Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 01:25:17 -0700
From: ~* RoBiN *~ <dark_ekos2665@hotmail.com>
Subject: Between Friends

**Disclaimer: The following story contains two underage characters, although
I, the writer, am of age. This is a purely fictional encounter and any
similiarity to names, situations, or personalities in the story are entirely
coincidental.**

			     -Between Friends-

	From the instant I met Dakota, I knew I had a friend for life. We were in
second grade; we were the only two kids always sitting on the bench because
no one else wanted to play with us. I was the kid that was smaller than
everyone else, even the girls, with glasses and spaces in between my teeth,
and he was the kid everyone picked on just because he dressed differently,
liked different things than they did, and acted differently. At the time we
met, we were around seven years old, so we didn't really understand our
differences. We just knew that being outcasted developed a bond between us,
and from the first day of second grade, we were inseparable.

	When we got a little higher in school and learned a little more geography,
we found it amusing that we were both named after places in the U.S., Dakota
and Salem. Two cities and two states. We both shared a love of dirt bike
racing and swimming and basketball. We liked a lot of the same things. We
were basically the same people. It wasn't until middle school that I
realized just how different we were.

	It was over winter break, right after we'd started the seventh grade. We
were around 12 or 13, and middle school, we'd realized, was an entirely new
world compared to petty grade school. We had eight different classes instead
of just one, with eight different teachers. We also had PE. PE where we had
to go in the locker room, take off our clothes with about fifty other boys
and put on gym clothes, come back in, undress again and shower. Everyone was
just starting to change and go through those lovely awkward stages of life
where we're too short or too tall, too fat or too skinny. Some of us are
developing faster than others and feeling embarrassed because we have hair
in places we never thought imaginable. Some of us don't have hair where
others do and we're embarrassed because we still feel like children. It's
just not a comfortable predicament to be in, those junior high locker rooms.
But anyway, back to what I was saying about realizing how different we were.
I didn't have PE with Dakota, so I don't mean physically different. Neither
one of us had really started to change yet, we were still very much smaller
than the other guys and our voices were still as high as they were when we
first met. Our arms were still skinny and our bodies had no muscle
definition whatsoever. But like I said, I didn't mean physically different.
One night, during winter break as I mentioned, Dakota was staying the night
at my house. We'd stayed awake until almost 2am playing Yoshi's Island on
Super Nintendo. We made our bed on the floor; layers upon layers of blankets
and pillows, and settled down onto it after turning out the lights. We lay
there in silence for a while, both trying to think of some really good topic
to begin discussing.

"Salem?" asked Dakota, his pre-pubescent voice slicing the silence.

"Yeah?" my equally juvenile accent responded.

"I think I like boys."

I didn't know how to react to what he'd just said, so I asked him to repeat
it.

"I think I like boys. I think I want to kiss boys and hold them."

That was the night I found out Dakota was gay.

	I soon grew accustomed to the fact that even though we were so much alike,
we had our differences. And as we grew older, those differences began to
make themselves more prominent and instead of automatically liking every new
idea the other presented to us, we started to become our own people.

	The summer in between our sophomore and junior years, everything seemed to
change overnight. I grew about two feet in height to reach about six feet
tall, the space in my teeth grew together after wearing braces for four
years, I got corrective eye surgery so I no longer needed my glasses, and I
started working out and got some density to my body. Dakota started changing
too. He grew to about 5'10 and started working out with me. He was already a
good-looking kid before he bulked up a little and got a growth spurt. He had
naturally blond hair, but it looked bleached because his eyebrows and lashes
were darker blond. His eyes were a light and shimmering hue of green, and
his lips were perfectly round and budded with a healthy red tinge to them
all the time. I always looked at him with a sort of envy in my gaze at his
beauty. Beauty is not normally a word associated with males, but it fit
Dakota perfectly. He was beautiful. The golden color his skin turned in the
summertime was a brilliant and unnaturally intriguing contrast to the blond
of his hair. I supposed I wasn't a bad looking kid; I had dark brown, almost
black hair and light blue eyes. My mouth curved up at the corners in a sort
of mischievous jester's smile, and my eyebrows had the shape of an upside
down V, which gave me an impish look.

