Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 17:04:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Arbour <markarbour2000@yahoo.com>
Subject: OnTheMark7

PREFACE: I am writing this story primarily as a self-exploration tool.  I
invite you to come along for the ride, which is sometimes rocky, often
boring, and not always happy. Unfortunately, it's not always very erotic
either.  That being said, and if M/M and M/F sex doesn't upset you, read
on.  Since this is my story, please don't reproduce or publish it anywhere
without asking me first: markarbour2000@yahoo.com.


DEDICATION: This story, good, bad, or otherwise, is dedicated to John Walsh
of "Fraternity Memoirs" fame, whose ability and willingness to bare his
soul in his story inspired me to try to do the same.  Join our group at:
fraternitymemoirs2-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

CHAPTER 7

I called my parents and talked to my mom for awhile.  She asked me if
anything was wrong (she knew me so well) and I said no, and asked to talk
to my dad.  Usually, I didn't talk to him about important stuff, I went to
my mom.  She was easier and more sympathetic.  But this time, I needed him
on my side.  So he got on the phone and we bullshitted for a while, and
then I told him the whole story.  He didn't say much, just let me talk, and
I started crying but not sobbing, and he just kept telling me everything
was going to be alright.  When I was done, he just told me not to worry
about it and to stay out of trouble.  Just before he hung up he said "Mark,
did you say you broke his nose?"  I told him I did.  He said "good job,"
and hung up the phone.

The next few days I spent just keeping myself busy.  Van and Tanya asked me
to go to the beach.  She had been kind of giving me the evil eye since "the
night", and we had never really gotten along, so I wasn't all that excited
about it, but it was better than moping around and I love the beach.  I
figured I'd end up pretty much all by myself, but that was OK.  Boy was I
wrong.  We were laying on the beach and Van went off to get something for
us to drink and Tanya and I started talking.  I found out that Mari had fed
her all kinds of shit about how I was always bugging her to have sex, and
made me sound almost like a rapist.  As if I wasn't pissed off at her
enough!  Anyway, the whole discussion, reliving these events, and realizing
that Mari had been spreading shit about me, broke me down again.  It didn't
help that Tom Petty's "Breakdown" was blasting from someone's radio.  Funny
how women are with tears...she gave me a big hug, and told me that I was
really cute, and a nice guy, and that I deserved someone better anyway.
That was the watershed in our relationship.  From that point forward we
were good friends, and I was always comfortable around her.  Somehow I
managed to submerge the guilt I felt at fucking around with her boyfriend,
and restrain the jealousy I felt when Van would pay attention to her, touch
her, kiss her.  He was pretty shocked at this thaw in our relationship, but
really happy too.  They sort of adopted me for the rest of the summer and
drug me along with them wherever they went.  For me, their company was like
a salve on my wound.

It was inevitable that I would see Mari since she lived next door.  We
didn't say anything, just made eye contact.  Her eyes looked sad, yet
defiant.  I know mine were full of hate.  One afternoon I was out front
washing my mom's car and she came out with her mother.  She just stopped
and stared at me, and I felt this uncontrollable anger rise up and I just
glared at her.  I've never hit a girl, but God did I want to backhand her.
She started crying, which normally would have broken my resolve, but I was
so pissed it actually made me feel good.  Her mom stormed up to me and said
"you leave my daughter alone", and my control broke, I looked at her mom,
and said "your daughter is a whore."  Mari's mom came running at me and
took a swing at me, trying to slap me, and I sprayed her with the hose.  It
really was just too fucking funny, watching her mom go screaming back into
her house, all wet.  My mom would be pissed at me for that one.  All my
friends thought it was hysterical.

