From: an3209@anon.penet.fi
Reply-To: an3209@anon.penet.fi
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 03:51:39 UTC
Subject: Jerry


     The situation at the beginning of this story is a real one out of my
life.  However, this story is not true, and all of the sexual content is a
part of the way I wish things had been.  Please be advised that there are
other issues going on in this story besides an adolescent's budding
sexuality.


     It was a bitterly cold afternoon in January 1981.  I was twelve years
old, and I was tramping through the snow in the apartment complex where I
had my newspaper route.  I was collecting payment from my newspaper
customers, and I had a ring of cards, a paper punch, and a money bag with me.
     The first apartment I went to on this day was full of noisy kids. 
While the harried mother paid me for the newspaper, she had to keep
yelling at the kids to stop jumping around.
     From the card on my ring, I knew that his name of my next customer
was Jerry Richards.  At the next apartment, I was taken aback when the
customer opened the door.  The first thing that struck me was that he was
wearing no shirt, but was only wearing a pair of jeans with the belt
unbuckled.  I realized I was gawking at the tufts of hair on his chest and
abdomen, and I looked up into his face.  He was looking gently down at me.
     "Can I help you?"  he asked.  He was in his mid-twenties, was
moderately muscular, had a handsome face with a moustache, and had his
light brown hair feathered back as men did in 1981.
     "Yes, I'm here to collect for the Sunday newspaper," I stammered.
     "Of course," Jerry said.  "Come in."  He made small talk with me as
he got the money out of his wallet on the coffee table.  In those few
moments, I learned that he had recently graduated from law school and that
he worked for a corporation that had a company in our town.  I told him
that I was in the seventh grade.  Somehow, the fact that he had no shirt on
made me stutter, although I didn't completely understand my feeling.
     "There you go," he said, handing me the money.  "Keep the change."  
     I punched holes in his card.  "Thank you!"  I said.
     "What is your name?" he asked.
     "Chris," I said.  "Chris Leonard."
     "Well, it was nice meeting you in person, Chris," said Jerry. 
"Thanks for the excellent newspaper service."
     "Thank you!"  I said, and let myself out the door, stumbling
nervously on the threshold.  I looked back at Jerry, but he just smiled
gently at me.  I closed the door behind me.
     The image of Jerry's bare, hairy chest stayed in my mind as I
continued collecting.  After going to a great number of apartments, I
realized that I had been out too long, and that I was going to be late for
dinner at home.
     To my dismay, I found that I was fifteen minutes late when I walked
in the door of my house.  I entered slowly with a sense of dread.  "Chris,
come here," came my father's angry voice from the kitchen.  I walked in,
dragging my feet.  "Come here," he said again.  When I was beside his
chair, he belted a stunning blow across my cheek.  "That will teach you to
be late for dinner!" he bellowed, bits of his saliva flying into my face. 
"Now sit down!"
     I sat down and with a great effort kept from crying as my cheek
throbbed.  I knew that he would only hit me harder if I cried, or if I
refused to eat.  I timidly ate my dinner, trying not to gag on it.  My
cheek throbbed.  My mother had a helpless look on her face and ate
uncomfortably.  She did not want my father to hit me this way, but she did
not know what to do about it.  The few times that my mother had spoken
against my father, he had beaten her and me both.
     I returned to my junior high school the next day and failed to pay
any attention in class.  I knew that my father would only beat me again
when I came home with another report card full of failures, but I somehow
seemed unable to make my mind focus on the tedious classwork.  The teachers
never missed an opportunity to tell me that my standardized test scores
showed that I had a high intelligence, and that I was wasting myself my not
applying myself better to my classes.  I spent my classtime doodling
electronics schematics or writing stories in my notebook.  In the halls and
in gym class, the other students jostled me and taunted me.  I somehow felt
that I was different from them, and the students seemed to somehow perceive
this difference also, although none of us knew exactly what the difference
was.
     This sort of life was the only life I had ever known.  It went on for
another two weeks, until it was time for me to collect on my newspaper
route again.  I started early in the afternoon, and I had several hours
before I had to be home.  It was an icy cold day.  My mouth was completely
dry from nervousness as I knocked on Jerry Richards' door again, knowing
that he was the male customer who had been wearing no shirt the last time I
saw him.