	By the time junior year started, we looked totally different. We'd both
attained summer jobs; working for my uncle out on his farm, taking care of
horses. We'd earned enough money to buy a whole new wardrobe. We went to The
Gap and Old Navy and Anchor Blue and American Eagle Outfitters. We were
going to be in style this year. We weren't going to be made fun of anymore
by those that had brand name clothing because we wore khaki slacks (not
cargos, old man slacks. They were bad...) and plaid flannel button-ups tucked
in. Reflecting back now, our fashion was sadder than the ending of our
favorite play freshman year (and we all know how sad Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet was!). We were totally new. And for once we felt good about walking
into school.

	At first nothing happened except we were able to walk down the hall without
being stared and laughed at. We weren't geeks anymore. It didn't take long
before the girls started to notice us. Within a week, we'd gotten about ten
phone numbers each. The sad thing was, I was loving all this female
attention, Dakota was obviously not interested. He still longed for the male
attention. I started dating some of the girls who'd snubbed me for the past
four years and who were now suddenly interested in me. Within a month I'd
gone through about eight different girlfriends because they weren't real
relationships, we were both just using each other as decor. And because I
was still so bitter about how cruel every single one of these girls had been
to me when I was still a geeky eighth grader in high-water slacks and
glasses, I hadn't the slightest qualms about potentially breaking their
superficial hearts, or at least putting a dent in the polished exteriors of
their upheld reputations.

	All the attention we were getting was having opposing effects on us. My
confidence level was skyrocketing; Dakota was sinking into a depression. One
Friday afternoon I was particularly worried about him. He'd been solemn all
day at school, so when I got home I gave him a call and asked him if he
wanted to come over and spend the weekend. He gave an unenthused `yeah' and
said he'd be over after dinner.

	When he finally got to my house, it was already too late to go outside and
shoot some hoops, so we decided to stay in and order pizza and play video
games. The phone rang so many times with girls wanting to know what I was
doing that weekend I had to turn the ringer off to make the agitated
expression on Dakota's face disappear. I finally was able to bring him out
of his shell of depression a little as the night progressed. My parents were
out of town for the weekend, so we could play the music as loud as we
wanted, we could cuss at our own will, and of course we could get into a
little bit of trouble. When we got bored with the excitement that turning up
the radio so loud that the windows shook brought, we foraged through the
house looking for something bad we could do to celebrate having the house
all to ourselves. We found the perfect thing. The liquor cabinet.

	Less than a full hour later, we were so disgustingly drunk we couldn't
stand up properly. This was the first shock our sixteen-year-old bodies had
encountered and frankly they didn't know how to respond. They invoked every
emotion within us; we laughed, we cried, we got angry and clumsily punched
at the cushions of the sofa. Then came sentiment. And that was the night I
found out what Dakota had kept from me all those years.

"Salem..." he slurred, "I wanna...tell you somethin'."

"Okay man, I'm listening," I responded awkwardly, pronouncing the `t' in
`lisTening.'

"You rember...remember...in jjjjunior high..."

"Ah fu--"

"No, listen. In jjjunior high when I tole you...when I tolded my bestest
friend guy in the whole world...that's you...when I tole you I was...I am..."

"A gay?"

"Yeah...A gay..." he fell into hysteric laughter, "A gay...that's...that's
funny...no.  Seriously. When I told you I was gay, that I liked boys
and...and wanted to kissssss and hold boys...you remberer that time?"

"Sure do, buddy. Sure the hell do."

He scooted closer to me on my place on the floor by the living room sofa and
put his arm around me, inching his mouth close to my ear.

"I said dat...I tole you dat...because I loved you. Cuz I still do."

"I love you too man," I began to get teary-eyed, "I've always loved you...and
I always...always will," and I broke into the chorus of Whitney Houston's "I
Will Always Love You," "you're my bro."

"No!" he yelled, "not that kind of love. Not friend love. Not br--" he
hiccupped, "not brother love...that other kind of love that makes...that makes
you want to touch someone in," his voice lowered to a whisper, "in sensitive
places."

