen, but he hadn't seen the sunny side of eighteen yet, and the fact he was in the army and had a pretty uniform didn't make him any less of a little boy. Herbie's taste was true to form and he still picked on the little boys as often as he could, although Pat seemed more anxious than Herbie.

He also had trouble keeping his eyes off of Greg's crotch and that continued to annoy me. I should have thrown the sheet over the steamy organ but I didn't want to be cruel. Greg didn't get much company and it was obvious Pat had obligations that would keep him from returning too soon. I let them exchange glances as things grew and receded at their own pace. Neither of them missed much.

It was almost dinnertime when they left. I was glad we weren't sharing our food with them because I was starved. I skipped lunch to study and my belly was growling all afternoon. My mouth was watering before the food arrived.

Once we were alone there was the predictable tension and my inability to keep my mouth shut about Pat making eyes at him and him making it as easy as he could. Of course Greg was suitably offended by my idea that he would accept favors from anyone but me, and of course, the 3rd Army because it would be his patriotic duty to help out the troops, even the ones who were screaming fags, or especially the screaming fags.

This did nothing for the digestion and I knew better than to get mad at dinnertime but knowing better and being better are really two different things. Of course as soon as I left I imagined that Herbie and Pat were waiting around the corner, so they could go in and have their way with my naked boy in the bed. I woke up dreaming about this and it didn't help matters much and so I got up to take more anti-acid. I was pissed off at Greg, again for no reason except my own insecurities.

He hadn't done anything I would do and even if I did know Greg when he was a total dick, he had changed more than I had and I had no right to expect more from him than he could give me. He was a captive audience, my captive audience, and I was the one that kept coming back. While it would be at most inconvenient for him if I didn't come back, it would be unthinkable for me. I had no right to expect him to respond the way I wanted just because I couldn't do anything but sit by his side for as long as I could.

The entire situation as it stood was my creation and what came next would be up to him. Of course I feared he wouldn't need me any longer but then I hoped he would. Guys like Pat only served to remind me how damn attractive Greg was and how lucky I was to have all of him I wanted, if only for a time. The next chapter hadn't been written and I could only imagine what might come.

The next day, when I arrived, Greg was his usual cheerful self. He held on when I hugged him and complained about my lack of affection the day before. I didn't mention his little display of virility and neither did he. I was surprised when Herbie showed up in civvies and without his boyfriend in tow. We hugged this time and even Greg got into the act before Herbie sat down.

"Where's what's his name?" I asked.

"Greg said I should leave him in the room if there was to be peace between you two," Herbie said as though he didn't understand the question. "I had to wear him out to leave him behind. That's why I was late getting up here. Should I go get him?"

"No," Greg said, "I wanted to see you. How's the Army? How's tricks?"

"It's okay. Basic was a bitch. Then I met Pat and it was cool. He keeps me out of trouble. You know how dense I am? Well he's just the opposite. We go pretty good together. Not that we're an item or anything. It's just for sex mostly."

Herbie seemed like he was a lot more mature than the last time I had seen him. He was no longer an exposed live wire that never stopped giving off its charge. In fact I thought he was going to doze off a few times when the conversation stopped. Greg seemed pleased and that was always a good sign.  Anyway, after a while Herbie excused himself, giving Greg a warm hug after saying a final goodbye.

He hugged me and disappeared.

"So, I hope you are happier today than you were yesterday. You know you can be a bitch some times."

"Yeah, well, lot of that going around. So why did you tell him to leave Pat home."

"Martin, you're so predictable. Pat was cute and if you weren't around, I'd probably have gotten a little toot from him, but you are around and he's with Herbie, so keeping the peace with you seemed more important, not that it didn't cross my mind, the toot that is. You have to admit he was cute, not as cute as you though. You're definitely way cuter."

His voice was filled with impish delight and the broad smile never left his face as he pushed my buttons and tried to make me squirm without getting me totally pissed off. He could play me like a fine fiddle and did as often as I sat still for it.

Loving him was as good as it got, even when I was pissed off.

 

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 47

Cold Cold Heart

Greg got sick first. I'd adjusted to the rigging and the sight of him being laid low, but seeing him sick was harder. I'd hold him during the worst coughing jags. He gave up exercise and barely touched the mounds of food that were delivered to us each day but I ate my share and then some. I forced him to drink juice and warm liquids, broth and clear soups that Nurse Atilla started arranging, without much cooperation or interest coming from my love.

He slept 90% of the time I was there and I was left holding his hand and thinking of how much I missed him. When he would awake and start hacking, the rigging would rattle and clang as I held him and prayed that he would return to sleep. After most of a week of torment, the doctors sedated him to lessen the coughing that racked his body.

They weren't sure if any damage had been done to the healing leg, but they also didn't want to expose him to any other germs, so they left well enough alone, and their long worried looks started anew and we all worried together separately.

The talk of pneumonia and the long cautious looks at him before holding their chins and looking at each other told the story, after another few days with no change. When one doctor called another and he another, they held their huddle around his bed, I wanted to grab one of them and slap the shit out of him and insist he do something to help Greg. Instead I stood to one side and remained silent about my aching heart. There was only one medicine that could possibly help me and I felt helpless.

There was no doubt about their worry, because they wore it and I could read their looks by then. At the end of week two I was feeding him through a straw and he never raised his head from the pillow, sipping until exhausted, he'd drift away from me without notification, only managing to hold the hand that held the cup until he slept again. He would roll the ice I put in his mouth while he stared at me. He seemed to be trying to remember who I was.

By the end of the second week he was no longer moving. The back of his head stayed planted in his pillow and his face had become white as the sheets. He didn't move even when the autonomic coughing interrupted his deep sleep. That was at least one comfort in knowing those functions were still working.

He didn't wake up at all that Saturday and I fell asleep beside his bed that night, waking at first-light with a blanket stretched over my shoulders and my head on his hand on the bed. I sat up in my chair trying to remember what I was doing there.

There was a steaming pot-of-coffee, eggs, bacon, toast, and juice under the silver cover that was on the stand beside me. I had started to lose my appetite and I sent back most of the food the day before. It was a nice awakening and I thought I was hungry until I looked at the food, and then my attention returned to Greg. There was only two cups of liquid left for him, one hot, one cold, and the ice had been renewed.

When I started coughing that afternoon, Nurse Atilla said, "You must go now. Whatever ails your friend has infected you and you can pass it right back to him if he starts to recover and that isn't going to happen as long as I'm in charge. Go home and rest, please. There's nothing you can do now. I will see to it he is taken care of."

There was a doctor's prescription for an antibiotic waiting at the desk. Nurse Atilla pressed it into my hand as I lumbered past. Her smile was forced and her eyes were sad. She wasn't a bad sort if you don't mind women that can kick your ass.

"Fill this before you get home. Go to bed, take plenty of liquids and get some sleep. You look like hell. You're sick because you aren't getting enough rest, plus the fact that you're worrying about him and not eating. We'll take care of him; it's what we do. I don't want you back here for at least the next week. I don't care if his father is the President."

"Yes, ma'am."

My own illness wasn't as brutal as Greg's, but I wasn't flat on my back and I could fight it. A picture of him was always present while I slept. The one of the gaunt, lifeless Greg with his face facing the ceiling and his breathing labored. The image haunted me.

Whatever I had took me away from myself for several days. My parents spent time around my bed, forcing gallons of chicken broth down my gullet. They were at their best when they were forcing me to do something. I felt like I was drowning in the shit. Then it was endless trips to the can and more sleep and more broth and a perpetual chill that ran through me, On the other hand, the drugs were good.

They'd never gotten totally pissed-off at me for staying out overnight the last night I was with Greg. I guess being so ill took that out of the playbook, not that I cared any more. I had escaped my parent's sphere of influence long ago and even when I was younger I knew how to simply escape my body to avoid the constant rancor that lived in my house.

It took me several days before I had to call Nurse Atilla. Then I had to answer all her questions about how I was feeling and what I was doing for my illness before she'd tell me what I needed to know. She reassured me that everything that could be done was being done and there had been no change. He was on an IV and the medication kept him sleeping so the coughing was controlled and so I was left to imagine what was going on over there.

Greg's mom came by on Friday. She brought a bottle of chicken broth she had made.  I almost gagged, but I forced a smile. She said that everything was fine but she couldn't tell me anything I wanted to hear. She knew that didn't sit very well with me but she refused to say more. She too wanted me home in bed.

Doug came Saturday and brought a weeks worth of assignments and homework and after I had had such nice dreams about him. We played cards on my chest and ended up with him laying his head down on my stomach and his eyes and my eyes got mixed up together for a long time. He was so damn lovely and I was so damn sick.

"You know how much I like you, Martin," he said out of the blue. "Why is life so complicated. Why can't guys feel that way? Whose it hurt?"

"Guys do feel that way. You just said you did," I said as he had me stirring in a way I hadn't stirred in longer than I cared to remember.

"I mean why can't we care in front of anyone. I'm not saying I don't love my Cheryl, but it's different with you. I wouldn't even dare tell her how I feel about you and Herbie. What we do... what we did was pretty neat. I like being close to you. I told her some of it. Why don't you come up and stay anymore."

"Did you see Herbie when he came home?"

"Yeah, him and that little queer he was with. They sat in my television room doing each other in front of me. I wanted to tear his head off."

"Herbie?"

"No, that little queer."

"How many guys has Herbie done it with in that television room?"

"Plenty, but I knew them and I was always one of them."

"You didn't do anything with him while he was here. That's not like Herbie? He must be slipping."

