Kieran and I ambled after Tay into the recesses of Hayley's den, fully expecting to find the discarded corpses of Aaron Carter and the Moffatts littering the hall, but all was surprisingly well looked after. Not even a trace of teeth marks on any of the furniture - her parents must've been cleaning up after her...

Tay was frog-marched up the stairs and into what can only be called an American-sized bathroom, complete with Jacuzzi etc.

Hayley pirched him on the edge of said Jacuzzi and told him to sit still. Tay looked plaintively at Kieran and I, but we both just grinned inanely and shrugged our shoulders. Tay mouthed something along the lines of "Thanks a bunch, guys!" before he was set upon by Hayley, now armed with a wad of cotton wool and a family-size bottle of TCP.

"I can't do anything with these pants in the way," she stated, not having even tried. Kieran simply doubled up with laughter. Hayley spun round and strode towards us, which had a surprisingly sobering effect on him.

"Look at you, laughing at his misfortune," she scolded. "Just grow up." and with that, she slammed the door in our faces.

Kieran pushed his sleeve back and examined his watch. "Ten... Five, four, three, two, o..."

There was the unmistakable thump of the weight of a body falling against the door, then the door knob being violently fought with as Tay desperately tried to escape from Hayley's clutches. A moment later, the door was wrenched open and a panic-stricken Taylor practically hurled himself down the stairs and out into the street. A very disappointed-looking Hayley raced out onto the landing after him, but he was long gone.

"I guess we'll be going then," spluttered Kieran, still not quite believing the ludicracy of the situation. We walked out of the house and looked round for Tay, spotting him just slowing from his sprint at about the mid-point between his house and Hayley's.

"You guys are a pair of jerks," he grinned. "I can't believe you let me go through that! ESPECIALLY you, Dean," he said, grabbing me in a headlock and giving me a noogie.

"Well, we didn't want to interrupt the fun,"

"THE BITCH CAME! She had a fucking orgasm over me!"

"Well, can you blame her?" I smiled.

"But... But it's just not... well... polite! You don't just walk up to someone, hug 'em and say 'hold still so I can cum' do ya?"

"Oh, I dunno," I said, grabbing him from behind and kissing his neck.

"Yeah, but when you do it it FEELS right, Dean... Besides, I know you! I hardly know Hayley at all! Whoever I meet ALWAYS has the advantage 'cause they get whatever they wanna know about us from the 'Net! It pisses me off!"

"Umm, guys, esslay of the issingkay in ublicpay..."

"Huh?"

For some reason, Pig Latin seemed to stop just south of Essex, never really reaching the midlands. Tay did the courtesy of translating.

"He said we'd better quit the kissing thing,"

"Oh shit, yeah... Kinda automatic, ya know..."

"C'mon, loverboy, we'd better get you cleaned up before Hayley decides to start round two! AND you can take your pants off at my place without being attacked! Oh, then again..." he grinned, smiling at me.

Although similar in size to Hayley's house, Kieran's felt a whole lot more lived in, attention being paid to functionality as opposed to style. We drudged up to the bathroom and Kieran chucked me a near identical bottle of TCP and a wad of cotton wool.

"Uh, this brings back scary memories, guys!" grinned Tay.

"Well, wouldn't you know it, looks like I will have to take your trousers off after all! Now there's a shame,"

I grasped his zip between my thumb and first finger, allowing the other three to gently press into his bollocks as I pulled it down. Tay's reaction couldn't have been more inverted to the previous scenario, his eyes shutting tightly and his breathing stopping for an instant.

Gently, I undid the buckle of his belt and dragged the jeans from round that gorgeous arse of his until they were left in a pile round his ankles. While Tay had his eyes closed, I carefully undid the top of the TCP bottle with my left hand, placed the cotton wool on top of it and tipped it upside-down a couple of times, ensuring that a generous quantity of the evil smelling polyamine had soaked into it. Tay's 'excitement' was quite visibly growing, so to ensure his continued distraction from my true objective, I started gently chewing on the bulge, causing appropriate moans of delight from my willing captive.

Just as he started to try and push more of his cotton-encased tackle into my nibbling mouth, I ran the swab of cotton wool vigorously over the graze on his leg.