He took the hand that wasn't around my shoulder and slid it slowly and
cautiously up my thigh until he had a gentle grip between my legs. This was
the first touch other than my own that I'd felt on my crotch, and in my
delirious state I didn't push him away. I felt his warm, wet lips press
firmly against my neck and I tilted my head back. A rush of sobriety came
briefly to me and I realized what the hell was going on.

I hastily jumped up onto the sofa and exclaimed, "What the hell are you
doing?" Dakota looked more stunned than I'd ever seen anyone look in my
whole life. All the drunkenness was yanked out of him at once and he
scrambled rapidly to his feet.

"I--uh, umm..." was all he was able to stammer. He collected his thoughts
accordingly and managed to spill, "I'm sorry..."

I looked at him in disbelief. I felt a little uncomfortable, but also
ashamed of my mocking behavior. I knew that he was gay, and for a while I'd
suspected him of being interested in me as more than just a friend, I
shouldn't have added alcohol and an empty house to the suspicion. I supposed
that to an onlooker I would've looked like I was asking for this, that I
provoked it. But I didn't let my shame be seen.

"If you ever--" I paused, "if you ever try anything like that again, our
friendship is over. Over."

I didn't know why I was reacting so cruelly. I actually felt that what he'd
done wasn't that bad. I didn't feel grossed out by it or anything, just a
little uneasy that my best friend of eight years had touched me...there.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out desperately, "I don't know what I was thinking."

"Apparently!" I snapped, "You were thinking that I was like you, that I was
a fucking fa--"

I had to stop myself before I said the actual word. I'd sworn an oath to
myself that since my best friend, my brother, was gay, that I would never
let a gay slur leave my lips. And here, it almost did. And I felt more
ashamed than anything I'd ever been ashamed of in my entire life, and as I
saw the look of sharp pain stab across his face in pixels of broken trust, I
hung my head. I didn't even look up as I heard his angry footsteps across
the living room floor, and the front door to my house slam shut behind him.

	Five days passed. A whole school week and I hadn't talked to Dakota
once. I called his house and left messages everyday, saying how badly I
wanted to apologize. He never returned them. Finally, after another weekend
and some time to think, I waited for his last class of the day to let out,
and caught him at the door.

"Hey," I said. He gave a disgruntled glance at me and attempted to pass me
swiftly, "wait," I pleaded, "I have to talk to you."

"You have nothing to say that I wish to hear," he snarled.

"Yeah, I think I do. I want to apologize. I was way out of line to even
think that about you. I didn't mean it."

"Of course you did. It's true. I am."

"No. I mean...you don't deserve to be called that."

"You think you're the first? At least you had the courtesy to not say the
entire word. Other people aren't that kind."

I considered this in a moment of silence and then added, "These past days
without my best friend have been hell. Please forgive me. Please?"

I could see his resistance beginning to wear down, "I'm the one that should
be apologizing. I shouldn't have...done what I did. I'm so sorry."

We finished our conversation and agreed to forgive each other. I asked him
what he was doing Friday, to which he replied that he was doing nothing, and
we agreed to take in a movie. As he was walking one way, and I was walking
the other, he turned around and yelled, "Salem!"

I stopped and turned and said, "Yeah?"

"I meant what I said though...about why I told you that night in junior high."

And he walked off. I tried to remember what it was he had said, the reason
he said he told me that night. And then it hit me. I thought he was just
drunk. No, he actually loved me.

	Weeks passed and our friendship went back to normal. I tried to pretend
like I'd forgotten that he told me he loved me, but I couldn't help noticing
that he acted like he did. Whenever I said something I knew he didn't agree
with, he wouldn't argue it; he'd try to see it my way. He was always
changing for me. I didn't like it, it made me feel like a horrible person
that someone was actually trying to change who they were to fit easier into
my presence, but it wasn't my fault, I didn't intentionally make him do it.
He was always buying me expensive things. When we'd pass department store
windows I'd see something that caught my eye and hypothetically say I wanted
it, and the next thing I knew he'd be giving it to me, gift wrapped and all.
I tried to play these gestures off as an intense friend feeling, but I
couldn't ignore that I knew they were more. What convinced me that he was
actually in love with me was the fact the after the night I blew up at him
when we were drinking, he never tried to make another sexual advance toward
me, only romantic ones, such as buying me expensive gifts. I let him know my
appreciation in as few words as I could find. What I didn't tell him was how
actually uncomfortable I was that another male was showing me this kind of
affection. Even with this feeling of uneasiness, I was still silently
thankful to him that he only showed his fondness of me outside of public, no
one at school or otherwise suspected anything.