"Yeah, but not in front of that kid. Herbie and I... we've got something... we love each other. I can't explain it to you. That's what I mean. We can't let anyone else know that. Cheryl might walk away if I told her all of it. I don't like not telling the truth. I like what Herbie does for me. Why can't I? Who makes this stuff up?"

"Doug, you don't say anything and that takes care of it," I advised. "Why do you want to complicate things. Herbie is gone."

"You're not and I don't like lying. I love her too, Martin, and lying about my feelings is wrong. I hadn't been with a guy since Herbie left but he started me thinking about it again. You know who I thought about don't you?"

"Herbie?"

"No stupid. You and me when we went up to the mountains that time. Remember how pissed Greg was. We were crazy to do it there."

"We? I had little to do with it," I remembered.

"Get real, Martin. You had everything to do with it. I didn't think he'd ever speak to you again. I'm glad you're with him. I didn't think you two could ever... I'm just glad, you know. He's pretty sick."

"I know. I miss him," I said.

"He doesn't do anything but sleep. They changed antibiotics but his system is all fucked up. I'm not suppose to talk about it in front of you, but I'm worried."

"Me too. What were we talking about anyway?"

"Me lying to Cheryl."

"Losing her is wrong if you want to be with her. I don't think you've got to tell her the details. I don't know, I don't date girls."

"I do, but that doesn't mean I can't like Herbie, or you for that matter. Why can't I like you? What law says I can't? It really pisses me off."

It did piss Doug off and Doug never got pissed off at anything. He told me about Herbie slipping out of the motel and coming over the night he was in town. There were graphic details I didn't need to know but couldn't wait to hear and more attention from Doug than I expect or wanted... or perhaps should have wanted. Doug's quandary about his girlfriend was a similar quandary in my mind but not enough to tell him not to care about me or to tell him to stop doing what he was doing to let me know how much he cared. He said he had to. He said it over and over again.

Being with Doug was always one of the nicest things I could experience. The more I was with him the more I wanted to be with him and so I avoided him. Except when he came to me and made it impossible.  Then I had to figure out how to be with him while not violating the trust that Greg and I had established over the months. There are some things too complicated to deal with when you are sick, so I let Doug take the starch out of my under shorts for me.

I wanted to feel bad about it but I couldn't feel bad as long as Doug stayed and he said he wanted to stay because he couldn't stay with me at the hospital. Herbie had reminded him of what it was like after he thought he had given it up and now the desire was back, stronger than ever.

As often happens when someone gets what they are after, he was made unhappy because he lacked the ability to turn his back on boys and me or Herbie. Doug's was a doubly- difficult case, because he wanted so badly to be true-blue to his girlfriend but simply couldn't.

"Herbie started it, you know," he lamented after retreating and resting his chin on my bare hot thigh.

"Doug, no one forces you. If you keep fighting your feelings you're gonna go nuts."

"I know that. It's just that he knows what I like. No one has one like him. I dream about Herbert's cock. It's perfect when he does it. I don't even like that any more but he's home for fifteen minutes and I'm letting him ride me like some lovesick pony he keeps tied next to the bed. I'd hate it if I didn't love it."

"Doug, we like what we like. You and Herbie, you're almost lovers."

"We are not. We have sex a lot is all."

"Why?"

"Shut up! I don't love him. I just miss being with him."

"I'm trying to help."

"I just told you. I don't like it any more and I never do what I just did to you to anyone," he complained, letting me know that what he'd done for me he didn't do often or for many. "It's like you and Herbie have this... something I can't forget about."

"Then don't do it," I said, giving him my best advice. "Just quit."

"Yeah, easy for you to say. Why don't you like me any more? You know how I feel. You liked me before Greg came back. You could come up and stay over night. We'll be going back to the mountains soon. You can go with me."

"Cheryl?"

"We can go off without her. She'll never know and she won't want to go hiking or skinny dipping."

"Doug! You don't know what you want. I love your brother."

"What law says you can't love both of us? I don't care any more, Martin. Why should Greg have you? He doesn't deserve you. My brother is a prick and as soon as he gets out of the hospital, he'll be one again and we both know it."

"Greg's changed Doug, and you know you love him. I've seen you with him. Don't say things you'll regret later and you know I love you. You're the one that wants to be straight, remember? I'm not taking a backseat while you date your girlfriends. It's simply not going to happen."

"Yeah! It's easy to change when you don't have a choice. He hasn't changed. He's changed how he acts is all and I can't give up Cheryl, not even for you."

"He's changed. You've changed. You want to get married and you want to have kids and I don't fit into that picture."

"So! That doesn't mean I can't like you? I do ya know. You know I do."

"Doug, you're confusing the hell out of me. Things are the way they are and I am the way I am."

"Yeah, well, why didn't you stop me then?"

"You know why, Doug. I can't change the way things are and you can't change what you feel. You'll need to decide what works for you and I can't stop you when I'm what works. If I thought you and I could make it work, I'd be with you."

"Yeah, I know. It was mean doing that to you. You can say it was my fault. It's not like Greg hasn't done everyone he knows."

Doug was probably the person I liked most in the world, then and even now. He was the kindest and most gentle soul I've known. His confusion was not his alone, and it hurt to see him so deep in torment.

Why did I love Greg so much and yet was so unable to say no to his brother? It had nothing to do with loyalty and love because I loved both of them, perhaps not equally. Doug was never going to settle down with a guy and I'd known that for years but there was still hope for Greg, and so my choice had been made a long time ago.

With Doug I wouldn't do anything to add to his difficulties, although with Greg I constantly forced him to face the evidence of who and what he was. While our clashes had lessened, he still didn't believe he was what I believed him to be.

With Doug it was up to him to be whatever he wanted to be. I'd help him any way I could, even not be with him, but when he was with me and wanted more than I wanted to give him, he got his way and he took me to a place only he could take me. I always went willingly without guilt, at the time anyway.

I had as many questions about why I did what I did as I had about them doing what they did. I knew I shouldn't and I knew I always would if I could, and I could so I did. He acted like he loved me so much that day. I wish it could be, but nothing was that simple, not for either of us, and then there was Greg.

Yes, I should have stopped him and said no to him but I didn't. I loved him making love to me, even when it was only a physical relief attached to his lustful desire. The male organ had an incredible attraction for Doug but it was an attraction he fought all the time. I offered no resistance and no challenge and he was left to deal with it on his own.

Doug, like so many, wanted to play on both sides of the fence. That made him feel better. He wanted to be on the proper side of society and gain all the benefits that come from being on the preferred side of the question, but then he wanted to switch sides and play with the boys whenever the mood struck him. He was powerless once he got close to it. It just clouded everything for him and everyone he liked and who liked him. By going along, I was making it easy for him to do what he did without ever forcing him to make the hard choice to give up one of the pleasures he sought.

I was weak. I loved him and I didn't fight it, not that I thought I could. I saw no point in making it an issue for him or making a choice myself. In the larger picture it would make no difference between Greg and I, because Greg and I had yet to decide how we fit together. Having a release, even with someone you love, isn't a violation of anything but arbitrary ideas about who we are and how we should act, and this changes daily, hourly sometimes.

I was sick and weak and so horny I couldn't stand it, and that was before Doug showed up. Doug was beautiful, and charming, and needy, and willing and able, and so we both got exactly what we wanted and needed from the other. Perhaps Doug got a little more than he had suspected, but not so much that he didn't go back again to the well.

Why deny who or what we were? It seemed pointless. In the end we could call it anything we wanted, but it was always what it was and nothing more.

 

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 48

The Long Hello

 

Life has a way of building complications into it. When there is only you, there isn't much thought required to figure out what you want. You can pretty much decide anything in a minute or two. However, once you add someone to the mix, it starts getting more complicated exponentially. The more people you add the more complicated it becomes until you are unable to decide anything.

Then after it becomes so complicated you can't move, you go back to the basics and decide for yourself what's best for you. I suppose it is selfish and at times harsh to make decisions on the basis of what you want and need disregarding the expectations and preconceived notions that the people in your life might have for you and about you. My relationship with Greg had altered forever the power that my parents had over me. My need to be with him outweighed anything else and they knew it by this time and rarely objected to my comings and goings.

While being committed to Greg and his recovery, that didn't mean I didn't have deep feelings for Doug. He was the easiest person I was ever with, although it wasn't always easy figuring out what to do with him. The one consistent feature about Doug was his desire to get married and to have kids. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be with me and that left us at a dead-end, but whenever he was around me, I wished for more, only to add even more to the confusion. I had no understanding of how he could feel the way he felt about Herbie and me and still think he would eventually end up married with children, but that equation wasn't my master plan and Doug always did his own thing.

Recognizing who you are and what you need is a tricky business; it changes from day to day. When someone like Doug is coming around and giving you attention, it's difficult to remember that you and he are headed in completely different directions - it's only a pit stop for him while he looks for what he really wants.  And for you?  ....it's only your emotional well-being. I suppose if you could do it, you'd have the best of both worlds.  But I simply couldn't, or wouldn't, and Doug had no trouble accepting that concept.

Most of all, I was looking for something that would last, although I wasn't without my weakness for him.

A person without love can go along without considering much while a person with love is always trying to figure out the proper balance needed to keep it alive. How much do you give up and how much do you demand in return for your love? Does loving someone mean that you can't love someone else at the same time? What if you find yourself loving two someones at the same time? What if they're brothers? What if you find both of them equally irresistible but in quite different ways?

I was at that stage; they were too, but there was no future at all with one and a questionable future with the other.  But if I didn't love them I wouldn't have love in my life, and I was thankful I did. I tried to keep everything straight in my head but whenever I was around Doug that put a kink in my certainty about Greg. No one could or would do to me what Greg did but Doug got to me on an entire different level. I loved being with Greg and having him to myself, except for people who came to prod and poke him. It was a good deal for me and I suppose for him.

