This is a story about two straight guys who discover labels aren't important after all. It is an erotic story, so if that isn't to your taste, or if you are not of legal age to read such stories in your jurisdiction, please exit now.

This is a work of fiction. If it reminds you of actual people or events it is entirely coincidental.

Many thanks to Andrew, who continues to be of great help with editing and proofing. He does wonders but any errors or typos remain mine.

This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without specific written permission from the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the terms of their submission agreement but it may not be copied in any form or archived on any other site without the written permission of the author.

jvoyager@hotmail.com

"Robert W. Wells."

"Rob Wells, right."

"So, Rob, you were born here in Davenport, went to the University at Iowa City and started working here at PLC right after graduation."

"Correct."

"And your wife is an Iowa native as well."

"She was born in Illinois but her family moved here when she was a kid. We met at the University."

"Married seven years, two kids."

"Three kids. The baby was born last March."

"So you have two boys and?"

"A girl."

"Well, Rob, I must say you and your family are in for some rather significant changes."

"That's for sure."

"You understand PLC will pay your moving costs and have an apartment waiting for you when you arrive in Palo Alto. The company has also retained a realtor who will help you find permanent housing."

"Yes, that's what I was told."

"There will also be people to help with family issues, you know, schools for the kids. There are contact groups for the wives, that kind of thing."

"Yes, we read that in the information packet."

A week later I was at the corporate headquarters in California, the place where I would be working in a month or so. Penny and the kids were in Des Moines trying to get ready for the move. Her folks had offered to help with the kids while I was gone so she could concentrate on packing.

I'd been out to meetings at the corporate headquarters several times over the seven years I'd worked for the company, so I knew what the place was like. PLC had a whole floor in one of the best buildings in Des Moines. I'd thought our offices were great. The first time I went out to the headquarters I'd flown in the day before my meetings. I'd been told to pick up a rental car and drive from the hotel to the HQ the next morning. I followed the map I'd been sent but when I got there I thought I must have taken a wrong turn and ended up on some college or university campus. The place was huge, not just one floor or even one building, but a whole cluster of buildings arranged over about fifty acres of landscaped grounds.

Now here I was again, and this time I'd be coming out to work here myself. It took me two or three days to find my way around but by the end of that week I more or less knew my way from Parking Lot Six to the building where I'd be working, and from there to the cafeteria. On the second day I found that there was a health and fitness center for staff use right in the complex. The third day I took my gear and went in for a workout over the noon hour.

That was the first time I saw David. He was on a bench, pressing 180. David had just been transferred from the PLC offices in Corvallis, Oregon, as a result of the same reorganization which was prompting my move. He'd been in Palo Alto a few days longer than me and knew his way around.

I offered to spot for him and then he spotted for me. We were the same size, both just six feet and both one hundred eighty pounds. He was clearly in better shape than me but over the next few months, as we worked out together two or three times a week, I managed to more or less match him pound for pound. Our body weight didn't go up, but we lost fat and gained muscle.

I'd gone out for track and field sports in high school but hadn't really had time for anything but studying during college, and now, seven years out from even the occasional pick-up game of basketball, I had been in pretty poor shape. I was pleased at how quickly my body responded to a tough exercise program and I couldn't help noticing that the same thing was happening with Dave.

Straight guys don't spend a lot of time checking other guys out, but, hey, you couldn't help seeing the improvement. We were working out together, changing and showering together at the health and fitness center and just generally hanging out. I checked his progress, he checked mine, I looked him over and he did the same thing, but hey, we were just buds, right? Okay, sure, I sort of checked out his equipment, but all guys do that. In that department we were pretty equal, too, both well within the good old averages in girth and length. But like I said, who's looking.

About three months into our workouts, Dave brought in a book about a twelve week program which was designed to dramatically improve your physique, lower your body fat ratio and generally kick start a major make over. As Dave described it, it was a total lifestyle change and he was suggesting we start the program.