     I was somehow relieved but disappointed when Jerry opened the door,
because he was wearing a plaid flannel shirt and jeans this time.  "Hi,
Chris," he said, remembering my name.  "Here to collect?"
     I nodded.  For some reason I felt very shy and had become unable to
speak.
     "Come inside." he said.  I stepped in, and he closed the door behind me.
     Jerry made small talk with me again as he got the money.  "My god,
you're blue," he said, taking a good look at me.  "You'd better stay here
and warm up for a minute.  Would you like some hot tea?"
     "If it's no problem," I stammered, trying to be polite.  Some
customers were like that; they would go out of their way for you.
     "Have a seat on the sofa," said Jerry.  "Why don't you take your coat
off?"
     I did as Jerry suggested as Jerry went into the kitchen and fixed the
tea.  As I sat on the sofa, Jerry talked to me from the kitchen, asking me
about school.  He seemed to zero in quickly to the fact that I was not
happy there.  I did not volunteer this information, but he seemed to draw
it out of me somehow.
     Jerry returned with two cups of tea in stoneware mugs.  He set them
down on coasters on the table and sat down on the far end of the sofa.  He
picked his tea up and blew on it to cool it.  "So school seems to me a bad
place for you," he said.
     I nodded unhappily.  "How can you tell?"  I asked.
     "Let's say it's the voice of experience speaking," he said.  "What
about your home life?"
     I looked at him and didn't say anything. 
     "That bad?" he asked.
     Again, I couldn't think of anything to say.  Jerry seemed to see into
me somehow, and I found this frightening.  I somehow felt I could trust
him, but I was afraid for some reason that my father would find out that I
had let Jerry know these things about my school and home life, and that I
would be in trouble for it.
     Then a different, unexpected thought crossed my mind.  I knew that I
had a certain strange feeling about men.  When I had been in the sixth
grade, a group of girls had told me about the facts of life, including
what a blowjob was.  The idea had initially revolted me, but as time went
on the idea seemed to fascinate me, even though I felt guilty about having
such thoughts.  I would secretly look at the boys in my junior high school
locker room and feel a strange desire that I didn't fully understand.  At
this moment, the image of myself performing oral sex on Jerry popped into
my mind.   I thought about how my parents might react if they caught me
doing this.  This thought struck me with such force that I felt all the
blood drain out of my face in terror.  I put one hand on the arm of the
sofa to steady myself.
     "Are you all right?" asked Jerry.  The thought must have shown in my
face.
     I paused to catch my breath, and said, "I'm sorry."
     "What are you thinking?" asked Jerry.  I looked at him with an
expression of near panic on my face.  "No, don't answer that,"  he added
softly.  There was a pause.  "Does your father mistreat you?" he asked. 
His questions were consistently on target.
     I nodded.
     "Does he drink?" asked Jerry.
     "Yes,"  I said, finding words at last.  "And he takes a drug called
Imipramine that his doctor gives him.  It says on the bottle that he's not
supposed to drink when he's taking it, but he drinks anyway, and then the
way that he acts really scares me sometimes."
     "Does he hit you when he's been drinking?"
     After a reluctant pause, I nodded glumly.  There wasn't anything to
say.  I looked away from Jerry and stared at a corner of the room, knowing
that if I looked at Jerry that the tears in my eyes would spill over.
     After a long pause, Jerry said, "Come here."  His voice was soft and
gentle: it was not a tone of voice I was used to hearing from grown men. 
I looked back at him, and was surprised to see that the expression on his
face was not the taunting expression that I was used to seeing in my
father's face, or in the faces of my teachers.  Instead, it was an
understanding look, a look full of caring and sympathy.
     "Come here," said Jerry again, carefully opening his arms.  I moved
closer to him, and allowed myself to be enfolded in his strong arms.  I
bowed my head against his chest.  Nothing else was said for a while, and I
felt Jerry's chest rise and fall as he breathed.
     I was filled with confusion about the mixture of feelings I was
experiencing.  I was partly afraid that Jerry might betray me or hurt me,
even though every instinct told me that I could trust him.  I was afraid
of the trouble that I would be in if my parents found out that I had been
hugging a man.  I was feeling the sorrow of knowing that my biological
father did not love me, and the terror of having to live with the father
who hit me.  But all of these feelings seemed not to be so important right
now; I was taken by the new sensation of being embraced a warm man for the
first time.  In spite of my nervousness, being in Jerry's arms gave me
such a feeling of safety that I felt that nothing could harm me there.