	I decided that with my growing popularity that I should join a
sports team, so I did. I signed up for basketball tryouts. The thought of
telling Dakota had slipped my mind until the actual afternoon the tryouts
were to occur. He asked me if I wanted to come over to his house that day
to study, and I told him I couldn't because I was trying out for the
basketball team. He just shook his head and said he'd catch me later. I
ended up making the team.  There were a lot of guys, like the girls, who
had snubbed me for four years and now, after seeing me play ball and
knowing my growing status, accepted me. It felt good and I made a few
friends on the team. One afternoon, I caught up with Dakota after not
having time to talk to him for a while and told him I'd made the team and
some new friends as well.

"You what?!" he exclaimed.

"I made the team. I'm friends with some of the guys there. So what?"

"Don't you remember how we used to feel about jocks on sports teams? How we
used to call them muscle-headed freaks because of how mean and pig-headed
they always were to us? Walking around in their jerseys and letter jackets
talking about `chicks' and `beer' and slamming us up against the lockers and
calling us losers? Are you just forgetting all that?"

"Yeah...well, I'm not going to be like them just because I'm on the basketball
team, jeez. Those were football players anyways."

"I feel like I don't even know you anymore, Salem. You gain a little bit of
recognition by a few slutty whores and chauvinistic bigots and all of a
sudden you're a totally different person. What the hell is the matter with
you?"

"Nothing! What are you talking about? I haven't changed. You're the one
who's changed. You think the whole world's against you just because you're
gay."

"I don't think that at all! I'm just not a hypocrite like you're turning
into!"

"Hypocrite?" my voice began to raise, "hypocrite?! You're one to talk about
hypocrite!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're the one that's in love with me even though you know I'm straight."

Silence fell on our conversation and a look of pure rage contorted his face.
His eyes bugged and his lips curled up. As soon as I'd said it I felt that
same stab of shame I'd felt the night I almost called him that derogatory
word of slang. I scanned my brain for something I could say to take back
what I'd just allowed to slip past my control, but I found nothing. All that
occupied my mind and heart was shame.

"I'm in love with who you used to be," he said, and turned to walk off. He
stopped and turned back around to add, "I don't even know you now."

"Hey look!" I heard a deep voice yell behind me, "Salem's friends with Queer
Boy!"

"Yeah," said another, "I didn't know he was a pink player too!"

It was a group of guys from the basketball team. I thought Dakota and I were
all alone on the campus since it was after school and most everyone had gone
home. I was wrong. The sense of male egotism arose in me and it overpowered
the fury I felt at what they'd just called my best friend and me. The drive
I'd had for so long to fit in with these guys overpowered both of those
feelings and I ran after Dakota.

"Hey!" I exclaimed.

He turned around and I drew back my fist and planted it right in his mouth.
Blood flew from his face and he fell backwards onto the ground. I stared in
shock at him; lying on the ground, coughing up blood as the gleeful cheers
of the pig-headed jocks in the background rose like the high tide. I ran
past Dakota's form, still on the ground, out into the football fields, past
the fences surrounding the school, past the market on the corner. I didn't
stop until I'd reached my house, about two miles from school. I entered the
house and ran upstairs, flung myself onto my bed and sobbed violently for
what felt like hours. What had I done?

	I had the misfortune the next morning to wake up with a sore
throat, runny nose, cough, and severe body aches that the flu brings. I
missed an entire week of school and three practices, which automatically
threw me off the basketball team. In a way I was disappointed, but in a
much bigger way I was glad.

	I hadn't talked to Dakota all week. I was worried sick about him,
but too ashamed of myself to call him. So my surprise was at its greatest
magnitude when my mother knocked on my door Saturday afternoon and said
that he was there to see me. I told her to let him come in, and I
straightened myself up in my sickbed and prepared to apologize my ass off
and beg for forgiveness.  He walked in smiling; the left corner of his
bottom lip gashed and scabbed with dried blood. My self-esteem shrank to
half the size of a molecular atom. I gestured for him to have a seat at the
edge of my bed, which he obliged to.

