Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 01:19:48 -0700 From: Dream Spinner Subject: "Jason's Journey - Chapter 9" (bi, true, m/m) This is a story about the growing up and coming of age of a typical Ohio boy by the name of Jason as told to me through the exchange of a series of Email. It is a true story detailing true events with only the names, including Jason's, having been changed to protect the travelers we meet along the way. We pick up where we left off in Chapter 8 with nineteen-year-old Jason home for the summer after his first year of University and about to experience his first true male love. Lyrics to "Smile" are copyright by Lonestar. Comments about the story can be sent to the author, J.O. Dickingson at authorsix@hotmail.com and those who wish to correspond directly with Jason may do so at journeyofjason@yahoo.com CHAPTER NINE: YEA THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEPRESSION I start working at K-mart in May as a midnight freezer guy. Kenny works there also but that doesn't change our relationship and nothing ever happens with us at work. I meet a few new friends and some really strange people, including a skanky old man in his late fifties or maybe early sixties with buzzed white hair and a gut that doesn't quit who works there. He is a real jerk who looks like the king of the Gungans in Star Wars Episode 1 and is a flamboyant, over- dramatic queen. He starts talking to me almost the first night at K-mart while I am stocking my freezer and he immediately gives me the creeps. As I mentioned earlier, one of the things that turns me on is hearing people you wouldn't expect to swear cursing. Well, one day one of the new cashiers comes down the aisle to where I am stocking to ask me where a product is located. She proceeds to tell me about a guy that was at the register who was bitching about everything and saying fuck this and fuck that. She is young and seems so innocent. When she leaves I about loose it. They want twenty credit hours a semester plus four hours of instrument practice a day at Akron and with my health as it was there were times last semester I was sure I was going to have a heart attack from the stress. Still being on fifteen pills a day that summer, I begin thinking how nice it would be to be home all the time and not in Akron and finally decide to change colleges. The local campus does not have a music program so I decide to switch into Accounting. We convert the downstairs diningroom into a bedroom for me toward the end of summer, just before I begin my first semester at Kent. First we move the birds, fifteen or more, mostly parrots, out of the dining room and upstairs to the back bedroom, and then we move all the furniture out. It takes us several weeks because we do a complete overhaul. Dad hangs the drywall and puts in a standup closet and we paint the walls a medium blue and the ceiling dark blue. Then we lay the carpet, a dark grey, and put the new furniture together. I love putting furniture together. I have put together desks, armoires, entertainment stands, the bigger the better. I am the one everyone calls when they need something put together. I have two dressers, a corner TV stand, a corner desk for my computer, my king-sized bed, and a six-foot tall rack with adjustable shelves for my CDs. I also have two chests that I call chessers that I use to keep my cigarettes in that I put right next to my desk so I can prop my feet up on them. My keyboard I set up in front of the front window so I can keep up with my music. The new arrangement is great. I can use the front door for guests and I have my bedroom and the living room all to myself. The only reason for me to go in the rest of the house is for food and to use the bathroom. Kenny drops by one day while we are getting my downstairs room set up. As usual we talk for a while, catching up on what is going on in our lives and after a bit of small talk go straight to making out. We end up in a sixty-nine position with me looking up and him on top of me. I always love that position, looking up and seeing a guy's balls hanging down and his dick right in my face. I even love it when I am doing it to myself and look up at my own balls. We go at it for probably twenty minutes when there is a noise on the other side of the hallway next to my room. The way it is set up, there should be a hallway leading from my room to the kitchen, but I have it blocked with an old door. On the other side is a book shelf and what we hear is dad getting his stuff. Kenny freaks out and leaves a few minutes later. That is the first and only time Kenny sucks my dick. One more memorable moment on my journey. So I enter Kent College in Accounting that fall. The classes are fine and so are most of the professors. I quickly learn that many are foreigners whom you avoid in your scheduling since you can't understand a damn word they say. For the most part I keep to myself and don't talk to anybody. Although I'd had my first cigarette at fourteen and have smoked occasionally ever since, I don't really start smoking seriously until that October. We had just changed suppliers and my