Loving Life
Chapter 2 -- Party
by Cemokemo

I was a little weirded out by what Will said and the way he was looking at me, but I didn’t worry about it very much, and we all left the house and got into Chance’s Taurus. Upon sitting down I noticed a sweet smell in the air, and then saw a scented tree hanging from the rear view mirror that said ‘Strawberry’ on it. Before Chance even cranked the car, Will hopped out, saying that he had forgotten something. Chance looked at me with a puzzled expression. "What is he doing?" He asked me.

"I don’t know." I said after a slight brain delay because of the weed.

"Sometimes it amazes me that he remembers to breathe." Chance said.

"Open the trunk." Will said, pounding on the metal of the car as he did. Chance reached beneath him and pulled a lever that made the trunk open with a noticeable ‘pop’ sound. We heard Will moved some stuff around, and then finally shut it. He got back into the car and saw that we were both looking at him, waiting for an explanation. "What?" He said.

"What did you put in there?" Chance asked.

"The beer, we have like 15 left, and I almost forgot them." He reached into the front pocket of the pullover sweater he had on and pulled out two beers. He handed one to me. "Here you go." He said.

"Thanks." I said, popping the top and taking a sip of the bitter liquid. Chance turned the car around and we pulled out of his driveway onto the open road.

"So the party is at Kerry’s right Will?" Chance asked.

"Yeah, but down at the pond, not at her house like usual" Will replied, and took another slug of beer.

"That’s where Hank used to throw his parties, back in the day." Chance said.

"Who’s Hank?" I asked. I was leaning forward in my seat making sure I caught every bit of the conversation.

"Hank is Kerry’s brother, he was in my class, graduated with me. Isn’t he in Florida now?" Chance said.

"California, he lives in silicone valley, working for a big internet company." Will said.

I knew who Kerry was, but I have never spoken to her. She was a little taller than me, with brown hair and a nice looking body. She was in 11th grade, just like Will and I. I see Will talking to her in the halls a lot. "Are you sure it’s cool that I go? I mean, I’m not very popular." I said.

"It’s cool, don’t worry one bit. Popularity is all about being with the right people, and you are with me." Will said.

"Yeah, anybody with Will or me is cool with everybody, we are the Graham boys, and everybody knows us." Chance added.

"Cool." I said, sitting back in my seat. The rest of the way to the party, we drove without anybody speaking. The only sounds were from the radio tuned to the oldies station that barely whispered out of the cars speakers. We rode for about 20 minutes that way.

We pulled into a driveway that rode next to a house, but we didn’t turn into the house, we kept going on the hard dirt road about a mile until we saw a pond, and a bonfire and a small shack. we pulled all the way down to the back of the pond, where all the other cars were parked. I saw John’s truck, but I didn’t recognize any of the other vehicles. We got out started walking towards that party, until Will remembered the beer again and we had to go back and get it. After we got the beer, we finally made our way to the party that we had been on our way to since school ended.

There were a bunch of people around the fire, standing around, holding beers, talking and laughing. I knew most of them, well, I knew of most of them. I never really talked to anybody, and this was my first ‘real’ party. There was a large black oil drum that stood between the people and the cars. Will and I both threw our empty cans into it and he handed me another beer from the case.

Walking up, Will was greeted by just about everybody. Wherever we walked, he gave a girl a hug or shook some guy’s hand and then introduced me. I met a lot of people whose name I already had known. We walked around, sipping our beers until we had met just about everybody. On the other side of the group of people was John, but Forrest wasn’t with him, and we hadn’t seen him yet.

"What’d ya say Johnny boy?" Will said as we approached him.

"Not much, how about you and fishy over there?" John said, I guess he was taking about my recent drowning experience. We all laughed a little.

"Not too bad, where’d Forrest run off to?" Will asked.

John didn’t say anything, he just turned and looked at the roof of the small shed that was there. On top of it, was a large person laying down, his head just close enough to the edge of the roof to puke off the side of it if he needs to. There was no mistaking it, Forrest was passed out on the roof of the shed.

"He passed out on the roof again! Damn... Let’s get him up." Will said, making his way to the shed, grabbing a few people along the way to help him. I was still laughing at the fact that this wasn’t the first time he had passed out there. Will and a few other people were now talking to Forrest, who was answering in mumbled jargon. After a few minutes of that, they began picking him up, and carefully bringing him back down the ladder that led to the roof. It wasn’t really that high up, but since Forrest was dead weight, and a lot of it, it was a little difficult. After some trouble though, they finally got him down, and Will was carrying his legs, and Barry had his hands under his shoulders. They carried him past everybody, past the bonfire and got to the edge of the pond. Forrest was still mumbling, not quite aware of where he was or what was going on. Will and Barry swung him back and forth until they had enough momentum, and let go, letting his huge frame glide out and eventually into the pond. He landed in the water with a big splash, and instantly started thrashing around. A few seconds later though, he was calm, and swimming gracefully to the shore. Everybody was laughing so hard they were almost falling down. Dripping wet, and very pissed of, Forrest walked right up to Will who was trying to stop laughing. Forrest looked him right in the eye.

