It started on the dining room table and moved into the bedroom the first time Glenn yelled down the stairs,

"Hey Herbie, they're doing it on the table."

He once again grabbed hold of Kent's stiff dick. I didn't get all that pissed off this time. I wasn't in the mood for sex but Kent had become more ravenous as if he could store up the love we felt for one another. Talking had all but given way to our constant lust and the resulting exhaustion that he always overcame first.

We moved to the bedroom after Herbie had come up to fetch Glenn. I knew that Kent would give Glenn what he wanted before he left. The kid was persistent, and he thought as I thought. That no longer bothered me either. No, Kent had been exactly right. It ended soon after Herbie announced what was going on behind the scenes. I still wanted to hold on to whatever I could.

It was easy to feel as though Kent was now using me for orgasms. I thought about it on the way home. I thought about the dozen or two boys I knew of that Herbie had brought to the house for sex since I was going with Kent. Those are just the ones I knew about. They all brought their secret friends back the second time and Kent was always around. How many had responded to him the same way that Glenn responded to him? Kent wasn't the kind of guy that could deny himself for too long.

I didn't hold his appetite against him, but I wanted to keep him so busy there was nothing left for Herbie's minions to get. Now, it didn't seem to matter since soon he'd be free to take advantage of the results that came from the Pied Piper's magic flute. Soon there would be a line waiting to get into his bed out in some out of the way spot in California. I had him to myself for awhile and it had been very, very good, but now I was left feeling more empty than ever.

I knew I was going to get it because I was even later than usual, but the light was on by the front door and my parents had already gone to bed. I spent some time lying in my bed thinking. I had no urge to whack one off and go to sleep. I mostly thought about each time Kent and I had been together. It didn't seem like enough now that I knew it was over. Some time or other between the fears of loneliness and the tears of emptiness, I went to sleep.

I must have been sleeping pretty sound because when I heard the tapping I didn't know where I was. At first it was in my dream, or I thought it was, but I knew I was dreaming it. Tap, tap, tap, after a short pause, and my dream was unable to locate any logical source for the tapping. I still wasn't sure if it was real but even in the dream it was very distinctive. Tap, tap, tap, followed by the same pause. How Poe, I thought, forcing myself awake.

It was all of a sudden that I realized it wasn't part of my dreaming at all. Fear came to me first and then I jumped up to confront the noise. I was not absolutely sure I'd find myself in my own bed but there I was. The tapping was coming from my window and the fear of the unknown was quite real.

I pulled up my blinds in one yank and there stood Kent on the far side of the glass, smiling through at me once he saw it was me. I eased open the window, checking over my shoulder for any sign of activity from outside my door.

"I forgot to tell you I loved you. I thought I'd drop by to mention that little detail."

"Kent, it's the middle of the night?"

"Yeah, little fuck is staying over. His parents left him with Herbert for safe keeping while they go on vacation. I can't imagine why they didn't take the little sex fiend. Herbie and him came to bed an hour or so ago and he wouldn't quit..., you know, boy's got a mouth on him. Then I was thinking about you and, well, here I am."

He held his arms out wide as if to present himself to me. He smiled his warmest and most endearing smile. With just moonshine for light, he was every bit as gorgeous as ever. I wanted to leap through the screen to get to him. Suddenly the emptiness was relieved if only for a little while. He couldn't stay.

"Do you have like a knife or something we can cut this screen with. I'd make it worth your while you let me in there, cutie."

"My father gets up early," I objected way too ineffectively.

"I didn't come to see your father. I'm sure he's a very nice man, you understand. What I wanted was to suck your dick."

"He always checks my room when he gets up, Kent. This isn't a good idea."

"You have guys climb in your window a lot do you? Daddy has to come run them off in the a.m.?"

"Kent, we're going to get busted."

"I'll be gone by the time he gets up," Kent promised. "Just a few minutes. I'll give you what you like. You aren't going to make me go back there so that kid can keep sucking on my dick all night, are you? I'll be good, sweet thing. I'll be real good. I'll do whatever you like."

