The story below, is a work of fiction. None of the events described happened, not do any of the characters exist. The story contains erotic and/or sexually explicit behavior between consenting males. If you find this type of work offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to view it, do not read it, and please exit now.

The author reserves all copyright privileges.  This work may not be reproduced, except for personal use, without the permission of the author, and may not be linked to other pay sites.

Dedication: This work is dedicated  to my special friend Ry, who inspired the story, and to Don Hanratty, who encouraged me to post it here.

I hope you are enjoying my story as much as I do writing it.  Thanks to all of you who have written, with such nice things to say. (Blush!) Keep it up!  I love it!  John Tucker, JETjt@aol.com

RON AND BRYAN

Chapter Eighteen

By the time Alan and Brandt arrived home, Rich was a nervous wreck.

At first, when Bryan had told him about the crisis with his lover, he was furious with Bryan for not telling him sooner. When his friend/dad's lover explained Alan's request to keep it under wraps until the trauma was under control, he understood. Thinking about what he would have done, he recognized that the wiser man had known best. Down deep, the lack of trust still bothered him, but in being fair, he realized that his father knew him too well.

As Alan's car was followed into the drive by the delivery truck, Rich was out the door in a flash!

Charging toward the door of the work vehicle that was carrying  his love, he slid to its side, impatient for Brandt to shut down the engine. He could hardly wait for his lover to exit the transport and to come  into his arms. Seconds later, Brandt emerged to the comforting embrace. He buried his face on the neck of his lover and released a flood of pent up emotions, sobbing for joy and thankfulness for his rescue.

 Alan and Bryan joined the boys, wrapping their arms around them both, giving and receiving comfort from the touching, unmindful of what a passerby might think. They remained  locked together for long moments, savoring the triumph over the travail and giving thanks to the unseen for this binding of love and caring.

They finally separated and moved en mass toward their home.

Once inside, Brandt told his 'family' of  his terrifying experience. He broke down in tears as the story unfolded. His sense of shame was apparent to his listeners who comforted him as he spoke.

Toward the end of the tale, he expounded the end of the story, speaking with emotion about his jail experience. He had been put into a jail cell with four other guys. Two of them were really big guys and had leered at him when he had arrived. When the jailers left  the hallway serving the cells, the hulks threatened to pound him senseless if he called out as they backed him into a corner. The other prisoners huddled on the floor against an opposite wall, and with their eyes down, acted like nothing was happening.  The assailants spoke to each other and to Brandt with lust in their eyes. They described their big tools and bragged about what they were going to do as they fucked the terrified youth. Their hands were all over Brandt's body, and they just had pulled Brandt's pants down, exposing his large bare penis when they heard the clank of the cell block door opening. They ordered the youth to pull up his pants and then threatened to kill him if he said anything to the guard. Brandt quickly complied and was overjoyed with relief when the jailers called him out of the cell. Alan had come to the rescue.

Brandt fell into Alan's arms sobbing. His restrained emotions were totally liberated , like the opening of the flood gates of a mighty dam. He thanked Alan again and again through choking gasps for saving him from his nightmare. Alan held the beautiful boy in his arms reassuring the youth with the comforting words that he was now safe.

Brandt's story was concluded.

Alan realized that Brandt should have professional help to steer the youth's recovery from his emotional trauma. He thought of Dr. Carrington, believing that her tough but motherly guidance would help the troubled youth and made a mental note to call her in the morning.

Alan released his arms from the youth who now was drained of emotion. He turned the job of comforting the disturbed youth over to his son.

Rich took his lover's hands and pulled him  up off of the sofa. Placing the arm of his partner across his shoulder, Rich then wrapped his own arm around Brandt's waist and lead him upstairs to their room. Seating his lover down on the bed, Rich removed their shoes and climbed onto the soft platform from the other side. He drew the emotionally exhausted Brandt to him. They lay wrapped together still fully clothed and soon dropped into a healing sleep.

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Checking his E-mail before leaving for his palatial room at home, Ron opened the message written the night before from Bryan. In the long correspondence Bryan relayed in detail Brandt's revelation from earlier that evening.  Ron was enraged!." There was one New York Cop who would not escape his wrath," he silently vowed!

Ron opened his palm pilot looking for the phone number of the agency who had investigated Bryan's father. Leaving a voice mail message for his contact there to return the call when the office opened, he left his room and descended the stairway for his morning coffee and breakfast.

Arriving at his own office 50 minutes later, Ron greeted Margaret, his faithful secretary, and entered his office where the backlog of work was organized on his desk. He added the call to the California agency to his list of reminders and checked the schedule of tasks that Margaret had outlined.  Noting gratefully that she had blocked out two hours for a visit to Jack Smith in the hospital, he dug into his work for the day.