"HmmmmmmmaaaAAAAARRRGH!!!!!!" yelled Tay as the exquisite feelings from his groin were suddenly and discourteously displaced by those of the TCP seeping into the damaged flesh.

"SHIIIIT! FUCK THAT KILLS! You asshole!"

"Well, it's all done now. Wasn't that better than the wicked bitch of the west?"

"I guess so," he said, peering down at his grazed leg.

"So - you still up for this trip to the mall?"

"Hell yeah. Kieran, you still coming?" Yelled Tay to Kieran who had shyly retired out of sight. He soon reappeared at the doorway.

"Well who else is going to drive you little kids around?" he teased.

"Kieran, if you weren't so much bigger than me you'd have your ass kicked on a far more regular basis."

"And that's to say you've actually managed to kick my ass at all?"

We ambled down to the garage and piled onto the bench seat of Kieran's vintage (that's probably being a bit kind) truck. It was one of those seriously old Chevy ones that looked like an upside-down rowing boat. I'd have guessed at one time that it had been blue, but the paint was so faded and the rust so prevalent that describing it as being a single colour couldn't be justified. This mattered not a jot to Kieran - it ran, and it was all HIS.

I suddenly realised that I had a steering column in front of me.

"OK, which bastard put the steering wheel on the wrong side, huh?" I grinned as I slid into the centre of the seat and out of Kieran's way. He turned the key and the geriatric vehicle hauled itself from its resting place, backing out onto the road, then chugged off back towards Tulsa.

"CATCH!" Yelled Zac as he hurled yet another of what looked like Diane's best plates not quite directly at Gareth, who was leaping around like a soccer goalie.

"I will drop one of these in a minute," he threatened, not wanting to be yelled at by his host's mother within hours of stepping into the house.

"I wouldn't - mom'll kill you!"

"You can be such a shit sometimes,"

Zac looked round to make sure no one was watching, then replied "Yeah, but can a shit do this?" and planted his lips on Gareth's, his hands groping anything that was gropable.

"Uh, I don't reckon so,"

"C'mon - we're almost through: After this I wanna show you something..."

Intrigued, Gareth caught the next two plates that were hurled at him, dried them and stowed them back in the appropriate cupboards. Even before he had a chance to dry his hands properly, Zac grabbed him and dragged him out of the back door, through the garden and out into the fields behind the houses. Both boys being so full of energy, they ran for a good six minutes before slowing to a walk, just grinning for no reason at all.

"Wh... Where are we... we going?" panted Gareth.

"It's a surprise! Just past these trees..."

Zac took Gareth's hand and led him round the only just noticeable path that skirted the spinney until they were on the far side of it, now insulated from all signs of life bar a single line of pylons that set off into the distance. Zac led Gareth about ten feet into the trees, and told him to look up.

Above them was a platform about ten feet square that had been built round the trunk of one of the larger trees, the majority of its weight being supported by a large bough and a couple of scaffolding poles that had been driven right through the tree's trunk, but had long since been adopted by the tree as its own limbs.

"Woah - cool!" said Gareth as images of Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves came flooding back to his mind.

"Neat, huh? C'mon,"

Zac took Gareth's and again and began to scramble up the trees in a well-practised routine that he had obviously done thousands of times before. Gareth managed to find enough grip points to facilitate the climb, but it was nowhere near as graceful as Zac's ascent. As they reached the bottom of the structure, Zac pushed open a trap door in its floor and then hauled himself through it, turning round a second later and helping Gareth up.

Gareth was, to say the least, astounded. How could something this cool exist outside of his mind? As he walked round the trunk, he spotted a pair of beanbags, a pile of comics, a pair of CB handsets and a whole load of other nick knacks that Zac had obviously spent a fair while collecting.

"SHIT! This is so fucking cool, Zac! How long did it take to build, man?"

"Uh, I didn't build it - my dad helped Ike build it when he was eleven, then Tay kinda took it over, and then I guess he signed it over to me last summer," he grinned. "We still use it a lot - we come up here to do the songs and shit like that, but Ike and Tay have kinda lost interest in it. I still think it's cool, though..."