In the end it would be our feelings for each other that determined how it all came out. I was going to continue loving him and hope for the best. The wildcard in the deal was what would happen after he got out of the hospital. Will he be tired of seeing my face and will his minions return to his side, or would I remain an important part of his life? I wasn't sure and I don't know that he was and so being with him as much of each day as I could seemed like a good deal at the time.

I talked to Nurse Atilla on Monday and she approved my return to the hospital. We didn't talk about Greg but I assumed that if I was being allowed back he was okay. Of course I was fine until a half an hour before school let out. I had a ton of work to catch up on but that didn't stop my race to his bedside. I would have skipped school if I hadn't missed so much, but now all I wanted to do was to get next to his bed.

His eyes were open when I came through the door. He was hunkered down in the bed with his head being lost in the huge billowy pillow. His deep blue eyes penetrated me as I stood just inside the doorway and looked at the bed. The I.V. stand was gone from the side of his bed and things seemed like they were back to normal. There was a tray full of food on his table and several cups of liquid on the nightstand. Neither of us had anything to say but the room was filled with the energy we created.

His face was drawn and the shadows under his eyes had deepened and it made them look sunken. His face had lost all the gains he had made in weight after the initial recovery period had ended seemed gone. Nothing moved but the eyes and he kept them on me until I was beside the bed and feeling for his hand under the blanket. It too was cold but without resistance.

"You afraid I'd make you sick?" he asked.

"No, they were afraid I'd make you sick."

"Doug said you were sick."

"Doug?" I said, with a thousand visions running through my head. I was unsure how to answer him.

"Yeah, you remember, my twerp brother."

"Yeah. I know him."

"Did I make you sick or something?"

"I don't know, Greg. I was sick. They said to come back in a week. It's been a week. They said I could come back."

"I noticed that," he said, closing his hand in mine. "I missed you."

"I missed you," I said. "How do you feel?"

"A little more or less like shit."

"Yeah, you look more or less a little like shit."

"Thanks. I needed that. Can I have some ice. I've been looking at that pitcher for the last hour but I didn't have the energy to reach for it."

"No chin-ups?"

"I can't even pee without pissing on myself. I hate this place. They're going to do x-rays tomorrow."

"Why?"

"See what's up with my leg."

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"Not particularly. It took a beating while I was sick is all. They've got to look to see if it is still healing."

"What do you think?"

"I missed you," he countered.

"About your leg, asshole."

"How could I miss it. It's right there."

"So do you think it's still healing or what?"

"I guess. Did you miss me?"

"Yeah, of course I missed you."

"I wondered if you were coming back."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Everyone else left me. Why not you? I'm not the most loveable character in the world."

"I am not leaving you," I said.

He watched me carefully as I shoved ice in his mouth. He was hot and I could feel the heat coming off him. There was a sour smell that had moved into the room while I was gone. It was a cross between puke and piss, heated lightly, and perhaps a little sweat and stale bedding for good measure. I pushed the button for room service.

When Nurse Atilla came, I explained the problem with my nose. She assured me they would get right on it and soon there were two corpsman lifting and twirling Greg as they changed the bed and him. One used a damp towel to wipe him down and I swallowed hard when his he roughly wiped Greg's crotch. In about two minutes they were gone and we were alone together again. "Thanks," he said. "I needed that."

He was sitting up by the time he had gotten enough ice, which was half of what was there. Just rising from the depths had him winded. He buttoned his pajama top up to the last button and he looked like a refugee.

We played Canasta until he threw the cards on the floor after I beat him two times in a row. We played Chess and he was a lot more involved with that until half way through the game.

"I'm tired," he said.

"Close your eyes. I won't go anywhere."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

Nurse Atilla checked on us when they started delivering trays for dinner. I thanked her for bedding change.

There wasn't much food on his tray and he wanted me to eat that but I fed him the cottage cheese and some of the fruit until he was full. I held him after he ate and I could count his ribs and that made me a bit uneasy. He was once again worn out and we just stared at each other for awhile. Once his meds came he was back sleeping fifteen minutes later and I went home.

I was beat and still had homework. I did my best to concentrate but fell asleep before I got finished. I could always do it in study hall the next morning. By the time the final bell was ringing I was already yawning. Much to my surprise Greg was more alert and energetic when I got to him.

"How'd the x-rays go?" I asked right away.

"Fine."

"Is your leg okay or not?"

"Yeah, they said it looked good. They've never said it looked good before. I guess it's healing. They said I can get out of here before too much longer."

"Oh," I said.

"I won't be able to climb the steps at the house. They were going to put a bed in the living room but I told them I wanted the television room."

"What did they say?"

"It's cool. They have another television they can put in the living room."

"That's nice," I said, having put off thinking about what came next.

"You won't have to go home at night. You can stay up at our house," Greg added.

"I don't know," I said.

"My parents will talk to your parents," he assured me. "They are all for it. They like you."

"Yeah, well, I think it will take a little more than talking to my parents."

"Who cares. It's going to be really cool once I'm home. I can't wait. We can do all kinds of stuff together."

"Me either," I lied.

The unknown is always the scariest thing. Even when the unknown was known, I still didn't know what it would mean once he was freed from the bed. It's not something we discussed further but I thought about it all the time. I thought about it and the way things were and how they were about to change.

By the end of the week I was almost caught up at school and spring was in the air. Greg was also coming back to life and he slowly started exercising again. It was nothing like before and he seemed content to use his muscles only to keep them from going any further south. He never seemed to have the zest that was so apparent before he got sick.

We didn't talk about him going home any more but it was on my mind. He knew of my apprehension on the subject and we didn't get into it because it always set me off no matter what he said. I had it in my mind that Greg would go right back to his old ways as soon as he wasn't chained to a bed. Being with him all the time was the best thing that had happened to me and I feared losing him, but the days of always knowing where he was were coming to an end.

Things had gone back to a routine and Greg even started gaining some of the weight back. I'd race up after school each day and put off my homework until the following morning. I was in my shirtsleeves when I went up one day and it was the kind of day that I wanted to stay outside it was so nice. When I went through the door of his room I didn't notice anything except he was laying in bed all covered up. It's odd how much you miss when you aren't looking for anything.

You know how when you see something every single day and you just stop paying attention and it was like that. There he was lying there like a mummy and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with this picture. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't figure out what it was and he was no help. Maybe I didn't want to see.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" He asked as though I'd immediately know everything he knew.

"What?"

It was only then he threw the covers back and he was dressed in pajamas, both top and bottoms, and he had a coat on and there was this humungous cast on his left leg and there was no cast on his right leg.

He just lay there flat on the bed and stared at me, waiting.

"You're out of traction."

"You're a regular Einstein and we're out a here. I got a pass."

"A pass?"

"Yeah, it's Friday ain't it. I'm off until Monday. Let's get out of here," he said.

"You're serious?"

There was a pair of crutches leaning over in the corner and he'd been practicing on them all day. He'd kept the secret from me all week for several reasons, not the least of which, was the look on my face when I realized he had been freed from his prison.

"Help!" He said, holding both of his arms straight up like a little boy might do when he wanted his mother to pick him up, but I suspected with his new attachment, he had gained thirty or forty pounds over night and there would be no picking him up.

He wrapped his arms around my neck and I helped him to maneuver to an almost sitting position. When I started to stand up, he held onto my neck, and when I resisted the confinement he used his lips on mine. My apprehensions dissolved into a lingering kiss that he knew would get him anything he wanted.

"It'll be okay," he said.

"I know," I said, standing up as he held on to my hand until he was standing.

"I can't do this alone," he said.

By the time he was up on his crutches he was breathing hard and sweating with the look of determination on his face. I considered kicking the crutches out from under him but at least doing it his way it left a chance he might still want me around.

"You don't need a coat Greg. It's like seventy degrees out."

"Trust me. I need the coat. Let's argue about stuff once you get me out of here."

I left him in the waiting room after using a wheel chair that one of the corpsman was standing by with to get him to the door. I more poured him than sat him in the car. He had to sit in the back seat with the passenger seat pushed forward against the dashboard so him and the cast could fit. He insisted on keeping the coat on and I didn't argue. I'd hold him up in the shower once he got all hot and sweaty.

"Where to?" I asked, realizing I was driving his car.

"McDonalds. You got any bread? I'm dying for a Big Mac."

"Yeah, enough to fill you up."

Little did I know how little it would take to fill him up. He left half the burger, half the fries, and even more of the Coke. He kept looking at them like the memory of the food was better than the actual food itself.

"Where to?" I asked.

"Let's cruise."

"Okay," I said.

It was rush hour and there was lots of traffic. He seemed captivated by all of it, the sights, sounds, and the ride.

"I've dreamed of this forever, you know," he said, slumped in the corner of the backseat, peaking out of the side of the car.

"I bet."

"You don't know what it's like being in a bed for months on end. I've got to be really careful or they'll have me back in traction."

"It's a good idea. What do you want to do?"

"Ride," he said, looking out the window as he spoke. "Just ride awhile. Thanks."

I reached back and put my hand on the cast and he put his hand on mine. We drove to Waldorf and then to La Plata and we went off into the back roads where everything was turning green. He didn't say much and he just looked out of the car as we moved past the woods and the farms. It was already starting to get dark by the time we got back to the highway.

"Won't your parents be wondering where you are?"

"They're in the mountains. I called some friends."

The hot flash hit my face and it was suddenly very hot in the car. I bit my tongue and said nothing, suddenly being very focused on the road.

"You're practically the only person I've seen since I've been up there, you know."

"We can remedy that pretty damn quick," I said. "I've done what I set out to do. You'll be okay now. You don't need me any more."

