Chapter Two: Home, Hearth and Family

   I checked us into the Oceanside Motel early in the afternoon.  We were both tired from the trip, but there were several chores that had to be taken care of before we could really relax.  Darren and I went to my bank, withdrawing a thousand dollars in cash for immediate expenses.  By six, we'd seen two apartments and were on the way to check on a third that the realtor had referred us to.  For the time being, Darren had agreed to "play" my cousin to the rental agents.  Not for us, I didn't care who knew I am gay and neither did Darren, but it made transacting business easier for us.  Even in fairly liberal Seattle, an openly gay couple could face discrimination.

   While we drove to the next appointment, we passed a small marina that had a number of houseboats tied-up to the pier.  A few small trawlers some nice looking cabin cruisers and a dozen or so sailing craft boats of various sizes and types were anchored around the small arm of the bay the marina sat in.

   "Blake! Look at that," Darren said as he grabbed by arm.

   I pulled over the rental car and looked at the sign on the marina. 'Houseboat for Rent' the sign read.

   "Do you want to look at it?" I asked Darren, smiling at his excitement.  He nodded his head vigorously.

   Walking down onto the marina docks from the parking lot, we finally saw our objective.  A brightly painted off red houseboat with a "for rent" sign in the window.  Darren was very quiet but I could see the unasked question in his eyes.

   "This is the place...isn't it Darren?  This houseboat is what you really want to do...like here?" I asked him.

   "Yes it is Blake.  I knew it when I saw the sign.  Can we go inside and look around?"

   A few minutes lated we'd located the marina owner who agreed to show us the boat.

   It has two stories, and looked solidly built from redwood, teak and cypress in the post and beam style and there is a lot of deck space around the outside too.  The houseboat sat at the end of the pier next to the open water of the bay.

   There are two large bedrooms and baths on the second floor with the lower main deck entirely open, but subtly divided into sections. The only enclosed space was the half bathroom next to the galley.  There is a big living room with large wrap-around picture windows looking out onto the bay.  The huge galley space is equipped with large commercial fittings - a six burner Vulcan stove with dual ovens, butcher block center island and matching refrigerator and freezer units.  All the appliances, including the dishwasher were made of gleaming stainless steel.

   There is an area obviously designed as a small office - library and a cozy little space with a built in circular seating area surrounding an antique pot-bellied wood stove.  In short it was perfect.  By eight that evening, we had a year's lease and with it, the possibility that we could arrange a future purchase of the houseboat too.  I had paid the years rent in advance.  We could move in anytime.

   The marina owner, Rick Torres, a very nice and obviously knowledgeable older man asked us outright if we are a couple!  He laughed out loud when he saw our the look on our faces.

   "Don't worry boys, its okay!  My brother is gay too and when I saw the way you two looked at each other, I knew that you're "family."

   "You don't have a problem with us then?" I asked him.

   "Hell no boys!  You'll fit in really well in our little community.  There are mostly older retired folks and, well I guess at least six or eight gay and lesbian couples too.  It's pretty quiet most of the time; except on the 4th of July, and New Years Eve.  I think the whole marina sort of turns in'ta one big party then and everybody has a good time.

   There is a sheriff's deputy and his partner living in their houseboat at slip 14.  Andy and Phil keep an eye on things too so we haven't had a break in for, Jesus, it must be four years now and Larry, the local game warden is frequently here too. You'll meet him for sure since your new home is at the end of the slips next to the open bay.  He's always looking out for the ocean critters, and don't worry about his dog either.  Fishbait looks mean but don't bite at all,  in fact he'll lick ya to death before he'd bite ya."  Rick roared with a huge belly laugh again.

   We both knew we had come home.

   We found out that Rick had bought the marina from the settlement money he got after his wife had been killed by a drunk driver and had slowly been selling each of the houseboats to his tenants or renting slip space for those who wanted to permanently anchor their homes in the marina, located on an isolated and deep arm of the bay.  He'd have the utilities changed to our name in the morning.