     Several years earlier, I had lost the ability to cry.  The boys at
school would jeer at me when I cried, and if I cried at home, by father
would hit me and tell me not to be a sissy.  As some point it was as
though I had rusted and jammed inside.  But I somehow knew that I could
trust Jerry.  In stages, I started to cry.  At first it was a strangled
sort of crying, but as Jerry held me I let go and sobbed deeply, my tears
falling on Jerry's plaid flannel shirt.  Jerry said nothing, but gently
patted my back until I was finished crying.
     Finally there was a long silence.  "I'm sorry," I said, looking up
into Jerry's face.
     "Don't be," he said.  "It's all right."  He gently wiped away my
tears with his fingertips.
     "Why are you being so good to me?" I asked.
     Jerry paused before answering.  "My childhood was something like
yours," he said.  "Somehow, when I saw you for the first time, I knew that
you were hurting inside."
     I lowered my eyes, and then looked into Jerry's face again.
     "What is it?" asked Jerry.
     "Can I ask you something?"
     "What is it?" asked Jerry softly.
     I had difficulty thinking of words to form my question, because I
didn't know exactly what I was feeling.  "You feel so warm,"  I blurted
out.  "I don't know what it means."
     Jerry kissed me lightly on my lips.  When he did this, it was as
though a pleasant electrical shock went through my body.  I was very
frightened, but at the same time I somehow knew that this was what I wanted.
     Somehow, all of the confused feelings started to make sense.  I
thought about how I felt when I was secretly looking at the boys in the
locker room at school.  I thought about how it felt when I looked at my
gym teacher.  And I thought about how it felt to be in Jerry's arms now. 
"Am I gay?" I asked.
     Jerry didn't answer my question.  He ran his fingers through my hair.
"I want you to know something," he said.  "When I offered to hug you, I
wasn't trying to make a pass at you.  You're very young, and I don't want
to do anything to hurt you.  You just looked like you needed someone to hug
you."
     "It feels good," I said bravely.
     "You're free to stop anytime you want," said Jerry.  "I don't want
you to do anything you don't want to do."
     "I don't want to leave," I said.
     Jerry looked at me for a long time.  I felt his chest rise and fall
beneath me.  "You can unbutton my shirt if you like."
     With trembling fingers, I reached up and started unbuttoning Jerry's
shirt.  The plaid flannel parted, revealing the soft tufts of hair on his
chest and abdomen that I had seen the last time I was there.  I put my
hand on his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin and the beating of his
heart.
     Jerry kissed me again.  "You can take off your shirt if you want," he
said.
     I unbuttoned my shirt at the neck and slid it over my head.  As I did
this, Jerry took off his flannel shirt.  Then he pulled me close to him. 
As my bare chest met his, I felt like I was floating in a dream, except
that nothing in a dream had ever felt as solid and warm as Jerry's body.  I
had never touched a man in this way before, but I somehow knew that it was
what was right for me.  Jerry kissed me, this time gently probing into my
mouth with his tongue.  As he did this, electric tingles ran up and down my
body.
     After a while, Jerry drew his mouth away.  "Let's take off our pants
and go into the bedroom," he suggested.  I nodded.  I kicked off my shoes
and socks.  We both stood and unbuttoned and unzipped our pants.  As both
pairs of pants fell to our feet, Jerry drew me into his arms and leaned
down to kiss me again.  Then he guided me into the bedroom.  Wearing
nothing but his underwear, Jerry climbed into the bed.  I followed him.
     My cock was rock-hard inside my underwear.  My body was a twelve year
old body, but I had hit puberty, and my cock had already enlarged to adult
size.  I could see the pear-shaped bulge in Jerry's shorts.  He pulled on
top of him him and kissed me. 
I could have stayed like that with him forever.  Finally we stopped to
catch our breath.  "You can do whatever you want," said Jerry.
     This entire time, the image of myself performing oral sex on Jerry
had not left my mind.  I knew that the boys at my junior high school would
call each other "cocksuckers" as an insult, and I had fought to keep my
half-understood desire out of my own thought.  But now it seemed like the
most natural thing in the world to slide down Jerry's body until my face
was in front of his crotch.
     "Don't do it unless you know for sure it's what you want to do," said
Jerry.
