Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:17:39 -0500 From: John Elash Subject: Spirit of the Underdog 4 This is a story of two guys in love and their personal discovery. You've found this site like the rest of us so the assumption is that material of this nature does not offend you. If it is illegal for you to view this content for whatever the reason, why are you here? This story is a work of fiction and does not depict any real people or events. As it progresses some situations will come from memories and personal experiences, but I'll leave that for the guessing. I retain all rights to the story, please do not copy or use this story in any manner without my permission. Any comments, criticism or feedback: shoot me a line at phantomscorpio77@gmail.com. In the Shadows of Our Lives -- Prologue -- Spirit of the Underdog IV I was over the moon after Jon and I went our separate ways that night. If Tim wasn't going on about how starry-eyed Neil was he may have clued in to how starry-eyed I was! I was relieved at how easily my friends embraced Jon. Well Tim mostly, because Neil was there physically, but on another plain of existence mentally. After he and Tania's first kiss of the night I don't think Neil would have noticed if a circus lion was juggling clowns while singing Frank Sinatra and standing atop an elephant engulfed in flames. Who, me jealous? Yeah a bit. I wished Jon and I had kissed. But Tim was completely unaware of my inner thoughts as we got to my house. I couldn't even count all the bikes in the driveway and on the front yard when Tim pulled up. He offered for me to stay over at his place. I felt too much like a skid just at that moment so I declined and got out of his Mustang. I know the car is really his dad's, but Tim gets to use it as his own because his dad drives a company Cadillac, but still, the car is sweet. I wound my way through the bikes, taking an inventory of who I could recognize by their bike and who I should try to avoid, and then made my way through a crowd in the house to my room. After a game of human pinball with the bikers I made it to my room. Along the way I collected a cold can of Coors from Frankie, a new addition to the crowd lately who's pretty young. He's always slipping me beer and weed, probably because he remembers what it was like at my age. Who am I to turn it down? Inside my room I shut the door and rested my back up against it for a moment, lost in a happy replay of Jon and sitting on the beds earlier. I cracked the can and took a couple swigs of the stuff when the door behind me started to open. I got out of the way and Todd came in, closing the door behind him. We weren't in the dark exactly; the outside evening light from the porch and a streetlamp was filtering in through the window. I could see clearly but Todd still flicked the light on. We talked for a bit about the game earlier that night and how proud he was of me and how well he thought I did in my first game with the big team. I was all smiles, but some were actually for Jon. Eventually we stripped down to our boxers and Todd went to bed. I waited until he was in bed to change into my pajama pants. When Todd was snoring up a storm I imagined it was Jon in the next bed snoring away and I fell asleep with happy thoughts about him. When I woke the next morning Todd was gone but there were a few bikes I could still see through my bedroom window so I waited those guys out until they were all gone. When Mom came into my room to make sure I wasn't wasting the day away I was trying to do my science homework. I can't figure out why we all do the same experiments, write up the same reports, but get different marks. Normally I get better marks than my lab partner, which is lame because I usually copy some or all of it from him. I guess Mrs. Gleeson just doesn't like him as much as me. Oh well, ya play the cards you're dealt. So while I was trying to write out the purpose of the experiment again, and actually make it legible this time, Mom found the can of beer in my room. I explained it away as Todd's. I doubt she bought my line. If it really were Todd's it would have been empty and crushed, not warm and flat with only a gulp or two missing. By the time I got my butt in gear and called Jon I was told he was at work. I made plans to hang out with Train that night instead. The next morning I got up earlier and called Jon, but no one answered. I later gathered that he was at church in the morning and had to help get groceries on the way home. He did call me in the afternoon to talk. We both had homework to do so we didn't get together that day either but did spend a good hour on the phone talking about random nothing. I finished my stupid English homework and most of my science report, save for the conclusion that I'd have beg off someone in the morning. Seriously, I don't hate school or anything, but I have no idea what we were supposed to learn by mixing sugar in water and heating it up until it expanded into a big hunk of coal in the beaker. Monday