"Oh, I don't know, man. I think getting in shape is great, but I always kind of thought those body builders were a bunch of narcissists. In fact, I sort of figured a lot of them were fags."

"Well, I'm not and you're not, so who the hell cares? Like this book says, you do it for yourself or you won't hang with it very long anyway."

"Let me take a look."

"I brought the book for you to read. Just take it home and let me know what you think."

Well, I guess I don't have to tell you I was hooked. I read the book and looked at all those before and after pictures. That night as I stood naked in the bathroom after taking a shower, I gave my body a long look over and realized that I had never had a body like those guys in the book. Not even as a teenager had I ever been so cut.

Sure, I was in a lot better shape than I had been before meeting Dave. We'd worked out together and made a lot of progress. But this was different. We had improved our muscle tone and bulked up a little, but this program was like a complete make over. I wanted it.

Three days later Dave brought a camera to work and we took "Before" shots in the locker room that afternoon. I felt like a complete fool posing in a pair of workout shorts while holding a newspaper. At least my body looked a lot better than I would have looked a few months earlier. The newspaper was to establish the date the photo was taken so we could document our progress if we wanted to send in photographs later.

It turned out that Dave and I had a lot in common. We were both twenty-nine, both married with three kids and both working in the same division of the company. We'd both started working for PLC right out of college, and of course, we'd both been transferred into the Palo Alto headquarters at the same time.

Not only did we work together, but our families ended up living within a few blocks of each other. Our kids are at the same school. I guess it was natural that our families would become close. We had both been relocated, both moved away from the parts of the country we knew best. We were all away from the places where our folks lived and were we felt we had our roots. Our wives became best friends and I guess you'd say the same for Dave and me. Then, to top things off, Dave and I were made co-directors of a new development project and ended up working together on a daily basis.

By then we'd been in the intense physical training program for about three months and it was beginning to show. One day as we were showering after our workout, I noticed that the little trail of blond hair which ran down from Dave's navel to his crotch was gone. We were both almost completely smooth, but he'd obviously been trimming what little body hair he had.

"You shaving you bod, Dave?" I asked.

He looked over at me sideways and grinned. I think he was a little embarrassed about it, but covered it well. "I just trimmed my belly a little with a pair of barber's clippers. I didn't shave."

"Sounds a little queer to me, bud."

"Nah, just showing off the new muscles, like the guys in the book."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Dave shot back.

"So who you think might be looking?"

"Well, you, for one." He had me.

Right after Christmas of our first year there we were given approval for field trials of a new transceiver we'd designed. It was a team effort, not just Dave and me, but we were the leaders and we were the ones who got to give the new units their first real field trial.

The company had a string of towers along the California-Nevada border and it was decided to install the new units in those six towers. The travel section made reservations for us at a hotel at Lake Tahoe and in less than a week after we'd been given the go-ahead, we were on our way. Early January was a crazy time of year to be doing anything at those sites which could be left until spring, but everyone was anxious to get field data and we had decided to go ahead as quickly as possible.

The plan was for us to install the six trial units and then stay around for a few days to be sure they were working properly. Most of the actual testing was automated and we could monitor the entire spectrum of functions from our hotel, using lap computers. Once we were sure the units were functioning properly we would head on home. It would be no problem to do the monitoring from our offices in Palo Alto but before we left the Tahoe area we wanted to be sure we wouldn't need to go back to any of the actual tower sites to make any adjustments in the units.

Our wives assured us that they and the kids would be fine and that they would look out for one another. We expected to be gone a week or less, so it really wasn't that big a deal. Dave and I had been gone longer than that on business trips many times, just never together.

On Monday of that week, we headed up to Tahoe and got checked in to the hotel, which was right on the lake and looked a lot more luxurious than we'd expected. It seemed to cater to a lot of affluent skiers from the Bay Area and LA, who wanted to make a few runs and then hang out in comfort and style. There were actually very few people in the hotel. The guy at the desk said they got most of their business over weekends.