That evening after a light dinner Ron phoned Matt.  A wonderful hour was spent in the warm company of his lover's sweet voice. They talked about Ted and Jack with Matt offering his sympathy for their disaster. Ron told of the plans for the funeral and his own plans to return to New York later on that same day.

He expressed his longing to be with Matt again and his loneliness without him in his arms. They exchanged the words that only lovers know, the little words that express their intimate feeling toward each other.

 Breaking the trance, Ron told of Brandt's trauma and his rescue by Alan, omitting his own part in the drama and his plans for justice which were already being executed. He relayed Alan's course for professional help of Brandt's trauma and his own wish for full recovery.

The conversation wandered to Ron's own exhaustion from the events which had occurred since his dinner with Bryan only slightly more that two weeks before. He expressed how most of the events were joyful, particularly those involving Matt. However, some were fraught with tension. The trips back and forth to New York were already taking their toll on his stamina, yet there was another in the offing in two days.

Matt suggested that Ron stay home and rest for the weekend, but Ron knew that there was much  important business to attend to in the City and that even if he could put off seeing Matt again soon, he could not ignore the other things. His life was not his own. Even though he had to money to do as he wished, his inner commitment to the things that he considered important, those things that would fill his heart with satisfaction, would prevail. The discussion brought forth an idea.

"Matt, can you get away for the weekends before and after Thanksgiving and the week in between?", Ron asked with the idea jelling in his mind.

"Probably. I would twist a lot of arms and risk even my job to be with you if that is what you have in mind."

"Great, now let me get to work on this, and I will call you back in about an hour."

"OK lover, but I wanted to ask you something before you hang up."

"You can ask me anything, love."

"Will you stay with me while you are in New York this time?"

Pausing for a moment Ron replied, "Of course, I don't want to sleep alone, not with you anywhere near; but I don't think that staying in your apartment will work out for our schedules on Thursday and Friday.  Why don't I check into the Plaza Hotel then you can join me there for those nights. Saturday we'll spend at your place?

At the Plaza we won't have to worry about you being spotted after-hours in the place where you work. And that Hotel is not too far away from where you and I both need to be during the work-week. You could also take a taxi to NYU for your classes.

"Sounds good to me.  I'll wait for your call in an hour.  Bye for now, love."

Ron said his own good bye, then pushed the button breaking the connection.

He punched the numbers of Bryan and Alex's home. He normally would have E-mailed Bryan since he knew that Alex would be at work; but, he didn't want to take the time to type his plans and thoughts over the internet.  The phone rang and Bryan answered.

"Is this the local sex pot?" Ron asked after receiving Bryan's "hello."

"This is he speaking," Bryan quipped, immediately recognizing the voice of his friend.

"A gay guy goes into a jewelry store and lays his big cock on the counter," Ron began.

Bryan, feigning disgust, asked, " Do you have to attack the sensitivities of our Nation's Youth, especially the cute one?"

"Ha!... Yes!"

"Well, continue then."

...."I'm sorry sir", said the handsome  clerk at the counter, "but this is a clock shop, not a cock shop."

  "Well, then," the customer responded." Would you put two hands on this please?"

..."That joke was terrible," Bryan said laughing. "You'd better buy a new joke book."

"Damn, another $7.95 shot to hell!"

"You better get your head out of your ass." Bryan challenged.

"I would, except I love the bangs,"  Ron retorted.  

"Stop, Stop," Bryan laughed, "I can't stand it!"

"Well OK if you insist." said Ron, relenting at last. "I really called for some serious stuff.  Would you guys be able to get away from November 22nd through December 1st? That's Thanksgiving week."

Pausing, Bryan replied, "Yeah, I think so. I only have a couple of classes which I could miss and of course, Alan will be working for you by then, boss!  We usually work the charity kitchens for Thanksgiving, but I'm sure that they wouldn't miss us too much."

"Well, we could make it up to them. Alan can make sure that they want for nothing in the way of provisions. It would be little enough compensation for the pleasure of you guy's company."

"What do you want to do?"

"Well," Ron said slowly, "It seems that I have a boat down in Palm Beach, Florida."

"Wow, that would be fun!  Do you have enough room for the boys to come too?'

"Yeah, the boat has an Owner's suite which is for Matt and me, of course. Then there is the V.I.P. stateroom that you could probably convince me to give to you and Alan.  I guess the boys could have one of the other 6 staterooms."

"Yikes, that ain't no boat; that's a yacht."

"It's really like a small floating palace with lots of  water toys.  It has a crew of 12 who are all cute, by the way, young and either gay or gay friendly."

"Zowie!  How big is it?"