morning rolled around and I woke up crusty and pissy. I had nabbed myself a boyfriend on Friday and it was now Monday and we hadn't kissed or anything! I was upset until the bell after first period when I saw Jon at the usual place in the halls, passing each other on the stairs. Instead of the usual smile and nod he gave me a friendly swat on the arm as he passed and said hi to me. Neil only got and gave back a nod. My mood instantly lifted. In gym class we acted normal, aside from a double-entendre shared just between us while we were doing laps around the school track to warm up for class. I don't remember what I even said, other than I had worked it over in my mind all day and was dying to drop it into a conversation. Jon was in the half of the class that was taking tennis that week and I was supposed to be in the half taking soccer. He had brought a second racquet for me in case I was able to get Coach to let me switch. Coach was all for it as it would mean less running around and more energy for football. After a few minutes I wasn't so sure about the less running around part because I was running around a whole heck of a lot! Jon joked at one point about swatting my butt with his racquet to encourage me to not miss easy shots. It was an innocent enough comment at face value, but our eye contact and the way he said it suggested he meant it in a more sexual way. That night I was too tired from learning new plays for the senior team to do anything afterwards. That and it was an exceptionally long practice. Tuesday night I went to the movies with Neil, Tania and Tim. We went to see The Matrix, but in it's first full week it was sold out by the time we got there. We ended up seeing 10 Things I Hate About You. Tania got all worked up over Heath Ledger. Neil got all worked up about Tania. Tim got all worked up about Julia Stiles. I got all worked up about Joseph Gordon Levitt, he was cute and well, really cute. I found myself thinking this or that about him was like Jon. Jon worked Wednesday night. Thursday night, after a short practice was the first time all week that Jon and I could get to spend together. My mom was home evenings that week, so Jon and I met at the school football fields after practice. He walked home with me and gave me directions to his place. His hand sure knew the directions to my butt and more than once he ran it over the silky material that my cheeks were clad in! After a shower, and some *ahem* personal time in the shower I grabbed a couple sausage dogs Mom was making for dinner and ate them on the way over to his place. I don't know what they really put in those things, but a word of warning; if you are planning on kissing a guy for the first time don't eat those beforehand. I can only imagine what they did for my breath. I just hope for Jon's sake that it didn't smell like death. We ended up kicking around in his pool for a bit, but his sister Lacey was also there with a couple friends too, so we couldn't get close. Jon came up with a plan to have a little private time at a park just down the street from him. It's not your average park in the city with a swing set and a few trees. Although not in the same good state of repair as those in swank neighbourhoods, Freed Park is much bigger than your average park. It's home to a couple baseball diamonds and football fields that double as soccer pitches in addition to the usual swings, sandbox, and kid toys. It's like a full square block of green space. More importantly it has a small wooded area where we were able to find a little privacy. When we got to the park we were both nervous. We were there for one thing and one thing only. Our first kiss. Everything felt so good, so right. I was wrapped in Jon's arms, resting my head sideways against his chest and shoulder. I melted in his embrace, squeezing him back tightly. I was aware of his woody pressed against my stomach. I could smell the Polo Sport from his neck and maybe a hint of lemon tide in his laundry. Something citrus at any rate. I could have just about ate him up. We held each other tight for a little bit until I noticed that he was really craning his neck and back in order to rest his chin on my collarbone. I let go of our embrace and mentioned something like we should both be comfortable. Jon led me a few yards along the path and then up the ladder of a tree. We sat on a couple branches at a 90 degree angle to each other, me on the slightly higher one so that our faces were almost the same height. He told me that he and Phil were going to make a tree house out of this tree once but they never got around to it. They did however climb it and talk about girls and make fun of people that passed by. I was staring off into space saying some random thing when it happened. He reached his face over to mine and his eyes were closed. I leaned the rest of the way over to him and our lips brushed. We pecked and pulled slightly apart. Jon reached back in and we kissed again. It's a wonder I didn't drop out of the tree because I was so