After that party, Van spent the night with me for the next few days.  The
next night was really awkward because he had fucked me, and because my ass
hurt so bad the next day I couldn't hide it from him.  The poor guy felt so
bad, and he just kept looking so sad and guilty, that I finally got a
little pissed at him and told him that if I didn't want him to do it, I
wouldn't have let him.  Then he went into this "like you could stop me"
routine, and we started play fighting.  We were both wearing just shorts.
He tried to smack my shoulder but I dodged him and lunged at him, knocking
him back.  He grabbed me and twisted me so we both fell on the carpet.  He
pinned me down and I tried to get away, but moving my legs and hips just
resulted in me rubbing against him, and getting a raging hard on.  I moved
to my side and brushed against him and he was just as hard as I was.  I had
two advantages over him.  I was more agile, and I was good at squirming out
of his grip.  But he had me completely pinned, with his body on top of
mine, his hard cock pressing against my stomach.  I looked up at his chest,
which was heaving from his breathing, and there was his right nipple, right
within range of my mouth.  I lunged and bit his nipple, not really hard,
but hard enough to freak him out, and got out from under him at the same
time.  "Ow!" he yelled, "so you wanna fight that way huh?"  He grabbed my
shorts and pulled me back, taking his other hand and reaching around and
squeeezing my tit real hard.  Damn it hurt, but turned me on like nothing.
I swung around and grabbed his tit hard too, and soon we were rolling on
the floor, both trying to rip off the other's nipples.  It hurt like hell,
but I was so turned on I didn't care.  Finally, he pinned me again, just
like he had the first time.  I lunged at his tit again, and he tried to
dodge me, but couldn't.  Only this time I gently sucked on it.  I started
swirling my tongue around in a circle, occasionally flicking the hardening
tip.  His transition was immediate.  From a solid fighting muscle he became
that amazing lover in a nanosecond.  I felt his grip turn from a pin into a
hold, his dick thrust gently into my stomach, and a soft moan come from his
lips.

I wrapped my arms around him and continued to kiss his right nipple, then
moved to his left one and did the same thing.  He slid down and I felt his
hard cock against mine..his lips against mine..his tongue seeking out my
tongue.  Instinctively I wrapped my legs around him and he started fucking
me.  The feeling of his hard cock against mine, rubbing hard through all
the material of our pants and underwear, was incredible.  I wrapped my arms
around his back, so that I was totally attached to him.  He moved down and
started kissing my neck while he dry fucked me, and I decided to try
talking dirty to him.  "Oh yeah Van, your hard cock feels so good.  Fuck me
man.  God you feel so good.  Fuck yeah.."  and I could tell that was
driving him wild.  There's something incredibly sexy about discovering a
new thing that justs sets your partner free.  I felt my balls boiling...my
body stiffened.  "Van, you hot fucker, you're gonna make me cum.  I'm gonna
blow my fucking load," I growled in his ear.  I felt his body stiffening
and then my dick exploded.  Before the orgasm overtook me, I remembered
that no one was in the house, and I just screamed as loud as I wanted to.
I wracked my body against his as I exploded, and then I felt him start to
cum, with that sexy growl through gritted teeth, and he was fucking me hard
and fast.  I thought he was going to push me through the floor.  After I
was done shooting, I just kept my arms and legs wrapped around him, and he
nuzzled up against my neck.  This was contentment.  We got up and our pants
were pretty stained.  We laughed and took them off, and I tossed them in
the washer.  "Guess we'll have to sleep nude tonight," I said to him with a
wink.  He winked back: "Fine with me."

We hung around that night, watching TV, completely nude.  That was really
fun, because I had never gotten to do that with another guy.  I could gaze
at Van and appreciate his amazing body, and watch him move around, and
watch the way his muscles moved.  It was funny how his dick would get
plumper, then go down, and back and forth.  Mine did the same thing, but I
never really noticed it before.  Every once in a while he'd get hard, then
he'd roll over on his stomach and I'd get a view of his cute ass.  We
watched "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley", and then some other TV
shows, until I was pretty bored.  Van was laying on his stomach, and I
moved over to him and started rubbing his back.  "Feels good," he murmured.
So I started massaging his back.  I was tempted to go play with his ass,
but I wanted to take it slow, and he deserved the attention.  I worked his
shoulder and neck muscles, feeling them loosen under my ministrations.  I
moved down his back, working his spine, and his lower back, feeling him get
more and more relaxed.  I brushed against the top of his ass as I was doing
his lower back, but didn't touch it intentionally.  I moved up and
stretched out his arms and worked each of those.  It was so hot, feeling
his biceps, rubbing his triceps, making them relax with my touch.  Of
course, by now I had a raging bone, and he noticed and smiled.  I was sort
of straddling his arm as I worked on his right bicep when I felt his hand
brush against my balls.  Slowly he turned his hand around and began gently
caressing my balls.  I let out a moan, and my cock leaked some pre cum out
on his arm.  He watched me rub it in like it was massage oil.  I didn't
want to move, his touch felt so good, but I wanted this to be for him, so I
moved down to his legs.