"I knew you were going to be like this. I can't help it. I had to let people know I was getting out of there. People don't like hospitals. They weren't going to come up there."

"I guess not."

"They're coming over to the house tonight."

"Fine," I said. "What time?"

"I said between seven and eight. What time is it?"

"Seven fifteen," I said. "So you want me to help you into the house or will they come out and get you? I'll leave the car and walk home."

"Quit being pissy about it. I don't want you to leave the car and I don't want you to go home. It's only a few friends for a few hours. The rest of the weekend I'll be with you. Don't start acting all weird on me. I want to have a good time. I want a drink. I want you there with me. I can't stay there alone. I need your help, Martin. You're the only one that knows what to do."

I didn't have anything to say. I was angry and disappointed but I knew what was coming.

I listened to all his words for all their hidden meanings and I tried to figure out how I felt. I knew how I felt but I wasn't sure if I could do what he wanted me to do. I pulled up into the driveway and listened to the gravel crunch under the tires. The house was all lit up and I could see people in the dining room behind the big windows. I knew them. We'd all partied together before.

Neither of us said anything as I looked up at the house. I did feel a little like the kid that just had his lollipop stolen. I didn't want to share Greg with anyone, ever. I knew that was not only stupid, it wasn't realistic. I needed to let go of Greg and hope that he wouldn't let me get too far away.

Love is a strange bird. I'd never been in loved or been loved before I met Greg and meeting him was the single most disruptive moment of my life. Everything changed that day because all the things I'd wondered about came into focus. Before you love there is nothing but routines. Once you love there isn't anything like love. I would continue to love Greg no matter what he did. Love isn't something that goes away one afternoon while you're out to lunch. I knew I might go away but the love I felt for him would always be there. First love is like that.

If I had to let him go because that's what he wanted, then I would let him go. I'd walk away and hope that I loved again, but looking up at the house, it wasn't anything I wanted to do. It wasn't anything I wanted to think about. He sat in the corner of the backseat all bundled up and without expression. He too knew that our lives were about to change. I'm not sure he wasn't worried too.

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 49

Hot Time

There we were parked in front of Greg's house and we had said everything that needed to be said. I stood at the passenger side door trying to figure out the logistics of getting a man with a forty pound cast on his leg out of the backseat of a car. I tried sliding him, pulling him, and maneuvering him up out of the well to no avail. He stayed firmly planted in the seat.

Finally he got the idea of twisting in a way that I could guide the cast around the door while he was scooting his butt down onto the door jam. Then I put the cast down on the gravel and leaned down so he could wrap his arms around my neck so I would pull him up. I wanted to kiss him or at least throw him down on the ground and make love to him, but I didn't. By the time I got him to the back door the stairs looked daunting to both of us. There were only four of them but they were starting to look pretty steep and we were both worn out.

One at a time we worked together until he was standing on the back porch, wanting his crutches. I opened the door, stood out of the way, and he charged into his party. There were nine people. I knew Charlie, Billy, Timmy, and Alfie. There were two girls and other guys I recognized from one party or another but didn't hadn't get to know well enough to remember the names that went with them.

"He's back!" Someone shouted, and laughter boomed in the room.

I stood next to the fridge and watched the smiling faces, handshakes, and the tall thin girl with long brown hair hugged him intimately, planting a wet kiss on his too ready lips as he leaned hard on the crutches in a weary posture that only I could see. There wasn't anything said that I could understand, just a lot of jabber, back slapping, and name calling, and another kiss, two.

He was still the king. For a night anyway. I couldn't be too enthusiastic, but he didn't ask me for applause or approval as he worked his way back into his life. He was too busy catering to the crowd that came to adore him. A beer was thrust into his fist and he threw his head back and drank about half before balancing it in one of his hands. I remembered New Years and the beer I brought up to his bedside. The party swirled on around him and without me, but then I was noticed, merely by accident.

"Hey, Martin. Where you been?" Alfie asked. "I never see you around any more.

"Just around," I said, moving around Greg and taking a beer to act like I really wanted to be there, but I didn't. I had no urge to be there when things went back to the way they were.

Greg stayed busy entertaining people with his stories and jokes about his appearance and the accident that almost took his life. He sipped from his beer and in about a half an hour he handed it to me, like I wanted his hot beer. He turned toward me far enough for me to see he was in distress. I felt a twinge of pain for him and feared he was over doing it to the point he might be getting sick again.

"I need to find a place to sit. Maybe the couch?" He suggested to only me. "I don't think I can make it by myself. Will you help me?" He asked, handing me a crutch and raising his arm for me to fit under.

His weight sagged on me and I felt needed for the first time since we arrived in the house. Everyone got quiet as we eased along for the ten paces it took to get him to the couch in a darkened living room. He took one individual step at a time, pausing between each to regroup. I was sure there was pain but none that he mentioned.

He held me around the neck, pressing his too warm face against mine, as I wrapped my arms around his chest right in front of the entire party, but no one thought it was as sensual as it really was. I eased him down until he was resting against the soft cushions of the sofa. He let out a sound that told me he was even more exhausted than he looked.

"Thank you," he whispered in my ear.

"You think you should lie down?" I asked. "You look tired."

"Not yet, not with them here. Maybe in a few minutes," he answered softly. "I don't want them to go so soon. It's been awhile."

It had been a while and when I tried to return his beer to him he held up his hand and refused. I asked him if he wanted a cold one and he declined the offer, looking very tired doing it, and asking me for ice.

"Greg, you look really tired."

"I know. Just a few more minutes, Martin, okay? Maybe tell the guys for me, it's been a long day."

"Yeah, sure," I said, no longer thinking of myself but once more worrying about my love making himself sick again on his first day out.

I circulated and let everyone know how tired he was. Each time I mentioned it there were long sullen looks aimed at the living room where he now sat alone. By the time everyone knew the party was almost over, I looked at the couch and there was the brown haired girl, Nancy somebody, seated beside Greg with her hands suggestively planted in his lap. A sudden burst of rage ran through me as I closed in on the scene.

"Hey guys!" Greg announced as though he had just gotten his second wind. "I'm beat. I hate to run you off but I've got to get my beauty rest. As you can see, I really need it."

"I bet you do," Billy said, eyeballing the hands in his lap and giving a knowing smile.

It was a fairly cheerful parting as they left in groups of two and three with Nancy hanging on until everyone else had gone but me. She gave me a look like my services were no longer required, although I wasn't convinced yet. I couldn't see her lugging Greg around the house. I stared at Greg and couldn't miss the rise in his pajamas and the hand that addressed it in small motions, and then I got an even bigger surprise.

"Hey babe, why don't I stay and nurse you this weekend." Nancy offered her services unselfishly along with more suggestive caresses.

"Hey, babe, I'll give you a call if I need you, but I'm covered, you know," Greg said, her hands still occupied by his ardor while she analyzed his words.

"Why the hell did you invite me all the way over here if you didn't want to...?" And her eyes became full of me while she didn't say what she really was interested in nursing, but we all knew exactly what she was after.

"Why? I wanted to tell you I'd give you a call some time and I will, probably. You had your shot, babe, and you blew it. I'm a bit tired now. You don't mind," Greg said, suddenly sounding exhausted for her.

Nancy left, mouth wide open, and her hands lost for something to hold. I couldn't help her there but I could certainly understand her disappointment, not that I cared. I was amused at Greg's choice of words and how he had played a hand I'm sure he had been holding for a long time.

"You tired, babe?" I asked.

"Shut up. Don't call me that. It makes my skin crawl."

"How long have you been waiting to do that to her?"

"Since I knew I was going to make it. She never came by one time. All she wanted was a big dick and mine was handy."

"I'd say it was. I'm sure she had plans for it," I said.

"Yeah, well, if you shit in one hand and wish in the other, you know what you end up with in the end?"

"Depends on which end you're speaking about."

"Don't give me any ideas, big boy. She did get me hard, you know, and that just don't go away by wishing on it."

"You want a shower before bed?"

"Martin, I'm beat. I haven't had a shower since forever. One more night won't hurt the smell none."

"You could have fucked her first and then dumped her," I said, holding his hand as I sat down in Nancy's place.

"I'm not suicidal. I saw the way you looked at her. You wanted to tear her hair out. It's a wig by the way, but I still didn't want to see it come to violence. She's history anyway. It was only an exercise in paybacks."

"Remind me to never get you pissed off at me. I don't think she'll be sitting by the phone waiting for your call, is my impression."

"You don't know what the kid can do for the ladies. Once I fuck them they're never the same," Greg bragged, squeezing my hand and watching my eyes.

"Is that what this was all about?"

"No, I wanted to see the guys. She was just an afterthought. Nice touch huh? I figured it would be a good way to let her know how much I appreciated her loyalty. The lame man's equivalent of, We'll do lunch."

Well there was no questioning my loyalty. I don't know why I felt so absolutely in rapture, but I did. For all the months I sat by his bedside this was the first time I knew he wanted me beside him. He'd had his old friends over and a couple of his "ladies", and when the smoke cleared, I was the only one left standing, and that was enough for me.

"We can sleep on the bed in the television room," Greg said with a tired impishness in his words. "We'll have room and you won't need to get up and go home. Man, that sounds so good. A whole bed and I don't have to wait for you to show up in the morning."

"My get up and go got up and went," I said. "I'm tired too."

"Think about how I feel. You only have to move the cast around, when I'm coming and going. I've got to lug it no matter where I am. Sure is great being able to lug it anywhere though."

It took a while to get him into the television room. We had to stop every few steps for him to rest. With my arm around him he seemed thin and weak, weaker than I had realized. We stopped just inside the television room and he looked it over like he wasn't sure he remembered it. I leaned him against the wall and pulled out the couch. It was a familiar couch that had a lot of memories wrapped up in it for me.