freezers on the sales floor are empty and my freezers in the back are full, over-full actually. On top of it all, my coffin freezers, the ones that are half freezers and are open on top, all go down. I am stocking the high rise freezers as I am pulling product out of the coffins and trying to find a place for everything. When we changed suppliers, they totally changed where everything went on the shelves so it is a bad night to begin with anyway. I am the only person that works nights in the frozen section and there is only a total of five people on our midnight crew in grocery and they are busy with their own sections. So I am having a really bad night and when the shift leader comes back and says it is time for a break, I go up and buy a pack of Marlboro Reds and a lighter and join the rest of the smokers. I get very sick after the first one, but slowly, over the course of about three weeks, I build myself up to smoking three cigs at the first fifteen minute break, three at lunch, and three more at the last break. I finally send Tara a letter around Thanksgiving telling her how I feel about her. I tell her that I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and the worst was letting her go and that I still love her. Sunday, November 29, at 10:09 she sends me an Email telling me she's already taken. She's met a guy on the Internet and is engaged and going to be married, putting an end to that idea. Still another memorable moment in my journey, one I'd rather not have. I'm gonna smile, 'cause I want to make you happy, Laugh, so you can't see me cry. I'm gonna let you go in style, And even if it kills me, I'm gonna smile. The year 2000 isn't really much of a happy new year nor a happy new millennium for me. I have a total intestinal blockage in the terminal ileum and on Valentine's day night of all nights, I am rushed to the hospital, where I sit in the ER for twelve hours until they can find me a room. The drugs they give me make me hallucinate and swing at anyone who comes near me. It is a fun night, and the beginning of a fun week.. One day while my folks are visiting dad mentions that they'll have to remember to get some change for the vending machines and without thinking I tell him I have a few rolls of quarters in my dresser at home and to help himself, forgetting that I'd put my cigarettes in the same drawer before heading to the hospital so they wouldn't find them in my coat.. Smart! I out myself. I am in the hospital for five days before they have me built up enough that I can make it through surgery. They do a total intestinal resection, removing my cecum, my appendix, and about twelve inches of small intestine. Recovery is a bitch. I have stomach spasms every five minutes for twelve hours straight right after the surgery. They have me on a pain pump that they tell Mom to push every ten minutes as long as the spasms are occurring. Turns out, she could have killed me because I am in and out of consciousness and it could have stopped my breathing. The next few days are really painful and the day before I am to go home, my incision starts bleeding and I need stitched up. And if that isn't bad enough, I get a visit from S.O.M., the skanky old man from K-mart. Well, I get home and Kookie about mauls me. I had been gone for twelve days and I swear it looks like she has a tear in her eye when I come in. She has really clung to me ever since we got her and she even sleeps with her head on my pillow. I have a king size bed and she has actually pushed me out of bed more then a couple times. I break open four more times over the next week and go to the hospital to get stitched up each time. The last time, they decide to keep me and see what is going on. They think it is just a bleeding vein that needs clamping. I go in for surgery again on Sunday morning, just to find and clamp this vein. Turns out I have a Staph infection and they have to let me heal from the inside out to ensure it won't become infected again. A few weeks after my release the second time, S.O.M. shows up at my house to check in on me and see how I am doing and I'm beginning to get suspicious of his intentions. I mean, why would a sixty-year-old man have such an interest in the health of a twenty-year-old that just happens to work in the same store as he does? Then the end of March I have gall bladder problems and end back in the hospital. We all think it is too soon for yet another surgery so we decide to hold off on it. Twice a day for the next three months, Mom has to pack my stomach with wet gauze and medications. It heals up pretty nicely considering I have two huge holes in my stomach. Of course my semester at Kent has been totally shot. I was told not to drive or have sex for six weeks, along with the rest of the normal precautions after my surgery. That is pure hell, almost as bad as the intestinal blockage! I can't get off for six whole weeks! Just before the surgery I was doing it probably two or three times a day and to have to go cold turkey has to be the worst torture I've ever had to endure. I actually count the days until I can do it. That night my parents are out at the store and I