STANDARD WARNING: This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to individuals, living or dead, is pure coincidence. Do not read this story if you are offended by man-to-man romance or sex. Do not read if you are underage according to the laws in the country, state/province, county, city/town/village or township where you live. There is sex between males. You have been warned!

Copyright 2000 by archer. Permission is granted to Nifty Archives, ASSGM, and gaywritings, to post one copy. No part may be copied, reproduced, republished, or reposted on another website without written permission from the author.

Family Instincts

By Nick Archer

Chapter 1: January/A Glance at the Calendar

The family calendar hung on the wall next to the phone in the kitchen. Matt and Tim had not had time to sit down and learn how to use the Microsoft Works calendar on their new computer, and search engines like Yahoo! and Lycos had not added calendar services yet.

So, for now, they did it the old-fashioned way. The boys were to write down any activities that required transportation to or from the school. Matt added his schedule, which usually stayed the same from week to week. Matt usually closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, opened the store on Mondays and Fridays, worked all day Saturday and was off on Thursdays and Sundays. Jake had his weekly counseling sessions on Tuesday evenings; Brian no longer went to counseling. Brian and Jake both had CCD on Monday nights, Jake had basketball practice every weeknight except Friday, Brian had speech team on Wednesday afternoons. Tim and Leah took turns picking up Mike and Tommy at St. Luke’s on Fridays, since Tim and Leah got off work earlier and could pick them up. The job of driving the boys back fell to Matt.

The chore schedule hung on the refrigerator. Jake had been worked into the schedule as well. And Matt and Tim added a new feature – time alone with each boy. They could do most anything that the boy wanted, within reason, and as long as it didn’t cost much. It could be something as simple as watching TV together, or helping with homework, or playing a board game. The idea was to boost their self-esteem and get to know the adolescents on an individual basis.

School was going well for Brian. He was even enjoying PE class, where they were doing a unit on first aid. Academics came easy for Brian. It seemed he had a photographic memory, and could get by with a minimum of studying. Poor Jake was struggling. He had missed some school days to recover from his injuries, and his emotional turmoil further distracted him. The second quarter was due to end two weeks after Christmas Break, and Jake was failing two classes and in danger of failing a third. Jake possessed above-average intelligence, but his studies didn’t come as easily as they did for Brian. Jake actually had to study. After the holidays, Matt and Tim worked hard with him to get him back on track academically.

With the love and attention of the two men and two foster brothers, a feeling of safety and security in Matt’s home and the structure provided by the calendar and the schedule, Jake made an impressive turnaround.

Matt flung the door open. For a moment he watched the two adolescents in slumber. They always looked so young and vulnerable and innocent.

"OK, gentlemen. Get your lazy asses out of bed and clean up this pigsty. Right now!"

Matt was working the evening shift that day. Tim was at work. Matt let the boys sleep until nine-thirty when he finally roused them. Matt shook his head in consternation. Brian had been meticulous about his bedroom until Jake arrived. Matt had originally intended for Jake to sleep in the basement and set up the family room as a fourth bedroom. That is, until he told Matt that he was scared to sleep alone downstairs. So, they moved the bunk bed to Brian’s room. Tommy’s room was empty throughout the week, and they originally offered Jake his room. Jake had turned the plan down. Matt deduced that he really was scared to sleep alone, or that he wanted to be close to Brian, or both.

"It smells like cum in here," Matt complained as he picked clothes off the floor and flung them on the beds.

"Grouch," Brian replied as he tossed a pair of his jeans back at Matt. They landed on his shoulders as if they were a shawl.

"You little booger," Matt smiled and dove onto the bottom bunk. He started to tickle Brian who squealed and called for Jake. Jake hopped down from the top bunk and started to attack Matt. The trio eventually ended up on the floor rolling around and tickling each other. Elbows and knees thumped the carpet as they wrestled breathlessly, laughing.

"All right," Matt said breathlessly, but with a wide smile on his face. "Enough."

"I want all the dirty clothes downstairs. Pick up all these papers and books and put them away. Hang up your coats where they belong. One of you vacuum the floor and the other can dust. And Jake," he smirked, "please cover up that boner before you come downstairs."