     "It's what I want," I said.
     "If you're sure," he said.
     I slid my hand into his shorts and pulled out his stiff cock.  It
felt nice and smooth in my hand.  I nervously touched it with my lips, and
then gradually slid it into my mouth.
     "Oh, god," said Jerry. He moaned and his breathing deepened.  I
sucked him, at first holding back, but finally giving in to my desire and
sliding his cock all the way in, until my nose was nestled in his curls of
pubic hair.
     I was new at this, however, and only knew to form a suction in my
mouth.  "Slide it in and out of your mouth," said Jerry.  I did this,
keeping my lips wrapped tightly around it and licking the underside of it
with my tongue.  
     "This is the first time you've done this?" Jerry asked me.
     I nodded, not taking his cock out of my mouth.
     "You are a born cocksucker, then," said Jerry appreciatively between
his gasps.
     I sucked him for a long time, not wanting to be doing anything other
than what I was doing.  "Stop," Jerry finally said.  "I'm about to come,
and I don't want to come in your mouth."
     "I want you to," I said.
     Jerry looked at me with gentle eyes.  "If you're sure," he said again.
     I resumed my sucking.  "Oh god, oh god," Jerry kept saying.  His
breathing increased in speed and depth, and his body writhed beneath me on
the bed.  "Oh, god, here it comes," he gasped.  At that moment I felt a
new taste in my mouth.  It was a bitter, salty taste that I had never
tasted before.  I knew that Jerry was coming in my mouth, and I kept
sucking and swallowing until Jerry stopped convulsing.
     "Whew," sighed Jerry as I slid my mouth off of his cock and climbed
back into his arms.  "Well, since you've done such a good job for me, it's
only fair that I should respond in like kind," he said.
     I hesitated.  I didn't feel like he owed me anything, but the idea
was an appealing one.  "If you want to."
     "No, it's not whether I want it," said Jerry.  "It's whether you want
it.  Like I said, I don't want to do anything to hurt you."
     I considered, and then nodded.   Jerry reached down and slid my
underwear off of me.  He rolled me off of him so that I was on my back. 
As he did this, my erect cock stuck up into the air.  Jerry lowered his
head into my crotch and took my cock into his mouth.
     Jerry sucked me as I had sucked him.  Just as his kisses had sent
electric tingles up and down my back, his sucking made me quiver.  I
writhed on the bedspread as his strong lips inexorably slid up and down my
shaft.  He played with my balls with one hand as he sucked me.  I looked
down and saw how his moustache curved because of the way his mouth was
rounded around my dick.
     I gripped the bedspread with my hands.  It didn't take me very long
before I could feel my muscles in my crotch tightening up.  "It's coming
in a second," I gasped.  Jerry did not stop his sucking.  A moment later
and I felt like I was exploding inside his warm mouth.  I seemed to be
carried along on pleasurable convulsions, until finally all of my energy
was spent, and I relaxed.
     Jerry climbed back up and held me in his arms.  "Whatever you do,
don't tell anybody what happened," said Jerry.
     "I won't," I promised.  "I'd be in big trouble if anyone knew."
     "Not nearly as much trouble as I could be in," said Jerry.  "I could
go to jail for this, even though you knew what you were doing and even
though you knew you wanted it."
     "I'd better go, or my parents will wonder where I am,"  I said.  "But
can I come back again sometime?"
     "I hope you do," said Jerry with a wistful smile.

     For the next few weeks I would go to Jerry's apartment around twice a
week.  Fortunately, Jerry's work schedule was such that he was often home
in the afternoons.  I would always go to his aprtment several hours before
my parents got home from work, and since I took my paper route cards with
me there was never any question about where I had been.  Jerry and I had
sex almost every time.  I realized that the feelings I was having for him
were what people called being in love, which was a phrase whose
meaning had previously eluded me.  When I was at school, I would think
about him all the time.  Whenever I left his apartment, the warmth of his
body somehow seemed to stay with me, and I felt like I was glowing for
hours afterwards.  I would lie alone in my bed at night, wishing I was back
in Jerry's strong arms.  I kept all of this a great secret, and neither my
parents nor the students or teachers at school had any suspicion that this
important thing was happening in my life.
     When I went to Jerry's apartment the first week of March, he opened
the door and smiled at me, but there was something strange about his smile
this time.  Nevertheless, he gave me a warm hug and a brief kiss, and then
we sat down on the sofa.  "What's the matter?" I asked him.  
