Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 10:08:09 -0400 From: Tom Cup Subject: Terms Of Living - Chapter 6 Gay/Bi - A/Y Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002 by the Paratwa Partnership: A Colorado Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, except in the case of reviews, without written permission from the Paratwa Partnership, Inc, 354 Plateau Drive, Florissant, CO 80816 This is a fictional story involving alternative sexual relationships. If this type of material offends you, please do not read any further. This material is intended for mature adult audiences. Names, characters, locations and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. ************************************************************************ The Paratwa Partnership, Inc. is a publication and marketing agency and is not responsible for the content of the Tom Cup Library, TomCup.com or its affiliate sites, or stories written by Mr. Cup or his associates. ************************************************************************ This story is part of the Tom Cup Library To support this and other stories by Tom Cup, or to view the list of stories featured in the Tom Cup Library, visit our website at http://www.tomcup.com ************************************************************************ Terms of Living By Tom Cup Chapter 6 Where Fools Tread With the warmth of spring came a new sense of life in the Major home. Andrew and I had settled into a rather stable and scheduled relationship -- he still had his school work to attend and I would not allow him to neglect his parents -- and the mood of the house was light and ... well, to use the term of my generation ... gay. Sheryl insisted that I sit at the dinner table and enjoy the evening meal with them. I was uncomfortable with this and fidgeted embarrassingly for the first week or so but the new familiar feeling won my affection. Other changes also caught me by surprise. Sheryl would walk with me with her arm wrapped around mine. In the past, we had a casual yet professional relationship. She now treated me as an approving mother lauding over her son's lover. It was strange to me to be in that position. I felt some guilt over the shower of affection. The old box that I had lived in for much of my life provided the framework for my view of the world. The new paradigm of my life was Andrew. Understanding the world through that paradigm never ceased to astound me. "What's the matter John," Sheryl asked; her arm around me. We had been discussing plans for Andrew's upcoming thirteenth birthday party. "You look as if you have bitten into a lemon." "Don't you ever wonder if I am doing right by Andrew?" "He's happy John. He's truly happy; and so are you." One could not deny that Andrew and I were happy with the situation. But I still wondered if one day his parents would wake up and say to themselves, "Oh my god! What have we allowed to happen here?" I wondered if I might awake with the same expression. Happiness by no means guarantees security. Andrew would turn thirteen, fourteen and then fifteen. Time would continue to press forward. So I wondered what the future held. Yet, Sheryl was correct. Andrew was happy. So was I but that did not lessen my concern. "OK," Sheryl confessed, "I worry a little. But John, you have been good to him. Craig and I know that. We knew this would be difficult on all of us but it's Andrew's happiness that concerns us the most. Please don't think we're bad parents John. We couldn't bear that." I must admit to laughter at the statement. Sheryl and Craig were afraid that I thought ill of them was far removed from my thought processes. I was impressed by their willingness to allow Andrew to explore his sexuality with me. Craig, Sheryl and I were conscious of the legal complications that our actions afforded but it was, indeed, Andrew's happiness that bound us to the conspiracy. There was another fact that was brought to my attention during that conversation with Sheryl. Andrew and his parents were now freer in showing affection for one another. Sheryl considered it a by-product of my relationship with Andrew. I began to notice Andrew and Craig hugging unrepentantly, kisses between Andrew and Sheryl, and communication between the family flowing in an easy and relaxed manner. Spring came and with it bloomed unity and love. Not just between Andrew and me but between Craig and Sheryl -- Seeing the love burn between Andrew and me ignited the embers of their love for each other -- passion stirred in us all. "So stop worrying so much," Sheryl chastised, "A man that get two chances to love deeply in his life should not pout. Be thankful." So once again I refocused the lens through which I viewed my life. I accepted my dual roles, as some time advisor to Craig and Sheryl in matters of household management and as their beloved pseudo son-in-law. But most of all, I accepted that I was happy. ********* "John," Andrew asked, "Why didn't you and Connie have any children?" We lay lazily together, naked, our bodies entangled. I was still radiating from the satisfaction of our lovemaking. Andrew's ability to switch conscious gears so quickly was a measurement of his youth. I wanted to wallow in the after glow of bliss. His needs satisfied he was ready to move on to other conquests. I sighed. "We decided that children would interfere with our chosen professions." Andrew sat up and studied me. "But Connie loved children," he said. "Yes, and so did I. We gain satisfaction from raising others' children. We had no regrets." "John?" "Yes, Andrew." "I want