The travel section had reserved adjoining room for us. The rooms both had king beds and there was a connecting door between them, which we opened and left that way.

"Hell, we could have brought Penny and Sue along," Dave said as we looked over the layout.

"Yeah, great, if we'd had someone to stay with the kids," I responded, remembering our Des Moines days when we had Penny's folks handy to step in.

We had more or less mapped out the plan for the next few days and decided to head out that afternoon and get the first two or three units installed. We'd figured we needed to get all six units in place before we started testing and needed to get the field work done by Tuesday night if we were going to get home by the weekend.

So after settling in, Dave and I got back in the Suburban and headed for Doyle, the most northerly of the tower sites. There had been a lot of snow, of course, but the roads were clear and we made it up with no trouble. The units were to be installed in the equipment buildings at the base of each tower, so we didn't have to do any climbing.

On the map the distances between the towers didn't seem bad at all. In actual fact, it was further between sites than we'd anticipated. The roads were curving and often steep. A distance of thirty miles ended up taking well over an hour.

The first real problems came when we got off the road onto the service lanes which led up to the Doyle site.

The maintenance crews had been notified that we were coming and the service lane to the tower, which was about seven miles west of the town, had been plowed. But when we got in a ways from the highway, snow had blown back over the road and the going got rough.

We got the first unit hauled in and installed but by then it was getting dark and we figured we'd have to come back north on Tuesday to finish the remaining two towers north of Tahoe. As we headed back south it was snowing hard and the roads were getting bad. By the time we got back to the hotel it was after ten. We were beginning to wonder if we had more on our hands than we'd anticipated.

"I'll tell you what, Rob," Dave had said as we finished a late dinner in the hotel coffee shop, "tomorrow first thing, we'd better call Palo Alto and tell them this may take longer than they thought."

"If we can get the other two north towers done tomorrow we could probably do all three to the south on Wednesday," I'd offered.

"Yeah, but that just leaves us Thursday to run the tests. We need to get out of here by noon on Friday if we're going to get home for the weekend."

"What do you suggest?" I'd asked.

"Well, we could rent another vehicle and split up."

"I don't think we could haft the units from the truck into the utility buildings on our own."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Could we get a crew up here to help us?"

"Maybe, but not quick enough."

We sat in the coffee shop rehashing our options until they ran us out. It was midnight and the staff wanted to close.

Back on the seventh floor, we each went to our separate rooms and got to bed. I, for one, was so tired that I slept like a log. It only seemed like a couple of hours until I felt Dave shaking my shoulder.

"Rob," he kept saying.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"All bets are off, buddy."

"What do you mean?" I said, rolling over and setting on the edge of the bed. I'd slept nude and it took a moment for me to wake up enough to realize Dave was staring. My morning woody was sticking up and greeting the day .

"We aren't going anyplace today," Dave said, removing his eyes from my cock to look out the big window.

I rose to a standing position and looked out as well. The ground seven floors below was white. The hills beyond the lake were white. It was a very white world. During the night Tahoe had received over sixteen inches of fresh snow.

"Well, what do you know," I said as I sat back down on the bed and rolled back under the covers. The bed was a lot warmer than the room and I saw no need to freeze when I could get cozy. Besides, I was a little embarrassed by my nudity.

Dave and I had seen each other enough in showers and dressing rooms but he'd never seen me erect. I'd never seen him erect, either, come to think of it. I was naked and he really wasn't all that covered, either. He must have slept in his boxers and a loose T-shirt. At least that was all he was wearing as he stood beside my bed. It was also clear that something interesting was going on in those boxers. His cock wasn't completely hard, but it was still causing a significant bulge.

"You going back to sleep?" Dave asked.

"No, I just want to get warm."

"What do you think we should do?"

"Well, we sure aren't going anyplace. I guess it's too early to try calling Palo Alto." I looked at the clock and saw it was seven-fifteen.

"Yeah."

"Well, you can stand there and freeze or get under the covers with me."