"I can't bel--" I started to say I couldn't believe he still wanted to talk
to me, but he cut me off.

"I know why you did what you did. You had to show off for your friends. I
understand. I got to thinking about why you're acting the way you are and I
think I figured it out."

"You have?"

"Yeah. As long as I've known you you've wanted to fit in with the jocks and
popular people like that. Now that you finally are, who am I to tell you
that you can't? Or shouldn't? You've wanted this for so long, and now that
you have it, I'm glad for you."

"Well...thanks."

I felt so much better that he was taking this so well. But I knew Dakota, I
knew how he worked. There had to be a catch in here somewhere.

"So...I guess that's all I wanted to say. I enjoyed the time that we were
friends. We had a lot of good times together, and I have a lot of happy
memories from my experiences with you. I won't ever forget you. Have a nice
life, NBA star!" and he turned to walk out.

"Wait, wait. Hold it. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh come on! You can't be friends with them and me! It just doesn't work. I
don't want to make you have to lie, and as it is now, you're having to.
You're having to tell them that you don't know Queer Boy and that you
frequently beat his ass. I don't want to be punched and have my lip split
open every time you see one of your friends, so in order to avoid that, I
just won't be your friend. Besides, I feel intimidated by someone who has
his priorities so organized."

"All right, all right. You've made your point, Mr. Morality. I'm off the
team anyways, I missed three practices."

"I hope you aren't expecting sympathy."

"No. I'm actually glad to be rid of it."

"You are not."

I smiled as if to say `Okay, maybe I'm not.' He took the hint and changed
the subject.

"You know, my birthday's coming up pretty soon."

"Yeah, I know. Big seventeen. You're getting to be an old man. What do you
want?"

"Ah, I don't know. I would like...nevermind. I'm sure you don't want to hear
about it."

"What? Just tell me."

"No, forget it."

"WHAT?!"

"Okay, okay. Calm down. There's this...there's this guy. I really like him and
the greatest birthday present ever would be to...to you know...mess around
with him. You know, just one time...but it's never gonna happen, he's
straight."

I was overjoyed that it Dakota liked someone. That meant he wouldn't like me
anymore. Then it dawned on me that I was possibly that straight guy he
wanted to mess around with just once.

"Oh," was the only reply I could come up with.

"See? Told you you didn't want to know. I gotta go, my mom wants me to pick
up dinner before heading home. So you get well and I'll see ya around."

"Okay. Thanks for stopping by. We're still friends right?"

"If you're not gonna sock me every time you're seen with me, yeah."

"I won't. I'm so so so so sorry. Friends?"

"Yeah," he said with a slight laugh. He got up and walked toward the door.
He grabbed the knob, but before he turned it to let himself out, he turned
back toward me and said, "Don't look so afraid. I'm not going to ask you to.
I just wanted to be honest about what I wanted for my birthday."

And then he walked out.

	Dakota's birthday was January 14, always in the dead of winter. He
loved to swim but could never have a pool party on his birthday on account
of the weather. And where we lived it got pretty frickin' cold. By the time
it arrived that year, I was rid of my dreams of being popular after I
discovered for myself what the lifestyle was like. You always had to hide
behind a mask of lies and pretend like you were someone you weren't. It was
exhausting and more often than not you wished you were someone else. I
didn't try out for basketball again, or any other sport, I was perfectly
happy being the anti-social person I'd always been with just one friend.
One best friend. I thought a lot about what Dakota had told me that day in
my room, and how much courage it must have taken for him to admit that to
me.  It wasn't long before I found myself almost considering it. Then I
came back to myself and realized what a crazy notion it was. I bought him a
basketball instead, and as a joke autographed it. I figured he would be
amused.