to have children." I stared blankly into his eyes. He nodded. I thought that he meant that he would one day marry and raise a family of his own. It seemed reasonable to me. I had long suspected that our sexual activity would one day end. Still, the preparation of thought did not stop my heart from aching. Andrew sensed my hurt and began to laugh. "You're not getting rid of me that easily," he said. "I don't understand." "Adoption John. I'm talking about adoption. When I'm older of course." "Of course," I echoed. He laid his head on my chest and caressed my stomach. "You'll make a wonderful father. I know." I marveled that Andrew's thoughts ran so far ahead into the future. I marveled that they included me. I told myself that I needed to maintain some perspective. But what perspective could I maintain laying in bed with a thirteen-year-old boy that had just proposed that we raise a family together? Like "Alice Through the Looking Glass"; sizes, shapes, colors, the very world itself was in flux. I could try to regain control but everything I thought, said or did sent me reeling in an unexpected direction. There was no way to get back to the familiar world that I once knew. Even if I could that world would not be there; or if it were still there I would not view it the same. I had changed. I had become an alien among the species of my birth. I rose from the primordial ocean and stood on prehistoric land, wondering how I ever thought the slippery wet reasons of my prior existence were stable or life giving. I could return to the ocean and swim within but the environment was no longer mine. It was hostile to me. The creatures of that world would view me as strangely as I now viewed them. So there was no return. I could make camp, halt further advancement, or move forward into the tangled jungle of an unknown existence. I laughed. "What's so funny?" Andrew asked. "There is an old saying, `Fools go where angels fear to tread.'" "Do you think we are fools John?" "I think you are young, bright, beautiful, impetuous, and a hundred other wonderful adjectives that would bore you to hear. And me, yes; I am an impetuous old fool about to tread where angels fear to go, all because of a boy that has captured me." "I don't think you're an old fool, John." "Huhn, no?" "No, I think you're in love." "That goes without saying. Those in love often do foolish things, things they otherwise would not." "Do you regret we're together?" "How could I regret such a thing? Is this what I expected of my life? No. I expected to grow old with Connie. I expected that she would be by my side when I breathed my last; and if she left before me, that I would soon follow." "John." "Yes Andrew." "I'm thirteen and you're fifty-eight. One day, I'll have to bury you." "In all likelihood." "In fact, we don't really know how much time we have. Do we?" One doesn't like thinking of one's mortality. Andrew had more years ahead of him than I. If I had twenty years left, I would count that as a blessing. Andrew would only be thirty-three, still a young man with the future ahead of him. I nodded. "You see," Andrew whispered, "When I turn eighteen, you'll be sixty-three. I'm afraid to wait John. I'm afraid of losing you. I'm afraid that we will never get to do the things I want to do with you." "We've done quite a bit already." "No, I don't mean in bed. I mean, the things that ... that really matter." Andrew fell silent. I felt rebuked in a fashion. I always thought of what losing Andrew would do to me. I had never considered that he felt the more likely possibility that I would leave him. Of course, the longer our relationship lasted the greater that possibility. I think his mortality was still foreign to him but mine was not. He had witnessed Connie's death. She was younger than me. It was reasonable for him to consider I didn't have much time left. Whatever that meant, whatever Andrew's understanding of its meaning, it pushed him to cling to our remaining time together. He knew that one day we would part. He would have to find a new life, a life containing only the memory of the love we once shared. "What kind of things?" I asked. Andrew smiled. "Do you know what Connie's favorite memory of you two was?" "Our wedding day, I suppose; or perhaps the day we first met." "No, it was when you guys were dating," Andrew said, "Connie finally talked you into ice-skating. She said you were always so prim and proper, reluctant to do anything just for fun." I began blushing at the recollection of that day. Connie laughed till she cried at my fumbling and falling. I never put on another pair of those accursed skates. "It was one of the best times of her life, she said. It was a day that she realized how much you loved her. She said you really made a spectacle of yourself just to show her how much you loved her. That was her favorite memory." I nodded and began to weep. I understood what Andrew was telling me. He wanted to look back over our time together and find it not full of reservations but of the spontaneity of love. There were so many reasons to be reserved concerning my relationship with Andrew. I now had three reasons to break camp and run into the wilder lands: Andrew loved me, I would not live forever, and I was in love with him. ************************************************************************ This story is part of the Tom Cup Library To support this and other stories by Tom Cup, or to view the list of stories featured in the Tom Cup Library, visit our website at http://www.tomcup.com ************************************************************************