Notice: The following account depicts homosexual acts between consenting persons and is intended for mature readers only. Exercise your own judgment, in consultation with the appropriate laws and moral standards of your community, in deciding whether or not to read this work. While this story depicts significant events in the lives of certain individuals, readers are cautioned not to assume that their experiences are in any way representative of those of most homosexuals. Any connection between persons named herein and real persons, living or dead, is vigorously denied. Comments may be sent to paulsgoodboy@hotmail.com. This story may not be copied or distributed without the express written consent of the author. Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved.

Chapter Two. Power Beyond Control
A surprise gift, a wish fulfilled.

So for the next year, my longing for Paul grew and grew. I watched him play ball over that summer, and in the fall, since he was now in high school with Matt and me, I could watch him in the halls or the cafeteria at school. One time, I even saw Paul from a distance in a swimming suit when our gym classes were both using the school's swimming pool at the same time. I nearly fainted while watching him walk along the pool deck, the water dripping from his beautiful body, the matted trails of hair curving down the backs of his thighs, his calves, the center of his rippled abdomen. Other times, I would see Paul when I was with Matt, but Paul had his own friends over more and more, so he began to completely ignore Matt and me, which was good because then I could steal furtive glances at him whenever Matt wasn't looking.

But sometimes, like when Matt and I rented a movie, Paul would watch it with us, and I'd have to take care to watch the TV and not Paul, particularly lest Matt begin to suspect that I was lusting after his brother while watching him mature to full manhood. Paul was very funny when his voice started to crack, but over the months he developed a deep baritone, the perfect complement to his manly body. His facial hair filled in, and his muscles grew even more defined. And Paul grew to be an inch taller than Matt and about two inches taller than me. Actually, he looked nothing like Matt. It's weird, but if you didn't know their family, you'd swear Matt and Paul had different parents. I guess Paul was just one of a kind in many ways.

Like the summer before, I never experienced sexual release of any kind. I don't know why, but in all my life I've never had a wet dream, and at that point, I still hadn't learned how to jack off. I guess that because I was gay, I developed a kind of psychological block toward my own sexual desire. So I kind of developed a nervous twitch, and I got an ulcer in my stomach, which wasn't properly diagnosed until a few years later, and whenever I was around a really good looking guy, especially Paul, I completely lost the power of speech. I didn't have a stutter or anything, it's just that my mind went completely blank and try as I might, I couldn't think of something to say. Being friends with Matt was the only thing that kept me from completely becoming a shy loner. But one thing going right for me physically was that I didn't cry so much anymore, as I'd learned to control my emotional reactions to things, though sometimes at the end of the day I'd break out into great heaving sobs before I went to sleep. The stress of life was just too much for me.

After that childhood summer with Luke, I had no sexual experiences until the summer following my junior year. Of all days, it was on my birthday. Growing up, birthdays were always kind of special for me, because my mom always tried to put on a good party, with a big cake and games and friends sleeping over. She worked a lot, and although she couldn't spend a lot of time with me, mom really did love me. She did everything she could to see that I was happy, or at least as happy as a fuck-up like me could be, and she never seemed disappointed that I was a pussy about so many things and that I never quite measured up to the high standards set by guys like Matt and Paul.

Years after all this, when she finally learned that I really am a fag (it eventually came up because it became clear to her that I wasn't going to be a priest and I wasn't even trying to get married) she took it much better than I thought she would. I know she thinks it's wrong and that I'm not right with God, but she didn't disown me or tell me how disappointed she is with me. I think that she partly blames herself because I didn't have a regular family life growing up, and I never had a dad around to teach me how to be "normal." Even things like how to shave and knot a necktie I learned from Matt. I think mom thinks I fell in love with Matt, which I didn't, though I loved him very much. But since we spent so much time together, I think she figures I turned into a fag because I didn't know any better. The truth is, I was a fag from the beginning, my friendship with Matt ended disastrously (mom never knew the real reason why), and I was in love with Paul. But maybe "love" is the wrong term for this part of the story, because during the first three years of high school, I loved Paul's body more than anything else. I hadn't yet begun to desire his companionship the way I do now, and he certainly didn't desire mine.

Anyway, this particular night was my seventeenth birthday party, and mom really did a great job of putting it on. She had decorations and a really big cake and enough pizzas for everybody, and although she got on well with my friends and it would have been fine for her to stick around, she left us all alone after a few hours once the party got going and let us turn up the stereo really loud. I remember it all very well because it was the first, and only, really big party at my house. Most of the people there were friends from Catholic school days, so it wasn't like my party could compete with the sort of thing public school kids were used to, but some of my new friends from high school were there, and everyone had a good time. I say "my" friends, but a lot of the people there were friends with me because they were friends with Matt. My mom didn't know the whole high school crowd, so she put Matt in charge of invitations, and he did a good job of it. I was really surprised by the number of people who showed up. Most of them were guys, because most of the people I knew were guys, though there were many girls, too, especially the ones Matt had a thing for. Paul was not on the list, of course, but you couldn't expect Matt to invite his younger brother. I thought it was a good thing because I couldn't handle this young stud walking around in my own house the whole night. Famous last words, as they say.