ecstatic I couldn't think. Simple functions like holding on to the tree trunk and branch were the farthest thing on my mind. As my inner auto-pilot took care of those details I took care of pressing my lips against Jon's again and again. Any time I smell Polo Sport now it takes my mind back to that moment when the world stood still for me. As the sun was setting we climbed back down the tree and hugged before heading our own ways home. I had about a five minute walk while he had roughly half that. The next night Jon came to the football game with his Ma, his sisters and their friends. Tim and Neil saw him and invited him to sit with them, but he thought it best to not draw attention to the fact that I was the tie between him and my friends. I had an amazing game that night. Not the game of my life, but I ran the ball deep a few times and got to be on the field for every play when we had possession of the ball. You may be wondering what position I played, self admittedly being a smaller guy than practically everyone else. I was a running back. I couldn't see over the linemen, but I was always damn good at spotting holes in the line to break through, seemingly almost even before they opened up. In short, I think I was better than most at reading the plays, and that's what compensated for my shorter stride and smaller stature. After the game Todd took me out with the guys to a party and I had a great time. Jon worked Saturday morning and afternoon again. I learned that he worked open-close Saturdays and 5:00 to close Wednesdays at the music store that I first met him at. Saturday night he, Michael and Train went to a house party while I went to a beach party with Neil, Tania and Tim. It was down in Victoria Harbour. That Sunday he dropped in for an hour or so after church and installed MSN Messenger on my computer for me. We risked kissing a couple times when I knew Mom and Arnie were outside in the back yard with Arnie's dog Rex. For all the passion developing between Jon and I, when he met Rex I could have been the most unattractive guy on the face of the earth with the attention he gave Rex. Rex is a brown Doberman Pinscher that lives outside at night and at the parts store with Arnie during the day. Not the friendliest, being trained as a guard dog, Rex was more of a pet because Arnie favoured him and had four other Dobermans that he left at his parts store and auto shop overnight. But Jon was just captivated by the dog. It was so cute. The following week I had another good game and scored not one, but two touchdowns! One was on a running play. The other was actually on a throw because I the only open sunburst orange helmet that our quarterback could find. Nobody could be bothered to cover the shrimp and it cost them dearly! That weekend Jon had offered to go to Austin with his sister and her boyfriend to help out with an open to close shift Saturday in the store she had recently opened, and learn inventory on the Sunday when the store was closed. Gotta say, I was hella-happy that he made her stay the Friday night so that he could catch my game first. That was my last game with the varsity squad as one of the guys I was filling in for was cleared to play again by his doctor. I was back to JV games on Tuesday nights for the remaining couple weeks of the school season. Outside of school my house-league football was starting up, and that would mean Saturday or Sunday morning games and practice once or twice a week, on weeknights. In between our other commitments Jon would most often come over when my mom was working afternoons or nights and Uncle Arnie was out with his buds. Of course when my cousin Todd was staying Jon never came around. So things went. We kept our new friendship on the secret side the maybe once or twice a week when we could get together. We did hang out together at school and after school a bit more than we used to, but that was usually with other people anyhow. Eventually we equally spent about as much time with just us together without anyone knowing as we spent together in public with others around us. It was like living a second, secret life or something, but you've got to be careful right? About a year ago things in my life started to get pretty messed, towards the end of grade 10. First off, Mom officially stopped sleeping out on the couch in the living room part time and started sleeping with Arnie full time. Now don't get all weirded out or anything; Arnie is one of Dad's brothers, so it's not incest or anything. I don't even know how I feel about it. I just don't think about it. I don't want to think about it. It makes me mad and hurt I guess. My first reaction was disgust, she is my mom after all and was sleeping with my dad's brother. But like any teenager I worked quite diligently to hardly ever see my parental unit, so I guess I was able to run from dealing with it. She's not a bad mom by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that my preference was that she had her life, and I had mine. Just so you know my dad