I eased him back until the cast came off the floor and the bed carried the weight for him. He pulled off his shirt and the sweat lined his numerous rips. His chest was still shaped nicely but there was no flesh to back it up. He closed his eyes immediately and I wiped the sweat off his face and chest with a towel I got from the bathroom.

"Wouldn't hurt my feelings if you washed me down some. I'm rank. The nurses did it at night, after you left."

I returned with a bowl of warm soapy water and started with his face and then did his arms. The hair under them seemed denser than before. He stayed motionless as I took care of all the areas above his waist.

"You can do my legs. I can't sleep in these things anyway. They bunch up in my crotch."

There were snaps all the way up the leg with the cast on it. Neat invention, I thought, as I stripped him naked, save for the cast. He lay on his back in the middle of the bed with his arms out like he was in the middle of making snow angels, only there was no snow for him. His eyes stayed closed as I did his now good leg, as good as he had anyway, it gave rise to things that were in need of a more devoted kind of attention.

"I really wanted to fuck her you know."

"Who?"

"Right! Fancy Nancy. You know how hard it was blowing her off? Just getting her lips on it would have finished me off."

"No! But I can see it was pretty hard..., blowing her off that is."

"Very funny! You know how long it's been since I got laid?"

"No! I really don't keep the figures on that."

"It does create a certain need," he said, now standing up completely, having lost none of his luster there.

"You seemed pretty tired, Greg."

"Yeah, worked too. Got you right where I wanted you. You aren't going to leave it like that? I mean, you are here to take care of me. Aren't you? I think it might be unhealthy to leave it that way. Maybe scrub it up some. Shouldn't take much scrubbing, you know."

"Greg!" I said, working the towel up into his crotch and already knowing I was going to do what he wanted me to do without him saying anything, but I decided to make him wait for it. Washing it was fun too. He winced when I squeezed.

"That puppies loaded for bear," he observed with a distinct shortness of breath in his voice.

It pulsed and jerked and in the bright light I could see how damn wide that fucker got when he was hot to trot. Greg was a man among men and seeing it in a state of total readiness had my mouth going dry at a time and in a situation when that might not necessarily be advantageous. My sadistic side had me working it for all it was worth without working to get him any closer to where he wanted to go.

"Martin!" He said, as my hand moved around it and onto his belly. It was flat, almost concave from the days when all his food came from a tube. The rabbit tracks were now broken and sparse but a little darker than in the glory days. I kissed his chest and looked into his closed eyes as he seemed helpless and on the ragged edge.

"Oh, man, you're killing me here," he said, gritting his teeth as my hand caressed his skin until I fisted him some more.

I let my lips touch his and his eyes came to life as one of his hands held my head in place. After having a good look, they closed again, but his tongue was all mine and his other arm came into play.

There was always a timeless quality to Greg's kisses. I don't know if I was lost inside of his head or if he became lost inside of mine, but while kissing him there just wasn't anything else of importance in my life. Once our lips merged, they created some unexplained force. The longer the kisses the better they were for me. I couldn't imagine ever giving that feeling up or doing anything to water it down.

I think at those times Greg was completely mine and I was his and the world went away with all its complications and demands. No one had to think about what we were supposed to do or be. There was no need for thinking and no reason to speak, because in the loving was our reason for existing, and once you've loved, there's nothing that compares with it.

After you love someone giving yourself to them the world can go to hell, and as long as you're together, it doesn't matter. Greg and I were together that night like we had never been together before, and nothing else did matter. We were together in my mind as well as in my heart and soul.

I couldn't help but remember how he had dismissed Nancy and somehow that made all the difference to how I felt about how he felt about me. Don't worry, it doesn't make much sense to me either, but it somehow seemed to belong here. I had gotten the answer I was hoping for.

I got up and turned out the light, undressing before I returned to bed. There was no fear that someone would burst in on us or that it would be time for meds or some other routine that was always beyond our control. It was just me and him and I was surprised just how much of him was there and how needy he was.

All the worries about his exhaustion were lost in waves of exhilaration. Every time I finished with him, he started in on me. I wanted to kiss him some more, but that was impossible in the position he put me in. Of course I wasn't about to complain. Greg was certainly right about one thing, once he loved you it wasn't going to be easy to find anyone who could do as much and as well as he did. With the complete and entire devotion he gave to the activity, both giving and receiving, it was all I could do to keep up.

...And in my worry about his exhaustion, I was the one that gave out before he did. The human capacity never ceased to amaze me and Greg's was greater than most. He didn't know what stop or wait meant. If you were going to make love, you then were obligated to make love relentlessly and without inhibition. How he could manage such a thing with that cast on his leg, I'll never know, but mine is not to wonder why, mine is but to do and to satisfy my love as often and as well as I could.

 

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 50

Alone Together

It's odd how things are never what they seem. For months I had been alone with Greg and it seemed as though it was the greatest thing in the world. I never realized how aware I was of the door of his room that might be swung open at any second in the day or night.

Certainly before Greg was laid-low in his hospital room, there had been no way to be truly alone with him. His minions came and went at will, needing him at any given time, and disappearing just as swiftly once they got what they came for. For the first time we were really alone together. I expected no one to burst through the door and be aghast at our proximity.

Greg assured me he had been careful to make sure that all the pieces were in place that would give us a weekend alone, after the coming home ceremony that he orchestrated for himself. The only real surprise came when everyone left but me. Until that moment in time, I didn't know which way it would go. I didn't know if Greg, who was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, might discard me as a necessary evil that he indulged so he wasn't without sexual resources.

Oh, there are some things you can't disguise or deny, and Greg was more than a sexual opportunist taking it where he could get it. I knew this in my heart but then again, I didn't live only in my heart, though I gladly would have if Greg was there. I didn't need anyone in my world but him and I could have totally devoted myself to him, but if that was a sure way to run him off.

Greg and I were different and we came from different worlds. He had been raised in a cocoon filled with nurturing and loving, while he was allowed to indulge himself in any way he desired. He was never allowed to get completely out of hand but he wasn't held so tightly that he wasn't able to explore who and what he was. Greg was a product of a loving family who wanted him to become who he was destined to be and nothing less. Greg's parents doted on him as they doted on Doug, but in an entirely different way, like they were two individuals that had different needs for them to grow strong and wise.

I had been born into discipline, the curse of a German family, and my family had never discovered love, creativity, or indulgence. My life operated on an inviolable schedule and its attending demands.  I knew better than to be late or to fail to perform to the standards that had been set forth for me.  Additionally, I should never expect a compliment or to have satisfaction expressed concerning anything I was expected to do.

Only, the part that really fucks up a child, the standards were fluid and only my parents knew what they were. One day I would be severally punished for failing to do something I was told to do and had failed to do, or I simply hadn't performed up to that days standards, which being fluid and constantly in flux, and so I never knew what was expected until I got punished for failing to perform. I was always being punished as I was always on my parent's shit list for as far back as I could remember. I suspected my parents didn't like me very much and I didn't have much use for them. One day, when I was thirteen or fourteen, our worlds had irreparably split, never again would they have complete control over me body and soul.

I suppose the best way to describe this is that I simply didn't care what they thought about me any more. I no longer tried to please them or to do as they asked. I simply did what I pleased, took the heat when it came, ignoring their disapproval as much as a son can ignore his parent's displeasure.

Greg's parents were as foreign to me as if they had come from the moon. I was amazed at their unconditional acceptance of their offspring. Just listening to them talk was a joy for me. Of course I wished that I could communicate with my parents but of course I knew I couldn't by the time I met Greg's. It still amazed me to see their interactions, like they were all separate, independent, and equal units of life, entitled to their own likes, dislikes, and opinions. How weird was that?

I suppose it is another reason why the following chapters were made easy to live if not easy to write about now. With my experience, and not trusting any adult, each experience with Greg's parents was a new experience to me and I never knew what to expect from them. I kept waiting for them to become like my parents but they never did.

Greg slept all day Saturday, well, that is not totally correct because we slept little Friday night. We both slept late Saturday morning until afternoon, and I brought him breakfast, a half dozen soft scrambled eggs with toast and coffee and juice. He ate half the eggs before handing them over to me and I gobbled them down, keeping up my strength. He watched me cleaning up the television room and fell asleep before I had finished. I crawled back into bed with him and turned up the heat and we once again road his wild wind until he was sleeping again. How he could go to frantic orgasm to total rest, I don't have a clue, but he'd be cumming one minute and snoring the next.

During these couple of days there was no way to keep track of each and every encounter because one seemed to blend into the next and then there was sleep, eating, and then we were at it again, uninhibitedly tormenting the other's body to points of absolute bliss, followed by a sudden and complete exhaustion. A couple of times I was sure I might not recover at all, just orgasm myself into another universe, another reality, but as long as Greg was attached to me, I didn't care. I didn't care about anything that weekend but him.

We did watch movies Saturday evening and no one came over, which was a surprise. I figured now that his cronies knew he was back, they'd want to hang with him as they did when they were all sixteen, but they didn't. Greg told me that they all had lives of their own now and most were married or seeing someone in a serious way, and that didn't leave a lot of time for reminiscences about a past they didn't feel comfortable revealing to their intended.

It seemed to me to be dangerous that boys who took favors from other boys should be totally silent on the subject, when it came to their girlfriends. I knew the dangers and I knew these boys rarely were cautious, giving into the moment, even after promising themselves they wouldn't, and never waking up worried that they had gone too far, too often, with too little to stand between them and disaster. Unfortunately the same was true for their girlfriends, only they had no knowledge of what the disaster might be.