I liked everything with Kent. I popped out the screen after scooting my nightstand out of the way with silent ease. I placed the screen under the window so it would be easy to reinstall once my lover made his getaway. There I was in his arms, kissing him, feeling exceptionally horny and knowing how damn dangerous this was. My parents would kill him and do worse to me if they caught us.

What the fuck, I kissed him for all I was worth. If I get caught I want it to be for something worthwhile.

He had on a navy blue jacket and one of his neat button-up shirts. He knelt in front of me and removed my entire wardrobe with one motion of his hands.

It was like magic. Was it ever? He hungered relentlessly for the essence of my life. With his fingers in my crack and my dick in his throat he got me there in nothing flat. A sudden finger thrust up into my reluctant rectum was the coup de grace. It forced me to jam my dick even deeper into his mouth and once he had retrieved and thrust it forth again, I was already lost to the explosion that shook my body and cloudy my already delirious brain. He held me up by keeping his finger strategically placed inside me. His finger did what my knees refused to do. His lips were super glued to my pubes as the tight constrictions of his throat milked me for one drop more.

I lost track of where I was and sometime during my orgasm, but somehow we ended up naked in my bed. I was still short of breath but not so short that I couldn't make love to his dick. He held me and kissed my face once I got him there and beyond. He seemed so much bigger than me when we were in my bed. We both got lost in his bed but he filled mine without any help form me.

"Fuck me," he said after a particularly long, lingering, wet kiss.

"But I just ..." I explained.

"If you love me you'll fuck me right now. No just about it."

I couldn't believe what we were doing. The bed squeaked and he moaned with each loud breath he took. For some reason it was even hotter than usual. His ass hugged me and held me tight. I lost all contact with the world around me while his hole took me to heights I didn't know existed. It ended in a flurry of gasps and slams. I waited for the door to swing open and my father to appear with a shotgun. He didn't even have a shotgun, but if caught us I'd probably wish he had one.

As I lay with my face against his chest he started pumping for all he was worth. I watched his hand work himself over viciously and I felt the warm spray as he gasped and raised his hips and me off the bed as he gushed one long spurt after another until he slowly eased us both back down on the bed. He panted and breathed in squeaks and sobs.

"We're going to make love until I leave," he announced.

"But I can't just stay up there," I complained. "My parents will kill me. I've got to live here after you're gone."

"Every time we're together we'll make love until you've got to go home. You can stay the weekend, can't you? I want you more than I've ever wanted anyone, Martin. I want to go out in a blaze of glory. I never want you to forget me, okay?"

"Okay. We've got to be careful. My old man will be up soon. You should go now."

"Yeah, let's hold each other until it's time for me to go. Please! Then I'll leave."

There was only one way Kent could prove that he really loved me and he had proved it beyond any doubt I had. He had showed me he wanted to be with me and not with Glenn or any number of others. I was still sure more happened between them than he admitted to but he came to me. With Glenn and all the other kids it was sex and with me it was love. I was starting to understand that. His middle of the night visit was what I needed from him. He really cared and he needed to make sure I was okay. I loved that about him.

I didn't understand all of it but it was okay by me as long as he loved me best and last. I thought about Greg and all the boys I'd seen him with and how I loved him all that time anyway, even more because I knew how everyone wanted him. I guess it was hard to know what made someone else tick. I was glad Kent was ticking in my bed that night. I hugged him tightly and loved the feel of his chest on my face. He was developing pecs but his skin remained silken. I could listen to his heartbeat and all was right with my world as his arms held me close.

Of course we fell asleep and my face was still in the middle of his chest when I woke up. The window was open, the screen was on the floor under it, and my door was closed. It was nine thirty. My father had left for work before six. He almost always opened the door to my room to check on me once he got up. If he had opened the door that morning, he'd been too stunned to confront us.

The screen was back in its place and the window and blind closed when he got home from work. I looked for signs of anger or disdain, but I wasn't sure how that would be different from his usual indifference. After a few days I assumed that I had simply lucked out and he hadn't checked that morning. In fact I don't recall ever hearing my door opened again in the early morning hours before he went to work. Perhaps I was old enough now that he no longer needed to check on me, but I suspected he stopped opening my door for a different reason.

