Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 08:15:32 EST
From: VicHowel@aol.com
Subject: Learning Season - chapter 10

My website is finally operational. Gloria in excelsio. I know it is too -
a dear lad I've come to know from writing for Nifty placed it, and it
went through. 3 long months of this! I can't tell you how many times I
grumbled nasty things about gay businesses (the bank, the card company,
the secured gate company, and even the shopping cart company are all
gay).

Please visit the site - http://www.macmillanbooks.com
I look forward to your visit.

Dave


CHAPTER NINE


Christine was in camp and Ruby Dailey had been committed to the state
hospital near Blacksburg. In McLean, Vic Marshall was becoming
increasingly bored as he waited for his son to return from his mother's.
Even the Cardinot fuck flick was failing to catch his attention. Rich was
gone only a couple of days, but he was rapidly learning just how much his
son's friend had come to mean to him in the near month they'd been living
together.

He restlessly turned the VCR off and stood up. He found himself wanting
to be in Provincetown with Rich, with the man he was beginning to
understand that he did in fact love. Only, he still had the dummy proof
of the newsletter to review and his son's arrival in four days before he
could get out of Washington. The reality only increased the sense of
restlessness that had come to dominate him.

He poured himself another drink and began to pace the living room. He
glanced at the VCR but decided he couldn't watch any more of the video's
non-stop fucking; it only made him realize just how much he missed Rich.
He looked around blankly and sighed. There was nothing to do. Even the
house was clean; the West Indian woman had been over only that morning
and had, as always, left the house immaculate. He stopped and stood in
the center of the room undecidedly.

He wasn't sure if it was Rich's absence or if he was really as bored as
he felt. "I do miss him," he grumbled, staring at the wall behind the
television. "Jesus, but I want him - and not just in bed either." He
walked to the glass door and glanced out at the backyard, but now the
outside offered him no escape. He still missed the man in P-town. He
missed Christie. He even missed his son. He found he even could put his
finger on what he was feeling - there was a sense of loss everywhere he
turned. The loss of companionship - and, of course, the boredom of being
alone.

He tried to remember what he'd done at times like this before Rich came
into his life. It was hard for him to remember.

When it had been just him and Dave, he'd usually just sit down with a
good book. Or he'd watch some fuck flick. A few times he'd gone out to
the bars. Those had been long nights of sipping drinks and wishing he had
the nerve to approach the Georgetown or George Washington students who
sometimes ventured from their own haunts to see what older Washington was
doing - and, maybe, to do some hustling. There were also the strip joints
in the worse sections of town - and he'd gone to them too when his need
had gotten out of hand.

He had never been much for barhopping and the party life of the city,
though. He'd been happy enough to retreat into suburbia when Dave came to
live with him. He'd succumbed to the middle- class ideals of parenthood
because they fit his personality. His son's arrival in his life had
pushed him in that direction; but he had still been the one who went into
it. And he'd had his eyes wide open.

The frenzy of finding a sexual partner, of successively lowering his
standards as the night progressed, had never appealed to him.

He was always meeting gay men - usually the young Congressional types the
middle-aged bar hoppers would die for. They were the ones he got the
information from that went into the newsletter that let him live
comfortably.

He had to cultivate them any way to get information out of them - like
he'd done with Luke the year the boy'd been an intern for a right-wing
fanatic from North Carolina. He wined and dined them, pretend-ing not to
know that they didn't make enough to take care of themselves. They'd
expected his treating them, though - just like a street hustler would,
simply because they worked for someone in the Congress. He'd always
gotten the information he wanted from whichever naive young thing he'd
approached and had left him thinking he'd been unbelievingly smart with
the older man. He couldn't remember any of them not being willing to
climb into his bed with him when he'd asked them.

Only, the process of gaining their trust - of catering to their image of
themselves - took time. It had never been a quick drink followed by a hop
and skip to his place for bedroom antics. In that sense, the boys of
Congress were just like the classy women who made up the most expensive
heterosexual escort services - both of them demanded much more than their
street cousins for their favors.