No, their motto seemed to be, "We're young and we're free and invulnerable, so we push the outer edges of the envelope without risk or fear. Why complicate your life by telling your woman, oh by the way, my love, I suck cock and take it up the ass from time to time, but have no fear, it isn't often, and it's usually with reluctance, at first anyway. So you see, there really isn't anything to worry about."

And so everyone had gone back to their lives, leaving me to nurse Greg in the privacy of his families television room. I was amazed at how totally inactive he was, managing to get to the bathroom to take a pee once on his own, but using the Kraft Mayonnaise bottle that I had placed by his bed after that, being too exhausted by the trip that took him all of fifteen feet there and fifteen feet back. All things were relative.

Not wearing anything at all left him to hang free and I could admire that which I had been attending to for months on end, and for the first time in Greg's life, he hadn't changed partners, even when it was possible for him to do so, but instead of getting what he wanted off her and then cutting her loose, he'd cut her loose without receiving any satisfaction from the female persuasion. It offered me hope that I could compete but not a lot.

It's what troubled me most. He'd meet some sweet young thing and fall victim to his raging hormones and be unable to resist the idea of satisfying her with his abundant talent. Greg was as queer a queer as I was. I worshipped him because he was a man and I had no desire for him to act like a woman, nor did I want to put on a dress and a wig so he could pretend I was what it was he knew he should want. We'd both had some work to do on that and what it really meant to love.

Maybe it wasn't so clear as the folks in charge would have us believe. Perhaps we all had flexibility built in, just in case it was needed, sex being the all powerful drive it is.

Greg had moved on from childhood dalliances, going off into the world to find his way. He'd pretty much ignored his old friends, rarely coming around, but in one brutal moment Greg had been drawn back to the world he had forsaken. He was suddenly in need to a dose of the old medicine that kept him going throughout his adolescent years. He was convinced, as all the boys seemed to be convinced, that's in the past, and I'm moving on.

Greg had come home and I was there to reinforce all the things he learned and did while he was in that house. There wasn't a way for him to deny our familiarity with any conviction, and so he didn't. He accepted that the past was present and he was Greg and would make the best of his circumstances. No matter what it was that had brought us together in the beginning, it was my love for him that held us together through the dark days. I could no more have left him than I could have stopped breathing. There would have been the same result in those days, when we were finally alone together for the first time.

Of course Greg had to go back and our time was limited and so we made the most of it in a way we couldn't back in the hospital room with the revolving door that couldn't be deterred. Each time I thought, he was too tired or he had had enough, he hadn't. Greg was a better man than I was, but on that first weekend home, I stayed with him because I perceived it was what he needed, and if nothing else, I was there to see he got what he needed, not that I had any complaints.

By Saturday night each union was labored as he sweat himself into submission and collapsed to regroup until he was ready to go again. He held me close in-between times, and the room was a good temperature for his sweat to cool me as the heat sizzled from our bodies. I can't count the times I awoke to his amorous intentions, because I was on automatic pilot by Sunday morning, responding like Pavlov's dog when the bell rang, ready to go another round, not knowing of any limits when came to Discovering Gregory.

I might have been worn out about half the times he wanted to get to it, but it didn't take long for my ardor to catch and pass his. I think even Greg was surprised that he hadn't been able to wear me out. Of course he'd been flat on his back for months on end, while I had been waiting for a time like this to arrive.

Once again I fed him the eggs he thought were "great." I had to make some for myself after he polished off the half dozen I put in front of him. At noon he appeared in the pantry as I was doing dishes that I had left alone for the weekend. I didn't want his mom coming home to find a mess, although I was anxious to escape before his parents and Doug returned. He was covered with the pajama bottoms, but no top yet, and his chest seemed to still have all the lines, even though he was doing little to maintain since he had fallen ill.

"We need to get out of here before they come back. It'll go bad on me no matter when I need to explain myself, coming home and not telling them. They'll be a little hurt and a little angry that they weren't here to spend time with me. You understand why I did it this way?"

"Yes," I said, feeling absolutely worn out and hoping he didn't present with another erection before I could get him back to the hospital. My orifice was all but off its hinges, strained and soar from the hours of oral stimulation he required. My other end wasn't fairing all that much better but I'd succeeded in getting him off with my mouth most of the time. He wasn't able to hold off the way he once was, and if I got him to a certain point, he gave in to my stimulation and gave up his load, never hesitating to kiss long and deep once the deed was done.

Greg had changed in a lot of ways and he loved me and I loved him. I didn't doubt that. I simply wasn't sure that being such different people might not prevent us from experiencing an enduring love. Although I knew I would always love him, because love doesn't go away, not when it's real love, I didn't know where it would lead, and I really didn't care that weekend. That weekend was mine and we'd made the best of it. I continued to do what I had promised myself I'd do when Greg was first injured. I'd never look back and think I could have done more, I could have loved him more, I could have given him more, because I couldn't. He had it all, or a least all I had to give him.

It was three o'clock and we were sitting at the dinning room table playing cards, Rummy I think, stalling off our inevitable departure as long as possible. I know I was nervous and I had asked him what time he wanted to leave at least a dozen times, and the answer was always the same, "Soon."

"How soon?"

"Between four or five. They never come back until six. I just hate going back to that place. You don't know how much this weekend has meant to me, Martin. You don't know how badly I want to stay here with you."

"I can imagine. Just remember it's only for a little while now. You can come home on the weekend until you are finally well enough to stay home."

"Yeah, right, and my mother will pamper me and be constantly there. We won't get any privacy until I get this damn cast off and then we can sleep up in my room."

"We had more privacy this weekend than we've ever had. Be thankful for what we have not for what we don't have. You could be staying up in that hospital for months on end, but you aren't, you'll be home soon, and I'll be here as often as you want."

"Be here as often as I want? You're going to stay here with me. I can't stay here alone, Martin. My mother will drive me crazy without you around to protect me."

"We'll see," I said, having my own parents to deal with..

"The hell we will. You're staying up here. Tell your parents I'm helpless without you. Tell them I'll die if you don't stay with me. Tell them they don't have a choice unless they want to be responsible for my death."

"I don't tell my parents anything. They'll either go along with it or they won't and if they won't they'll raise holy hell. I don't know what else to tell you. If they say no I don't want to start trouble for your parents."

"I'll get mom to talk to them. She loves you. She thinks you're her long lost son, delivered by mistake to the people that raised you."

"I wish," I said, lamenting for what I knew.

Just as he reached his hand across the table to put it on top of mine, giving me that soulful look with those so soft blue eyes, the crunch of gravel distracted him and the look on his face wasn't good.

"Oh shit! I'm fucked," Greg observed, sliding his hand back to his side of the table and slumping down in the chair.

The baby blue Galaxy came to rest right in front of the two huge windows in the dinning room. Greg's mom sat looking up at the windows for a long time before she slipped out of the car, carrying her purse and some other items. I sat unsure of what happened next, but it didn't take long to find out. The back door slammed with an echo that reverberated through the house.

Greg's mom stormed the kitchen with all the subtlety of Patton storming Sicily. She neither looked at us nor did she speak as she charged out of the kitchen and turned down the hall toward the television room and her bedroom. When she entered her bedroom the door slammed with another house shaking rattle.

"I'm fucked."

"Tell me about it. Do you think she's pissed?"

"I think I've never seen my mother this mad. I figured I'd be lectured and they'd explain all the reasons why I don't do things like this, but she's seriously pissed off."

And so it was. I was suspended there between mother and son as she proceeded to rampage through the house. For one solid hour she banged, slammed, and threw anything she came in contact with, but luckily she steered clear of the two of us, probably out of fear she might do us serious bodily harm.

All Greg and I could do was sit there and wait for her to calm down. I'd never seen anyone that angry, especially not Greg's mom.

Finally at a little after four, she dragged a chair up to the table and sat upon it, looking at Greg and then me and then Greg again.

"Okay, you want to tell me about it?"

The little girl voice was reassuring to hear but I still wasn't convinced we would escape with our lives. Greg sat silent for a minute and I thought he was going to wait for me to explain what we were up to, but he finally spoke.

"I didn't want to upset your weekend. I found out I could get a pass. I asked Martin to bring me home."

"Martin, you should know better. Of all the people I trusted with this walking disaster area, it was you. I am certainly disappointed in you."

So much for being her long lost son.

"It wasn't him. He didn't know anything about it until he came up Friday. I didn't tell him either. I just wanted a few days to myself."

"Gregory," she exclaimed, and that was the kiss of death for him. "Do you know what can happen to someone incapacitated in a house all alone? What if you had fallen down and there was no one around? What if something happened, a fire, anything, and you had to get out of the house in a hurry? My God, what were you thinking."

"I didn't leave him alone. I was with him the entire weekend? I wasn't about to leave him alone, once I knew you were at the mountain house."

I spoke up not sure I should risk opening my mouth to get between mother and son, but I did anyway.

"Thank God for small favors. I was picturing him here all alone and all the things that could happened. Thank you, Martin. That was my only concern. I'm not mad at you but the jury is still out on my first born son. Don't ever pull a stunt like this again."

"I'm sorry, mom," Greg said, and she got up and hugged him for a long time, looking relieved to find out that he hadn't been in the house alone.

There were tears in both of their eyes when they broke the clench. Greg tried to look away so I couldn't see him cry but his mother wasn't so proud.

"Well, what have you two boys been up to?" She said, not having a clue what she was asking us. I leave this one to Greg. I knew a loaded gun when I was handed one.

"Just being free, mom. Just enjoying fresh free air and not being poked, prodded, or in other way having my body interfered with."

"When do you have to be back, dear?"