	The night before his party, I laid awake in my bed close to midnight. I
didn't know why I was having such trouble dozing off. I was thinking about
life and love and sex. I thought about sex a lot, I'm sure every
sixteen-year-old does, but I knew I was too young to even consider doing it
just yet. Unlike most guys feel, or let on that they feel, I was happy being
a virgin. I'd always heard that sex was the utmost act of love and that it
shouldn't be done, or wouldn't mean as much, if it isn't done by two people
who love one another. What kind of love did this have to be? I loved Dakota,
I knew that. I loved him like a best friend, like a brother. Perhaps even
more than either one of those, we had a bond that went deeper than most. He
loved me in that way too I supposed, but he also loved me in the romantic
sense. So if we loved each other, and he wanted to have sex in some form at
least, would it be so wrong? I thought about what doing sexual things with
him would be like and I couldn't really imagine it. But the thought didn't
disgust me. I liked girls, that was certain, and I didn't normally check out
guys or even think about them sexually, but for some reason what Dakota had
said began to spark some sort of curiosity in me. I thought about the
mechanics of having sex with a guy, and that confused me a little. But what
if we didn't have sex? What if we just kissed or touched each other? Would I
be able to go through with it? How would we feel the next day? Would it be
weird to be around each other after knowing one another so intimately? All
these thoughts swam in my head as I felt myself dozing off to sleep...

	His birthday fortunately fell on a Saturday. It was to start at 10am and
last till whenever everyone wanted to go home. I awoke at 8am and decided to
call him to wish him a happy birthday. During our conversation he asked me
if I wanted to spend the night, to which I said I did. This will be our
opportunity to do *stuff*, I found myself involuntarily thinking. I forced
the thought out of my head and refused to believe I'd thought it. By the
time I got dressed, ate breakfast, and packed my overnight bag it was close
to 10, so I decided to hop on my bike and head over to Dakota's. I left my
parents a note saying I was at his party and was going to stay the night and
that I'd call them around six when I knew they'd be home.

	Dakota's party was like it was every year I'd known him. A bunch of his
relatives and I were the partygoers. A lot of his little cousins were there,
and aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.  At noon, after everyone had been
given a chance to arrive, there was a luncheon prepared by Dakota's mother,
the greatest cook in the history of the world. The best food of different
ethnicities was present; Mexican, Italian, American, Asian, and Cajun.
Tacos, calzones, hamburgers, egg rolls, and gumbo. It was an excellent
feast. Then came the cake and ice cream, if anyone had any room left. The
cake was gourmet, huge, with white icing. It said "Happy Seventeenth, Dak."
(That was his nickname as a child, Dak.)  Then there was the scavenger hunt
for the little ones at 2:30. Dakota and I used to join in on these when we
were younger, but they lost their flavor after we turned 14 or so. Dakota's
four-year-old cousin, Daniel, was the victor. His prize was five dollars. As
I looked at the expression of true joy on his face as he held up his
five-dollar prize, I grew intensely envious of him. I remembered when Dakota
and I were children, how much simpler our friendship was because of our
ignorance of the world. Now we had all these adult problems, with all these
options to choose from and decisions to make and pain to feel. And as this
realization and clarity stomped through my mind, I laughed to myself as the
thought arose, I'd give anything to find that scavenger hunt fun again.

	The last group of relatives left around 4pm or so. Dakota and I
helped his mother clean up everything, which took almost three hours. I
called my mother to make sure my staying over at Dakota's for the night was
okay, which it was, and went back to helping Dakota and his mother. Around
8pm or so, Dakota's mother left for work. On her way she dropped off
Dakota's little brother, Michael, at his friend house. Dakota and I were
completely alone in the house.

	We watched TV for a few hours, and at 11pm we decided to go up to
his room and get ready for bed. His room was small with only one bed, so I
usually took the floor when I stayed over. Once we'd gotten in our pajamas
and settled in, the lights were turned out and silence fell upon our
world. When Dakota finally spoke, it was as startling as the screeching of
an owl in the quiet midnight sky.

"Are you even tired?" he asked.

"No, not really. You?"

"No. Wanna go up to the attic?"

I was always afraid of his attic. Even then, when I was sixteen. But I
didn't want him to know that, so I said sure.