We didn't have much to say to each other most days if I wasn't getting yelled at for something. If he knew I was gay, he wasn't going there. I had already made up my mind that if it came I would deal with it, and if it didn't I never would. My sex life was one of the few things that belonged to me and my parents were the last people in the world that I would discuss it with.

I was aware that you weren't supposed to do it, according to the powers that be, except after you were married and then only with your wife, though there was no sign that this was the case in the world where I lived. Since I wasn't the marrying kind, I had a problem with this train of thought. There was no dispensation for us and so I felt as though I had a perfect right to make it up as I went along. If the culture around me wouldn't make allowances for my needs, I'd have no trouble finding somewhere to put it.

I knew my parents well enough to know that no matter what I felt, they'd find fault with it, and thus I had never communicated any feelings to them. Though they'd never express any interest in how I felt about anything. I wasn't about to start with, "Oh by the way, I'm a fag, if anyone's interested." We were accidents of biology and it would be rectified once I was an adult.

Even though I knew the house was empty when I woke Kent up, it was difficult getting started with him again. He had made up his mind to something and I was hoping he'd let it alone long enough for us to walk to his house. We finally got out of my house at twelve-thirty.

Of course once we had escaped the quiet empty house where I lived, we had Herbie and Glenn to deal with. They were dressed after making a trip up to the bowling alley to get some "real" food and Coke. I was sorry we hadn't been there while they were gone. Glenn once again refused to leave Kent's side unless Kent ordered him away. He'd then reluctantly skulk off, not going far for long and soon he'd be hanging on the door or some piece of furniture, watching us, ready to close in once he saw his opening.

Glenn disappeared the following day once Kent's parents came home. That left Kent and I since Herbie spent a lot of time out of the house once his boy had gone. Time moved way too fast for my taste. Before I knew it our last week had arrived. For a few days I had even managed to forget about losing Kent, but then I'd remember. I spent six nights at his house and the nights I didn't stay over there he showed up at my window during the night.

It was the last Wednesday morning that I came tripping into his house. We'd been talking on the phone just before I had walked over. By the time I got there they had a visitor. I charged through the front door like I always did, but stopped short when I saw him.

"Hi, Greg," I said, trying to act real casual like, and sounding anything but casual. What a dork, I thought about myself as my eyes worked him over.

"Hi, Martin. Long time. You've grown."

"I have?" I stammered self-consciously. "Yeah, long time," I added, hanging onto the corner of the couch, thinking he probably saw me the way I saw Glenn. I wanted to die for being so addled brained around him.

He seemed taller too. His hair was totally trimmed and styled so neat it was difficult to realize it was Greg. He was really tan. He wore a blue button up shirt that matched his eyes but you couldn't hide that chest and those shoulders. I couldn't anyway. Under that was a white T-shirt that looked super white against his bronzed skin. His blue eyes were bluer, his teeth were whiter, and my heart fluttered, skipped beats, and suddenly stopped before pounding so hard in my ears that I thought it might burst there drums. I leaned on the arm of the couch and felt nine years old.

It was all back in two seconds. I hadn't seen him for most of a year but it didn't matter. I hated myself for loving him.

"You two talking?" I asked as Kent and Greg stood face to face a foot apart.

"Yeah, well, he's here to see Herbie," Kent said.

"I've grown up some, Kent," Greg corrected, glancing at Kent and then looking back toward me. "I did act pretty immature back then."

"How you doing?" He asked me in a way that sounded partially sincere as close he was to Kent he kept looking to me.

"Fine," I said, and Kent came to my side and held my hand, letting his shoulder touch mine as he leaned enough to peck my lips. I knew why I did this even though it was totally out of character for him.

"You two still ... what an odd couple you are," he said in disbelief. "The two biggest pains in my butt teaming up. How weird is that? I wouldn't have a chance around here these days," Greg said casually.

"Pains in the butt for different reasons," I said in one of my stupid moments.

The atmosphere turned immediately on those clever words. The eye contact was lost as Greg checked out his feet. His tan turned an incredible blazing red. Kent squeezed my hand and stepped on my foot.