go surfing the net for something to use to get off to. At that point it could have been a picture of Bea Arthur and I would have been able to use it. Finding a few pictures of twinks, my favorite viewing material, I grab a towel, head into my room and lay on the floor. It takes me about forty-five seconds and I am shooting like mad. To my disappointment and consternation it hurts like hell instead of being the rapturous pleasure I had been anticipating for six weeks. I can only assume it is because I hadn't used it for so long and that the muscle that shoots the stuff is weak. It is quite a few days before I work up the nerve to try it again and to my relief this time it doesn't hurt. It does not take me that long after that to get back up to my usual frequency. One day I am in the mall checking out some video games at EB and one of the guys that works there catches my eye. He is a rather mousy chap, the kind that turns me on. He is the average computer geek, home-schooled, very thin, a little shorter than I am. He is the kind of guy you would expect to have a monster cock just because anything would look big on his frame. I head for the men's washroom to think about him and have a quick wank. A few people from K-mart get together and we go out for lunch, along with S.O.M. He is like the stray cat that just wouldn't leave you alone. He keeps making these comments about sex and eventually starts trying to take my clothes off, just in fun so I thought. Later though when I think about it and put two and two together, it starts to dawn on me just why he is so interested in me, and the thought makes me want to vomit. I got nothing against messing around with an older guy, but with him, forget it! When I tell my parents about it they agree with my suspicions and I begin to refer to him as C.H., for Chicken Hawk. I finally go back to K-mart in May which turns out to be too soon and I wind up with a terrible hernia that will plague me for the next several years. Life is not going well at all. It should be no surprise I start drinking the day I turn twenty-one, the legal drinking age in Ohio. I'm working the midnight shift at K-mart, so when I get off in the morning I grab a cart and head straight down the alcohol aisle. I grab some of this and some of that, go home and pass my ass out by eleven a.m. When I wake up, I start again and pass out shortly after again. I love drinking. It is a nice escape from everything. Anyway, I really have to watch my health that summer and on top of everything else, Geauga Lake and Sea World of Ohio are bought by Six Flags and they do a total renovation, combining the two parks, adding a bunch of rides, and tearing down my favorite change room. Life is really not going well! I get my cigs from the gas station down the block from my house. August they have a sale on Marlboro's for $22 a carton so I go in to get my Marlboro Milds. It is an unusual brand and most stores don't stock a large quantity of them. I ask for them and the Assistant Manager goes crazy looking for them. He finally finds the last carton hidden behind up in what is called the waterfall. That is the rack up above the packs that hold the cartons on display. I tell him that I had been everywhere looking for them and he is the only one that has taken the time to look like he did. He says that I should have come to Shell to begin with, that they know how to treat customers. He seems like a really nice guy, kind of cute, kind of gay, someone I wouldn't mind getting to know. He is a bit overweight, 5'10, probably 180 pounds, with short brown hair and a goatee. His nose is what I would call a bird-beak. Very nice guy, very feminine, very noticeable lisp. A few weeks later I get fed up with K-mart and tell them to shove it because I haven't gotten my vacation pay for almost a month after I took it. I don't have any plans as to what I am going to do and I go for a drive to cool down and think about things and wind up getting a ticket. That is just great! I have very little money as it is, never having been much of a saver. A few days later Ted, a friend from K-mart, and I go up to Cleveland and fill out an application for UPS. On the way home we stop at a TGIFridays and I get a Long Island and really like it. I start drinking pretty regularly since I don't have anything else to do and am rather depressed. I wind up applying for a job at Shell and am sober just long enough for the interview and the training and then begin drinking again. I start at Shell on August 30 and meet everyone I am going to work with. The store manager, Tina, is a real babe: blond hair, amazing greenish blue eyes, great ass to say the least, and a lot of fun to be around. I get to know the Assistant Manager, Ryan, pretty well and remind him of how he had searched for my cigs and I tell him that is why I decided to work there. He remembers me and complains about how much time I took up for him to try to find them. He is a sarcastic little twit. I love that about him. I am hired to work six days on and eight days off. The week after my orientation, I am supposed to go on my eight days off and I get a call from Tina