Earlier in the day, Matt gave me his birthday present. It was a Friday, and Matt had a game to play at five (I took the day off from my announcing job at the ballpark), so he called me on the phone about two and told me to come over. I ran across the street and let myself in (I had a key to the house) and went upstairs to his room. The door was closed, which was unusual, but unlocked, so I walked right in. As soon as I did, Matt said, "Lock the door."

"Why, what's up?" I asked.

"You'll see in a sec. Just lock the door."

I did, and then Matt reached under his bed and pulled out my present, all wrapped up with a bow and everything. Matt had wrapped it himself, so it was kind of sloppy, but I was really touched by his gift. Matt held it out to me with a "bad boy" grin on his face. I took it from him and felt it. Heavy and metallic.

"You got me a six pack of Coke?" I asked, feeling the cans inside the wrapping paper.

"No, you idiot, just open it," Matt said with a kind of playful impatience.

"It's beer!" I yelled, tearing off the paper. Wow, what a gift. Matt had given me my own six-pack of beer! Despite myself, I reached out and gave him a big hug. "That's so cool!" I said, yelling again.

"Shhh. I don't want Paul to hear you," Matt said. And then, "Okay, okay, I didn't expect you to make love to me or anything." I realized that I was still hugging him and turned bright red. I let him go, and then he said, "It's okay, man, I just thought we could have our own little celebration here before the party after the game tonight."

"How did you get this?" I asked.

"I talked this guy I know at the ball park who's twenty-one into buying it for me, and he even said he could get me a fake ID sometime, too." I was naive enough not to know what that was, so Matt explained it to me.

"That's so cool," I said, "maybe I could get one, too."

"No, you definitely don't look old enough," he said, which was true, but his comment kind of hurt my feelings. Then he said, "But if I get one, I'll just buy all the beer for us." I perked up at that.

"So let's drink one," I said.

There are some moments in your life that you definitely don't want to forget. I guess having a first beer is kind of a milestone in a boy's life, one of the big ones. All I know is that it was a big one for me, because it was, at least in the place I grew up, a defining step toward manhood. Sharing the experience with Matt was even more spectacular, because talking and laughing together, we reaffirmed each other's maturity and independence—even if we didn't know what those terms really mean. Thinking back on that moment, I wonder why I didn't fall in love with Matt. Even now it seems like a mystery to me. He was such a good friend and treated me like an equal in so many ways, though clearly I was not. You'd think I'd fall head over heels for him. But I didn't. Maybe it's because Matt was not gay. Maybe it's because I was too ashamed of myself. But maybe it's because, as I guess time would show, each of us, even though we didn't know it, needed to be loved in different ways. In ways neither one of us quite knew how.

So I ended up having my first beer with Matt, my best friend. He had bought regular Bud, because that's what we had seen the older guys drink, and it was warm since he couldn't exactly store it in his mother's refrigerator. We ended up drinking two, actually, over the next two hours. We decided to share them one at a time because we didn't know how drunk we'd get. Aside from tiny sips of unconsecrated communion wine we stole as altar boys, Matt and I had never had any alcohol. The experience and knowledge of alcohol was one of those things that made you "cool," of course, so Matt had been trying to score some beer ever since we started high school. At four, Matt had to dress out for the game. He stashed the remaining four beers under his bed, and said, "You know where they are, so you can come over and drink them anytime you want." Matt was so cool like that. He would come over to my room or let me go into his anytime of day or night. There was virtually nothing either one of us did that the other couldn't be there with him. Except for the obvious secrets I was hiding, it was the most open friendship I've ever had. If Matt had asked me, I would have followed him anywhere.

I was very buzzed, so I just lay down on Matt's bed while he got dressed. Matt seemed not to be as affected by the beer as I was, but I think he took smaller sips in order to let me have more. It was my present, after all. When he left about four-thirty, he told me happy birthday again and said that since they were playing at the one city park with locker rooms, he and the other guys on his team who were coming could shower there and drive straight to the party after the game. Wow, baseball jocks at my birthday party. That was a present in itself!

Over the next half hour, I lay on Matt's bed and fell asleep pressing my face into his pillow. Matt's scent didn't really excite me, but it made me feel wonderful, like I was basking in the personal acceptance his friendship gave me. For years I was Matt's student, pupil, protégé, apprentice—I don't know what you'd call it. Maybe "little brother" is a good term, because I filled that role in Matt's life much more than Paul did. At least it seemed that way. Sleeping on Matt's bed was like curling up in the warm center of his bosom. Maybe it was just the alcohol coursing through my brain, but as I slipped into unconsciousness, I felt like I was already dreaming.