"You bastard," he said directly to Kent with as much venom as I'd seen in awhile. "You too." He said directly to me, but the look could have killed. He saved the look for me. I had to bring it up. What a fucking dork.

"Hey, Greg, come on. I put on your favorite movie," Herbie yelled, standing impatiently at the top of the basement stairs. His dick stood straight out in front of him. "He likes big dicks, Gregie. He's cool about it too. Come on back down."

"I told you I've got a girlfriend, Herbert," Greg said firmly, as he turned and noticed Herbie's nakedness. "I don't need to be doing that shit any more. When are you going to grow up?"

"Grow up and forget my friends? Never, I hope. He can be a lot of fun, dude. I bet he does things your girlfriend don't do. Come on."

"I don't know," Greg said, glancing at Kent and me, glancing at our hands again. "I might watch a few movies. I've got all day."

"You scared?" Glenn said, leaning on the door jam and looking at Greg.

Greg laughed as he turned to examine the naked boy beside his best friend.

"He's a little young even for you Herbert."

"Come on, Greg. He'll sit on your lap and put a smile on that sour puss of yours. You don't ever stop liking a good smile."

"He as big as you say?" Glenn asked, turning to Herbie. "Big as him?" He said, pointing at Kent.

"Bigger," Herbie bragged for Greg. "Way thick."

"Kewl! What's the hold up?" Glenn asked.

"Come on if you're finished with them," Herbie said. "I'm sure they'll find something to do without you. They never leave each other alone. I can't even get time in my own bed these days."

"I've been finished with them for a long time," he said before turning his back and following Herbie into the basement.

"You asshole," Kent said to me. "He was talking to me and you say that shit. What's wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry. I just said it. I was flustered. I didn't know what to say to him."

"So you remind him that I fucked his brains out. That was just what you say to a long-lost friend."

"I'm sorry. It's always like that between us. I could have said, how's the weather, and we'd have gotten the same reaction. He just doesn't like me."

"Looks good, huh?" Kent said, looking to where Greg disappeared.

"I guess."

"Right! Who you kidding, Martin? You should have seen the look on your face when you saw him. I wish I had a camera."

"It's that obvious?"

"Yeah, you got it bad. You might love me but you never looked at me like that," Kent said. "Not in the light anyway."

"I'm sorry, Kent. I can't help it."

"Sorry for what? Will you cut it out already? It's okay to love people. Lord knows I've had enough wet dreams over that one."

"You have?" I asked.

"You'd have to be dead not to have dreams about Greg. I bet straight guys dream about him. He's so fucking hot. I'd go down on him in a New York minute."

"You would?"

"If you didn't love people we wouldn't love each other, Martin. It's not a perfect science. There isn't just one a piece and that's it. Don't say you're sorry for being able to love people. Don't ever say that. That's what is wrong with this world now."

I kissed him to shut him up. Him saying that did make it easier. I wanted to feel guilty for feeling what I felt for Greg while loving Kent. It just went against what people said you could feel. Maybe because I was gay I felt it more or different or something. I don't know. I know I felt it. I know it was real.

Greg left while we were in the bedroom. He didn't bother to say goodbye but Glenn was gracious enough to come in to describe Greg's dick in great detail as well as the things he discovered he could do with it. Neither Kent nor I shut him up this time. There was definitely a perverse pleasure in knowing he hadn't given up boys entirely. Greg had a girlfriend but he wasn't beyond dabbling in old activities if the offer was right. I wasn't sure how I felt but hearing about Greg made things better.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

We had sex twice that morning but things started to change that day. Kent wandered away from me after we ate lunch and didn't come back into the house until almost three in the afternoon. We hugged and he cried gently on my shoulder while I held him, but he couldn't talk. I cried while we held each other on the couch but neither of us could console the others grief. In fact we were the source of one anothers pain but we couldn't let go.

The end was near.

"I don't want to go," he said in a sob. I was totally cried-out.

"Me either," I said.

He cried some more and he went to play the piano. He kept his clothes on. We started out sitting together on the bench with me hugging his right arm as he played, but we ended up on opposite ends of the seat.