asking if I could cover the weekend since the other girl just up and quit. She says they will replace her as soon as possible, but it would be a huge help if I could work whatever was possible. I am a money whore at the time so I jump all over the overtime I will be getting. I wind up working fifty hours a week within the first month and slowly increase to ungodly hours. C.H. begins to show up on his nights off and just sit with me for hours. I am bored and drunk so I don't care. Ryan and I start hanging out outside of work, getting dinner at Denny's or Bob Evens. We go shopping a few times, go to plays like "The Nutcracker" (Oh my God it was horrible) and the county Philharmonic concerts, watch movies, and of course drink. He is only twenty and lives in a trailer with a roommate but his parents supply him with alcohol. They don't care. With Ryan being a drinker too, I have no reason to stop. Besides, it is a ten-hour shift in the middle of the night and I need something to do. I get home, take a few shots until I pass out, get up for work, take another shot or two, have a few drinks at work, go to school, go home, drink till I pass out and start the whole thing over again. The sad thing is, my grades are a hell of a lot better when I am drunk. I get high for the first time after a speech class that fall. I give a speech on legalizing marijuana and a kid in the class comes up to me afterward and asks me if I want to go try some. It is one of the rare nights I'm not working at Shell and I take about one second to think about it and we are off. We pick up his friend and go off to some house and smoke. I don't get much of a buzz with it being the first time and I am nervous and all. I go home and eat everything in sight. On the plus side, it is a month before my stomach pains return. One night, I am at Ryan's place and we are watching the movie "Omen," my choice, big mistake. He has a bottle of Tanqueray, an English Gin that has a bit of a pine taste to it. He keeps pouring me shots and after the fourth I tell him I better stop. He pours me another and tells me to drink it, then he goes to the bathroom and I slide off the chair and land face down on the floor. When he comes back out, he asks if I am ok and when I don't answer he rolls me over to make sure I am still alive. I tell him he better help me to the bathroom because I am going to puke. I'll save the gory details, but I puke more that night then I ever have in my life. Believe me, I have been drunk and puked, but this is power puking. He is scared and holds me the whole night and helps me to the bathroom when I need it, never pushing himself on me or anything or even trying anything. During the night, I hear him say that he is sorry and he loves me and doesn't want anything to happen to me. The next day he tells me he doesn't know how such a little guy can puke so much. I go home and think about what happened and what he had said. It is a very weird day thinking about it. I act kind of strange toward him after that until I finally get up enough nerve and ask him about it. When I bring it up, he says that he was just worried about me and wanted me to be safe. He seems a little shocked that I remember him saying it and I get the feeling I've caught him off guard. Having a guy in love with me is all so new to me. Before this I was just having fun fooling around with guys, but now I realize this relationship might actually mean something more than a way to get off. When I am working with him, just the two of us, I begin to flirt around with him and tease him a bit, but I don't ever actually tell him I'm bi or might be interested in doing something with him. Whenever I tease, he always teases back that I am a confused little guy and I should embrace the gay within me, and we laugh about it. He is always fun to mess with, and I know just how to embarrass him or shock him. Actually, when we started going out for dinner together I am sure he started to suspect that I was interested in a relationship even though neither of us made any sort of move on the other. It is funny, I am such a closet case and don't want anyone finding out I am bi and he is such a flamer you could light a cigarette off him, but I never worry about being seen with him. K-mart closes a few months after I left and C.H. comes to work at Shell in January. They put him at one of the other stores at first, then he requests to be transferred to the store I'm at and since we are having problems finding another midnight guy, they move him. Tina goes to the main office and Ryan takes over as store manager. She has a party at her house to celebrate her leaving and Ryan taking over for most of the staff, except the two older folks, C.H. and another lady. We all get totally sloshed so we stay at her house. Ryan and I sleep in the living room, me on the couch and him on the floor. He has to be up for work at four and we talk until probably three. We start discussing the situation between us and we get closer. He sits up and leans onto the couch and I get right up in his face just egging him on. I have a habit of doing that to people. I tell him that I have never