"You're asking about the boat, I presume?"

"Duh, very funny!"  Bryan laughed anyway.

"Its 55 meters long, that's about 180 feet, and it has two tenders. It could quickly have three "tenders" if you'd expose that cute butt of yours bare to the crew," Ron said, jokingly.

"Ya know that this bare ass has only one parking space, and it's reserved for my own cutie."

"I never forget that, ya little hunk. Oh, what the world is missing!  ... we need to figure out who else we want to ask along.  I was thinking about asking Jack, but I don't want him to be the only single that we bring. He might feel like the odd man out. On the other hand, I don't want to bring another single who only wants to jump his bones. I'm not sure that he's ready for that.  Well, talk to Alan and let's all think of who we want to drag with us. Then, we can talk about it tomorrow. We need to decide soon because this will happen on only a couple of weeks. People need to plan in a hurry if they are gonna be away for that holiday."

"I've got to call Alan and make sure that he hasn't made other commitments We'll call you in the morning."

"K. Night love. I need to call Matt again now. See ya."

"Night, Ron."

Ron again broke the connection and wrote an E-mail to Margaret his secretary, which he sent to the office address:  "Margaret, Please contact  Captain Larson and ask him to have the 'Pancake Turner' ready to receive guests on the 22nd.  Plan on 14 people  for about 9 days. I'd like him to prepare an itinerary of where he thinks it would be fun to go. Have him Fax or E-mail it to me for approval. It will be all guys. (Grin)."

 "And Margaret, please make a note to inform Will and Jan that I will be gone".

"I'd kind of like to invite Jack Smith along if he will go. Remind me about it early next week if I haven't asked him by then.  Also, I'm thinking of taking him with me to New York for this weekend if he's physically up to it."

"Either way I'm going to invite him to be my house guest for a week or so after the funeral.  I will be gone part of the time if he doesn't go to New York, but Dorothy and Parker will make sure he gets plenty of rest and is not bored. He's going to have a tough time if he has too much time alone. I want to make it as easy for him as I can.  If you have any ideas please share them with me. RET"

Ron moved from the computer keyboard the numbers on his phone. Calling up Matt again, he told his lover of his ideas for the cruise. Matt responded enthusiastically to the plan, offering  to help in any way he could. The subject then changed to their relationship. 

"Matt," Ron began with a subject that had been on his mind. " I'd like for you to think about the possibility of moving to Las Vegas at the end of this school term. I want you to move in with me.

I'm not going to insist, because as partners we need to decide things together."

"Even though it's going to take a little effort to change my habits, I want you to feel equal to me in every way. I don't want you for a toy. I want someone to share with, someone with his own mind and his own goals. I hope I have made it clear to you before, but if not, I'm doing it now. I don't want you to live in my shadow but at my side. I really believe that it is the only way our love will last. I want it to last. I want to grow old with you as my lover but more importantly, as my partner. If I slip and become dominant, I want you to tell me. Heck, I'm only human and too accustomed to getting my own way."

"Ron, my love, I'm so happy you feel that way. I feel so inadequate when I see you move mountains that are in your way. I just don't know how we're going to do it. I just don't know how I can continue to accept your generosity and still maintain my self esteem at the same time. My independence has come to mean a lot to me, so I'd rather stay here in my small place with no help from you rather than to lose that."

"I can see that in you, my love. I would rather you stay there too if  being here with me would change you from the guy I've come to love with all my heart. We need to think about this and go forward carefully.  I'm sure that time will take care of much of your concerns. The rest we'll have to work on together"

In the long run though, I can't see our relationship being one of weekend joy filled with loneliness in between.  I want to share my life with you, and I want you to share yours with me. As an individual, you have as much to contribute to our relationship as I do. As individuals, I want our love to grow."

" Our love can be greater than the sum of its two parts. We can conquer the world together if we can fulfill the possibilities of our love for each other.  We are staking a lot on the outcome. In fact, we are staking our very lives. I am willing to take the risk. I pray you are too. I read something somewhere that truly fits our dilemma. I'd would like to share with you:"

To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To hope is to risk disappointment.
But risks must be taken because the greatest risk in life
is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,
sees nothing,  has nothing, and is nothing.
He cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love and live."

"Ron, my sweet and wonderful man, that is so beautiful. Please believe me when I tell you that you have my heart my body and my mind completely. I believe you when you say we must be equals if we are to succeed together. I will risk all that I have and all that I am to earn that success. I love you, and I will love you for as long as I live and beyond."

"Then we will not fail, my loving Matthew. We will never fail!"

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Another chapter has passed. May your hearts, my friends, be as full of joy as those of the friends in this story. HUGs  John Tucker