is the 3rd of 4 sons, and was closest to Arnie growing up. He and some friends went to prison for grand larceny and some other crap when I was in grade 8. I think a couple security guards got pretty messed up in the process, but no one died. Dating back to his original arrest, he has either been in jail or prison since I was partway through seventh grade. Yeah, that was a great time. I got a lot of alienation at first from my friends back then. Michael was one of only a few friends that didn't change towards me. Not that I especially thought that I was gay at the time, but I guess that's when I learned for sure that I could never come out to anyone about my sexuality. People act strange to you for anything and I never intended to give anyone a loaded gun like that to use against me, Jon being the obvious exception, for obvious reasons. We moved in with my Uncle Arnie when Mom lost her job and Dad left us bankrupt because all of his money was frozen and his legal fees still had to be paid. Again, I was in grade 8 at the time. Anyhow, when Dad actually went to prison, Mom was a Customs Agent and was forced to quit because of her relationship to a convicted criminal. I kinda think Dad was using her to smuggle things but she won't say boo about it. At the time Jon and I started our relationship Mom was working rotating security shifts, days, afternoons and nights, and was technically going to school for accounting. For school she was supposed to be on a work placement with a national accounting firm. But the work placement didn't pay, and life costs money, so she was out of school and working full time until the next semester. We also partly moved in with Arnie because his old lady left him years ago and his house needed some serious help. Actually I hardly remember what Janice looks like, it's been so long since I saw her. Arnie has a really nice house that he bought after his settlement with Janice, funded from his auto body shop and an auto parts store that he both started and owns. Of course I think those were originally funded by less than honest means. But it's none of my business. So being family he took us in and let us have use of his house. Arnie took the second bedroom, and gave the master bedroom to his son Todd and myself. The room basically fits two twin beds, and two dressers with my computer on a sewing table between the beds. I get most of the closet and we keep the knickknacks to a minimum. I've kinda raised myself a lot so far through high school because I would get in deep if I screwed up but was otherwise left to myself. My cousin Todd was actually my biggest influence. Todd is now 18, and plays college ball on the practice squad at Texas Tech and is a total chick magnet. Before college, so like since grade 8 back when Mom and I moved in all the way through grade 10 for me, Todd was only staying over every other weekend as per Arnie's divorce settlement. But I looked forward to those weekends as it was fun to spend time with him away from school and football practices and games. He's never been a jerk to me, and didn't seem to mind me or treat me like crap. Todd is like a perfect gentleman and is really cool to me whereas his dad is a typical biker. Of course I know where Todd kept his weed hidden in his smelly old gym bag to try and mask the smell from me. I also know that he stored and occasionally replenished his condoms in a cookie tin that he kept in his dresser. And now that he's grown up he still loves his football card binders, but more for the prono mags hidden in them than the cards. Yeah, I've done a bit of snooping over the years. But I stopped looking at the porno mags when I started talking to Jon a lot more. Cock shots sure are nice, but the girls do nothing for me. Sorry, gotta say it; vaginas are weird. They scare me. Plus I didn't ever want to think of Mom and Arnie doing that stuff. Yeah that's right, they go at it in the next room from time to time now, and hearing them at it grosses me out sooo bad as it is. It got to be that Jon started coming over a lot more in the late spring and summer of last year. But at first it was always only in those times when I was home alone. And from time to time Jon would hang out with Neil, Tim and me, and sometimes with all of us and Tania too. Jon actually exchanged numbers with Tim and Neil, although he never used them. Jon and I also started going to the school baseball games together. Michael never came with us because he hated watching `fairies in skintight leotards wearing oversized cups to mask their shortcomings, swinging twigs and running around like fruitcakes'. You might glean from the double use of derogatory slurs that Michael is the biggest homophobe I've ever known. You'd be right. Anything Jon and I were to do had to be behind his back. Train on the other hand would sometimes come to watch Tim and Neil's games with Tania and us. Train was like my big brother on the football team. He was already playing Varsity full time because of his size but he loved me being his