Warning: the following story contains graphic descriptions of male/male sex between consenting adults. If that sort of thing bothers you, or you are a minor, or it is illegal for you to read this type of content under the laws of your area, don’t read any further.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people or events is purely coincidental.

Accolades, encouragement, suggestions, comments, and corrections are welcome and gladly accepted. Flames will be utterly ignored. <lavenderquill@yahoo.com>.

Other work by The Lavender Quill can be found on the web at <http://lavenderquill.tripod.com/>.

Setting: Sacramento, California, 2002.

Chapter 2.

The next day, I was back to working on a bigger job with my uncle Don and most of the rest of the guys. This was a small condo project. Bigger than a house, but not a huge building. It was twelve units. Mostly wood construction. Big buildings of concrete and steel were a little over my head. We had the structure complete, and the roof was on. Most of the windows were installed, and we had started framing the interior walls before my uncle had sent me off to do the fence and odd jobs for Mrs. Warren. At this stage we could work in any weather. A subcontractor crew was working on the siding. They were doing some kind of fake stucco look. Not my favorite look, but I wasn't the architect. My uncle had me work with a guy named Brian. We were to start installing doors.

Brian was a mellow older guy, and I liked working with him. He was balding and what hair he had remaining was starting to go gray. He was a bit overweight, but not hugely fat. He was very easygoing.

I was distracted that morning. I couldn't get my mind off my romp with Sam Warren the previous afternoon. It was the first time I'd successfully fucked a guy. It was hot. Sam was good looking. I should be feeling really good, but I didn't. Sam was great looking, but I knew that I really didn't like him much. He was kind of a jerk, I'd decided. It seemed like he must be going through some kind of denial or guilt trip or something, the way he wouldn't look at me or let me kiss him or anything.

I felt a little guilty too. I had fucked him hard, with little consideration for him. I'd made sure there was adequate lubrication and then just let my animal instincts take over. I didn't think I had hurt him, though, and he had gotten off too. He had given me no feedback at all, other than coming, so it was nearly impossible to tell how he felt about the whole thing.

I felt weird about my reasons for fucking him as well. Partly it was just to see if I could do it right. Well, I had accomplished the deed, and we had both gotten off, but I felt little satisfaction afterward. At least now I knew the mechanics of the act. I had also been mad at his hypocrisy, the way he claimed that his interest in guys was a thing of the past. That anger had driven me to fuck him hard, and to come after so few strokes. Really, I should feel sorry for him, maybe try to help him get over whatever guilt trip he was laying on himself. I felt bad for being so inconsiderate.

All in all, though it had been really fucking hot, it was quite unsatisfying after the fact. I felt like kind of a jerk myself.

"Man, Kevin," said Brian, "you've been off in 'la la' land all morning." He smiled. He put his hammer back in his tool belt. "Time for a break."

It was true. Thankfully, installing doors is not too complicated, but I had only been paying half attention all morning. I grabbed a couple of sodas out of a small plastic cooler and handed one to Brian.

"I know that look," said Brian with a laugh. "You got laid last night."

I blushed and Brian laughed again. "Well…"

He punched my shoulder. "You dog. I knew it!" He gulped down some soda. "Tell me about her. I want details."

"Brian!"

"Just kidding, man. Don't worry. I'm just an old guy and it's been too long since I got laid."

"It wasn't all that great anyway," I confessed.

"Hey man, it had to be better than what I'm getting," said Brian. "Did you get off?" I nodded to him. "Did she get off?" I hesitated, then nodded again, having no intention of correcting him on the gender of his assumptions. "Well there you go! Never pass up a piece of tail. There are only so many days in a man's life. Every day that goes by with out you getting laid, is a lost opportunity. You never get that day back."

"Christ, Brian," I said, "you should have been a fuckin philosopher or something. That is some deep shit." We both laughed uproariously. The laughter helped break my mood, however. I realized I would get nowhere obsessing over Sam after the fact.

I worked the rest of the day with in a lighter mood. At the end of the day, Uncle Don has a custom of breaking out a cooler of beer. Everybody gets one beer. We all sit around and unwind for a little while and drink a can of beer. One can, then every one takes off for home or wherever. When I was working summers in high school, he wouldn't let me drink. Now that I'd finished high school and was working for him full time, he let me join in, even though it would be a couple years till I was legal. I liked this time. The guys were okay for the most part, and joked around for a while after we knocked off.

After they all piled in to their trucks (almost all of them had a truck of one kind or another) and departed, sometimes my uncle and I would stay and talk. I can't possibly explain why, but I had always found it easier to talk to Uncle Don than to my parents. I mean, I get along fine with my parents. They aren't abusive, they don't mistreat me, they don't ignore me. I was just never comfortable talking to them about important things.