"You sonofabitch." Then Forrest reached back and swung at Will’s face. Forrest connected with the side of Will’s face, and Will was thrown to the ground. Forrest then walked to his truck, got in and shut the door. Everybody crowded around Will making sure he was alright, they helped him up he rubbed the side of his face.

"I guess I deserved that." He said, wincing a little at the pain when he touched his face.

"You want me to get him back here to fight fair?" Barry asked.

"Don’t worry about it, he’s half-way passed out already. I’ll get him next time." Will said. Chance now pulled Will away, and was talking to him privately. I was standing next to John.

"So I see you rode here with Chance." John said.

"Yeah, we ate dinner with him, and I think we are staying there tonight." I said.

"So did you meet Stephen?" John asked.

"Who’s Stephen?"

"Chance’s boyfriend, he wasn’t there?"

"Chance is GAY?" I asked, a little too loudly maybe, but I don’t think anyone else heard it.

"Chill out dude, I thought they would have told you." John said.

"No way, Damn... I’ve never met a gay person before."

"Yes you have, in fact 1 out of every 10 people are gay, you just don’t know which one."

"Isn’t that..., you know, wrong, I mean nobody here cares about that?"

"There’s nothing wrong with it, and nobody really had a problem with it, if they do they keep it to themselves, because they know better." John took another sip of his beer. "You don’t have a problem with it do you?"

"No, it’s just that I’ve never been around it before, and it’s weird. I can’t see why somebody would want to be like that."

"They don’t want to be, it isn’t a choice, they are born that way. I’ve talked with Chance a lot, he’s like the big brother I’ve never had. I am sure that it isn’t a choice." John said.

"So they couldn’t be normal if they wanted to?" I asked.

John chuckled. "Normal really doesn’t mean too much around here. Maybe you have preconceived notions about us, because you have never hung out with us before, but if you keep hanging out with us, you’ll see. Normal does not apply here."

I was thinking about what John had said when Will came over to me, and put his hand on my shoulder. His left eye was getting puffy, and probably getting black, but there wasn’t enough light to tell for sure. "We are heading out now, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night." Will said to John.

"Well, I hope you eye gets better before Monday, or I’d have to tell everyone about how Forrest kicked your ass." John said.

"Alrighty then." Will said, and shook John’s hand and we walked back to Chance’s car. Chance was already in the driver’s seat and Will got in the front and I got into the back. Nobody said anything until we got off of the dirt driveway and onto the main road. "Sorry about leaving so early Clark, I just don’t think that there was anything for us there if we would have stayed any longer and, I need to get some ice on this eye before it gets too bad. Kinda sorry because that was your first party and all."

"Don’t worry about it, I had a good time regardless." I said and sat back in the seat and closed my eyes.

"Good to hear, good to hear." Will said.

Chance and Will talked softly to each other for the rest of the ride home. I had my eyes closed, and was just enjoying the good feeling I had all over. My body was warm and numb and it just felt good to sit there. I had dozed off a little when I felt the car slow down, and we pulled into Chance’s driveway. I opened my eyes, and stretched a little after we had parked. I got out and followed Chance and Will inside. We went to the kitchen and Will started filling up a plastic bag with some ice.

"I am getting pretty tired, so I think I am going to turn in for the night. You guys can stay up and watch TV or whatever." Chance said.

"I was thinking about showing Clark the dock." Will said, looking at me.

"It’s only 11:00, go for it, but don’t make it too late." Chance said as he walked back towards his room.

"What’s the dock?" I asked.

"I’ll show you." Will said, and he finished filling up the bag with ice, wrapped a small hand towel around it, and then walked to the door, motioning for me to follow him. "Chance bought this house because it is on the lake, but you can’t see it from the road. This trail goes down to it." We walked along a small but well worn path leading away from the house and the road. A few minutes later you could hear the water lapping gently at the shore, and you could see bits and pieces of the lake through the trees. Around a small curve to the right and the lake came into full view. There was a small shed and two jet ski’s on the shore. Chance had his own little inlet or cove of the lake. It was surrounded by trees on both sides and opened up in the distance to the main part of the lake. about a third of the way out from the shore to where it opened up was a platform, with a diving board, and a small ladder on the side facing the shore.

"That’s the dock." Will said pointing to it. "You want to go out there? It really nice at night, peaceful and quiet."

"I’d love to, how do we get there?" I asked.

"We swim, unless you don’t think you can make it..."

"I can make it, I am a good swimmer, just not a good rope swinger." I said.