Dave took something close to delight in criticizing his lifestyle though.
As the boy'd become surer of his position in his father's life, he'd come
to dominate their home. The leisurely dinners which once led to
invitations to, first, his apartment in D. C. and, then, the house in
McLean came to a halt. He'd still cultivated the boys of Congress for
information - but over lunch because his home had increasingly be-come
his son's private preserve.

Even before Luke, he only rarely brought one of the boys of Congress
home. After Luke, he'd found it was just easier to let his hormones lie
dormant. It'd given him peace on the homefront.

He laughed suddenly as a new thought hit him. Dave was far worse than any
woman he'd ever known about his father's affairs. He had proved to be a
real bitch about another man being around the house.

He realized he was rapidly coming close to being drunk. Inebriated, the
cops would call it. He finished his drink slowly, deciding a shower would
help him get his blood alcohol down enough for him to drive. He could
then go into town and eat. Grinning to himself, he told himself that he
could decide at the restaurant whether he was going to get a sleaze fix
at one of the strip bars or, maybe, go down on "P" Street to drool over
some of the kids as they strolled between the bars that lined the heart
of gay Washington. The grin on his face grew broader - that was something
he hadn't done for a long time. It might be fun.

 

* * *

 

Dave Marshall stared at his father, his face registering his lack of
comprehension. A part of him knew his mouth gaped open but he couldn't
muster the will to close it. His knees felt weak and his stomach was
suddenly churning. "You're seeing who?" he managed to stammer finally.

"Rich Dailey," Vic answered calmly, almost enjoying his son's discomfort.

"You can't be. He's no damn faggot."

"No, he isn't, Dave - but he is gay. And we're living together."

"That's fucking impossible!"

"Why?"

"I've known Rich for more than ten years, Dad. He's not some fucking
faggot. He's not like you and your friends."

"Call him up and ask him - he's in P-town waiting for us to come up
tomorrow. Want the number?"

"Dad, why?" Dave moaned and collapsed on the sofa.

"I suppose because we love each other - or, at least, we care a lot for
each other."

"Dad, these things don't last - you know that. Damn it to hell!" he
growled as he fell back against the couch and tears welled in his eyes.
"Don't you remember little Lukey Edwards?" he groaned. "This one won't
work either - they never do, Dad."

Vic faced his son, forcing himself to push away the sense of failure that
had been increasingly nearer the surface of his dealings with the boy
with each passing year. "What's your problem, Dave - I mean the real one?
Is it because Rich has come out of his closet and shocked you - or is it
because it's him and me?"

The youth stared back at his father, sensing a newness to their
relationship. Vic had never before argued back with him when he'd
attacked his father's relationships head on. "I don't know - Richard
Dailey a fucking faggot!" He shook his head. "Jesus Christ!"

"He's the same guy you knew five or so weeks ago - only, there was
something you didn't know about him that you do now. He's still your
friend."

"Sure, Dad - only, now, I know he likes cocks and I'm going to always
wonder when he's looking at me if he's got sex on his brain."

"Do you wonder if I look at you that way?"

The younger man stared down at his feet. "Once - a long time ago when I'd
just come to live with you. I - I finally got over it - I came to accept
that you didn't think of me in - in a sexual way."

"There never was any reason to think I might. Christ, Dave, I am your
father."

"I know, Dad."

"And Rich is still your friend."

"Is he? Or was he just using me to get to you?" Dave glanced away,
unwilling to continue meeting his father's gaze.

Vic started at him. He couldn't believe his son had just played that one.
"Are you trying to suggest a ten year old would plot out an eight-year
plan of conquest? Come on, Dave, you can come up with something more
believable than that."

"I'm just going to have to get used to it, aren't I?" He smiled wanly at
his father, retreating from the confrontation.

"That you are, kiddo," he laughed and pulled the boy to him and hugged
him. "At least, until Rich changes his tune."

"And you're going to raise his sister and send him to college too, aren't
you?"