"Supposedly tonight by eight. That's what the pass is for."

"That's all well and good, my dear, but you aren't in the Air Force, and Dad'll get that straight and he'll take you back in the morning when he goes to the base. He'll want to spend some time with you and then he can find out how often we can have you here with us and you too, Martin. You seem to be the only one who can handle him. Lord knows I've never had any control over him. Thank you again for not leaving my crazy son her alone. I envisioned every conceivable tragedy known to man, once I knew he'd been here alone."

"I would have never left him alone," I said.

"No, he wouldn't leave me alone," Greg protested, sounding somewhat put out but smiling at me with that twinkle in his eye and I knew what he meant and it was true. I can't imagine his mother not being able to see the love in my eyes for her son. She had to know but it wasn't something I could ask her about.

 

Discovering Gregory

Chapter 51

I Want To Go Home

Greg was sitting beside his bed reading Popular Mechanics when I got there Monday. He seemed happy after the weekend at home. My parents were still taking it all in stride, but I hadn't proposed that I move up to Greg's so I could have a hand in his rehabilitation.

Greg was coming out Friday night and his mother was picking him up after work. They were going to the mountains and I was invited. Greg wasn't thrilled but I was looking forward to the fresh mountain air. The subject didn't come up for the rest of the week and Greg was preoccupied with when he could finally get out of the hospital for good. The doctors were still giving him long uneasy looks and they couldn't give him an answer.

They were carefully monitoring the bad leg, or the worse leg, although his right leg seemed to be coming right along. He could get to the bathroom on his own after they cut the big cast down to a more manageable size but they intended to beef it up again on Friday before they allowed him off base. He still needed his crutches once he moved away from the bed.

It seemed to me there was still a lot of concern for his left leg. The words were never spoken, but the doctors still stared long and hard into the X-rays, and that was in front of us, I don't know what they were doing with them when they got off alone. They said it was fine but there was no enthusiasm in their words and Greg and I both saw the troubled looks on their faces. He did say anything so I didn't, but the more I thought about the mountains the more I worried about him falling and really screwing himself up for good.

I knew his parents wouldn't take any risks with him and so I trusted everyone knew exactly what they were doing, because I didn't. It was going on a year now and he still wasn't well on the road to recovery. I'd never heard of anyone spending so much time in traction and casts, although his new freedom with his right side was obvious. He was more mobile and more mischievous than ever, but it was all mixed up with something I couldn't read.

Greg had developed a charm about him that he never had before. He smiled a lot when there really wasn't a lot to smile about. He joked around and enjoyed pissing me off. He usually did this by teasing me about something or other. He was becoming more like a kid than maturing more as time went on, but what do you expect when you're locked up for months on end. I tried to humor him without letting myself get too pissed off, but he pissed me off just on account he could.

I caught up in school that week, although I got a D on my English paper because I spent about fifteen minutes on it, and that's exactly how it read, and my B average was in jeopardy. How did I know? The English teacher went out of her way to tell me. I was no whiz in anything but I was able to hold my own. I couldn't afford to fail English for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that my parents would kill me and then ground me.

Turning eighteen meant they really couldn't do anything any longer, not as long as I lived under their roof, but they knew as well as I did that it wasn't an issue because I was rarely there and planning on moving into Greg's as soon as he came home. My parents would bitch and moan, because they didn't miss a chance to bitch and moan, but in the end I'd do what I wanted. I suppose they had tried a lot harder than I had the last few years, but I got fourteen years of shit, and it don't wash off so easy from my perspective.

I needed my parents to be there for me when I was ten, not when I was eighteen. Eighteen was easy. You didn't have to do anything. At eighteen I could get it all done on my own. And as I passed that last great milestone in time and moved towards becoming a man, only Greg mattered to me, not the past, not the future - nothing but Greg. Where he goes I go and the most remarkable part about that was, it was fine with him. Even after he was free, even in short spurts, he seemed to depend on me now.

I handed in a makeup paper in English on Thursday and the teacher was all smiles and acted like she hadn't expected me to do that. She glanced over the three pages and marked a B on the top, handing it back still smiling.

"That's better. You seem preoccupied, Martin. Is everything okay?" She asked with a teacher's concern in her voice.

"Everything is great," I said, leaving her with a curious look on her face.

By Friday I was caught up except in Chemistry and I didn't think I'd ever catch up in Chemistry. It was too complicated and my mind wasn't in it. I'm not sure why. My typing teacher entered me in a typing contest and I didn't dare balk but I would need to find an out on that one. I needed the grade and I was her pet and I didn't want to add her to the list of people I was shortchanging for time.

For there was only time for Greg and spending time with him was all I wanted to do with my life after high school. I would pass but no thanks to any superior effort. I just didn't care about that. I went to school to keep peace at home and if it wasn't for that little detail, I'd probably have been up at the hospital all the time, although I was no longer required.

Nurse Atilla seemed fond of Greg and Greg was nice to her and most of the other nurses for that matter. My importance to their peace of mind hand diminished as the months rolled on.

Greg had been tamed. I didn't think his spirit was broken. but something major was going on inside of him and I didn't know what it was. He was becoming more and more quiet and our even our conversations had become quiet and agreeable. I remembered a time when we didn't agree on anything. If he said hot, I said cold, if he said up, I said down. We were simply contrarians when it came to one another. It took a lot of energy back then, just being near him. Now I was so close to him all the time it was almost like we were joined in some way. Of course I was addicted to him but my being so close was no longer a problem.

And so I wondered if he was okay. I mean to have him and end up with someone that wasn't Greg, wasn't what I wanted, as much as I wanted him. I wanted him to be him and he wasn't quite. Maybe he had changed and maybe I had and maybe all the discord and anger that we spent on each other was gone, but I feared it was something else, something I couldn't see or even understand. There was less of Greg than there had been and I don't even know what that means, but it was true. With all the smiles and the agreeableness came uncertainty.

That's not to say we didn't argue at all. We did but it was about stupid stuff. We got on each others nerves because we were on top of each other constantly, but as soon as I got ten feet away, he needed something. As soon as I got in the door he needed something. And then there were the times he'd put his head on my shoulder and just sat there silently, not doing a damn thing.

It was great but I still worried that something inside him had withered and finally died and I prayed he would come all the way back, even if it didn't end up quite like I wanted oy. There was something about that arrogant, cocky, over confident and self-aware Greg that I loved and I wanted him to have that still, but just not quite as much as before, maybe a prince instead of king. I could live with that.

I went straight up to the hospital after school on Friday. Greg wanted to make out as soon as I got in the room. He said he was afraid we wouldn't have any time alone once we got to the mountains. It was great for me because he was usually overheated when I got there and we'd have a few minutes before his mom came.

After a half an hour I started worrying about his mother showing up early but he needed me to love him more than usual and I did, until he was drained and panting and lying flat on his back on the bed, and I noticed it again. The fire had gone out of him, no impish delight or teasing, and no second or third round that had been routine up until the last few weeks. He was perfectly content taking just one, and so I was, well, no I wasn't because I had adjust my modest appetite to his big appetite, but I had to make do. There are certain things you just can't make someone do.

His mother hugged me when she came in and she'd never done that before. She didn't say anything, she just hugged me and then hugged Greg, who was dozing at the time and that woke him up.

"How's my baby boy?" She asked in that little girl voice.

"Your son is fine, mother," he said, not approving of being a baby anything.

He had to sit in the back seat and that left me in the front, leaning over the back seat so we could talk, even if we didn't have anything to say. His mother chatted us up, regaling us with tales that were outrageously funny. She smiled and seemed happy. I wasn't use to happy. I mean I was happy but I didn't show it. I'd never done happy that much. Even when I was happy I was worried about when I wouldn't be happy. I guess that's kind of a waste. There isn't enough happy to waste any in my book, but I was young and had time to learn.

When we got to the house, I was in charge of getting Greg down to the kitchen while his mother unloaded the trunk. We had to stop twice so he could catch his breath. If I had let go of him he'd have kept rolling until he got down to the river three terraces below the house. I didn't let go of him and he held onto me tight even in front of his mother. I think he was afraid of something and I wasn't sure it was the hill that he feared.

"You made it," his mom said as we got through the door. "Come on. You guys get the back room. We put a big bed in there last week. I don't know if there will be enough room with that damn cast they put on him. I don't see why they don't leave the small cast on. Sure would be easier."

"Yeah, and after I screw my leg up again, it'll never heal," Greg snapped, not interested in his mother's observations just then. "I don't know why I had to come up here. I can't do anything but sit in the house.

"Well excuse me. Do we need a little nappy, Gregie?"

"Mom," he said impatience in his voice as he indicated I should help him to where he was going.

Greg stood in the middle of the bedroom with his arm around my shoulder looking at the one big bed in the middle of the room. There wasn't anything else in the room.

"Yeah, I'm tired," he said, looking at me as if to say he wanted to be left alone now. He didn't even need to speak. I read him like a book.

His mother poured me some lemonade and we sat at the dinning room table. I felt tired but I didn't know why. It was still afternoon.

"Doug is coming with his father. He's looking forward to seeing you, Martin. He keeps asking if you've come around the house. I could ask too. You know you're welcome anytime you want to come up. We all like you."

"I don't have a lot of time with school and...."

"You don't need to explain. I just wanted to say that.... he wouldn't have made it without you. I think you've done more for him than we have. He doesn't like us getting too close, Martin, never has. He's gotten so close to you though. Greg has never been close to anyone... but that's Greg. That boy has always loved himself. It's a good change. I like him more than I use to. Is that a terrible thing to say about your kid or what?" She said, laughing. "He's always been sure of himself. I mean I'm happy he is but it can make for some difficult times. Disciplining him just broke his spirit, so rather than risk that, we let him be Greg. Lord help us all. He can be a bit overpowering. Not around you though."