Brian was excited to have Jake staying with them. The weeks before Christmas break were a little strange at school. It was odd having someone in your classes that you shared a bedroom with. It was a little peculiar knowing what he had eaten for breakfast and what he had watched on TV the night before. Somehow, it took some of the magic away. Familiarity and proximity had dulled but not completely alleviated the desire. Brian still found himself watching the other boy. He was still excited by a flash of Jake’s bare chest; he was aroused by how his jeans hung on his hips and the elastic waistband of his underwear peered over the beltline; the sight of Jake’s big feet in clean white socks stimulated him. But somehow, the desire was muted by his presence in the house.

Jake himself had mood swings. He was eternally grateful to Matt and Tim and never talked back to them and never caused them a moment of trouble. He got along famously with Tommy. Jake confessed to Matt that he always wanted a little brother, and the two boys were often cuddled together on the couch watching TV. It seemed as if the judge’s stern lecture had made an impact, and the weekly counseling sessions were helping. The counselor at Aunt Martha’s, a youth center in Park Forest, had prescribed Prozac for Jake. Matt was extremely hesitant about the new drug even with assurances that it was not habit-forming. Matt finally relented, and was glad he did. The drug seemed to even out his mood swings and lift his depression. Jake also went next door to talk to Leah on several occasions.

Still, Matt knew he was still pining away for his father and emotionally wounded by the words and actions of his mother. Matt and Tim lavished attention and affection on the boy, but sadly conceded that no matter how nurturing they were, they could never replace his mother. Deep in every human being is the need for a mother.

Jake had found one of Matt’s old Pat Benetar tapes and Matt discovered him listening to Hell is For Children over and over again on his Walkman.

The week between Christmas and New Year's Eve was a week of sexual exploration for Mike and Brian. Perhaps exploration was too mild a word. It was more like an explosion. They had sex at every opportunity. They could hardly keep their hands off each other. It was easy with Matt and Tim gone to work all day.

Of course, Tommy and Jake were there. So, at least half the time they went over to Leah’s to have sex. The basement was their preferred location in both houses. It provided some privacy and the sound of footsteps on the stairs provided an early warning system.

As for Tommy and Jake, their silence came at a price.

"I know about you and Mike," Tommy said to Brian one day after Matt left for work without taking his eyes off the TV.

"Yeah, so?" Brian responded.

"So, I wonder what Dad would think if he knew?"

Brian went white. But he only said, "What do you want, Tommy? Money?"

The redhead waved it away. "Nah. I just want to spend more time with you." Brian was surprised and taken aback. He always knew that Tommy looked up to him. In reality, he idolized Brian. Brian had thought that he would have asked for money or even to be included in the sex. But Tommy was still too young and his hormones still dormant. Just playing a game with Brian or even watching TV was enough.

Jake was a different story. Jake’s price was that Brian clean up their bedroom.

Thursday, January 20: Matt and Tim formalized their relationship legally. Or as much as current laws would permit them. They hired a gay lawyer by the name of Bob Duchess in Midlothian. The thin, effeminate lawyer drew up their Durable Power of Attorney papers. He also gave them some financial planning advice and provided an affidavit for Matt’s employer to certify that they were domestic partners so Matt could sign Tim up for benefits with his company. They named each other beneficiaries on their life insurance. And last, they drew up a contract stipulating what would take place in the event of a breakup.

Matt hated the last part of the session, but he knew it was inevitable. It was all so sordid and ugly. Now he knew why so many couples simply ignored this or procrastinated until it was way too late. The vehicles were an easy issue – they would each leave the relationship with the car they owned. The house was another matter. Matt was listed as the sole owner, but Tim had contributed much to its upkeep. They decided to sell the townhouse and divide the profits, with Matt getting a somewhat larger portion.

The toughest issue was the boys. Matt was the legal guardian for both Brian and Tommy. Emotionally, Tim was as much their parent as Matt, and they all knew it. They compromised on the issue by letting the boys choose which parent they would live with after they were sixteen. If the breakup occurred before they turned sixteen, Matt would retain custody, but Tim would be allowed overnight visitation.