   We'd move in the day after tomorrow. There were a lot of things we needed to purchase before we could be comfortable in our new quarters, and I determined that we'd put a real dent in my savings to make sure we had everything we needed and maybe a few extras too.  Like the sleigh bed I've always wanted:  Our bed, Darren and mine.

   While I drove us back to the Oceanside Motel, I realized Darren had found a new home for us.  His fascination with the ocean and what floats upon the water, had made him ask me to stop just to look at the houseboats.  Was it serendipity again that made me take the coast road instead of the Interstate?  Was there something else at work here, something beyond both of our understanding?

   At one point during our late afternoon at the marina and with Rick, I thought I saw...well I thought I saw a misty halo surrounding him.  I know it was just a trick of the light caused by the setting sun and the reflections from the water, but seeing Darren like that took my breath away.  My heart was pounding and I felt light headed for a couple of minutes afterwards, but I don't think Rick or Darren noticed...or did he?  Darren was looking at me with his beautiful eyes and smiling when I returned to reality.  His eyes and smile told me so much too and I was filled with the love I felt radiating from him.

 After a light meal of grilled salmon and vegetables in the restaurant down the street, we went back to our room and collapsed onto the king-sized bed.  Darren moved over next to me and brought his lips against mine in a feather like kiss.

   "Thank you Blake," Darren said to me.

   "Thank me for what Darren?  I should be thanking you.  For the first time in years, I feel alive again; my heart is filed with love, pure and true love for a wonderful guy...for you Darren.  You released...you have released me from my little place in hell.  No Babe, I should be thanking you for giving me my life back."  I told Darren that from deep in my heart, my voice full of emotion and my eyes beginning to cloud with unshed tears.

   His eyes were filling too as he pressed his lips to mine harder, opening his mouth and tentatively licking at my lips, searching for entry.

   I responded and our tongues began to wrestle together in a deep searching kiss that seemed to last for hours.  When we broke apart, I could see the desire in his eyes, as he smiled widely at me.  I reached over and started to unbutton his shirt with one hand while the other caressed and kneaded his nipple as it became exposed to my touch.  Darren repositioned himself astride my hips, sitting up and pulling his shirt over his head, tossing it aside. Both my hands gently pinched and twirled his chest buds as Darren threw his head back and opened his mouth moaning with pleasure.

   His fingers began to work on my buttons too, as he continued to moan and squirm on my hips and my now very hard seven inches. I could feel the leaking fluids from my penis making a wet spot in my Levi's.  He felt so good in my hands.  Darren opened my shirt and leaned down to my chest, gently sucking and biting at my own swollen nipples.  I felt an electric current running from my sensitive buds of flesh directly to my cock and balls.  I opened the snap to his jeans and ran my hands under his jockeys to knead his firm round globes with my hands.

   Darren lifted his hips and allowed me to pull his jeans and underwear down over his hips to his knees. There before me was perfection. His eight inches of manhood was spilling precum like a river. There were ropes of the clear natural lubrication in the light brown almost golden hair of his pubes and the beginning of a love trail that stretched up towards his navel. His glans was deep red almost purple and pointed like an arrow head straight out from his body. Darren kicked his clothes onto the floor.

   I lifted my hips as he unsnapped my Levi's and almost tore my boxer's and pants off of me in one motion, where they joined his in a heap at the foot of the bed.  He collapsed down onto me and our mouths met again in a deep and passionate kiss.  We wrapped our arms around each other, trying to merge our bodies into one being.  I hadn't been kissed like this since...Tran.  As I thought of the boy-man I held in my arms, Tran's face faded from my mind to be replaced with Darren's and tears of pure joy spilled from my eyes.  As we thrust our hard cocks between us, slipping and sliding in the copious lubrication we were both producing, I felt our simultaneous release's explode, spewing thick viscous streams of cum onto our chests and abs.