I had stayed over the entire weekend and didn't go home until Tuesday. We'd been engaged in sex one way or the other for the entire time. We took breaks for eating and even went for a walk on Sunday, but besides that, we were in bed the entire time those last days. I had to go home Tuesday night just so I didn't totally piss off my parents. When they asked I explained that my friend was leaving for California and that seemed to be enough for the time being. I was sure I hadn't heard the last about my chronic absence. Maybe that's when they'd tell me they knew what I was up to.

Then Wednesday there was our encounter with Greg. We did end up in the bed later that day, but it was just to hold one another. We didn't even take off our shoes. He just held on tight but even in my arms it was like he had already left me. I held on because I needed to hold onto something to keep from drifting off the planet. There were no more crying jags although we couldn't look at each other without seeing tears.

We knew what was coming and we were powerless to stop it. I felt like shit. I'd never felt as bad as I felt those final two days. Wednesday night I left his house at ten and at midnight he was climbing in my window. There was no sex. Sex could no longer keep out the reality that was rushing toward us.

There was no talking, all the words had been said. There was a lot of holding. We held each other tighter but it didn't help. He escaped Wednesday night while I was asleep. I closed the window and put the screen back when I got up. I looked in the yard in amongst the shrubs for him. He wasn't there.

"I'll go with you," I said on Thursday afternoon after a day of silence.

"Right! Country boy meets the highway. You'd last about an hour before someone raped your ass and left you for dead. It's a long way to California."

"I don't care. I won't stay here without you. Your old man is never home. He'll never know. I'll hitch out and live at your house."

"You're about helpless, Martin. You didn't know which end was up until you met me. I could make it because I've been out in the world. I love you sweetie, but you're from fucking Hooterville, and you don't know jack-shit. Stay here. Finish school. You can come out next year if you want. Don't give in, and make it worse than it is."

"Stay here? After I've been with you?"

"We'll write. We'll figure it out. We're just too damn young to go on our own. We're too damn young to be this much in love."

"Why, because no one else wants us to be in love?" I asked.

"I don't know. Don't start with all those questions again. It just is, Martin. That's what's wrong with you. You always want an answer. There isn't always an answer to everything. We love each other and if we tell anyone, so they don't separate us, they're going to lock our asses up, especially they're going to lock your ass up. Now I could do quite well in jail. Probably would even enjoy a little time with a lot of horny boys, but you'd never make it. Now quit talking stupid."

"You can have anyone you want. You're handsome, hung, and horny all the time. You'll find someone else," I said with certainty. "There's only two people I've ever loved. One hates me and the other one is leaving me."

There was no reply. It wasn't a question. I wasn't supposed to ask questions. We held hands but not each other. I left early Thursday evening and he didn't come that night but I knew he wouldn't. I called Friday morning early and his father answered the phone. He was already there for him and that meant I couldn't go to say goodbye. It was anti-climactic at best.

"He's here already," Kent said when he picked up the phone. "We have an earlier flight than he told us. He has a buddy who is flying a C-130 out to Edwards at ten-hundred hours. You can't come up. He'll freak if you come up. He knows what to look for, Martin, and he'll read you like a book. Please don't come over. I'm sorry. I thought we'd have time."

I went and sat on the corner across the street from Kent's street as soon as I hung-up at seven fifteen. It was after nine when I saw them getting into the car. Kent never looked down to where I sat and I was disappointed there wouldn't even be a last look.

The car backed out of the driveway, creeping down the street toward me. I sat holding my knees to my chest and fighting back the tears that now flowed freely. I looked through the window and could only see Herbie seated in the front seat. As the car turned, Kent was kneeling on the back seat, looking out of the back window and our eyes met. He waved and kept our eye contact.

He had a long, sad face and didn't smile. He just looked at me until they turned onto Old Highway. I lay back on the still cool grass and cried and cried. How could he do this to me? How could he leave me? I hated my life. I hated everyone.

I wandered all day. I don't have a clue where I went. I remember being at all the places where we'd had sex in the woods. I went to the bowling alley and drank a soda and picked at a plate of greasy fries covered in ketchup. I was at El Rancho toward dark and had more soda. It was way dark when I finally went home. I made sure I didn't cry the last hour or two. My parents grumbled and I went to bed.