"I like him more now too. He seems... he seems... I don't know, is he going to be okay? I mean all of him? He's gotten real quiet. The doctors have gotten real quiet. They don't say anything in front of us any more."

"They say so. His father has been keeping something from me but I'm not sure what. If there was any serious trouble he'd tell me that but I know when he isn't telling me everything. He'll be okay. He's Greg. He's changing is all, growing up, becoming a man, finding himself. It's not easy for someone like him to be dependent. He's never been dependent, not that I can remember."

"No, I guess not. They're so different."

"The boys? Yes, they are. Night & day. I never had to discipline Doug. If he does anything wrong he comes to me with it. He's such a good boy. Doug is sensitive in a way that worries me. I think he loves easy and hurts deep. That can wear on you, you know. It's always worried me. Greg is good for Doug. Makes him tougher, but not in a mean way. Doug is sweet and Lord knows I could never say that about Greg. I mean I love him dearly and he's quite the man, but sweet, I don't think so. Greg is Greg. He's a classic."

I was even less comfortable after that conversation. If Greg's mom didn't know I loved her son, she was blind. How anyone, including his father could miss that little tidbit... no way. So, if they knew I loved Greg and they were putting us in one, albeit gigantic, bed, did that than mean if they discovered us in a compromising situation, they'd be okay with it?

I don't think so. No, as long as they didn't have to deal with their son sucking cock or taking it up the ass, it was cool, but that specter would certainly shake the dew off the lily pretty damn quick. I don't think the Colonel walking into the bedroom and seeing his son rolled up on one side with my dick up his ass was going to cut the mustard. Now if it was the other way around and I was the one with the dick up my ass, there would be a fighting chance that he could overlook the youthful indiscretion. Boys'll be boys, you know.

The mountains were now dangerous, more so because I was in the same bed along with my lover and his parents were right across the hall.

Well we just heard a noise, I could hear them saying after they opened the door to the bedroom, or, we were just checking on him.

Right! ...And it was a long walk home.

I had everything I wanted and could have asked for and I was scared shitless that Greg's demands were going to lead us down a dead-end road. I was not going to encourage him. I was going to keep my hands off of him and try to keep enough distance between us so that we didn't get started. Right! The moon's made of green cheese and I'm a monkey's uncle.

Doug came and he looked really good. When I stood up to shake his hand he somehow ended up in my arms, hugging me. I glanced at his mother as Doug's intoxicating smell went up my nose. My dick started to rise as I felt his body. His mom had turned toward the sink after her hug and his father came in a minute behind Doug.

"Martin!" He sang, smiling boldly, giving me his hand, and then slipping his arm over my shoulder. "Want to go hunting with me and the Ikster tonight?"

"I'm not much of a hunter, sir," I said, not wanting to kill anything if it wasn't absolutely necessary.

"Yeah, you're a fisherman, right? Taken some nice cat out of the river already. The poles are downstairs. You be sure and make yourself at home. Good to have you back. You should come around the house more," he said, opening the fridge and grabbing a Pabst, never losing the smile or the cordiality he exuded.

"I think he'll be staying up with Greg when he comes home, dear," Greg's mom said as the couple gave one another a passing hug.

"Well that's great. Don't know how that boy would have made it without you, Martin. I've got to tell you I've rarely seen a man as loyal as you, and I've seen loyal men, yes, sir, I've seen my share of those. You're a keeper for sure."

"Yes, sir," I said, feeling like we were getting dangerously close to a conversation I didn't want to be in.

"Come on, let's go to the river," Doug said. "I've been waiting for you to come back down here forever and we still have an hour of daylight."

"You two go ahead. I'll keep an eye on Greg. He looked awful tired," Greg's mom said and we were heading out of the kitchen door.

Doug looked like a million bucks. He'd cut his hair short and it shinned gold in the sun that was about to disappear behind the trees across the river from us. He walked a little ways ahead of me and I noticed how his ass filled his jeans. I wasn't sure it had been that round, that full before. He looked bigger, heavier. Not heavy by any means, but like he had filled out a bit. At seventeen Doug was too hot to handle and the old stirrings were stirring but nothing suggestive was said. It was all quite platonic in an uncomfortable sort of way.

He did hold my hand once we were out of sight from the house but it didn't bother me. His hand was even bigger, still soft, and there was now blond silken hair starting to appear ever so lightly on his arms. It only took him a few seconds to take the rope down to the riverside, leaving me to watch. Then he looked like Greg, his arms bulging and the sureness built into his moves. He pulled his shirt off as quick as his feet were on the rocks below. He was unfastening his pants when I got to the river's edge.

"Come on. Strip! We'll catch a swim before dinner. There's time."

"It's cold," I complained.

"Martin, it isn't cold. I've been swimming since March. The water's warm from the sun."

"What sun? It's almost dark."

"Will you cut it out. It's only the shade from the trees. Please, I want you to swim with me."

He was naked in front of me and every line was as beautiful or more so than it had been. When he turned his cock was half-hard and it was a natural place for my eyes to settle. He had thickened some but he still had some less than Greg, although he had been closing the gap since the last time we were naked together. His light blond dusting of pubic hair was slightly richer and golden hairs now dusted the inside of each leg.

He wasn't smiling as he stared at me. There was a determination on his face and a maturity that hadn't been there before. Perhaps the grooves around his mouth had deepened, perhaps it was the shadows, but Doug looked older. He took in deep breaths and his chest expanded and relaxed with each. His nipples had tightened ever so slightly from the coolness of the shadows.

"You coming?"

"Not quite," I said, finding it difficult to breathe.

"You've got a one track mind. Comes from be with my brother too much," he grumbled.

His dick had fattened and stood straight out by the time he turned toward the water. I watched as he carefully negotiated the rock bottom as the water slowly started to cover his legs. He was up to his knees before I was naked and he had dropped down in the rushing river by the time I started into the water.

"It's cold," I complained again, stopping to put my hand down on a rock to keep my balance.

"Come on," he yelled, "Don't be such a pussy."

Greg was in his voice. The taunt was all his. If it was possible Doug was growing up to be even more amazing than he was. His kind of beauty rarely lasted into adulthood and yet he seemed determined to defy that knowledge. I could see his feet and his limp dick above the water as I finally got out to him.

"Come on. Get your ass wet. God, Martin, I don't remember you being such a sissy," he barked.

"Fuck you," I said to Greg, before I appreciated it was Doug barking his displeasure with me. I was suddenly aware that his displeasure with me had little to do with my ass being cold.

It brought a flush of anger to me and a memory of the way things had been for so long. I eased down into the swift moving cool waters rather than hear any more insults tossed my way. It wasn't like Doug to be cruel. I watched his eyes as he took everything in and he bobbed like a cork as the water moved around him.

"Isn't this great," he marveled.

"It's cold," I said, feeling every degree of temperature or lack thereof in the water.

"It's run off. It's supposed to be cold. It was snow yesterday."

"Oh great! Thanks a lot, Doug. Like I needed to know that?"

He sprung up and was on me like a cat would spring on a mouse. At first my head went under and I choked on the fresh water and then his body was against mine. His arms were around me. His dick was against me. He was hard. I was hard. We wrestled for superiority but he ended up on top of me, our erections rubbing as he laughed Greg's laugh, and then his hips moved on mine, not a purposeful thrust, more an involuntary response to a stimulus.

Our eyes were together. His laughing stopped and my fear of him subsided. Doug had changed. He was taking things from Greg it would have been better for him to leave alone. I wasn't sure his natural beauty hadn't finally gone to his head and convinced him he could take what he wanted.

He didn't let me up but instead let his face down until it brushed mine. His delicate skin still hadn't seen a razor and the feel of him on me was thrilling. He had one of my wrists in each of his hands and he stayed there on top of me.

"You warm now," he asked softly in my ear after we stared a while.

"I think I've had enough... swimming," I said, feeling guilty for my thoughts.

"HEY BOYS! Time for dinner," the colonels voice carried across the river.

Shit, I thought, how can things get so fucked up. "Okay, Pop," Doug yelled in my face.

Doug wasn't startled and he didn't react immediately, only sliding off me and onto his back after a minute.

"Sorry," he said softly. "Still friends?"

"Always," I said and we were wading back to shore, erections swinging in the breeze.

Once we were back up under the cliff he was on me again without warning and when I turned to confront him, he kissed me. It wasn't a friendly peck or anything like that. Doug was taller than I was now. He had to bend slightly to kiss me properly. I kissed him back without having any intentions of kissing him but I held him and I let him hold me and I felt more guilt. The worst part was, it was very similar to being with Greg two years before. Doug had become his brother and that turned me off and it turned me on as his hands were all over me.

Then he stood back, his cock standing straight out, but he didn't notice it the way I did. We were back in the deepening shadows and I wasn't cold any more, nor was I hungry, not for dinner anyway.

"Sorry," he said exactly as he had said it before. "You love my brother?"

"Yes," I said loud and clear with my erection punching holes in the night.

"Do you love me?"

What a fucking loaded question? He could have slapped me and gotten the same reaction out of me. I didn't have to think about it. I could have answered that just as quickly as I had answered his first question, but I didn't. It took me time to filter it through my passionate brain.

"Yes," I said so softly that it was hard for him to hear, but he knew the answer. He felt my lips on his and saw my reaction when he used his body against mine. Somehow while I wasn't looking, Doug had become a man. I'd always loved Doug and I had loved him almost as quickly as I had loved his brother. It was insane to feel the way I felt about the two of them and the love tormented me even more now that Doug wanted his answer.