When I had decided to work for Uncle Don full time after high school, I sat down with him and told him I liked boys. I thought he would probably be okay with hearing it, and I decided that it was important to me that he know and accept it before I started working with him full time. I wasn't planning to turn into a mincing prancing queen at construction sites, but I just didn't want to feel like I had to hide something like that if I was going to be around him all the time. He was the first adult I had told. He didn't freak out or anything, like I secretly feared he might. He was surprised, said he never would have guessed, but he didn't care. He was still my uncle, and I was still his nephew, and he still loved me and wanted me to work for him.

So we hung around after the guys all left, as we sometimes did. "So Kevin, can I ask you a weird question?" he asked.

"Sure, I guess," I said, not quite sure what he was getting at.

"Well I was talking to a guy last week. He was telling me he used to work in a factory. There was another guy there who had a sex change. Used to be a guy, but now he's a she. He said it took a couple years. That the guy had to dress like a woman and act like a woman and use the girl's bathroom and stuff like that for a year before the shrinks would consent to let him go ahead with the operations. Jeeze, he must have been brave to do that in a factory for a year, but I guess he did, and my friend said he went ahead and got the surgeries that turned him into a woman. So now he's a girl, I guess."

I looked at him, puzzled. "But you don't seem like that," he continued. "You don't seem feminine at all usually. So I was wondering, do you ever feel like you should have been a girl instead of a guy?"

I laughed. I thought of what I had been doing with Sam the previous afternoon. "No," I said. My uncle scowled at me a little. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. I know it was a sincere question. I was just thinking of something else, and you caught me off guard."

"It's not the same thing," I explained. "I mean, just because guys turn me on doesn't mean that I wish I was a woman. I don't 'feel' like a woman when I'm with another guy. I've never met a… a transsexual, but I imagine he must have felt pretty strongly that he had the wrong…" I searched for the word, "equipment… if he went to all that trouble to become a female. I don't feel that way. I'm perfectly happy with the goods I have. Mostly. Sometimes I wish I was more built, like James." James stood out among the construction crew as having the biggest muscles. The guy was massive.

"I think we all probably wish that," joked Uncle Don.

"Oh. Well, anyway, I haven't really done much with other guys, but when I'm with another guy sexually, I still feel like a guy. I just use my… equipment differently than you do when you're with a woman."

"Sorry," my uncle said. "I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I'm just trying to understand. When I heard about this guy having sex change operations, it just didn't fit with how I imagine you are."

"It's okay," I said. "It doesn't fit with how I imagine myself either. I think I probably feel the same way you do most of the time. There is just a different switch in me for what turns me on."

"Have you told any of the other guys yet?" he asked. "Nobody has said anything to me."

"No, not yet. It's kind of scary, y'know? They're all a pretty macho bunch. I been thinking about it, though. I might want to tell Brian. He seems pretty cool. I was talking to him today and he was talking about girls. He assumed I'd been with a girl, and I didn't correct him. But even just not saying anything makes me feel like a liar. It's fine for him to talk about girls, who he's been with, who he thinks is cute, what he wishes he could do. I hate feeling like I have to hide who I've been with, who I like, and what I'd like to do." I thought of Sam's protestations. "I feel like a hypocrite. I don't want to be like that. But I don't want Brian to hate me either. I got enough of that when I came out to a few kids in school."

"Oh, Kevin." He gave me a sympathetic look. "I can see that it must be tough for you. I want you to feel safe here. If you decide to tell anyone and they start to give you any shit, I'll fire them on the spot. I swear I will."

"Thanks Uncle Don, but I don't want something like that to happen. I'd feel guilty. I don't want that to be my fault."

"But you shouldn't feel guilty. If you are trying to be open and honest, and someone else can't handle it, it's not your fault Kevin. And I wouldn't fire them solely to protect you, though that is part of it. I don't want someone like that working for me. You know I don't tolerate bigotry, and the kids that teased you in school is just another form of bigotry."

He stood, picked up his beer cooler and loaded in to his truck. I walked with him. "I think you are probably right about Brian," he said. "I suppose there is no guarantee how anyone will take it, but I can't imagine him hating you or being mean. He's kind of an old hippie, you know? I don't think he hates anyone and I don't think he has a mean bone in his body. Do you want me to tell him? Would that be any easier?"

"No. That feels like a cop out. I'd rather tell him myself when I'm ready."

"Okay, Kevin. I don't mean to push. I just wish I could help."

"It helps a lot just being able to talk to you sometimes."

He gave me a big hug. "Any time. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, see ya." We both got in our trucks and left.

(To be continued.)