After I had been asleep for a bit, I was awakened by the sound of someone in the room. I was sleeping on my back, and I opened my eyes and sat up with a start, propping myself up with my arms. Holy shit, it was Paul, wearing nothing but a jock strap! He was going through Matt's sock drawer. My mouth dropped open, my eyes went wide, and I gasped loudly. Then I literally stopped breathing. I was paralyzed with a sudden rush of shock, desire, and fear. I drank in his nearly naked body with my eyes, the wild hunger of my lust feasting on the images entering my mind. How many times had I imagined what was now before me!

Paul's basket was beautiful, and I could clearly see the outline of his thick cock, the head jutting out just past the full, supple roundness of his balls. His long, solid, naked legs, evenly covered from ankle to inner thigh by blond hairs, his thick sturdy knees, his angular calves, his long slender feet. His dark blond bush rising to surround his navel. His taut abs, his smoothly toned arms, also covered in blond hairs. His rigid pecs, each smooth and beautiful and tipped with a dark medallion-like nipple. The hair pushing out from his armpits, and the solid, round bulk of his shoulders. His square jaw, dusted by a two-day's growth. His thin lips, straight nose and brow. His eyes, dark and blue. Truly a sight I had dreamed of but never seen. There he was—God help me—appearing without warning, like a revelation of young manhood. Paul, in all his intense teen glory, a vision of youthful masculinity, communicating nothing but durable vigor and hard beauty.

Paul heard me gasp, and I startled him because he hadn't seen me on the bed when he came in. "Sorry man," he said, "I have a game and I think my socks got mixed in with Matt's," which was not unusual because though they played for different teams, the stripes on their uniforms were very similar. And Paul did have a five-thirty game on a different field than Matt's. Still, his presence perplexed my alcohol- and sleep-clouded brain, and the issue of lost socks versus his near-nakedness in front of me did not quite compute.

All of this hit me at once after suddenly waking from a fairly deep sleep. My body's reaction was one I should have expected.

I threw a rod.

This was no ordinary "hi, how are you" kind of boner: I was zero to superman in a single bound. I'd never had so painful and so hard an erection. I could have punched through a two-by-four as cleanly as a nail fired from a roofer's gun. And it hurt, too, from the tip clear to the root, in that way, if you know it, that only the word "exquisite" can describe. And my whole body felt something. A need, I guess. The kind of ache that just longs for the firm, guiding, electric touch of another's hand.

Paul had just pulled his socks from Matt's drawer when he saw the steel pole tenting my tan shorts. "Dude," he said, "I'm... I'm sorry... I... I... shit…," and his voice trailed off. I still could not breathe and didn't say anything. I was completely overcome by my desire for Paul as waves of erotic energy rushed through me, from the center of my gut clear down to my feet. My arms suddenly got weak and started to collapse under me. A cold patina of sweat covered my face, and precum made a dark dot about the size of a nickel at the summit of Mt. Wood.

Paul was taken aback by what was happening in front of him, and he just stood there staring for several seconds, lost in his own sense of surprise. My body told him what my lips never could, that his mere presence was overpowering for me. Looking from my shorts to my face, he caught my eyes and held them, mesmerizing me. I think he knew, somehow, what I wanted. What I needed. But I lost all feeling in my extremities at that point, my hearing went to zero, and my vision started to tunnel, as I had not yet been able to breathe and felt like I was passing out. Yet there were Paul's dark blue eyes holding me up, suspending me in consciousness, pulling me back toward him. Caught like that in his gaze, I was trapped. I slipped completely under his control, though I don't think he fully realized it. But I felt that I could have levitated across the room if only he had willed it.

Then Paul seemed to go in a kind of daze himself. For the first time, I was the object of his masculine gaze, even though he did not look at me with desire. Rather, he looked at me with a combination of understanding and the commanding dominance of a cocky teen god, floating high on his own ego and blinding self-confidence. He saw the effect his presence had on me, and he took an unthinking, self-centered pleasure in it. And just feeling his pleasure response merely increased my own desire, creating a feedback loop of increasing energy. I completely surrendered to his power. As though he penetrated me, and filled the hollow cave that had grown inside me with his superiority. As though, in some primal way, he instinctually enveloped me in the aura of his manhood, tearing me out of the womb of Matt's protection in which I had been living, and made me his possession. I no longer belonged to Matt, or even to myself, but totally, completely, and fully to Paul.

Every muscle I had went into a kind of tight spasm as Paul took control of me, for my will was consumed by the power of his. Finally, the overload was too much for my body and the oxygen deprivation was too much for my brain. Something snapped, everything went limp, and I passed out. My throat opened up, and my lungs filled with a gush of air. As I slipped into unconsciousness, the dark tunnel in my eyes collapsing to a pinhole aperture before winking out, the only thing left in my mind was the echo of Paul's voice saying my name.

Look for "Chapter Three. A Certain Brand of Love."
Comments may be sent to paulsgoodboy@hotmail.com.