Dave looked a little taken aback by my suggestion. He stood there unmoving except for the bulge in his boxers, which clearly took a jump.

"Maybe I'd better get back in my own bed."

"Suit yourself," I said and rolled onto my side. He didn't go anyplace.

"Well, see ya," He eventually said and turned to go.

"Don't let me sleep too long," I said as he went through the door to his room.

"I thought you said you weren't going to sleep any longer."

"Well, if I doze, wake me in about an hour."

I pulled the sheet and blanket up under my chin and snuggled into the warmth. I may have dozed, at least when I opened my eyes again and looked at the clock on the bedside table it was a quarter to eight. I'd wakened, I realized, because Dave was setting on the edge of the bed behind me.

"Rob," he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

"Yeah, Dave?"

"Did you mean it, that I could get in bed with you?"

"Sure, man. It beats freezing."

The bed rocked a little as he raised the covers and slid in. I felt him working his way across the width of the king sized bed until his body made contact with mine. I was lying on the extreme right side of the bed, on my left side, facing out toward the big windows. He moved until his chest pressed against mine and his cold arm came around me to press against my chest.

"Man, you are cold," I said.

"Yeah, sorry."

His chest, as he pressed against me, was bare and I wondered if he'd chucked the boxers, too. I moved back against him until my rear made contact with his hard cock. That answered the boxer question.

"I tried to call home and all the lines are down. I could talk to the hotel operator and she said they thought it would be sometime tomorrow before phone service was restored."

"What about the roads?"

"Closed. Maybe tomorrow, probably Thursday."

"Great. I guess we aren't going anyplace and it's freezing in here to boot." I twisted around a little until I could look at him. "Is the heat off, too?"

"No, not off," Dave said. The operator said they'd switched to emergency power and can keep the place about as warm as it is now."

"Wonderful."

"Yeah," Rob said as he moved against me. "They heat with oil but they need some electricity to circulate the hot water to the radiators in the rooms." His hand pressed against my chest as his chest moved against my back. He was warming up. "There's plenty of hot water for showers, though. I just took one."

"I thought you smelled like lavender."

"Yeah," he chuckled, "hotel soap."

"Don't apologize. It smells good." I rolled over more so his chest was pressed into my side and worked my left arm under his torso.

"This feels a little weird, Rob," Dave said as our bodies moved together.

"Maybe, but nice."

"Warm."

"Yeah."

I brought my hand up over his muscular shoulder and then let my fingers move through his close cropped hair. It was soft and a little damp. I realized I'd never felt any man's hair like that before, touching it, him, in such a caring, loving, sensual manner. I liked it, I liked touching Dave like that a lot. It was okay though. We were just two straight guys, good friends, keeping warm in a cold room.

"Um," Rob said, his voice almost a moan. "Nice."

"So you don't want me to stop?"

"No way."

"So a little weird is okay."

He grinned and brought his lips down against my shoulder, just where it meets my neck. He just rested there, pressing his soft, warm lips against me.

"You kissing me, Rob?" I said after a minute.

He rose up a little and grinned. "I was thinking about it," he said. "Would you freak if I did?"

"No, probably not."

"Just probably?"

"No," I clarified, "I wouldn't freak."

He lowered his lips again, but this time I felt them part. He ran his tongue over the soft skin of my shoulder and then up over my neck to my ear. His lips closed over the lobe in a soft little toothless bite.

"Um."

"Does Penny do that?"

"Um," I moaned again. "No. She isn't all that big on kissing."

"Neither is Sue," Dave said and moved down a little lower, his lips and his wet tongue leaving a trail across my shoulder and then across my chest.

"Where you going, Buddy," I asked as he rolled me over a little more and moved to improve his access.

"Just checking you out," Dave said. His voice was muffled. He was completely under the covers now. His shoulders formed a slowly descending ridge as his lips moved lower, over my stomach. His tongue found my navel and explored it. I moaned. "This okay?"

