Looking Zac over, it seemed as if I was seeing the Taylor of two years ago - obviously his facial features were different but his build and proportion were uncannily similar to Tay's, most noticeably his testicles. It must be a family tradition: Zac's balls seemed huge for his age and seemed almost out of place on a frame his size. I was not, however, going to complain...

I shivered, realising I was still soaking wet from our little swim earlier, and commented on this. Tay agreed and suggested I take a shower first as I was the guest here and the shower stall in the trailer was not really big enough to comfortably fit more than one person.

I pulled off my top, jeans and boxers and stepped into the shower, the pathetic spray doing its best to try and produce a steady stream of water. I found a bottle of shower gel hanging on the holder and yelled to Tay, asking if I could use it.

Whilst I rubbed the gel through my hair and over my body, my mind was storing the images of Tay and Zac sucking each other off - one I felt sure would never leave me as long as I lived...

Stepping out of the stall, Zac chucked me a towel and leapt in after me, not even asking Tay if he wanted to go next. I sat on Zac's bed next to Tay, drying my hair. I hadn't had it this long in quite a while, and had forgotten what a pain it could be, although I liked the feel of it round my neck and ears...

"I hope you don't mind us two fooling around with each other," said Tay. "He's the only other I've ever done anything with, and that was after I'd met you. I don't love him - no, I do, but as a brother, ya know? I mean, I don't want you to feel bad or anything..."

"I love you too, Tay - Zac's cute, but I'll always love you." With that, we hugged each other, again reminding me that I never wanted to leave him again.

"Woooooo," came Zac's voice as he got out of the shower. Tay looked up and, grabbing the towel from round my shoulders, spun it up into a "string" and whipped Zac's backside, causing the appropriate yelps and streams of insults.

As Zac dried himself off, Tay started undressing. He bent over to take his jeans off, treating me to a wonderful view of his bubble-butt through the tight, damp cotton of his boxers.

Once we were all back in dry clothes again, Tay offered me a tour of the Arena before we had lunch. Going in by the stage door, I was awe-struck. I've been to the Arena many times before, but never when it's been empty. It was absolutely huge! As I walked onto the stage, I was astonished by how little of the "audience" you could actually see due to the brightness of the lighting. Turning round to face the back of the stage, there was a huge Hanson logo, at least fifteen feet in diameter, suspended by cables that ran all the way to the roof, and behind that were roof-high stylised pictures of Zac, Tay and Ike.

"Where are all the back stage guys?" I asked, looking round me in awe - the whole Arena being deathly quiet, the only noise being the distant drone of the ventilation fans.

"They've got the afternoon off to let us practice in peace. You try doing a vocal piece with hammering and sound tests going on..." Tay walked over to the front of the stage, resting his foot on one of the monitor speakers.

"Who actually designed your logo?" I asked, still gawping at the enormity of things.

"Me and Zac," replied Tay. "I was doodling on our garage wall back in Tulsa, and it sort of came to us. Ike simply said 'what the hell's that?'. We tried explaining it to him, but he didn't like it. Our PR guys did, though!"

"Did you do the web site as well?"

"Yeah. We had loads of good ideas, including articles and other stuff done by us, but it was decided by the powers that be that we should have no personal involvement with it. That really sucked as far as I was concerned but hell, what can ya do? I can't even put up a homepage! You interested in computers?"

"Yeah..."

"Lemme show you somethin'"

Tay took me by the hand and led me stage right. Sat there was a huge mixing desk and a couple of computers, running what looked like a sequencing package. "If one of us starts to mess up real bad, the computer'll take over the instrument for us - it'll even play someone's part! Here, watch..."

Tay jogged over to his keyboard and started bashing out the opening chords of Thinking Of You, the mixing desk lighting up like a pinball machine. Apart from the first drum beat on the first chord, the computer decided what song he was playing and sure enough on the third bar, played the drum-roll and Ike's guitar section. Just to prove a point, Tay slowed down and speeded up, the computer matching him beat for beat. When he stopped, it stopped. When he carried on, so did it. Quite incredible!