little big-mouthed, smart-assed side-kick, and made time for me. After the first game I slipped up and commented to Jon on how cute I thought one of the other team's players was. Jon laughed and said he thought the same thing. So we started this thing when after a game we would exchange opinions on the boys, and decide on our hottie of the game. If we were by ourselves at a game we could quietly banter back and forth rather than have to exchange notes later. One thing that bothers me is the first baseman for our school, Paul Hunter. I think Jon always led us to that side of the field to watch his bulge and butt. When I would offer him as the hottie of the game Jon would feign that he thought someone else, but then we'd agree on Paul. Paul has a body very similar to Tim, but we never chose Tim as our hottie. First off it was a given. Tim's hot, plain as day. Put his tight body in a baseball uniform with his perfect curves, his amazing eyes and eyebrows under his perfectly shaped ball cap and he drips of teenage sexuality. That Paul isn't far off bothered me, but at least Jon hardly even knew his name, so I felt somewhat secure while partly jealous. A big personal accomplishment occurred for me finally in May of Grade 10. Call me a late bloomer of what have you, I don't care. I finally had a wet orgasm! It was so intense and I wasn't ready for it. I was used to the 2 or 3 times a day dry orgasm and totally messed my bed. Ugggh! It was everywhere, and I didn't want Mom or Arnie to know, so I just slept the rest of that night in Todd's bed. Wow! I was on a cloud because finally I had a way of feeling like I wasn't a little boy among men. As stupid as it might be it gave me such a personal high, and it gave me more confidence in myself. I told Jon about all of this the morning after it happened as we walked to school. "What were you thinking of?" "To be honest, I was hoping like the last few hundred times that I'd finally have something other than friction burn to show for my hard work!" "So all week then?" "What?" "You said the last few hundred times. So that's what, a week, maybe two?" "Um, no. Unlike you I'm not a Nympho or whatever, spank you very much!" "Spank me very much? No. In fact, not at all yet. Shoot, we still hardly even kiss!" "I know. It's been over a week damn it! Gotta do something about that soon. I'd do it now but there're like 20 other kids in eyesight." "So did you shoot a lot?" "Yeah, totally!" "Like how much?" "I dunno. A lot!" "How much jizz, how many squirts?" "Like a ton, it shot out twice and even more oozed out." "Hahaha, that's not a lot, but that's great! I'm so happy for you!" "Cool, now you can eat my cum!" Of course we hadn't even touched each other yet, but it seemed like the right thing to say for a reaction. The reaction I got wasn't what I expected. I was trying to gross him out, not meaning it at all, but somehow I think he really wanted to do just that. So after my development we talked a lot about shooting off and decided that we were going to take the huge plunge and jack off together one night. Going back to the night of my first wet orgasm I guess I didn't make Todd's bed right because he asked me about using it. I told him some excuse or other but he teased me about a wet dream all the same. I do my own laundry and have for as long as I can remember; it wasn't like something new that I washed my bed sheets, and therefore Mom never found out thankfully. I try my best to make sure that we hardly talk about personal things as it is. How do you have a talk about puberty finally hitting you with your mother? Anyhow, Todd laughed and told me maybe I might finally start getting some pubes other than the ones on my head. He's one to talk! His hair is even more curly than mine when he forgets to take the clippers to it. But he is right all the same. Aside from a little down there, and more under my arms I'm still almost hairless... Somehow the same thing happened for the night that Jon stayed over in his bed. Not that I messed the sheets, but that Todd knew right away that his bed had been used. I washed his sheets again, but I guess I didn't put it together exactly the same way, although I could swear that I did. It was a Friday night when Todd was at his mothers. Jon and I were so nervous, but so excited. Jon came over for dinner on a night that Mom wasn't working, which was the rule for having a friend overnight. Right after dinner Arnie went out like usual to some biker bar, but Mom stayed home. Mom had sold her Harley to pay some of Dad's legal bills before she had to declare bankruptcy, so she has to ride on Arnie's when she goes with him, but again because I was having Jon over she begrudgingly stuck to her rule and stayed home. Jon and I went to bed early that night. By going to bed early it meant turning the lights off, locking the door, and stuffing a shirt along the crack so that we could look at gay porn on my computer. I gave Mom the excuse that I was sore and tired from football. I stuffed the shirt at the bottom