I worked his right foot, taking my time, and moving up to his calf.  I was
still amazed at how big his legs were.  If you just looked at his legs,
you'd think he was in his twenties.  I worked my way up to his thighs,
noticing his big balls and allowing my fingers to gently brush against them
as I massaged him.  He let out a breath and moved his hips towards me,
trying to get me to touch them more, but now I was totally into teasing
him.  I was in control and I was loving it.  I worked the left leg the same
way.  This time, after I brushed up against his balls a few times, I moved
my hands up to his ass and started massaging his cheeks.  I was working his
right cheek first...damn he had such a muscular ass...... and I let my left
pinky and ring finger stray down into his crack, and as I worked my way
lower, I let them graze over his hole.  He must be really sensitive
there...he completely spasmed when I did that.  Cool.  I did the same thing
with the left cheek, only since I'm right handed, I was able to tease his
how a little more accurately.

It was time for this to move from massage to sex.  I was horny as hell, and
I could tell he was too.  I spread his legs and knelt between them and
spread his cheeks apart.  He looked back at me with concern, but I winked
at him and he relaxed.  He knew he could trust me.  I rubbed my index
finger around the rim of his hole, moving it just slightly in his ass.  He
was loving it.  Then I lowered my mouth to his ass and replaced my finger
with my tongue.  He went wild.  Two new errogenous zones in one day.  I was
feeling like quite the accomplished lover.  I took my time and rimmed and
ate his ass.  I loved that way it was driving him crazy.  I was playing
with his balls at the same time.  They felt big and full.  "Mark, fuck, you
have to stop, I'm so fucking horny...ahhhhh," he said has I dove into his
ass as he was talking.  I rolled him over and his cock was totally
engorged, with a drop of precum on the tip.  I knew he had been teased
enough, so I quickly inhaled his cock.  I'd move up and down, stopping
every few strokes or so to lick his head and talk to him.  "You have the
biggest fucking cock.  Tastes so good," I'd say as I licked the head like a
lollipop.  He was getting close, so I started going faster.  "I'm gonna
cum," he yelled and I dove down on his cock so the head was lodged in my
throat and swallowed shot after shot of his load.  After he finished, I
kept his cock in my mouth, sucking on it but not moving, and let him start
to go limp, then I grabbed it by the base and stroked the rest of his cum
out.  "Oh God, that was fucking amazing," he said, "thanks man."  "My
pleasure," I smiled, and it was only too true.

Never before or since did we have such uninhibited sex.  We usually fucked
around in the morning, then did something during the day, usually with
Tanya, had dinner with his parents, and then went out at night.  On the
fourth night we went to the drive in to see Grease.  Tanya had a cousin who
was visiting, and she invited her to go with us, so I sort of had a date.
I was not really happy about that, because I was totally satisfied with Van
sexually and pretty much pissed at all women.  But she turned out to be
really cute.  She was a few months older than me, but I was so tall it
didn't seem to bother her.  Van's mom let him drive her Cadillac (it was
less than a year old, so we thought we were bad) so there was lots of room.
I wasn't going to try anything with Carrie (the cousin), but Van and Tanya
started making out, and that got me horny, so I started making some moves.
I'm sure I was clumsy, because I really hadn't had to work Mari all that
hard, but she seemed to like me, and I seemed to do all the right things,
and we made out for the last third of the movie...just kissing and groping.

Tanya's parents invited Van to go with them for a 3 day outing to the
mountains.  It was some family deal.  I was really bummed, but I tried not
to show it.  So now, I was really alone.  I called Darryl, but he wasn't
around, so I decided that I had to do something or else I'd just mope
around and be depressed.  So I decided to be really bold and go up to The
City all by myself.  I loved it there, it was so cosmopolitan and so
beautiful, and it was cool to be by myself, because I could go where I
wanted and explore what I wanted to explore without any arguments.  I
didn't get back home until about 8pm, and I called Van's mom to check in.
I told her that the next day I was going to hang out with some friends and
spend the night, so not to worry about me.  The next day I went back up to
The City again.  I don't know why I was suddenly drawn there.  Maybe I
wanted to broaden my horizons, or enjoy the sheer magnificence and beauty
of the place, but I think the real reason was that I liked being
independent, and I felt really mature being up there all by myself.  I was
an adult...I could fend for myself...I was my own man now...all at the ripe
old age of 15.  My parents would have shit if they knew I was doing
this..and that made the whole thing even better.