   We both kept thrusting and bucking our hips against each other and after just a few moments we were rewarded with a second orgasm that was mind numbing.  Both Darren and I screamed into each other's mouth as we were rocked by the sensations. We were so overwhelmed by our love making that we fell asleep in each others arms almost instantly, Darren still atop me.  We slept like that throughout the night.

   I dreamed of Tran one last time that night. A sweet and gentle dream full of touching and tears.  We were saying goodbye to each other, forever.  I woke-up in the morning with tears still streaming down my face, not in sadness but in joy for I'd found the love of my life in Darren and I knew that I'd been set free of the nightmares forever because of his love for me.

   Two days later we checked out of the Oceanside Motel and moved into our new home; into our houseboat on the bay.

   We celebrated our birthdays together on Thanksgiving Day.  Scorpio and Sagittarius.  Mine is on the 20th and Blake's on the 23rd, with our favorite holiday being the perfect time to mark our yearly passage of time.  I had a lot ot be grateful for too.

   We had invited our older retired neighbors Ed and Irene Goldman.  They knew who and what we are and are just fine with having a young gay couple living next door.  We met Ed and Irene the day we moved into the houseboat and became instant friends.  Ed helped us arrange our furniture and showed us the intricacies of maintaining our home on the water.  Irene kept us all stuffed with sandwiches and provided coffee, tea and soft drinks all day too.  We recopricated the next evening with our first home cooked dinner.  Truth be told, Irene spent most of the day teaching Darren recipes for most of what we served.  Neither of us could boil water very well, but she would make sure we learned fast, especially Darren.

   We also invited another couple to our First Annual Thanksgiving/Birthday Dinner.  An openly gay couple we'd met who lived on the other side of the marina: Tom Dolan and Jack Bedford have been together for almost twenty years, since they got out of the Army in the early sixties.  We got a lot of ideas about how we wanted to decorate our new home from them.  Their houseboat is a true showcase and was featured in the Seattle version of Home and Garden in the Intelligencer, the local daily newspaper.

   Besides having a great place, they are really nice.  A number of the plants that now grace the main deck inside came from them as a "boat warming" present.  The six of us sat down to a traditional dinner of turkey and all the trimmings after we joined hands around the table with Blake leading us in grace.  He was surprisingly emotional, this lover of mine, who rarely exhibits this side of his personality to others.  I had come to know Blake is a very deeply spiritual man, something he says is the best part of his Sioux heritage, but I also think that the suffering and guilt that he tried to work through for so long had tempered him in a way that even he is still discovering.

   Ed and Irene made us a birthday cake: double chocolate with butter cream icing and homemade strawberry preserve filling between its four layers. Tom and Jack brought a bottle of Perrier Champagne that was very well received indeed.  All in all, a very pleasant birthday and Thanksgiving for our newly found friends and each of us.  But I'd already had the best Thanksgiving I could remember - made possible when Blake had come into my life.

   Blake had insisted that I have some spending money of my own and over my strenuous objections, he helped me set up an account at the local branch of Wells Fargo and deposited a thousand dollars in it.  I thanked him in a very special way that night starting with a nice candlelit meal and a good bottle of wine. But I had resolved that I wouldn't spend any of the money unless it was absolutely necessary.

   Blake also got me some art supplies when I told him that I'd won some awards in school and district competitions. I like to sketch and I work in watercolors and pastels mostly.  We created a workspace by one of the big windows looking out onto the bay and I used my time free time by doing an 20"x40" portrait of the two of us looking across the Texas salt marshes at sunset on the day we'd first met.  Blake hadn't seen it while I'd been painting the portrait of us, so I knew that ...well I suspected that...this would be a nice birthday surprise for him.  Every day while working on the watercolor, I had to stop to walk around the deck outside because I became too emotional to work. I would always bless day that I met Blake.