kissed a guy before and he asks me why. I tell him it just doesn't seem right to me for some reason and I think it is kind of gross. He starts to pull back and I grab him and pull his face to me and kiss him. We both have goatees and they rub together. It is kind of hot. I slide down off the couch and we start making out pretty hot and heavy. I work my way down his body and get to his dick and start giving him a blow job. It is rather small, probably about four inches total, a lot like Mike's from around the corner. It is funny, I never think twice about blow jobs, but kissing is just out of the question. We don't finish up that night, just stop since he has to be up so soon. I fall asleep but wake up long enough to tell him goodbye. The next day, I am the last to leave so Tina and I go to the Dairy Queen for sundaes. It is sub-zero weather and the middle of a snowstorm, but we want ice-cream. I leave around 1:30 and stop at the store on the way home for a pack of smokes. It doesn't hit me until I walk in and see Ryan, and then it all comes flooding back to me, what we did the night before. I could tell by the look on his face that he isn't sure how I am taking it but I am probably white as a ghost. We go out for a smoke and talk a bit and leave things on really good terms. After that, I can get away with anything with him. It is just like Kevin in band except now in reverse. I am constantly making eyes at him, or kissing at him when no one is in the store, just giving him a hard time. I go into the office to ask a question and then say "Ok loverboy" and shake my ass at him as I walk out. Anything I can to get to him. It is always in fun though and he always gets so flustered. There are two of us that are up for the Assistant Manager spot, myself and the associate manager. The associate manager is not that bright and I am almost a shoo in for the job, but they decide to bring a girl in from another store to train her as a store manager for a new store they are opening. She is there for maybe four months and then her store opens and the job is open again. The owners give Ryan permission to start training me for the job and say then they will decide after an appropriate amount of time which one of us would get the Assistant job and which the Associate position. My brother and his wife are having problems and finally he runs off with his wife's best friend. They end up having a big court battle for custody of Eric and considering what my brother had done, our family takes up her side. One day I am left to watch Eric at his house while they are in court and he starts running off at the mouth with fuck this, fuck that, you're a mother fucker, and so on. I laugh and say that he will be sorry when he slips up and swears in front of one of his parents. My brother never cared when I was younger if I swore and I guess it carried over because I never yell at or tell on Eric when he would swear. Besides, like I've said, one of my many and varied fetishes is that hearing youngsters swear turns me on. Another thing I enjoy is bothering Eric while he is in the bathroom. That same day he cusses me out, he goes up to take a shit and I go up and open the door. He starts to throw things at me, cups, a bar of soap, and then the dope throws the roll of toilet paper at me. I just hold it and laugh at him when he discovers he doesn't have anything to wipe. I finally throw it back at him and let him be. I am just trying to distract him in my own little way from the problems he is having. I can't imagine what it must be like to be eight and having your parents having a nasty court battle over you. It doesn't go well at all with C.H. It was actually better when I was the only one on the midnight shift. At least then I knew that I would be working every night. He doesn't have an alarm clock and he almost never wakes up on time. The night people are scheduled at ten o'clock and the afternoon people at the store are scheduled until 10:30. When he isn't there until after eleven, they are pissed and I get the call. I don't know how many times my plans are interrupted because of him and then I would get a call from him at one a.m. saying that he slept in and asking if he should he come to work. I tell him I am already there and my night is ruined anyway so he might as well just stay home. Then he starts having medical problems and shows up even less. The man is diagnosed with diabetes and when I am doing my manager training I go in at 5:30 a.m. and find Mountain Dew bottles, candy bar wrappers, chip bags, cookie papers, Little Debbie wrappers, everything he shouldn't have been eating. I never feel sorry for him when he is sick because he never tries to take care of himself. He enjoys being sick. He carries around a bag of pills and makes sure everyone knows how many pills he is taking and that he is having problems. He starts pissing himself while he is working and people complain of the smell and how slow he is. I don't know how many people tell me that when they see he is working they would drive past. The one day, Ryan is working and cleaning up a bit and this guy says, "Ryan, I am going to have