"Well lets do it then."

"I don’t have my swimsuit." I said.

"I don’t have mine either, but we are both wearing boxers. You don’t mind do you? There’s nobody here but us."

"No problem at all." I said. We both stripped down to our boxer shorts, and left our clothes on top of our shoes and sock in two neat little piles on the ground. I looked at Will, he had muscles that weren’t just defined, but they had bulk too, yet he retained his thin build. With his ice pack in one hand, Will stepped in first.

"It’s warm, it feels good." Then we waded out until he was waist deep, and started floating on his back. "Come on in, the water’s great."

I chuckled a little at the cliché, and then complied. I put my right foot in to test the water and surprisingly, it was warm. I waded in to where Will was, and he gave me a big grin, and we started swimming slowly towards the floating platform. He had to keep his ice pack above the water, but he managed it pretty well. I wasn’t struggling, but it was a little bit of work to swim as far as we had to, but eventually, we made it. Will put his ice pack on the dock, and climbed up that ladder and I followed him. We were dripping wet, standing on the less than stable platform.

"Isn’t this the shit?" Will said, taking in his surroundings. He looked around at the trees, the water and then up at the night sky. "Look at the stars." He said.

I looked up at one of the clearest nights I had ever seen. Stars shone brightly and they just looked so distant. "Let’s lay on our backs and watch the stars." I suggested.

"You read my mind." Will said. We both laid down, right next to each other, our shoulders were almost touching. We both stared up at the expanse of the universe. I could feel the distance between the stars, the cold uncrossable distance of space, and then I would hear Will’s breathing next to me. It was two extremes, somewhere fantastic that I can never go to in my lifetime because it is billions of light years away, and a possible closeness between two human beings right there next to me at the same time. Will was a fantastic person too, as much so as the stars.

"You’re a Junior right?" I asked. I knew he was one, but I wanted to a conversation.

"Nope, Sophomore."

"Really? I though you were a grade ahead of me."

"No, we are in the same grade, I didn’t go to kindergarten until a year after I was supposed to. Chance had to go through a year down too."

That was weird, he was in the same grade as me. Hearing Chances name reminded me of what John had told me. I wonder when Will was going to tell me. "John told me about Chance." I said.

We both tore our eyes away from the stars and looked inward at each other. Will was speechless, staring at me with searching eyes. He was looking at me for some kind of sign of approval or disapproval. "It’s ok, I don’t have a problem with it." I turned my head back so I could look at the sky again, but I felt Will’s eyes still looking at me.

"Cool." He said, and then returned to looking at the stars too. We laid there for long time, not talking, just looking up at the stars. I didn’t know it, but Will was deep in thought, contemplating his next move. After a long while, he finally spoke. "Did John tell you anything else?"

"No, why?"

"Because he knows something... Something I want you to know."

We were still looking up at the stars. "What’s that?" There was a little bit of a silence.

"I’m gay." Will said, then gulped and looked at me immediately.

I turned and looked at him. His eyes were searching me even more than before. I looked right into his soft eyes, propped myself on my elbow and watched him do the same. "I think I am too." I said. Will looked so beautiful there, his body still wet from out swim, and the light from the moon shone on him just so that he seemed to glow from it.

Will leaned into me slowly, and I knew he was trying to kiss me, and it seemed to out of this world that I thought I had left reality and was entering a new dimension as I leaned in to meet him halfway. Our lips touched, softly at first and then a little harder. Our lips locked onto each other as I rolled on top of him. His tongue entered my mouth first, and then mine his. We were grinding our crotches into each other and both of us were hard. We did this for a short period of time, and then Will reached up and pulled me away.

"..what?" I asked, getting my breath back.

"Let’s save our energy, we still have to swim back, and I don’t want to have to save you again. We can finish this when we get back to the h"Let’s save our energy, we still have to swim back, and I don’t want to have to save you again. We can finish this when we get back to the house." He was right. I got off of him, and we both stood up, our erections pointing straight out. Will dove right off of the platform and into the water, I had to just jump in and hope I didn’t go too far down. I didn’t go too far down, and when my head reached the surface, Will was right there. "Just checking." He said, and we both smiled and began the swim back.

It didn’t take as long to get back as it did to get there. I think that was because we both had renewed energy and we couldn’t get to the bedroom fast enough. When we got to the shore, we just grabbed our clothes and carried them with us as we walked back up to the house. The grass just outside the door to the house helped us get the mud off of our feet before we got inside. Once inside, we walked as fast as you can while still trying to make as little noise as you can. Up the stairs we went, and into the room. Once we were both inside, and had set our stuff down, we looked at each other, smiled, and shut the door.

email: cemokemo@yahoo.com
Website: GO DOT TO CEMOKEMO Stories are always posted at nifty after the next chapter is posted on my site. So, this means that LL3 is at my site.