of the door so that no light from the computer screen would filter out or reflect off the worn but polished hardwood flooring. On the computer Jon showed me his favorite free sites and I showed him mine. We were both really nervous and I was in a hurry so that Mom wouldn't notice the phone line was tied up. We didn't even get totally naked, I just used the fly in my boxers while Jon went for broke and pushed his gitch half way down his thighs. We didn't touch each other and were too embarrassed to even really look at each other. Jon had used one of his socks over his dick like a condom. A cum-catcher he called it. He told me that's how you jerk off without being caught. I copied that from Jon because I so far had just used whatever clothes were handy to wipe up and the sock made sense. We were so horny that we were literally both soaking up our socks with cum in like a matter of minutes. But right after that was the first time we ever full on made out! It sort of happened I guess, we were both like feeling really good like you do right after an orgasm, and Jon just sorta turned towards me and I turned towards him and we kissed on the lips. It was magic. I had never really kissed many girls ever, not that it bothers me in the least. In fact I haven't ever had much practice at kissing anyone at all. Kissing Jon right after ejaculating felt so amazing! I felt an excitement in my body when his tender and dry lips met mine. It probably rivaled my ecstasy at finally ejaculating a month earlier. The kiss was pretty brief, we pulled away quickly, and then mashed our lips together again for a lot longer than we ever had before. We were both all smiles, I know I couldn't stop a big grin even when I tried. After we dressed again I turned off the computer and unlocked the door and we watched Letterman in the living room with Mom. I told her I wasn't as tired as I had thought to cover for the earlier lie. When it was time to go to bed for real I worked up the nerve and changed into my Joe Boxer pajama pants in front of Jon. Knowing from Michael's party that he sleeps in his boxer briefs and is body shy, I was hopeful for a return favor, but didn't expect one. In return for my display, Jon shocked me again! He put on a show and tell for me and dropped his gitch to the floor and did a 360 for me before quickly whipping them back up. He had like a totally full brown bush like mature guys do over his dick to match his armpit hair but was otherwise mostly hairless between those areas. His legs are hairy but they are covered with blonde/brown hair so he doesn't look like a beast. Like I said, his upper body was and still is basically hairless, and his arms are more sparse with the blondish hairs than his legs. He was really cute and we were both red faced, but he sat down on the edge of my bed. "That was really awesome before," Jon said, making the first acknowledgement of us having jacked off together. "Yeah, it was super cool!" "Did you like it?" "Yeah." "Did you like what you just saw," He asked about his quick striptease. "Yeah!" "Can I kiss you goodnight?" "Yeah, please. That'd be cool!" With my door dangerously open we kissed again, and it lasted for a while again this time before Jon slipped over to Todd's bed. Four weeks later, right before the end of school we pretty much repeated the same routine. This time however my mom was working afternoons and wasn't home until a little after 9 and we had a little time before she got home. We spent that time naked together until I figured she would be home soon. In our secret times, when we could, Jon and I were kissing a whole lot more frequently, and for longer. So on that night after my mom went to bed we were just sitting there in my bed, both fully naked again but shyly under the covers, with our lips pressed together for like half a minute or something so I turned it into a series of pecks. I guess that was the green light he was looking for so he started to push his tongue against my lips. In no time we were figuring out how to French-kiss. I'm sure it totally sucked and we are a lot better now, but it was so awesome at the time. Our bodies pressed together a lot and it felt really good. We both were hard and eventually we both were sitting on my bed jacking off again, and looking at each other this time. Jon gave me the sock he had used earlier and picked up the one I had used. I was weirded out by this and rather than use his cum filled sock I made it look like it fell off the bed on its own. I mean it was sorta exciting to hold his sock with his cum in it, but it was also sorta disgusting at the same time too. I watched in awe as Jon took the sock I had used and slid it over his dick! In just a few strokes I could see his nice addition to my wet spot forming in the sock. He told me that it was the best orgasm he ever had when he felt my cum. I wasn't too attentive because while he was doing this I was way busy stroking away too! Seeing his body tense and his cum soak through the sock was so hot, it made my little