     "I've just found out that my company is transferring me to Arizona,"
he said.  "I'll be leaving next month."
     "Oh, no," I said.  I looked at him sadly.  Arizona was thousands of
miles away from our town in the northeast.  "I wish I could go with you."
     To my surprise, he said, "Maybe you can." 
     "What do you mean?"  I asked.  "My parents would never let me go."
     "They don't have to know," he said softly, looking at me very intently.
     My exclamation of surprise died on my lips as I realized that he was
serious.  It all made sense:  I wanted nothing more than to be far away
from my biological father and from my junior high school.  I wanted to be
together with Jerry.  Nobody knew that Jerry and I knew each other.  If I
simply vanished one day, nobody would know where I had gone.
     "What would we tell people in Arizona?"  I asked presently. 
"Wouldn't they wonder why I was living with you?"
     "We could tell them that I'm your uncle," said Jerry.  "Your parents
are dead, and the courts assigned custody of you to me.  You could go to
school and everything in Arizona, and nobody would know where you actually
came from."
     I thought about this.  "I'd better change my name, just to throw
people off my trail,"  I said.
     Jerry smiled schemingly.  "Smart boy," he said.  He took a manila
folder from the coffee table and handed it to me.  I looked inside, and
found some important-looking papers.  "These are your new birth
certificate, your parents' death certificates, and the court order
assigning custody of you to me," he told me.
     I looked at Jerry with admiration.  He was clever to think of this,
and since he was an attorney it was not difficult for him to create such
official-looking documents.  "If I'm going to go to school in Arizona,
we'd better make up some school records, too," I said.
     "Good thinking," said Jerry.
     I went to Jerry's apartment a few times in the following weeks.  We
discussed our plans, and each time I took an article of clothing or two
with me until I had enough clothes at his house to take with me when I moved.
     In mid-March, Jerry drove his truck to Arizona to buy a house.  He
was gone for a week, and then he flew back in an airplane, leaving his
truck in Arizona.  He would rent a U-Haul to move his furniture and boxes.
We finally decided on a date in the first week of April to steal away.


     In the mornings, my parents left for work a little while before it
was time for me to walk up the street to wait for the school bus.  On the
designated morning, I left the house at my usual time, walking as though I
were going to meet the bus.  Glancing around me, I cut across a yard and
climbed down and up a gully, the short cut to the apartment complex where
Jerry lived.  I stayed pretty much out of view until I reached Jerry's
door.  In the afternoon I would often be collecting for the
newspaper, and nobody would ask any questions, but at this time of morning
a twelve-year-old was expected to be on his way to school.
     Jerry opened the door in response to my soft knock.  "Come in," he
whispered, glancing around outside the door.  I went inside, and Jerry
closed the door.
     "You made it," said Jerry, smiling nervously.
     "Yes," I said.  I glanced around the apartment; it was all barren and
empty.  Jerry had already packed everything into the U-Haul.  Then I drew
close to Jerry, and we embraced and quickly kissed.  As always, his
moustache made a wonderful tickling sensation on my upper lip that sent
shivers up my spine.
     "I'm nervous as hell," I admitted.
     "So am I,"  said Jerry.  "But we'll be gone in a minute.  Nobody saw
you come here?"
     "No," I said.  "I kept out of sight."
     "Good," he said.  "I've got to stop by the main office to turn in my
keys, but then we can get out of here.  Wait here; I'll be back in a minute."
     "OK," I agreed.  Jerry left, and I paced through the empty rooms,
thinking of the good times Jerry and I had secretly shared there.  The
bedroom was empty now, but I remembered the flood of feeling I had
experienced the first time I felt Jerry's bare chest against mine.
     Jerry returned shortly.  "Let's go," he whispered.  We stole out to
the U-Haul and climbed into the cab.  We fastened our seat belts.
     "I'd better keep down until we're out on the highway," I said,
lowering my head down out of sight.
     "Good idea," said Jerry as he started the engine.  I felt the truck
pull out of the parking space.  Jerry's strong arms spun the steering
wheel around, and I felt the truck accelerate forward.
     After many stops for stoplights, I felt the truck start picking up
speed.  "We're on the highway.  You can sit up now," said Jerry.