Marty

Friday, January 21: Poor Marty was in a panic!

"Look at my hair!" he screeched at Eduardo, normally his trusted hairdresser. Eduardo had been doing Marty’s hair for at least a decade. Eduardo was brilliant at hiding and disguising his thinning hair. He had expertly permed it, dyed it, curled it and cut it. Marty was a good customer who rewarded him with generous tips. Not only did Eduardo tend to his hair, but he stroked the vain man’s ego.

This Friday evening, Eduardo was dying Marty’s hair. Marty was going blond. It was another attempt to attract the love he so desperately sought. He had recently added a second piercing to his right ear and in both holes had gold rings. He had grown a goatee. Matt actually complimented him on the goatee; normally Matt couldn’t stand them. But Matt told him sincerely that he was one of the few men who actually looked better with a goatee. Marty wasn’t sure if Matt meant that as a compliment or an insult.

Surely, it was a compliment. Matt was his best friend. They had known each other since high school. They hooked up again when they met at the 129 Club in Blue Island while Matt was home from college on Christmas break. They remained in touch while Matt remained in Bloomington to teach and to live with Andy. When Matt’s relationship with the philandering Andy disintegrated, he started a new career as a bookstore manager and lived with Marty in his huge second-floor apartment.

Marty was his confidante and his crying towel. He was Matt’s conscience. Like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, he tried to guide Matt in the right direction and did so with class and good humor. He had coached Matt though the first bumpy months with Tim and was Matt’s biggest supporter when the topic was Matt’s foster sons. Brian and Tommy even called him Uncle Marty.

But, at Matt’s birthday party in December, Marty and revealed the depths of his loneliness. Matt and Tim soothed him, but had no immediate solutions. They were a couple and that had changed their classification in gay social circles. As a gay couple, they tended to socialize with other gay couples on those rare occasions when they could get some time away from the demands of parenthood. The result was that both Matt and Tim lost track of their single and eligible gay friends they could have introduced Marty to.

So, as the New Year began, Marty took matters into his own hands and began changing things in his life. He enrolled in a class at Moraine View Community College with the intention of completing his bachelor’s degree. He rearranged the furniture in his apartment. He grew a goatee and had intended on changing his hair color.

Until now. Eduardo had applied the bleaching agent to his hair and was called away to the phone. Marty became involved in a story in People magazine. Before either of knew it, the hair dye had been left on way too long.

Eduardo valiantly tried to save the situation by washing out the foul-smelling chemical. Facing each other in the mirror, Marty could hardly keep from crying. His hair had been bleached to a Billy Idol shade of blond. When he reached up to touch it, several clumps came off in his hand.

"Oh, Marty, I’m so sorry. God, I’ve never done this before."

Marty bit his lower lip. He ran his fingers through his hair, releasing clumps of bleached blond strands.

"You know, Martin, I have always suggested that you get a buzz cut. The shape of you head is beautiful."

"Bullshit, Eduardo."

"No, sweetheart, I’m serious. This might be a good time to experiment with it. It’s time to embrace your receding hairline instead of trying to hide it."

"It’s time to embrace your ass and kiss it goodbye unless you fix it." Marty caught a glance of his hurt look in the mirror. He toned down his anger. "Get the clippers. And do it fast before I change my mind."

Marty closed his eyes as he felt the clumps of hair drift onto his shoulders and the back of his neck.

He didn’t tip Eduardo this time.

Marty’s next stop was Oak Ridge Mall. If anyone would have kind words for him, Matt would. Besides, a little shopping would soothe his nerves. He pointed his car west on 127^th street to Cicero, north on Cicero to 95^th Street and then west again to Oak Ridge Mall.

When he got to Matt’s store in the Carson Pirie Scott wing, the first thing he spotted was a large Valentine’s Day display of love books, bestsellers and poetry anthologies. Inwardly, Marty groaned. They’ll commercialize anything. And Valentine’s Day is still three weeks away. He was disappointed when a part-timer named Martha told him Matt had left about 5:30. He browsed a bit then went to wander the rest of the mall.