"Dave," the older man sighed. "There's a hundred thousand that you get
the moment you get your university degree. I probably couldn't take that
away from you if I tried." He stood up and went to the sliding door,
staring out at the copse of trees that bordered the backyard. "You
inherit my insurance and all my property - including this house - and
over a half million in securities. Unless you do something very, very
stupid between now and the day I die, that's all yours - as is the
spending money you'll get every month you're at Harvard. Do you want
every drop of blood - doesn't my happiness count for something?"

The muscular, good looking young man looked down at his hands sheepishly
and was silent.

"Good! I'm glad we're agreed that what I earn is basically mine to spend
any way I want to spend it. I want to send Rich to school - and Christie,
too." He turned back to face his son. "The fact is, Rich doesn't even
know I'm going to send him - not yet."

"Okay, Dad-you win." David Marshall shrugged and turned away from his
father.

"Thanks, Dave. I need a little happiness in my life - and, for the
present, Rich is providing that."

"I know you do. And, too many times, I've made it pretty miser-able for
you."

"That's in the past, Dave - let's leave it there."

Dave turned back to his father and crossed over to him. He towered over
the older man and his body was more muscular than his; but they were
still obviously father and son. "I love you, Dad," he told the man, his
voice quiet. "I really do - even though, most of the time, I don't show
it." He smiled tentatively down at the other man.

 

* * *

 

Rich watched as the DC-3 circled in the clear sky and came lumbering down
between the sand dunes to touch the macadam. His stomach churned in
anticipation as the fifty-five year old relic taxied slowly toward him.
He felt like he had a million butterflies caught in his stomach and they
were all trying to escape at the same time.

He missed Vic bad. It was almost a tangible hurt - but so was his dread
of meeting Dave now that his friend knew about him. Having Vic so close
made him happy, however, and that overrode his dread of his friend. He
almost felt like a little boy again and that everything in life was
somehow new.

Nothing bad could happen and Hank was already almost a memory of a dream.
He wanted to jump up and down and cry all at the same time.

The airplane came to a stop on the other side of the chain fence from him
and the door opened in the rear, its built-in stairs reaching down to
kiss the pavement beneath them. Then, he was watching each passenger as
he appeared in the bright light of day. Twenty men had already stepped
out of the darkened fuselage before Vic emerged into sight.

His heart raced. The memory of Hank and their week together rose to
threaten his reunion with the man. Then, he heard the whisper of the
hairdresser's voice in his mind reminding him they were only a fun
interlude. He tried to shut it out. It wasn't real and neither was Hank.
What was real was walking across the macadam toward him at this exact
moment. And he'd never missed anybody the way he missed Vic Marshall.
There was actual pain as the man stopped in front of him and gathered him
up in his arms.

He couldn't stop the tears that sprang to his eyes then. He was crying
and didn't care. The man he loved held him now. He had his reality. "I
love you," he whispered against Vic's ear.

"You did miss me, didn't you?" Vic grinned and released the other man.

"Miss you? Shit!" He glanced up into the man's face. "I've wished you
were here with me every time I went anywhere - it's been like - like ..."
He paused then, searching for a word that could even come close to
describing the sense of loss he now knew he'd felt.

"I know, luv." Vic's hand cupped hiss neck. "I've felt the same way this
whole damn week."

"Hey, dude!" Rich stiffened at the sound of the new voice and pulled away
from the man in sudden shame. Slowly, he forced himself to look back
toward the airplane and saw Dave walking jauntily toward him.

"Hi, yourself," he offered and stuck his hand out to his friend. Dave
took it with only a moment of hesitation. It seemed to Rich, however,
that his friend let it go faster than he should have. He felt the
distance the other boy seemed to be placing between them. He knew he'd
lost the innocent friendship he and Dave had always shared. And he knew
he would have to work hard to have any kind of relationship with the
other youth now.

"Let's get the hell out of here, dudes." Dave grumbled as he turned to
his father. He seemed to exclude Rich through his actions even though
he'd included him in his statement. "I could eat a horse - and ..." He
glanced back at Rich quickly. "I want to check out the limited number of
straight women we've got in this sinkhole."