   I did spend some money to get the watercolor professionally matted and framed. When I gave it to Blake as my birthday present to him after our Thanksgiving dinner, he was very moved and held me close, sobbing unashamedly in front of our guests. Tom and Jack also held each other closely and were shedding tears too as were Ed and Irene who held hands and cuddled on the couch together. Our friends knew some of the story of how we met, but this was special to both of us.

   "I don't know what to say Darren, except I love you so much…I'll treasure this for the rest of my life…this day…the watercolor represents…means so much to me…thank you, Darren."
I kissed him lightly and smiled through my own tears.

   "You're welcome lover."

   Later on, Irene who is a retired teacher,  was looking closely at the watercolor. When she turned around she asked me if I'd always painted.

   "No Irene, I haven't.   I took it up in high school when I was in the ninth grade.  Art was an easy credit, but once I got involved in the class, I discovered that I liked it and my teachers encouraged me.  I especially enjoyed the sketching and drawing.  I took classes all through high school, even though my parent's thought it was a waste of time."

   "You have real talent Darren, do you have anything else?'

   "No Irene, I've just started again.  I left everything else when I…left home.  I'm sure that it's all gone by now," I told her.  She must have seen the look in my eyes then and changed the subject tactfully.

   After everyone had gone home, Blake and I were lying in each other's arms on the couch and just basking in the warmth of our campionship. I felt loved and safe in his arms.

   "Darren, I have a present for you too, but it's not something that I wanted to give you in front of everyone tonight," my best friend and lover told me.

    I looked into his eyes and smiled at my friend and partner.

   "You've given me everything I have Blake. That we found each other is more than enough for all my birthdays, now and in the future, my love."

   Blake sat up and looked at me very intensely, while he rubbed my arms lightly, then he smiled that big smile that I love so much. Blake got up, crossed the deck to his little desk and took a small box out of the center drawer and walked back over to me all the time grinning like a madman.

   My boyfriend sat down again, then slipped onto the deck, kneeling in front of me. The look on his face changed and became serious, but his eyes were filled with love.

   "I've never done anything like this before Darren, because I've never been so in love with anyone as much as I'm in love with you." He paused and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

   "Not even Tran…so long ago."

   You have filled my soul and my very being Darren. You saved me by your unconditional love and because of that love, I've been able to live again for the first time in many years.  I guess what I'm trying to say is…is…you are the most important person in my life and I want us to be together for the rest of our lives."

   My tears were falling freely now too and there was a lump in my throat that prevented me from saying anything.  So I tried to talk with my eyes: 'I love you so much Blake. You are the sun and stars of my universe.'

   Blake opened the box and I saw two silver rings. They are inlaid with pink coral and turquoise triangles in a traditional American Indian pattern.  My lover took the smaller of the two rings out of the box and looked at me. I couldn't say anything…I was so stunned that he wanted this so much. I had been thinking the same thoughts earlier tonight and over the past few weeks.  I love this guy so much I want to grow old with him.

   I nodded my head and hoped…prayed…that my eyes were saying yes too.

   Blake reached out and took my hand in his and kissed my palm gently, then slid the ring onto my finger.  Thakig the box from his hand, I removing the mate to my ring and took Blakes hand in mine as I brought it to my lips and kissed his palm too.  I slipped the ring onto his finger all the while looking into his eyes.  Our lips came together slowly in a gentle yet very passionate kiss.  In one swift movement Blake swept me up into his arms as I wrapped my own arms around his neck.  He carried me up to our bedroom and gently lay down beside me without ever breaking our kiss.

   "Oh Darren, you've got me so hot," I moaned to my lover as he tweaked my nipples between his fingers.

   I was so aroused that a large pool of precum had formed on my lower abdomen and threatened to roll off onto the sheets. Darren leaned down and ran his tongue through the growing puddle, spreading the fluid in a trail up past my navel all the way to my throat where he began to suck gently on my neck. His hands were stroking my sides softly one moment then his hands moved back to my nipples and began to pinch and twist them gently between his fingers. He knew how to play my body like an instrument of love.