"Wonderful," I said, wondering what we were getting into. It really was weird but I sure wasn't going to be the one who stopped it.

"I've never done this before."

"Didn't think so."

"With another guy, I mean."

"Yeah."

His left hand had worked its way up my left thigh, moving from outside to inside. It reached my upper thigh and moved in between my leg and my balls. He was gripping the muscles along the inside of my thigh, right where it met my hip. I knew he must be feeling the thicker hair of my groin. The back of his hand was moving back and forth over my balls, causing me to tense with excitement. My cock was at its maximum length and hardness now, bobbing straight up across my belly, trying to reach my belly button. It was dripping now, leaving a growing puddle.

Dave's lips moved from my navel to the head of my cock. He was kissing my belly and it felt as if he was licking and sucking the puddle of my leaking fluid into his mouth. The head of my cock was pressed against his cheek, just beside the right side of his lips. I couldn't believe it. Dave, my best friend, was doing stuff to me my wife had never done. He was all but sucking my dick, all but giving me head. I was ready to explode.

The covers mounded again as he rose up and turned his head toward my face. Looking up over the length of my torso, he raised the covers with his right hand so he could see me and I could see him.

"You know this is getting kind of queer, Rob."

"Yeah, Dave, I know."

"You okay?"

"Wonderful."

"I want to, you know, suck it for you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I want to, but it scares the hell out of me, too."

"Because you think it will make you gay?"

"I guess. I don't want you to freak. I mean, would you run for cover, thinking I was gay, thinking you wouldn't want us to be friends?"

"No, Dave, I wouldn't run."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, Dave, I'm sure."

That was all the reassurance my buddy needed. He turned his head and opened his lips and took the wet head of my cock into his warm mouth.

"Oh, god, Dave!" I moaned. Penny had never been willing to give me head and I had never in my entire twenty-nine years experienced a sensation so strong. My body jerked and my heart pounded. "Oh, Dave, please stop."

Dave rose up and turned to face me, again lifting the covers to look up at me. As he did, a rush of cool air swept over my body, hitting my wet cock like a blizzard wind.

"Stop?"

"Yeah, man. I can't take it. I'll come in seconds if you keep that up."

"That's the idea, Rob."

"You want me to come?"

"Yeah."

"You mean you want me to come in your mouth?"

"Yeah, Rob."

"Oh, Dave!"

"Too queer for you?"

"No, man, it isn't that. Nobody's ever done that for me."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, if you're sure."

"I'm sure."

He turned again and engulfed my cock, taking it deeper into his mouth this time. His lips closed around my shaft and began to move up and down along it as his tongue swirled around the head. All that action was coupled with his powerful sucking and as promised, within seconds I exploded.

Dave's left hand had moved to boldly cup my balls, squeezing them lightly as I erupted in his mouth. My body bucked involuntarily and I realized that I was clutching his head, holding him tightly to me.

I relaxed my grip on his hand, ashamed because I had obviously been forcing my cock deeper into his mouth and throat than he may have wanted. I fell back exhausted on the bed, my body wet with a thin sheen of sweat, even in the cold air.

Dave slowly moved up to lie beside me. I put my arm around him and pulled him close. He rested his head on my shoulder and we both lay silent, not knowing what to say.

Finally I regained enough presence of mind to try to express what I was feeling.

"Thank you, Dave. That was wonderful." I turned my head just enough to kiss his forehead.

"Kind of changes things."

"No shit!"

I rolled over him and kissed him firmly on the mouth. I wanted to kiss him. I also wanted to let him know it was okay. I wasn't going to bolt, I wasn't going to run for cover. I let my kiss linger and as I did so, felt my tongue press forward, almost on its own. Dave opened to me and my tongue slipped into his mouth. He tasted a little salty, a little sweet. I realized I was tasting my own seed and the thought turned me on. I pressed my tongue in deeper, letting it roam over his tongue, finding traces of myself.