"That's our safeguard. It doesn't put us right if we go wrong, but if I were to miss a chord completely, it'd fill in for me. Because it 'thinks', it knows we can change a bit as well, it being a live performance and all. D'you wanna see the best seats in the house? C'mon!"

He grabbed me by the hand again and pulled me to the back of the stage and behind the rear blackout. There was a huge spiral staircase, reaching all the way to a gantry in the roof. Tay started climbing the steps, me in tow.

When we reached the top, I could see a huge lattice of these gantries that stretched across the entire roof of the Arena. I hadn't noticed them as the strip lights that were illuminating the floor were hung below them, shielding them from sight. We walked about a third of the way down the length of the building and hooked a left so we were standing directly in front of the stage, albeit at roof height.

Tay was right - the view was very impressive indeed. Tay looked down at the floor through the mesh gantry and swallowed hard, his hand gripping tighter to the hand rail. I looked down as well, but the sight of the floor about forty feet away didn't have quite the same impact.

Up until about a year ago, I'd had the most unbelievable fear of heights. Not the usual "shit, I'm a long way up" feeling, but a completely irrational fear that seemed to be tightly imbedded into my subconscious. I didn't know why I had it - I just did. Then I took the dare. A group of friends and I were at a car show and one of the attractions was a crane-mounted bungee jump thing. It was rather expensive (about 20 a go, if I remember) and none of us had enough money. Someone suggested that we pool our cash and draw straws for who got to jump. Why I drew a straw was beyond me. Why I didn't offer my jump to one of the others when I was picked I'll never know. I was glad I didn't.

A half-hour later, I was eighty-odd feet in the air, shaking like a leaf and close to tears. A large length of what seemed like nothing more than elaborate knicker elastic had been tied precariously around my ankles. I looked down and saw a few blobs on the ground jumping up and down, waving violently. I reasoned that they must be my "friends", although how they could let me go through with this without even a word of concern brought their friendship into question in my not-so-logical mind...

Then it was time. The fool that was operating the crane yelled in my ear: "OK - on the count of five: ". It wasn't the normal 'second-between-each-digit' count I was expecting. It was more of a "FIVEFOURTHREETWOONEBUNGEE!!!!" and before I knew it, I had spontaneously chucked myself out of the flimsy carriage. My heart stopped. I suddenly became a devote Christian. I hated Newton and ALL of his laws of motion (without exception). I remembered I hadn't put the cat out before I'd left that morning. Did I really hate sprouts that much? Why were the adverts for the "FarmFoods" freezer stores so utterly shite? And, most important of all, why where my friends so much closer than they were a second ago? "SHIIIIIIT!" I yelled as I saw the ground hurtling towards breakneck speed. Then, God stuck his nose in and grabbed my ankles, yanking me up to heaven. That was it. I'd died. I just knew. Then I was floating - looking around me, I saw the curvature of the earth and the whole of the showground. I spotted the TVR stand we'd been at not minutes earlier, and a huge crowd of people below me. Then I started falling again, very quickly, but this time, I laughed. I wasn't dead - and it felt great!

All too soon, it ended. I was left bouncing around, upside-down on the end of a sixty-foot length of purple knicker elastic, and I'd loved every minute of it.

From that point on I changed. To quote someone famous (whom I can't remember the name of) "There's so much more to life than football". They couldn't be more right - from that point on I was game for anything: Rock climbing, abseiling, potholing, parascending, hangliding - you name it. My parents now had a new worry - I was now not only 14 and at boarding school, but I was an utter psychopath when it came to regard for my own life, as far as they were concerned. In reality, they couldn't be more wrong. True, I wasn't afraid of heights, falling or even hitting the ground. But I did have a pretty healthy fear of death, and still do Hankyu very much!


On to Chapter Eight

Back to Chapter Six

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Touring with Hanson is © 1998 by Dean Lidster. This work may not be duplicated in any form (physical, electronic, audio, or otherwise) without the author's written permission. All applicable copyright laws apply. All individuals depicted are fictional with any resemblance to real persons being purely coincidental.

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