The second day was a lot of fun, because I left the touristy areas and just
wandered around where the normal people lived and worked.  Sometime in the
early afternoon, I stumbled across the Gay district.  I mean, it wasn't
called that, but that's what it was.  At first I was curious.  I walked
along the streets and got whistled at and propositioned by some really hot
looking guys, and by some who weren't so hot, but I just said "thanks, not
right now," or "no thanks" and smiled and blushed and went on my way.  I
liked that part, and I liked the attention.  And they were all nice to me,
so I felt comfortable.  Then the feeling of comfort started to change.
With the attention, and the guys that hit on me, I felt good.  But now I
was getting to the heart of the district, and things were different.  There
were guys in leather, really effeminate guys swishing down the street,
lovers walking together, grabbing their asses or stopping to kiss.  I felt
really out-of-place.  I was not allowing myself to decide whether or not
this behaviour was OK, I just knee jerk reacted and decided it was wrong.
It took me a while to find my way out of there and back to the station, and
I almost got into a panic when I thought I'd never escape, but the only
thing harming me was my own mind.

I spent the ride home being introspective.  I was really worried because
when I was flirting with (or being leered at) by the more "normal" guys, I
was enjoying it, but when I got to the center, to the hard core gay
culture, I felt really turned off.  In my mind, the "normal" guys had just
not been fully assimilated into the core.  They would ultimately become
femmes, or biker dudes, or one of the other stereotypes.  Resistance is
futile.  My whole mind rebelled against the thought of being like that.  I
had my dreams of being a success, and being really rich, and having a
really cool car, and that wouldn't be possible if I was wearing a dress.  I
became concerned that messing around with Darryl and Van was going to turn
me into a "fag", and I used that word in my own mind.  And since I'd let
Van fuck me, I guess that made me "the girl", so I figured that I'd end up
as one of those swishy guys, and in true Mark fashion, I imagined myself as
the most extreme femme I had seen that day.  And then my life would be
over...no career, everyone would hate me, I'd truly be alone.  More alone
than I was right now.  I was a pretty disturbed guy by the time I got home
and went to bed.

After a rough night and a peaceful morning, I finally got my mind back in
order.  First of all, my ingrained tolerance helped me remove the stigma
from the people I had seen yesterday.  They weren't bad, they were just
different.  Wasn't I just the good Californian.  But I also acknowledged
that that lifestyle horrified me, and that I would never be able to be
happy in the hard core gay community, which in my mind, was all there was.
I was going to lead a straight life.

That afternoon I was laying on an air mattress in the pool, working on my
tan, when suddenly this huge splash doused me with water, knocked me off my
mattress, and scared the shit out of me all at the same time.  I actually
surfaced with my fists clenched, ready to fight, and there was Darryl, with
that lop-sided grin, saying "easy there tiger."  I splashed him until he
could take it no more and then he jumped on me and we wrestled for a little
bit, just enough to get me really hard.  I hadn't seen him for almost a
month, and I didn't realize how much I missed him.  We hung out in the pool
and talked. He heard about the party, the fight, and Mari, which kind of
bothered me, because that meant it was going around.  But he seemed pretty
proud of me for finally dealing with Bryce myself, and just having him
there made me feel better.  We got stoned, and I talked him into spending
the night.