 

 

Rich yawned and turned from the window. It was late and he was growing
tired. "They've gone to bed over in Plymouth," he offered as he lay down
beside Vic, snuggling up to him.

"Dave's going to be wearing his ass on his shoulder for a while, luv."

"I've already picked that up. What's his problem anyway?"

"Are you referring to his being a horse's ass toward you?" He nodded and
snuggled closer to the man, placing his bare thigh over his abdomen. Vic
grunted softly. "Keep that up and we're going to have to bang your ass
all over this bed."

The younger man laughed softly. "That sounds like great fun - but, first,
let's talk about Dave-please?"

"Why?"

"Because we've been friends for so long - I don't want to lose him. He
ought to understand - with a gay father I mean."

Vic sighed. "Dave came to live with me to escape his mother ... What I'm
saying is that he didn't choose me so much as he chose to get away from
his mother - and I was the only other choice he had available back then."

"I remember her a little from before." Rich shook his head slowly. "She's
pretty weird."

"I found that out myself, young man." Vic thought for a moment and then
continued. "I may be totally off base here - but I think my son is afraid
of what I stand for sexually. I suspect he feels - has always felt - he
had to be more masculine than me."

"You're a man. Goddamn!" Rich squeezed against his side.

"You and I know that - but Dave's still caught up in that adolescent shit
about manhood equaling the number of women you score. If you do it with a
guy, you've lost some of your masculinity - and you lose more if you take
it instead of giving it. And that's probably his problem with you right
now."

"What do you mean?"

"He's judging you by the standards the two of you have lived by since you
learned there were fun things to do with that piece of meat between your
legs. Suddenly, I'm telling him his good buddy is taking it up the ass -
not in so many words, of course. He has to re-evaluate you - and the only
criterion he has is the one American boys have from the high school
scoring scene."

"He also had you."

"Remember, he rejects me - and he's done it with a vengeance. If you
don't know somebody who's gay, you can grow up without having to make a
decision about your own sexuality - after all, you only have one kind of
example to follow. You can even experiment without calling your
masculinity into too much question - you can even slide over the edge and
become gay once you're safely out of school without a major brain change
...

"Yet, Dave had me - and I'm his father to boot. He had to establish his
sexuality totally - and it had to be acceptable to his friends from the
get go."

"What about me? I knew you too."

"You waited to come out of the closet, Rich. You've had sex with girls."
He felt the younger man nod slowly against his chest. "And you'd put sex
on the back burner, didn't you?" Vic grinned in the dark as the youth
nodded against his chest again, even more slowly this time. "That is,
until there was this hunk of a guy at work who made you open up to
yourself."

He felt shame swell up over him as he blushed. "That's fucking unfair,
damn it."

"Yes, it is - only, instead of making a pass and maybe getting kicked in
the teeth, you came back to where you knew you'd be safe - and loved.
Besides, you were a walking homosexual a long time ago - just waiting to
happen - you had to face up to yourself sooner or later - and I'm glad it
was sooner." He pulled Rich up to face him and kissed him, his hands
descending down the man's back to his bare asscheeks. "Want to?" he
whispered in his ear.

Rich chuckled. "That'll make the third time tonight - think you're able
to do it again, Pops?"

"You tell me - turn over and stick those buns up here where I can get to
them.'

 

* * *

 

July was nearly gone and he hadn't seen it slipping away from them. Rich
Dailey started at the calendar in amazement and tried to remember where
the days had gone. In the bathroom, Vic turned on the shower and Rich
thought idly of joining him.

He quickly forced that thought away. By the time they'd be through making
love, the water would be ice cold and they'd never make dinner and the
gay British rock 'n roll group he wanted to catch. He turned his thoughts
back to the month just past.

They'd spent most of the days in the month out at Herring Cove with other
gay men in Provincetown. Rich grinned as he studied his tan in the
mirror. Days on the beach catching rays and nights along Bradford
catching the shows. Just as all the other gay guys did. Like Vic
Marshall.

Only, he'd never done that before. It'd always been him and Dave on their
own before. Scoping out the town and the broads - both lesbian and
straight. And chuckling at the antics of gay men trying to score.