   I twisted and moaned under his patient teasing. Darren sat astride my hips and had my hard, leaking penis under him pointing at my chest when he reached across the bed and took a condom package from the bedside table and the tube of KY into his hand. Tearing the foil package open with his teeth, his eyes never left mine as he unrolled the latex sheath down my throbbing, leaking cock.  Blake squeezed out a large amount of the slippery stuff and began to spread the lube on and around my hard flesh. He then reached behind him and put another large glob of the thick liquid around the entrance to his anus, pushing in first one and then another finger and lubricating the access to his most private space. The entire time his eyes were locked on mine and he had a slight smile on his    face.

   "I want to do this now my dearest Blake.  I want to you to fill me with your love, to make me feel complete, one with you, like never before."

   "Oh God, how I love you Darren, you are my very life and I want to be with you so much…I love you…oh how I love you!"

   Darren kneeled above me and guided my rigid tool into the crevice between his hard round globes and placed the head of my cock at his entrance then lowered himself slowly down onto me.

   "Oh…Darren…lover…oh baby…I…I…love…you…so…much…OHHHHH…YES," I yelled as I felt my glans slip past the tight ring of his rectum.

   Darren paused, allowing himself to adjust to my penetration of his most sacred place,  slowly lowering himself down onto me, pausing again every few seconds to allow himself to get used to being impaled on my manhood.  The sensations of his muscles tightening and relaxing as I slid slowly into him almost pushed me over the edge, but I held myself off, barely waiting for him to begin rocking back and forth and twisting as he finally took all of me deep inside. It was like a furnace of flame so deep inside of his body.

   Darren slowly began to pull off of me until I was almost out of his love channel, then he eased himself down again until I could feel my pubes connect with his ass cheeks once again. Darren rose up again and repeated this movement; his moans of deep pleasure almost louder than my own.  While he twisted my nipples gently between his fingers, his eyes closed tightly savoring the  sensations of oue lovemaking as I was.

   Darren started to buck and ride me up and down faster and faster, his anal ring grasping at my slippery cock, pulling me closer and closer to the ultimate orgasm that I felt building deep inside of me.  We began to moan louder and louder as I reached for his erection and began to stroke it in rhythm to his plunges, up and down, up and down, faster and faster.

   I felt my cock begin to swell larger and harder inside my lover as my orgasm overtook me and I felt my scrotal sack contract violently and my prostate spasm sending volleys of my cum into the condom tip deep into his body. Five pulses shooting deeply, six…seven. Darren's tool simultaneously erupted as he shuddered on top of me, spewing ropes of his cream onto me, shot after shot into my face, hair and open mouth, before drenching my chest and abs with his cum.
He leaned down onto my chest, his lips crushing mine in a deep hard kiss that lasted seemingly forever. I softened slowly and eventually slipped from inside of him as we kissed. He pulled the quilt over us and we fell asleep that way, him on top of me. We awakened facing each other, our arms still wrapped tightly in our last embrace as the morning sun shown through the windows early the next day.

   We had became one, together and inseparable…forever...in the closing days of 1981.

End of Chapter Two   To be continued.....

Mike and Alan have been recommending the stories of other Nifty authors that they like or found interesting.  The Knife that Twists Within and it's sequel, A Promise and a Curse by Stefan is coming to a close soon.  Check out his very "Berlin" story in the Beginnings section of the Archives.  A fine story found in the College section of the Archives is Nick Archer's Parental Instincts and the follow-on Family Instincts.  This series deals with some issues gay men need to think seriously about, and the series is a good read too.  Finally, Not always Easy by Kit, found in the High School section, is a wonderful coming of age story set in England.   

Comments and criticisms should be addressed to Mike and Alan at galacticflute@yahoo.com