We were sitting there watching TV ("MASH") when I looked over at Darryl and
noticed his speedo was tenting.  He didn't seem to see me notice, so I got
up to get a soda, came back and sat next to him, and reached up and grabbed
his dick. He looked down at me, kind of shocked, and then smiled, and the
next thing I knew I was blowing him.  I really liked to suck Darryl's dick.
It really was perfect proportionally, it seemed to fit in my mouth just
right, and he really liked it, and talked to me, encouraging me.  I was
slowly playing with myself as I sucked his dick, I had my cock out of my
speedo, when Darryl stood up and grabbed my head, and started to fuck my
face.  He was so good at that.  He'd push almost to my gag point then back
off so I enjoyed it to.  I was holding my speedo down with my left hand and
stroking like crazy with my right while he held my head with both his hands
and assaulted my mouth.  I could feel him starting to tense up, and noticed
that his breathing was getting more erratic.  Then he pulled his cock out
of my mouth and started shooting.  His first shot hit me below the eye, the
second one on my neck, and the rest dribbled down my chest.  I grabbed some
of his cum with my right hand and used it as lube and in no time at all, I
blew my load all over his feet.  "Guess we better go swimming again," he
said, and we laughed and jumped in the pool to wash off all the cum.

When we went to bed, I knew we would fuck around, and I was already hard in
anticipation.  As I stripped off my speedo, my dick bounced up and slapped
my stomach, kind of loudly, and that made us both laugh.  I looked over at
Darryl and he was really hard too.  He walked over and gently grabbed my
dick and stroked it, pulling on it to guide me to the bed.  He laid down on
top of me, meshing our bodies together, and I closed my eyes as I felt him
kiss me.  He started to push all my buttons, he knew me so well, kissing my
neck, sucking on my nipples, rubbing his hard cock against mine.  Then he
did something completely different.  He moved up on my body, and grabbed my
vaseline and swabbed up my dick.  God, was he going to let me fuck him?
That was just too awesome to contemplate.  He lowered his ass against my
cock so it was running up and down his crack and squeezed my dick with his
ass.  Then he started moving his ass back and forth over my cock.  I was
kind of disappointed because I really wanted to fuck him, but this felt so
good, and soon he was kissing me again, that I was off into my land of
sexual ecstacy.  He kept up a steady rhythm with his ass, and I reached up
and grabbed his cock, stroking him at the same pace, so as he picked it up
for me, I picked it up for him.  God this was hot.  "Oh fuck Mark, I'm
gonna cum," he cried, and tossed his head back so I had a great view of his
body as his cock erupted shot after shot on my chest.  I started blowing
too...arching my hips into hip, dreaming that my load was blasting into his
ass.  God he was fun.

The last Saturday before school started I went to the beach with Van,
Tanya, and Carrie.  Carrie was going home the next day, and we had gotten
to know each other a little, so it was kind of like our last hurrah.  We
went out to dinner (I spent the last of the cash my parents left and
treated) and then found a secluded spot on the beach.  I pulled out a
joint, and Van laughed at me for always having pot.  The girls did the "Oh,
I don't know if I should" deal, but gave in and soon we were all wasted.
We talked, had a good time, enjoyed the company, and ultimately paired off
to make out with the sound of waves crashing in the background.  And that
night, I had sex with my second woman.

School was completely different for me now that Mari and I weren't together
and, in fact, were openly hostile to each other.  This was 1977, and we
were 15, and girls who did what Mari did were sluts.  There was no sexual
freedom at that age, and she was labelled.  She'd walk by with her friends
(who had changed, and were now the slutty girls) and me and my friends
would cough and say the word "whore" as we were coughing, or skank, or
slut, or some other endearment.  She'd either ignore us, or say "fuck you".
She became one of the biggest sluts in the school, and she must have done
almost all the guys.  She really didn't have any choice.  She needed
attention from guys, and with her reputation, the only way she was going to
get it was to fuck them. I got to the point where I started to feel sorry
for her, and by the end of the year we pretty much ignored each other.

Things were no better between Aaron Bryce and I.  The first time we saw
each other in school we immediately went at each other.  I took a few
punches, one in my eye which swelled up, and so did he.  But his broken
nose was like a mark of defeat, and I used to taunt him about it.  It
seemed like our friends were always pulling us apart.  I got suspended for
a total of 4 days the first semester for fighting, and my parents were
really pissed at me.  We had been sworn enemies for so long now, and we had
both scored some pretty tough blows.  I kind of expected that to go on and
on, but early in the second semester we were at school late one day and
found each other alone in the halls.  He walked up to me and I just stared
at him.  No way I was backing down.  This would be a perfect opportunity to
really fight it out...there was no one there to break it up.  He said
"Sorry I fucked your girlfriend Arbour" with a sneer.  I had a choice here.
He had said it so I could interpret it either as a taunt, or as kind of
sincere.  I looked him straight in the eye and said "no big deal, everone
else did too."  We started laughing and just walked off our separate ways.
Weird way to end a war, but it worked.