I slept for the entire weekend and my parents wanted to know if I was sick. How could I tell them just how sick I was? "Dearest mother and father, my heart has been shattered and I no longer wish to live in this shitty world." That would go over well. Right!

I spent more time at home that weekend than I had spent there in the past month but I wouldn't call it quality time. My parents were sure that I was sick but the kind of doctor I needed, they knew they couldn't afford.

Doug showed up Monday morning to shake me out of my malaise and he had heard from Herbert. There was a message from Kent, who thought that calling my house was a bad idea.

We ended up at Doug's house and just watched television. His mother gushed all over me when she came home from work. She insisted I stay for dinner. Doug insisted I stay the night. Doug's father came home late and regaled us with one of his stories about his boyhood on the reservation. That laugh even had me laughing even though I didn't want to laugh. Okay, so life wasn't without value or neat people that cared about me, but I hated it just the same.

"Where's Cheryl, Dougie," I asked, after we had spent the entire day together and he hadn't mentioned her one time. We were working on the second bowl of Butter Pecan Ice cream his mother had brought us.

"She's in Rhode Island with her parents. Won't be back for a week," he said.

God, how great it was sleeping in Greg's bed. It was pretty amazing that I could still smell him on the pillows. It actually comforted me until I was rudely awakened when the lights came on and Doug's mom was standing in the middle of the bedroom appearing lost. At first I was sure she was walking in her sleep.

As I squinted in an effort to get my eyes open, there was this godawful look on her face. A chill ran through me and I was scared to the bone.

"Mom!" Doug yelled, jumping up out of his bed to hold his mother. "What's happened?"

"It's Greg honey, your brothers been in an accident. Dougie, it's bad, hon. Your father thought he should go alone. He's in the operating room over at Falls Church. Your father's wants him over at the base hospital."

"What happened?" Doug asked, stepping back as his mother held both of her hands up to her mouth. She looked aimlessly around as she spoke. She seemed lost in her house.

"He got hit by a car. His friend said he just didn't see it. It was an accident is all."

"When can I see my brother?" Doug asked.

"We should wait for your father to call. He's been in the operating room most of the night. There's no sense in sitting there. We can wait here."

The coffee flowed and we sat silent at the dining room table staring at the phone. It rang any number of times and Doug's mom snatched it up on the first ring each time.

"Hello. Yes. Yes," she said, hanging up the phone. "He's out of the operating room and in the ICU. Your father has made arrangements to have him air-lifted to the base hospital once he's stabilized."

"Can't we go, mom. I want to see my brother," Doug sobbed.

"No, dear. He'll be over here in a few hours."

"Mom!" Doug disagreed.

"Oh, Martin, this must be terrible for you. You want me to drive you home?"

"No, ma'am. I want to see him too."

"Of course you do. He'd like that. You should really come around more often. We've missed you, Martin," she said in that soft, haunting voice I'd woken up to.

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "I will."

I wondered if he would like it. He blew a gasket every time I was around him. I certainly didn't want to make matters worse by upsetting him while he was hurting. My broken heart was now tattered as well. I'd lost one lover and now it looked as though there was real danger that I could be losing the other.

We sat staring at each other and at the phone. It rang an hour later and after another pot of coffee. Doug's mom snatched it up. She said nothing and fumbled while trying to hang it up. I took it and put it down for her, waiting for the news. Her pale face had gone gray.

"Mom!" Doug yelled at her.

"Oh, he's hemorrhaging in his chest, and they have him back in the operating room. He's lost a lot of blood, and is very weak. They've GOT to stop the bleeding."

I thought about the first time I had ever seen Greg on the gravel road just over from my house. I remember how just seeing him had totally changed the focus of my life. I really hadn't been alive until I met him.

I thought about how good he had looked when I had seen him at Kent's. I cringed when I remembered what I had said to him to piss him off that time. I always found a way to piss him off no matter what I said. It still tore me up to know he was hurting. I wondered if it could get any worse and I didn't dare think it could.

We waited as daylight started to invade the dining room through the large windows beside the table that looked out on the big oak tree in the middle of the horseshoe driveway.


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