body spasm and I instantly shot a messy load halfway up my chest and onto the blankets! I cleaned up as best as I could and we went to bed; Jon in Todd's of course. But man I tell you, I jacked to that image of Jon cumming in my head for months! After that night we started to hang out a lot more with just each other and actually started going on dates, secretly of course. The only person that knew about us right away was Todd. He put it all together pretty quickly. He knew that Jon was using his bed from time to time when he wasn't there, and one Monday night he stopped by to get some textbook he had forgot and I didn't hear him coming into our room quick enough. I was supposed to be home alone. He caught me looking at gay porn. I was totally embarrassed and tried to convince him that it was just a pop-up. As I tried to close the window a different gay page would pop up, one after another because I had more than a few open. I then tried to lie my way out of it and spin it like I was just looking at pictures of developed guys because I was so underdeveloped and felt insecure. He didn't buy it at all, but I kept saying I was totally straight. With a huge grin on his face he was like, "Whoa there little dude. So you like to put your stick in the mud from time to time then or whatever. Don't get all worked up over it." He said he had to go, but showed me where he hid his condoms in a ziplock bag in the bottom of a cookie tin underneath a pile of Reece's pieces. I knew this because one time I found and ate enough of his stale Reece's Pieces to find the condoms and had to buy more Reece's Pieces to cover up that I was even eating his candy in the first place. But I've already told you that I found his condom stash before. He told me, "Daniel, Dan, Danny boy my man! Go ahead and use them if you ever really get the chance to need one! Especially if you go for a ride down the dirt road or let a guy travel you hershey highway." Gee, what sexy terminology! Way to make me feel O.K. with myself, not! I stammered, "Uh, thanks Todd." "No probs. The condition is to not let your mom know, because she freaked on me when you first moved in about not ever corrupting you into having sex at a young age like everyone knows I did," Todd warned me. The next weekend Todd was over he changed his bed right away and was acting like a bit of a loser to me. I felt so bad. I felt like a pervert. Now I knew how Jon felt when he had touched me and didn't know I was gay too. I was so afraid that Todd was going to tell on me. He went out to a party and when he came home that night Mom and Arnie were already home and in bed, so it was damn late for sure. He reeked of pot, but seemed totally clear headed when he shook me awake. His tongue was almost in my ear when he woke me, "Turn on your computer. I want to show you something." I groggily replied something basic like, "Uh, sure. O.K. What?" He was all giggly as he whispered to me, "There's this guy, Brent. Your know Victoria? My girlfriend? He's a friend of her. She's like his fag hag or something. But he used to bang her. Come to think of it he may be bi. She offered a threesome with him once. Not gonna happen, but whatever. I casually mentioned you to him, and he wrote out a web address for you." When my computer booted up I signed onto the internet and he showed me this site, Nifty.org. He told me to have fun with the site, but don't ever let Arnie know because he and his buddies beat up faggots for fun so I better be careful. I saved the site, turned off the computer, and before going to bed I smoked my first joints ever with my cousin. On the second joint, Todd told me he knew exactly which of my friends is my butt buddy and to be careful because Jon is totally obvious. But for the rest of the year at school Todd and his jock friends looked out for me and Jon at school. Todd's at Texas Tech now, but the acceptance from the juniors and seniors on the football team made Jon and I the cocks of the walk among freshmen and again in our junior year. Even if Todd was the only one that knew I was gay. Coach Maynes took a greater interest in us too, not surprisingly though, as and I found out from Todd that the he filled Coach in on me so that Coach could watch out for harassment. As if coach hadn't already figured Jon and I out ages ago. Coach never ever said anything except for once telling Jon and I in private to be mindful because we have a tougher road to walk through life than most people and if we need his help we only have to ask. [to be continued] Dear Reader: My sincere thanks for coming this far with me and for those who wrote and gave me the peace of mind that this isn't just getting lost in the great abyss of the world wide web! We are now past the midpoint of the prologue, Spirit of the Underdog. As someone pointed out, it is a little slow in getting there. I promise it'll all make sense when we get there and I hope you stick with me for the journey! Until next week, I hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day! :-)