Darryl and I got together less and less that semester, and I didn't see him
at all over Christmas break.  Van and I messed around every once in awhile,
but he and Tanya were really serious, so I knew it was just a release,
which was fine with me.  I had fun contrasting the two of them.  I really
loved Van.  Sex with him was an expression of that.  He was like a wild,
unhinged animal, very carnal.  He also cared about me, and always made sure
that I enjoyed myself too.  I think he loved me too, at least to the degree
that he could admit it.  Darryl was different.  Darryl was a lover.  He had
all the moves, he was smooth, he studied my reactions and knew how to
really make me enjoy him.  He wasn't as driven as Van, and the intense
feelings weren't there.  The word to describe sex with Darryl was
precision.  I doodled on the side of one of my science notepads: it was a
picture of judges holding up scores for each of them for their sexual
performance. Van won overall, but Darryl got the high mark for techniques.
I made myself laugh so hard with that pic the teacher stopped his lecture
to bitch me out.  Whatever.

It was now March, 1978, and I was getting really excited.  I'd gotten my
driver's permit, taken all the classes I needed, and in two months, I'd get
my license.  All I could think about was cars.  I hounded my parents
mercilessly about it.  Begging them to buy me a car, making them feel
guilty, bitching at them about how much money they spent on Monica yet they
couldn't get me a car...etc.  If I was them, I would have hated me.  I'd
always been into cars, I knew all about them, the models at least, but not
much about fixing them.  Getting laid, food...everything was secondary to
cars.  This was the frame of mind I was in when I answered the door one
afternoon.  Van was there, with a real worried look on his face.  I knew
something was wrong, because he looked so upset.  We went up to my room
without saying anything.

"Mark, I have to tell you something, but I promised not to tell anyone, so
you have to swear to keep it to yourself," he started.  Wow, this was big.
I was excited.  Serious gossip.  "No problem Van, you know you can trust
me."  So he started talking about his after school archery practice.
Archery was one of those weird sports that Van had gotten into, and they
always practiced at really strange times when no one else was using the
fields.  He and the coach, along with four of his teammates, came tramping
back into the locker room after practice and caught Derrick and Darryl
having sex.  I felt the world start to crumble around me. "Mark, did you
ever, you know, do anything with him?"  I ignored his question.  "What were
they doing?" I asked.  "Man, I walked in and I see that Derrick guy's ass
pumping away as he fucked Darryl...I just about shit."  "Fucking Darryl?" I
asked.  "Yeah, right up the ass, and when he pulled out and turned around,
he had this big monster dick. That would have hurt," he said.  Then I think
we both remembered that he had fucked me with his monster dick too, and we
both got pretty quiet.  I really needed to be alone..this was too
much...and Van seemed to sense my mood.  "Mark, I've got to get home.  I'll
come back after dinner, OK?"  I told him that would be great.

I knew myself, and I knew my feelings.  I was descending into emotional
hell.  If this got out to the whole school, this was going to be ugly.
What if people thought that I was gay too?  Was he going to take me down
with him?  I knew real fear then.  The loneliness that I had envisioned
when I was in The City was going to come true.  I got myself into a total
frenzy, and started thinking of running away, and places I could go.  Then
I got pissed.  All this time we had been fucking around and Darryl wouldn't
even suck my dick.  Yet he's taking it up the ass from Derrick.  Why would
he let Derrick fuck him and not me?  Now I was betrayed, and jealous.  I
was spiralling down when my rational side caught me up.  I had to compose
myself for dinner, and I had to compose myself for Van.  I was going to
have to lie to him about having done nothing with Darryl, and he knew me
better than anyone, so that would be tough.  But why Derrick and not me?