	His father had made the attic up into a playroom for Dakota and Michael
some ten years or so ago. There were carpet and lights and tables and a full
heating/cooling system. The soft pinks and blues and yellows of the
wallpaper and carpet gave the room an infant's nursery appeal, but it was
still creepy. Maybe for the fact that it was still an attic, or maybe
because there were two small windows at either end of the room with tree
branches reaching across them, creating sinister shadows on the floor.
Dakota and I carried up two sleeping bags and pillows with us. We unzipped
them and spread them out across the carpet and laid on them. It didn't take
us any time at all to start telling ghost stories and allegories about
people being hacked up in attics. Dakota was an excellent storyteller with
the most vivid imagination I've ever had the privilege of getting to know.
His stories could send chills up your spine no matter how old you were and
how little you believed in ghosts and goblins. After we'd told about three a
piece, we began telling jokes. His jokes would leave you in hysterics; the
way he told them was hilarious. We figured after our little comedy session
that it had to be close to 3 or 4am. We lay in silence for a while, in dark
silence since we'd turned off the lights to intensify the effects of our
ghost stories. The two little windows casted luminous rays of moonlight all
about the attic and I could vaguely make out the outline of Dakota's face. I
sat up with a start. Frightened, he sat up too.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing," I replied.

I began to get this anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like something
was going to happen any minute. I didn't know what, but something definitely
was going to happen. My body began feeling a little weak and I became sort
of light-headed. Suddenly, I lost control of my movement. I couldn't even
feel what I was doing, I only knew what was happening because I saw my hand
rise up to Dakota's face and take its place on his neck, behind his head. I
must've been scooting closer to him and pulling him toward me because I saw
his face nearing mine. All of a sudden I felt a warm, wet presence on my
mouth. I didn't know what to do but close my eyes. So I did. All I could
think was how good this felt, kissing him. All my senses opened up and for
one moment in my life everything made sense and I felt true happiness. But
he abruptly ended my joy as he pulled away from me.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I...I thought this was what you wanted."

"It is, but...it's not what you want."

"That's okay. I want to do it for you," I lied to him. I didn't want to
admit it, but I did want this. Just as bad or perhaps worse than he did.

"I can't do this. I can't do it knowing you're totally not into it."

"How do you know I wouldn't be? Why do you have to mess everything up by
talking?"

I aggressively pulled him to me again and began to passionately kiss him. He
forgot about his conscience and went with what we were doing. My body was
numb with adrenaline. We kept heatedly kissing each other; every second
pushed us further and further into heaven. I brought him with me as I lay
down on my back; he was now on top of me. I pushed him away a little to
allow myself room to take my shirt off. In the twilight provided by the
small windows I could see his beautiful mouth turn up into a contented smile
and he whispered, "Are you sure about this?" I'd never been surer about
anything in my life. I smiled and nodded yes, and he took his shirt off too.
He lay back on top of me, his hot flesh pressed against mine. A wave of
sexual excitement rushed through me and the numbness I'd felt before was
replaced by extremely heightened sensitivity. I could feel his hard nipples
pressed firmly into mine and the muscles of his stomach and chest were
tensed up. He kissed my neck and shoulders and ran his tongue across my
collarbone, causing me to quiver. He sucked gently on my earlobe and once or
twice ran it softly between his teeth. I began to breathe heavier as pure
ecstasy and desire arose in me and I began to feel feverish. He scooted down
a little to where he could easily lick and kiss my chest and nipples. He
slid his tongue tenderly across them causing me to quiver once more. He then
flicked his tongue rapidly over them as I let out a quiet moan. He kissed
his way down to my belly button and flicked his tongue over it, too. He
kissed and licked the rest of my stomach. As I lifted my head up to look
down and watch him, he grasped the waistband of my pajama pants and pulled
it down just enough to kiss my lower stomach. He looked up at me with
seductive eyes as he pulled the band lower. I returned my head to its place
of rest and closed my eyes again. His tongue was eagerly exploring the
uncharted territory of my body as it made its way lower and lower and lower.
Finally his tongue reached the bend of my leg; a place I would've never
considered sensitive until I had it licked. I flinched a little, the
sensation I got from his tongue was so much that I almost had to pull away.
He pulled the waistbands of my pants and underwear down to my mid-thigh. The
most personal place on my body was now totally exposed to him, but instead
of feeling awkward and nervous, I felt excited and sexual. I lifted my head
to look down at him again and I saw him staring at the only part of me he'd
never seen. He raised a shaken hand to my upper thigh and squeezed, then
carefully wrapped his hand around my arousal. He gently squeezed and I felt
as though I was going to cum right then, but I fought it off. I wanted him
to taste me. He leaned in and kissed the head, and then slowly slid it into
his mouth. I moaned softly and lay back again, my eyes fiercely closing. I
licked my lips as he took more and more of me into his mouth. He slowly drew
me back out and licked the length of it. I bit my bottom lip with tremendous
effort to hold back my orgasm. He put me back in his mouth and squeezed my
thighs with both hands as he increased the speed in which he sucked. Faster
and faster, sucking harder and harder, it was as if he was testing my power
to fight off ejaculation. I felt my body tense up and my face become hot and
flushed as he won the battle, I couldn't fight it off anymore. I felt the
muscles in his throat contract rhythmically as he swallowed every drop of
cum I released into his mouth. As the most intense orgasm I'd ever
experienced subsided, he slid his mouth slowly off of me and came back up to
lie next to me. I was still in a euphoric state; I felt as though I was
floating on beautiful clouds in a sky of eternal bliss. He gently pulled my
face toward his and kissed me once more. I could taste my own cum; a little
salty and a little sweet. And I liked it. We lay there together in the
darkness of the attic and all of a sudden it wasn't a scary room anymore, it
was heaven. He scooted close to me and whispered in my ear, "Do you want to
do it back to me now?" and rubbed his bottom lip across my earlobe. This
sparked fear in me. I didn't want to do it, but I didn't know how to tell
him. I whispered back, "I'm not sure I know how."