Almost every store had obliterated their Christmas displays and replaced them with red, pink and white Valentine’s displays. Hearts and cupids were ubiquitous. It depressed Marty. I just needed--more reminders that I’m still single. His foul mood drove him into a Wilson’s Leather store, where he bought a leather biker jacket on impulse. He loved the smell and texture of leather, and he had always wanted one.

Back at his apartment, he tossed some ice into a tumbler where it landed with a soft clink and poured vodka in. He took a stiff drink before venturing to the bathroom to study his new hairdo. The last time his hair was this short was when he was six years old and his dad ordered the barber to "cut off all those girly curls." He hadn’t seen the tops of his ears in decades.

But, he was pleasantly surprised. He looked fairly hot! With the goatee, and the buzz cut and the earrings, he looked butch!

He fixed himself a meal, washed up the dishes and then decided to watch a porn video. He lay on the couch with his dick in his right hand and the remote in his left ready to zoom past the amateurish acting sequences.

Fifteen minutes later, still unrelieved and frustrated, the switched off the VCR. He stood up and fastened his pants. Shit. Nothing is turning out the way I planned. I feel like I’m making these changes for nothing. And now this. I’m frustrated and I just want to get off.

Where can I go to just suck some cock? A bookstore. That’s where I’ll go.

Marty pulled his new purchase from the Wilson’s bag and removed the tags. He pulled off his slacks and replaced them with jeans without underwear. Before he zipped them, he encircled his balls and dick with a leather cockring. He arranged his average cock to display them to their best advantage in the jeans. He splashed on some cologne – not too much – and replaced his shirt with a plain white T-shirt.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Who was this stranger? He looked different, more confident. He looked like a daddy. Well, he was almost forty, it was about time to look his age.

He drove west about a mile to the intersection of 127^th street and Cicero Avenue. There, the Tri-State Tollway crossed under the highway. He merged onto the interstate heading east. His destination was an adult bookstore in Indiana just over the border at Burr Street.

Marty’s forty-minute journey ended at an adult bookstore across from a truck stop just off the Indiana Toll Road. He liked this particular bookstore. He could have gone to one of many in Chicago’s Boys Town, but this one was special. First, it was clean. The owners made efforts to see that the floors were mopped regularly and the walls washed down. There were fewer queens and more straight, butch men looking for some quick relief. Truckers who had pulled off the highway often crossed the street while their rigs were being serviced. That’s what he was looking for tonight – quick relief without the attitude that he so often encountered in the Boys Town bookstores.

He was always conflicted about cruising. It was exciting and fun and the sex was satisfying. But he always came away empty in another sense. He was still missing the simple affection he craved. Cruising is bleakly depersonalized and highly competitive. His self-esteem always suffered, no matter how great the sex was.

He purchased five dollars worth of quarters and entered the arcade area. As he entered, the familiar scent of pine disinfectant, mingled with poppers and male perspiration assaulted his nostrils. The arcade part was a long, linear hall with about twenty booths ten on each side of the hall. Marty knew that every other booth had a large glory hole drilled in the plywood partition between the booths. There was a sole black man leaning against the wall at the opposite end of the arcade. Their eyes met in mutual recognition. He had seen the man here before. In fact, he had been here each time Marty had.

The lights on the doors of the booths indicated that some of them were occupied. He ducked into one booth. Before he dropped a quarter, he discreetly peered into the other booth through the hole. The occupant was a man who somewhere between eighty and a hundred-- and –eighty years old. He backed out of the booth. He hated queens who made a big production out of looking in the hole before entering the booth. It was tacky and tasteless. Marty Connor, Our Lady of High Standards. Like cruising in an adult bookstore isn’t tacky and tasteless.

There was a truck driver in the next booth. He was reasonably good looking, with a beard and a baseball cap. But after three quarters, the man still did nothing. Frustrated, Marty left the booth midway through the third quarter.

At the end of the hall, there was one more lit booth. The black man was still standing there. As Marty opened the door, his eye caught the eye of the black man. He smiled and nodded ever so slightly at Marty.