"Cool? THIS IS AMAZING!!" Said Gareth, practically bouncing round the treehouse, pressing his face up at each Perspex window in turn.

"And ya know what's best about it?"

"What?" he asked, doodling in the patch of condensation his breath had caused.

Zac walked up behind him and slid his hands under Gareth's shirt, feeling his taught stomach. "My folks never come up here."

Those words sent a shiver of excitement through Gareth. In all the time he had been with Zac, They had never managed to be completely alone together: In their trailer at the NEC, Dean and Tay were there. At school, practically the entire first and second year were around them. At the Hansons' house, there was always someone around, but out here they were isolated - away from the prying eyes of siblings, parents, friends and society as a whole. Here, they could do as they wished.

Tony was astonished. He was lounging around in the garage with Ike, and could not believe how easy Ike made it look to play the guitar. His fingers of his left hand glided up and down the fretboard without effort, the fingers of his right delicately plucking at the nylon, injecting emotion and character like none he had experienced before.

He wasn't playing any tune in particular, just shaping the sound to the whim of his mind - gentle riffs, sequences of chords and solitary notes fusing to create a unique, individual piece of music that had never been heard before, and would never be heard in exactly the same way again.

Ike suddenly realised that Tony was watching him intently, so decided to do something a little more focused. He changed to a lower key, and started the fingerplay of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car, a song that matched Ike's voice rather well as ironically his and Tracy's weren't too dissimilar!

          "You've got a fast car
          I want a ticket to anywhere
          Maybe we can make a deal
          Maybe together we can get somewhere"

Tony recognised the song, and quietly started to sing along with Ike, their eyes suddenly locking together.

          "Any place is better:
          Starting from zero got nothin' to loose
          Maybe we'll make something
          Me myself: I've got nothin' to prove"

Without another word being sung, Ike put his guitar down, moved over to Tony and passionately kissed him on the lips. To Tony, he felt as if he were drunk, the same out of control / in control illusion making him go weak. Ike held the quaking Tony in his strong arms, and gradually lowered them both onto one of the head-wreckingly bright coloured bean bags.

Tony felt Ike's weight come to rest on him and simply couldn't believe that these kind of feelings were possible. He'd had girlfriends before, but now he realised that the feeling wasn't there simply because his heart wasn't there either. He was doing what was "expected" of him, and so all the emotions and feelings he showed were fabricated. Somewhere it felt good, sure, but deep down he knew that it was false.

The way he felt for guy on top of him certainly was not fabricated, the testament to that being the fact it he felt that it was going to happen to him wheather he wanted it to or not. The idea of not being able to control it scared the hell out of him, yet it also provided that guarantee that what he felt was right for him. Everything he was wanted this - needed this - and it was telling him so in no uncertain terms.

An image of his father crossed Tony's mind, making him think how ashemed he would be to find out that his son was bisexual. He looked up to and respected his Father, but over the last fortnight he had experienced a liberty of his soul that seemed to give life purpose once more. That the circumstances of that liberty were frowned upon by his family did bother him, but what bothered him more was that if he lived his life like he had been doing, he would end up such a bitter, closed, miserable person he could not justify his existance.

Tony was not a selfish person, but felt that it was unfair of his parents to deny him such a fundamental necessity. If they hated him for what the core of his being was, then so be it. He had tasted love and there was no way he was going to close himself off from the avenues it offered to him.

He reached up and wrapped his arms around Ike, simultaneously forcing his tongue back into Ike's mouth. This is what felt right for him. It was who he was.

"Go the scenic route, K..."

"The scenic route? That's like a four mile detour!"

"So?"

"Fuck it," reasoned Kieran, and cancelled his signal so we stayed on High 97. We crossed over the Arkansas River for the second time that day, then did a leisurely double back on ourselves onto a road that traveled parallel to the river itself. When we had first set out, I was very conscious of the lack of seatbelts and felt very vulnerable, but somehow the traffic on the roads seemed more relaxed than in the UK - any traffic we met, that is...

Soon, we could see central Tulsa, and crossed the river once again, quickly being immersed in the city centre. We pulled into a car park, and I had to be practically dragged through the streets to the Mall sue to the sheer volume of ooohing and ahhhhing I was doing, much to Kieran and Tay's amusement.