He hadn't even realized how different this trip to P'town had been for
him. He'd gone from teenaged voyeur to gay man when he'd called Vic and
invited himself into the man's bed that afternoon back in June. Taking in
Provincetown and its pleasures had sure been a lot more fun as a gay man
than it was as Dave Marshall's sidekick.

Come to think about it, he hadn't even thought much about Dave the past
month.

At the end of the week Vic would be going back to Washington though,
leaving him and Dave in Provincetown alone together. The thought of it
grated against everything Rich knew about himself and had seen in the
actions of Vic's son over the past month.

David Marshall had definitely not come around. He passed by Rich and Vic
like some silent ghost ship in the night. When it was just Vic, the other
boy was fine; but, if Rich was in the equation, Dave gave them both a
wide berth. It was as if he had died. Their relations were correct - but
the easy camaraderie of the past had died.

As Rich thought about it, it seemed Dave had been hellbent on making sure
that nothing of that past could ever be resurrected.

"He's not coming around." he grunted as he watched the sun slipping
toward the bay from the bedroom window. Behind him, he heard Vic come out
of the bathroom and start dressing in the room. "He hasn't changed one
damn bit."

"I believe he will, luv."

"When?" He whirled about and his eyes went up Vic's chest in search of
the other man's face and eyes. "You tell me that one ... At the rate
we're going, we might be talk normally to each other by the turn of the
century."

"That's only five years away." Vic grinned.

"I'm being serious, damn it."

"What does it really matter to you, Rich Dailey, what he does?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"I mean, what difference does his accepting you really make to you?"

"I-" Rich forced himself to concentrate on it for a moment. He did not
want to go off half-cocked like some child. He wanted to be like this man
he respected and loved and wanted. "He's been my best friend since I can
remember - ten years or more. I don't want to give that up!" He crumbled
to his knees, tears streaking down his cheeks.

"Don't you understand, Vic?" he demanded, giving up any pretense to being
logical as he sank deeper into the emotional hurt his friend's rejection
was causing him.

"Life's like that, though - things change. Rich, our priorities change,
our way of looking at things-and, as they do, we drift further away from
our old relationships."

"That's unfair, Vic!" he groaned. "I sure didn't know I was gay - I even
hid those feelings from myself most of the time. He can't just discard me
like some old toy that doesn't look right any more - he can't, damn it."

"Jesus, Rich. He still hasn't accepted me - not completely. And, then,
his old buddy, the high school jock, turns out to be a real cocksucker."

"I was the last-the very last-man on the football team, Vic. I wasn't
much more than a water boy. Besides, I sure as hell don't get fucking
huffy about some cunt in his bed with her legs spread."

"He's got to come around to understanding it that way, Rich ... And,
until he does, your friendship is going to be one hundred percent
one-sided - there's not one thing you can do about it."

 

"I know. God, don't I know it. Shit!" He stood up and walked across the
room, wiping his eyes with his shirt. At the door he turned back, his
eyes pleading as he searched the other man's face. "Vic, I need ... I'm
going to take a walk, okay?"

The older man smiled in understanding. "Are you going to want to go out
later?"

"I don't know. If it doesn't matter to you, I think I'd like to just
spend the next two nights here with you." His eyes searched the older
man's face for understanding.

"I don't mind, Rich - you know that." Vic smiled again, this time with
pleasure. "I think I'd like that. There probably is a lot we still need
to get to know about each other - maybe, we ought to take that walk
together?"

"Let's do that later - and tomorrow too. But, right now, I just have to
get my head straight. I want to be alone, Vic - it's not you or
anything." He hung his head. "I won't be more than a couple of hours,
okay?"

"I think I understand - I'll meet you out along the bay a couple of hours
from now. We can take our walk from there?"

"That sounds good - maybe, we can even get in a midnight swim at Herring
Cove?"

"Herring Cove's a good ten miles, Rich-" Vic gazed at him speculatively.
"Yeah, that would be nice. Meet me at the car park there?" He nodded and
smiled back at Vic.