Before dropping the quarter, he crouched down in the darkened booth. There was light streaming from the adjacent booth through the glory hole. Silhouetted by the light was a cock of immense proportions!

Marty hastily dropped a quarter, and stuck his index finger through the hole. It was the universal symbol. Let me suck your cock.

The cock began coming through the hole like a hose being unreeled. It was huge! This cock had to be at least ten inches long. Marty knew from experience. As if he were a snake ingesting a rat, he had to release his jaw to accommodate the huge piece of meat. The plywood partition groaned slightly as the man in the other booth rested his weight against the wall.

Marty sucked for what seemed like hours, with no results. At least he didn’t go soft. But Marty couldn’t make the massive dick release it’s love juice, either.

Then slowly, it began receding from the booth. Shit. I wanted to finish him off. Shit. Shit.

The man in the other booth tapped the plywood twice softly with his knuckle. Marty peered through the hole again. He saw an index finger motioning him into the same booth. Before he adjusted his clothes, he tried to get a glimpse of the owner of the mammoth cock. But the man was in the corner, away from hole and Marty couldn’t see his face.

The black man was gone when Marty re-entered the hall. He tugged on the door, but it was locked. There was a tense moment when Marty thought he had been duped. Then, the lock was released with a click.

"Marty?"

Marty was astonished beyond words. "What..wha....."

The man smiled, took Marty by the shoulder and pulled him in the booth. "Kiss me," he commanded. After Marty closed and locked the door behind himself, he did.

Sunday, January 30. It snowed heavily the last week in January. Not enough to close schools or businesses, but enough to make driving miserable and hazardous and every trip in the car had to be planned carefully. Extra time had to be allotted to scrape and brush the car windows in the mornings and for the slippery roads. Even with the streets plowed, the snow still added fifteen minutes to Matt’s commute to work. "You’d think they never drove in snow before," he complained about other drivers.

But the snow did afford them some benefits. On the last Sunday in January, Matt and Tim took the boys to Swallow Cliff Toboggan Slide. It was in a Forest Preserve at the intersection of Mannheim Road and Route 83 north of Orland Park. They day was perfect for it. It was overcast and snowing lightly and the temperature hovered around twenty-five degrees. There was almost no wind to further lower the wind chill. Matt and Tim encouraged the boys to dress in layers as a defense against the snow.

Matt and Tim each rented a toboggan. The price was right; all they had to do was leave their driver’s license until they returned the sled. It was nice to know that some of their tax dollars were put to good use.

It was an ordeal to climb the 108 steps (they counted them) to the top. Once they reached the summit, they took a moment to catch their breath. They had five chutes to choose from and the lines were still short when they arrived. Tommy, Jake and Matt occupied one toboggan and Brian and Tim the other. Following the instructions of the Forest Preserve employees, they waited anxiously for the metal gate to retract down into the chute. When it did, they pushed off and let gravity do the rest.

It was so thrilling! Like a cold roller coaster ride complete with stinging ice and snow in their faces. Somehow Tim and Brian managed to tip over as they skidded to a stop. Laughing and covered with snow, they started up to the top again.

An hour and a half later, they turned their toboggans in and headed home. The toboggan slide was beginning to get crowded and they had had enough stair-climbing. They stopped for hot drinks at Denny’s at 191^st and Mannheim Road.

"When we get home, I want the three of you to go downstairs and take off your wet clothes and hang them up."

Brian and Tommy tumbled downstairs immediately, but Jake took Matt aside upstairs.

"What’s up, kiddo?"

"I have a problem with Brian."

"I thought you two were getting along."

"We are...but..it’s just...."

"Would you feel better if we talked in private?"

"Yeah," Jake sighed relief.

All sorts of horrific thing went through Matt’s mind. Had Brian made advances toward him? Is he in trouble at school? Jake seemed so upset. What could be going on?

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome. I read and respond to all email (even if it takes a few days) Just click on one of the links below. And don't forget to check out my website (Chapters are always posted there earlier than here) and my other story here on Nifty, Pocketful of Stars, in the Young Friends section.

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