to go to the bathroom." Ryan tells him to go ahead and he will watch the store. The reply "Too Late." Ryan is shocked and the look on his face when he is telling me about it is priceless. One time the ice machine at the Subway is fucked up and leaking all over the floor. I am doing morning training and I get in early and slosh through the water to hang my coat up. I go back outside for a smoke and see Ryan pull in. I tell him that the old man pissed himself again, a lot this time, and as he opens the door and sloshes through the water he looks like he is about to puke. We have a good laugh about it. I pick up as many hours as I can since we are still looking for a competent part time midnight guy. I wind up working eighty-five hours a week, days, nights, afternoons, mornings, anytime I am needed, plus going to school full time. If I don't work it, Ryan will have to and he won't get any extra pay since he is on salary. He is kind of pissed when my checks get to be the same size as his though. We start getting together and making out pretty regularly whenever I have the night off, which isn't very often, but we never go all the way. I start to feel myself really starting to fall for him, which is really weird for me. I have always said that whoever I fall in love with is the person I want to spend my life with, but I never thought I would fall for a guy. Ryan and his roommate aren't getting along and decide to go their own ways so he moves out of the trailer and back in with his parents and I help him move his stuff. A few months later, Ryan gets a letter at the store from his old roommate. I am working with him and training a new girl at the time so when he goes into the office to read it, I tag along to see what is going on. I can see the new girl from the surveillance monitor to see if she needs any help so all is well. I am a faster reader than Ryan and am a few paragraphs ahead of him and come to a few lines about me. It says "It is so obvious that you love your midnight guy and I can deal with that." When Ryan gets to that point, he covers it and says I shouldn't be reading that. I tell him I already had and just gave him my puppy dog eyes and blow him a kiss as I walk out the door smiling. One night I am working and Kenny comes into the store. We are talking and I mention Ryan. Kenny knows Ryan and Ryan knows Kenny, but neither will tell me the extent of the relationship. It is funny how in a small town like this how the gay people all know each other, but there aren't that many of us so I guess it makes sense. Another night while I am working midnights, there is a football game and we are really busy. I have a few minutes so I start stocking cigarettes. I hear the door open, turn around, and there Jessica is coming in to pay for gas. It reminds me of the old movie line, "of all the ____ in this town, she has to walk into mine." We have a brief but nice and friendly conversation. It is a rather depressing night. That is the night I hit two packs a day and really start drinking at work. Hey, it is midnight at a gas station. I have to do something to pass the time. I really don't remember working there without being sloshed, but then I don't remember much from that time. In June Mom, Gramma and I take a tour trip to England and Malta, leaving from Cleveland and flying to Toronto, and then catching AirCanada to Heathrow. It is a trip to open the mind and body and to reconnect with the ancients who walked before us. We have a ceremony inside Stonehenge, get to see a few crop circles, visit the Tor, The Chalice Well, the Temple of the Sun, and the Abbey where King Arthur worshiped. We are in England for three days before I have my first wank. I am finally in the room by myself, my French roommate being out. He is in his early 50's and from Paris I think. God, I hate French people, always acting so superior and poo-pooing on everyone else. That is our job as Americans! LOL Anyway, it has been a few days and I am really "In the Mood." (I love that song.) It is a really crappy hotel, typical English one star, and I just sit in one of the chairs and go for it. All I need is my imagination. Then we go to Malta and Gozo and get to go through some ancient ruins and caverns. The lady we are with, Robbyne LaPlant, is a psychic. I have a reading while we're there and she says I was a Templar Knight in a past life. The best thing of the trip is that the group of people we are with are so familiar even though they are from all over the globe. It feels like we all have known each other for a long time. I am scared shitless the first night when we have our meeting though. The way they have the tables set up, there are a few folding tables stuck together long ways and then a few that are perpendicular to those, making an E but with four arms rather than three. I am sitting at one of the junctions right across from Robbyne looking the other way talking to Mom. I turn to look at Robbyne and she had put this big, black crystal skull on the table. When I saw that, I turned to Mom and said, "what the hell has Grandma gotten us into this time!" When I jack off in Malta, it is the same