In a surprisingly gentle way, Zac took Gareth's hand and led him over to the beanbags. They both lay down side by side and for a few moments just stared at each other in wonder. Zac was horny no doubt, but there was something in Gareth that was special, something he thought about other than his unbelievably sexy body. It made him feel good to be around him, he made him laugh. He was shy sometimes, but that just endeared him more to Zac, who found his shyness cute. True, he wasn't the cleverest guy in the world (Zac continually helping Gareth in his Maths classes back in England) but he certainly wasn't dumb either.

Either way, Zac couldn't give a shit. Gareth's whole persona made him feel good, and from the way he acted, the feeling was well and truly reciprocated.

Slowly, the two boys drew together and embraced a tight embrace that came from the heart. Ironically, now that they were in a position to do whatever they wanted to do, all they wanted right now was be close to each other and strengthen their friendship with that closeness.

As much as Zac had taken the piss out of Tay for falling head over heals in love with me, it was only now he realised why Tay acted the way he did: Why we seemed to be able to sit together for hours and never say a word, yet speak volumes about our thoughts and feelings, our fears and desires.

Now he was beginning to comprehend the full scale of love. Sure, he had seen it at the movies a thousand times - guy meets girl, guy falls in love with girl, guy will do anything for girl. He always thought it was kinda dumb to resign your life to something as pissy as a relationship, yet here he was seeing and, more importantly, feeling the 'logic' behind those emotions.

His mind replayed the last couple of weeks, and he winced as he tried to imagine how Gareth must have felt when he and Jon Peitzmann had got it on together. How could he have done such a thing? He desperately wanted to blame Jon for the whole escapade, but he knew it was all due to his stupidity. He could have ruined all that he had now over that single hour, and that thought made him feel sick to his soul. He started to cry.

"Zac? You OK?" asked a concerned Gareth as the boy he held so dearly to him broke down into uncontrollable sobs.

"I'm so sorry," he wailed. "I can't believe I did that to you,"

"Did what, Zac?"

"Betrayed you like that, man... I... Shit Gareth I love you so much..."

A tidal wave of emotion welled up inside Gareth, a mixture of compassion and elation. He had reasoned that he may as well enjoy the feelings while they were there, but never really thought that Zac was the type to get emotionally attached. It was the physical sensations that mattered, not the foundation of love beneath it. Up until a couple of moments ago, his concept was not too far off, but the revelation that Zac now felt the same way was almost too much for him.

He gently grasped Zac's head and pulled it away from him so he could look at him. The tear-laden eyes and quivering bottom lip were just too genuine. Gareth re-opened his heart to the emotions he had been desperately trying to suppress about Zac, the release of pressure making him feel like he wanted to proclaim his love of this boy to the whole world.

He pulled Zac's lips to his and forced his tongue into his mouth with such severity it nearly scared Zac, but in a split second he understood the magnitude of the passion behind the reaction, and began to kiss back with equal vigor. Zac recognised the same good feelings he had before, but they were now supported by a concept that turned the whole situation around.

No longer was he kissing to get pleasure himself, but to give Gareth as much pleasure as he possibly could, the good feelings now coming from the knowledge that he was helping make the one he loved the most in this mortal coil experience what he knew he himself liked to experience.

Then he realised that Gareth was doing exactly the same to him for the same reasons. This realisation - the concept of giving all that you have and expecting nothing in return - completed the equation, culminating in feelings of a magnitude hitherto unencountered by either boy.

In a friensied way, Gareth and Zac pulled their trousers and rearranged themselves into a classic 69 position, the exhilarating feeling of the other's lips sucking at the physical manifestation of their love for the other being too much to comprehend. The orgasm that resulted from this coupling would be etched in their minds for the rest of their lives. Due to the enormity of it, it seemed almost alien to both of them yet strangely familiar, the action of them shooting their cum down each other's throats almost symbolic of their willingness to sacrifice everything they held dear to one another.

They had fallen in love.


On to Chapter Twenty-Seven

Back to Chapter Twenty-Five

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The Exchange is © 1999 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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