I pulled it together for dinner, and Van came over later.  He didn't ask me
if I'd done anything with Darryl again, and I was kind of glad, but then I
was nervous because I had dodged his earlier question.  He probably took
that as a yes.  He told me that Derrick and Darryl ran like hell, and the
coach had told all five of the guys not to say anything...swore them to
secrecy.  That made me feel better, but by the end of school the next day,
it was clear that the story was out.  Everyone was talking about it.  My
friends asked me about it, and I feigned shock and sort of just went with
the flow.  It seemed that no one in particular had associated me with him,
at least in that way.  I walked home pretty sad about Darryl, but happier
about my own situation. There was just one thing I couldn't figure out.
Why Derrick and not me?

Neither Darryl or Derrick showed up for school after that.  For some
reason, the second night after Van told me I was sitting out by the pool.
It was a pretty warm night for March, and the stars and city lights were
pretty..something to focus my mind on.  This was just so much to deal with.
I wondered if I'd ever see Darryl again, where he was, what he was going to
do?  I realized that I cared deeply for him, but I was still hurt that he
had been so distant with me sexually.  I was off in my own daze when I
heard the gate open and I heard footsteps.  I turned around and there was
Darryl standing in front of me.  He was a mess.  He had a cut above his
eye, and his face was swollen and bruised.  His lip was split, his nose
looked broken.  Someone had beaten the shit out of him.  I jumped up and
hugged him...and just held him for a long time.  He was crying, really
crying.  Darryl never cried.  He broke our hug and said "you don't want to
be seen touching me or everyone will think you're a fag."  I hugged him
again.  "Fuck 'em," I said, sounding brave and knowing I wasn't.  So we
both calmed down and sat there for a long time talking.  As I thought,
everyone at school had talked about him, and one of the kids at school told
his dad, and the guy worked with Darryl's dad, and so it was all over the
factory that his son was a fag (blue collar world, pretty harsh).  So when
Darryl's dad got home he beat the shit out of him and threw him out of the
house.

About that time, my mom came out.  She was going to nag me about going to
bed.  "Well, I should be going," Darryl said.  "No way," I said, "you have
no where to go!"  My mom stopped him.  As she said his name he turned
around, and she just freaked.  "Oh my God, what happened to you? You come
inside right now.  We're going to get you cleaned up.  You need to go to
the hospital.  Mark, go tell your dad we're going to the hospital.  He'll
have to put Monica to bed."  Darryl started to protest, but I shook my
head.  Arguing with my mother in this state was like trying to stop rain.
Not gonna happen.  So she almost physically forced Darryl into the car and
took him to the emergency room.  Sometimes I remember a song and an event
together.  I'll never forget that playing on the radio was "Point of No
Return" by Kansas.  The nurse tried to give him shit about paying for it
and my mom intervened and said it was her responsibility.  I'm all proud of
her, but thinking that I wish she was that generous when it came to getting
a car for me.  While he was in with the doctor, I told my mom what
happened.  Keep in mind that it's pretty hard to describe someone getting
fucked up the ass by another guy to your mom.  She looked real concerned.
So they fixed his nose and put a stitch in his cut and we went home.  When
we got home, my mom looked at Darryl and told him that he was going to stay
with us until he decided where he wanted to go.  I've never seen him look
so grateful.  He gave her a big hug, and there were tears in his eyes.

Needless to say, though, they let him stay in the guest room.  He stayed
inside, didn't go to school, and just seemed to be in a trance.  Late the
next night I went downstairs and overheard my parents arguing.  My father
was all freaked out about him being gay, and being around me.  I've never
heard my mother so pissed or so outraged and she reamed my dad a new
asshole.  Called him a Chicago Cracker.  You go mom.

Anyway, after about a week, Darryl said that he had talked to his aunt, she
lived in The City, and that he was going to go stay with her.  I thought
that he was full of shit.  He never mentioned an aunt in The City before.
I was going to call him on it, but then decided not to.  I think he needed
to escape, and I couldn't think of another solution.  He came up to my room
to tell me this and to say goodbye.  We both cried, and just held each
other for what seemed like forever.  He gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek,
and I gave him much stronger one on the lips.  He responded, then broke it
off.  "I gotta get going ," he said, and went downstairs to say goodbye to
my parents.  My dad was sufficiently chastised to be nice, and even gave
him a hug.  My mom gave him a bunch of money (about $250), a hug, and
started crying.  I walked him out, and down to the station.  When we got
there I gave him one last hug and handed him the $50 (my savings at the
time), and watched him disappear into the station.