thing, I just go for it so I can add another place to my list of places I've shot a load off. In Gozo we are at a five star resort, a beautiful place that would be a great place for a honeymoon if that every happens for me. By then I am really tired from all the time changes we've gone through and all the ceremonies and touring and everything. The day I jack off is the same day there is a solar eclipse passing through Africa. We have a few hours off and I fall asleep on the couch that is in the sitting area. I wake up around five p.m. and have the usual morning wood (hey, it would be morning in America) so I just go for it and add another city to my list. Funny story. There is a patio that overlooks the pool off each room and they put the umbrellas down that are on the tables at night. I come into the room and open the curtain to go out to the patio for a cigarette and see all the umbrellas down and the lights from the pool shining up and I grab the curtains and pull them shut really quick sacred shitless. I thought there was a KKK meeting going on around the pool. I slowly pull the curtains back a crack and peek through and realize what it is and have a good laugh about it. The Dwejra coast is a beautiful place. We get to spend a few hours there and I crawl up to the top of the rocks. It is so peaceful with just the sounds of the waves lapping up on the rocks and the birds making their bird noises. I hope to go back someday. One day on the beach a family let their daughter, probably around eight, run around naked. I love how nonchalant the Europeans are about nudity. The man who put the tour together works out of California. He is a good guy, Egyptian I believe, and looks after Grandma like she is his own mother, helping her up and down the steps, making sure she has everything she needs, and making sure she is with us since she has a habit of wandering off on her own. He has his son with him who is a spoiled brat, but so damn cute. He is about fifteen and looks like he has a nice tan because of his heritage, dark black hair, beautiful eyes, just adorable. I wish I can spend more time with him but it will look suspicious an almost 22 year-old hanging out with a fifteen year-old like that. It turns out to be a great trip and I get my own crystal skull. He chooses me actually. His name is Mikala and he has been sitting on my table since. On the way home the movie they play is a 1930's version of Robin Hood. You would think with all the money we pay AirCanada to fly they could have a better movie than that! I slip into the washroom and have my first in-flight jerk! In July my doctor warns me that smoking could cause my Crohn's to flare up and that I have to stop before he does any further surgery. I do my best to cut out smoking but I can't do it cold turkey so I gradually begin cutting back. By August I have everything down for the assistant manager job and we are about to start the trial period and things are looking pretty good. I am working on a Friday night and a guy comes in to buy beer. Ryan is in filling up his tank and has just gone out to his car when another guy comes in flashing a badge and wanting to see our liquor license and what not. It turns out the guy I sold the beer to is underage and had used a fake ID the last time I sold to him. I run out and get Ryan and he comes in and helps me with the paperwork and everything that needs to be done. He is really caring and understanding. After the fun is over, he goes home but calls me on his way to make sure I am ok. I said yeah I am fine and tell him thanks for helping, and then tell him that love him. I am a little shocked that I say it and start backtracking and saying things like I love you man, like in the beer commercials trying to make it sound like I meant as a friend. On Monday, the human resources lady comes over and fires me. I'm not totally devastated. I might finally get a good night's sleep. Ryan is pissed that I got fired and demands that I be hired back. I am the best and most loyal employee he has and he wants me back. She tells him if he doesn't like it he can leave too. He drops it for the time and it is decided that he will cover my shifts and the HR lady will work the day shifts. That night, Ryan calls her and tells her to find someone else and that he quit. He calls me and tells me about it and I am so shocked that I cry. That is probably one of the nicest things anyone has done for me. We get together a few times after that. Usually it is I going to his house, drinking, watching a movie, making out, and falling asleep together. I didn't realize how nice it was to be held while you sleep until then. I just love it. The last time we get together we have sex with me as the top. I never have been much interested in being the bottom. It is an interesting night. We try to do it on the bed, a waterbed, and I can get no leverage whatsoever. We try with him on his back and legs up, with him on his stomach, everything. We move to the floor with him on his stomach and that is how we do it. It takes me probably thirty minutes to get off, and I have to think of other people to actually push myself over.