     I sat up and looked around me.  We were merging into traffic on the
interstate.  Jerry was glancing in the mirrors, but once we were safely in
the flow of traffic, he looked at me and smiled.  I returned the smile. 
We were free.
     We traveled all that day and into the night, finally stopping at a
motel where we gratefully tumbled into bed and fell asleep in each other's
arms.  It was the first time we had ever been able to sleep together for
the entire night.  We traveled all the next day, and the next, finally
reaching Arizona by early evening.  Jerry had bought a house in the country
with no neighbors nearby to pry on our business.  We were too tired to
unload the U-Haul that evening, but we did take in the bed and set it up
so that we'd have someplace to sleep.  That night, I settled into Jerry's
crotch and contentedly sucked him off.  After he came in my mouth, I
crawled up and snuggled up against him without a worry in the world.  We
slept naked in our new house, with Jerry holding me safe in his arms.
     The next day we carried all of Jerry's boxes into the house and
unpacked.  Then we drove into town and bought all of the brooms and soap
and things that it takes to keep a house.  We went back to the house and
did all the work of setting up our new home.  By that evening, the house
was pretty much in shape.
     After dinner that evening, he settled down together on the sofa to
rest.  Jerry lay on his back, and I lay with my head on his chest. 
"Tomorrow we'd better get you enrolled in school," said Jerry, kissing my
forehead.
     "I wish I didn't have to go," I said.
     "I wish so too," said Jerry.  "But people would ask questions if you
didn't."
     The next morning, Jerry drove me down to the local junior high
school.  We walked into the office.
     "May I help you?" asked the secretary.
     "Yes," said Jerry.  "This is my nephew.  I'm his legal guardian, and
we've just moved into the area.  I'd like to enroll him in school here."
     "Of course," said the secretary, opening a drawer and pulling some
forms out of a file.  "Please fill these out."  She turned to me.  "What
is your name?"
     "Chris Richards," I said, avoiding the impulse to glance at Jerry. 
Jerry's pen was busy on the forms.
     The secretary ran her finger down a chart on the wall.  "Last initial
R.  You'll be in Mrs. Meadows' homeroom."
     "What time can I pick him up this afternoon?" asked Jerry.
     "Three-fifteen," said the secretary.
     "Do your best," said Jerry with a reassuring smile, patting me on the
shoulder as he left.  "I'll meet you in front of the school."

     I had begun a new and happy life.  Jerry and I settled into a daily
routine.  He worked in the office and I went to school during the day.  In
the evenings, we took turns with the household chores.  Jerry paid for all
of the food and household expenses, but I made up for it by helping as much
as I could with Jerry's work as an attorney.  Jerry explained a lot about
his work to me, and I gradually came to have a good understanding of our
legal system.  On the weekends we would go climbing in the mesas or go
running with our two Siberian huskies.
     I had never been a good student in school, but somehow I found it
easy to make good grades in my new environment.  My biological father had
never shown any pride in my accomplishments, and had beaten me when I had
brought home bad report cards.  But Jerry was proud of me no matter what I
did, and this somehow made a difference.  I worked as hard as I could at
school and brought home good report cards, knowing that Jerry was truly
proud of me.  I never made any close friends among my classmates,
preferring to spend my time with Jerry.
     Jerry and I had to live under the shadow of fear that the police or
my parents might somehow find out where I was, in spite of all of our
precautions.  None of these fears were ever realized, however, and as
several years passed we gradually became more confident that my whereabouts
would never be discovered.  Jerry and I kept the true nature of our
relationship a secret, and everybody we knew believed me to be Jerry's
nephew.  But at night, Jerry and I would climb into bed together, sometimes
having sex and sometimes simply holding each other and sleeping.
     When I turned 16, I got my first job.  I worked as a busboy at a
local restaurant in the evenings and continued with high school during the
day.  I was glad that I could finally start to contribute financially to
our relationship.  
     Eventually I graduated from high school and enrolled in a university
in a nearby city, using money I had saved to buy a used car to drive
between Jerry's house and campus.  I graduated when I was 22 and was
accepted at our university's law school, because I wanted to be an attorney
like Jerry.  When I finished law school, Jerry and I decided to open a
partnership together.  He quit his job, and he and I set up an office
together downtown.  
     We've lived together ever since.  My old life comes into my thought
now and then, but I've never regretted my decision to come away with Jerry.