"It's easy. I'll tell you what to do as you're doing it."

What was I to say now? I didn't know so I didn't say anything. I think he
picked up my sense of fear and instead grabbed my hand and put it on his
stomach. I rubbed his body for a while, I could feel every muscle. Every
abdominal, every oblique, each deltoid and bicep. It was strangely arousing.
I'd seen him hundreds of times without his shirt on but I'd never touched
him like this. I ran my fingers across his hard nipples, he moaned lightly.
I ran it down the length of his body once more and stopped at the waistband
of his pants. I figured he'd have no objection to anything I wanted to do to
him, so I slid my hand in his underwear. I felt around for a minute, and
then wrapped my hand around his dick. I figured I could do this; I'd done it
a million times to myself. But it felt different doing it to someone else, I
didn't know if he liked the same things I did. He didn't seem to have any
protest at what I was doing, his moans became louder and louder and more
forceful with every slide of my hand. I leaned down to kiss him while I
jerked him off. I was feeling so incredibly sexy because I held the power to
make someone feel so good. I sucked on his tongue and nibbled his bottom lip
as ecstasy so evidently arose in him. I increased the speed of my hand and
soon I felt his dick begin to pulsate in my hand. Streams of hot cum shot up
onto his chest and stomach and a warm stream snaked down my hand as well. I
kissed him slowly one more time and made my way down his body to lick up the
cum I'd caused to be there. I caused it. I'd caused him to feel good to such
extremes that he'd had an orgasm. I made him feel that good. I felt so
empowered. I tasted him. He tasted very different than I did, his was
sweeter. I licked up every drop and then kissed him. I put my hand up to
both our mouths and we shared what was left on my hand and kissed again. He
lay panting heavily and as I looked down at him I saw him smiling a smile
I'd never seen on him before. It was a smile of such pleasure, such
happiness. I laid down next to him and shut my eyes. I breathed in a deep
breath of satisfaction and we both drifted off to sleep. I knew I had not
made a mistake.

	Tomorrow is Dakota's twenty-first birthday. Every year it's become
sort of a tradition with us to go to his parents' house, go up into the
attic, and relive our first time together. We do it exactly the same way as
we did that first night, with the exception that I was finally able to
bring myself to return the favor orally. If I only do it one night out of
the year it doesn't mean I'm gay...right?  *Dakota chimes in*
"Yeah...right."

				 -The End-

All questions/comments welcome at dark_ekos2665@hotmail.com