The kiss eventually ended and I flopped over onto my back beside him. We were both breathing hard. I stretched my left hand out to grasp Dave's right and our fingers intertwined. It was very interesting holding Dave's hand. We were both exerting a bit of pressure. Not a lot, but enough that we both knew it was the hand of another man we were holding. It felt good, just lying there, side by side, holding hands, our fingers locked together. With a concerted motion, not spoken of, just done, I took the edge of the covers in my right hand and Dave took their corresponding edge on his side of the bed in his left hand. Together we pulled them up over us as we rolled onto our sides, facing each other. Dave smiled at me and I at him.

"This really is weird, you know."

"Yeah," I responded, "but kind of like wonderful, too."

"You're okay?"

"Better than okay. I haven't felt so good in years."

"You telling me it was better than sex with Penny?"

"Yeah, I guess that is what I'm telling you," I said. The idea came as a bit of a shock. "It's good with Penny, but since the kids were born it's become sort of routine. I guess it's just no longer spontaneous, not like it was when we were first married. What about you and Sue?"

"The same, I guess," Dave said. He had pressed our connected hands back until they'd made contact with my cock. "I love her, Rob. I know you love Penny, too."

"Sure I do. Penny and the kids. I wouldn't know how to get on with my life without them."

"Right."

"But?"

"Well, I guess I kind of like this, too."

I didn't answer for a while. It seemed good to just lie there, touching, thinking, trying to make sense of it all.

I realized in those moments that I had never, in my entire life, thought about being gay. It had always just been a given that I was a straight man. Straight, married, father of three.

Dave smiled at me as if he knew what I was thinking, maybe thinking the same thoughts, too.

"Did you say there is hot water?"

"For a shower?"

"Yeah, I need one bad."

"That's true," Dave grinned, "but I was kind of liking your funky smell."

"You might, but I need food and I don't want to offend the rest of the folks in the restaurant."

"Or the elevator."

"Think they're working?"

"Good question. I don't know."

"Well, let's shower and go find out."

"I showered already," Dave said with a grin.

"I know you did but you can take another one with me."

"It will be kind of crowded for two."

"That's the idea," I smiled. "That way I can touch you and pretend it was an accident."

"But it won't be? An accident, I mean."

"No," I leaned over and kissed him again, lightly this time. "It won't be an accident. I want to touch you, Dave. I want to do a lot of things to you, with you. For starters I want to do what you did to me."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, positive."

"Sounds like a winner."

In the shower I did touch him. I explored his body and he explored mine. I knelt in the steam and took his cock in my mouth and brought him to a speedy and dramatic climax. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be. Better, much better.

The restaurant was open but we had to walk down and then back up. Over breakfast we really began to talk. It was obvious that we'd be stranded in Tahoe for a few days so we agreed we'd use the time to figure things out.

As it turned out, we didn't get home until the following weekend. And then the next Monday we had to turn around and head back to finish placing the new transceivers. All told, it ended up taking three weeks.

That was a year ago. Dave and I have spent a lot of time at Tahoe since. We had to keep on checking the equipment and it turned out that it needed a lot of attention. Once last summer we took our families up for a week. We stayed in two adjacent cabins right on the lake. Penny and Sue loved it and have been talking up the idea of an annual family outing like that. Dave and I took the kids fishing and hiking every day, and every day we found some way to get off alone for a while.

So what have Dave and I decided? Well, the old labels just don't seem to matter any more. We've moved on to discover more wonderful things together, more ways for a man to express his love to another man and then to be loved in return. Sure, Dave and I admit we love one another. What's great is that our wives and our kids feel the same way.

Dave and I have never kissed one another openly in front of our wives or kids, but we embrace and we say we love one another, just as we all tell each other we love them. We really have become one big family, an extended family, and I guess, a "Non-traditional Family."

For now any other questions will just have to wait. Maybe someday we'll figure it out, but in the meantime, one thing is sure. We've both become very fond of snow.

The end.