Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2012 02:01:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Boris Chen Subject: The Summer of '71 The Summer of '71. June, 1971 Introduction. Mark, Scott, Terry, and Me. The setting is a while ago, during the CB (Citizen's Band, 27mhz) radio craze when almost everyone had one in their car and lots of people had them in the house. This is years before the internet or home computers so it became a wireless social media, 23 channels or 'chat rooms' as they're called today. Biggest problem really was the freqencies used for CB then and now are really best used for international daytime shortwave broadcasting, not across town two-way voice communications. It was a constant struggle to get decent performance. Someone always had better signals than you. The home antennas were large and ugly keeping lots of families out of the hobby. And the FCC also required you to be licensed, which was just an application and money issue really. I had my mom apply for me since I was just a teenager. For adolescents it opened a channel of communications allowing people that live far and un-connected lives to get to know each other just because they met on the CB and started chatting. This is how I met Mark. He turned out to be six months younger than me. We were both starting high school in the fall, would be at the same school but might not really ever meet or talk since our school was pretty large. Baby Boom era made for very large class sizes and schools. We'd always had big class sizes so it was all we knew. Growing up on different parts of Victorville, California we were not likely to cross paths without the CB meeting. Just for the sake of trivia, most CB radios back then were designed for use in a car. Home versions were expensive and hard to find. Most people used mobile radios in the home, with a 12 volt power supply to replace the car battery, a wire to run from the radio to the outdoor antenna, and a simple outdoor antenna you would mount on a vertical pipe putting the bottom of the antenna just above the roof of your house. Higher was better, shorter wire from radio to antenna was better too. Most home set-ups gave you a range of under ten miles in any direction depending on weather and how well the CB frequencies would carry your signal. Sometimes your signal would 'skip' which was technically illegal but only controlled by nature enabling you to talk sometimes hundreds of miles for a short time. This story is based on actual events, real locations, real people, and real situations. The names and locations are changed to protect the people involved. The dates are accurate too. This story is rated PG-13 and will contain no explicit language. Positive comments are welcome at borischen at rocketmail dot com. You can see all my works at http://wattpad.com/borischen Chapter 1 The setting is during the CB craze when practically everyone had one in their car and lots of people had them in the house. Since my parents wouldn't allow an outside antenna I made one from a car antenna which was tiny and almost invisible from the street, which my dad tolerated. It's poor performance also restricted my range. This is how I met Mark. We were both starting high school in the fall, would be at the same school but might not really ever meet or talk since our school was pretty large. Baby Boom era made for very large schools. We'd always had crowded classes, fifty kids per classroom was not out of the ordinary. Growing up on different sides of Victorville, California we were not likely to cross paths without the CB meeting. Over the summer I rode my bike to his place and him to mine. We met at the bowling alley to challenge each other at our most successful pinball machines, wagering a pop or coffee from the vending machines. I don't think we ever bowled. Over time we got to know each other even more which is when the subject of more clandestine meetings came up. There were no community pools in our area and even if there were, we'd probably opt to go elsewhere just to avoid the kids and noise. We planned to meet at a condo pool about halfway between his place and mine at 1am. It was summer vacation so missing out on sleep or staying in bed too long the next morning was no problem. We both lived near the same freight train line, it became our personal late night sidewalk. Bad part was it might be used by all sorts of people late at night, and wasn't the safest of places to be after midnight. We liked this condo pool because the fence was short with a sturdy wood railing on top, an easy climb. Only a few places had windows looking out over the pool so we were pretty safe from police or neighbors as long as we were quiet and didn't damage anything, which we never did. The back end of the condo was right next to the rail line property and there was no fence, just a well worn narrow foot path from condo driveway to through the weeds to the rocky train tracks. The pool was at the back end of the complex near the train lines too, which made it more convenient if a hasty retreat became necessary. First time was smooth. I think he said he got there about two minutes before me and saw me in the distance by the moon light. It was my first time walking this path so I wasn't sure exactly how long it would take. But there we were. Towels twisted and tied around our waists, that's pretty much all we had. I put thin colored swim trunks on under my jeans at home before I went to bed. We met on the tracks and talked about how we got out of the house without waking up any parents or brothers and the hike over, which for both of us was about one to two miles each way. All was cool. We had to remind each other a few times to keep our voices to a whisper. We headed down the foot path that started by the tracks and ended at the edge of the condo parking lot by a car garage. We had to swat mosquitoes a few times on this one hundred foot long path through chest high weeds. At the edge of the property Mark (who was in the lead since he'd been here before) motioned for us to stop and listen for a moment, then crouching down we crept across the driveway, up the hill to the pool fence, with little effort we scaled the fence and walked side by side up to the edge of the pool to inspect the waters and what pool areas had the least visibility to the second story windows on the closest condo units. Mark pulled his shirt and towel off dropping them next to the water then turned to me. Then came the embarrassing part, but not for Mark. We walked over by the building that housed the bathrooms, which were locked. Only residents had the keys. He stripped to his underwear. I did the same. We walked to the ladder, he dropped his undies and silently climbed into the pool. I lowered myself in with my swim suit on - kinda afraid of being seen naked at that age. We swam and talked for about three hours but lots of that time we just stood in water up to our necks just talking about people on the CB on our channel, we hung out on channel 14. Mark seemed to know lots of people on CB from meeting them, I was more of a newcomer. Actually, I was a newcomer to channel 14, I had been on channel 7 mostly since most of the kids at my school were on Ch.7. Mark was a little weird but I'm sure he thought I was weird too, but at least he seemed perfectly safe and harmless. He kept trying to talk about masturbating but I kept changing the subject back to school and CB radio stuff. He kept asking me how often I did it, how I moved my hand, if I played with other parts of my body, questions like that. Definately a fishing expedition. For a time he sat on the edge of the pool with his feet and ankles in the water, still nude, legs spread wide. I was standing in the water up to my lower chest. I think he was trying to show off his crotch, but you never know. A few times he suggested I take off my trunks and skinny dip like he did, said it made it more fun. I mostly ignored his suggestions. I'm sure he wanted to see me nude and see if I was open to doing stuff, which I might have been but at that age was really too uptight to participate voluntarily. A few times he swam between my legs and had me do the same to him. He always groped my legs on the way. We stayed much longer than we planned during our talk at the bowling alley, which was really close to the condos. We also agreed to use code phrases for our meetings and as substitutes for actual names of places. We knew these talks could never be done over the phone. We both headed for home after silently climbing back over the fence around 4am. We walked straight to the tracks then headed in opposite directions. We had a good time really. By the time I got to my yard there were just the first signs of dark blue in the sky off to the north-east. I made it back to bed about 45 minutes before my parents woke up. I had the whole sneaking out late at night thing figured out to a science, they never knew. I never got caught, never did anything wrong aside from being out too late. No crimes, or alcohol, nothing really just innocent late night fun. In two weeks we met again, same plan, same everything. This time, he brought his little brother along. Scott was almost two years younger than Mark, but very close in size and appearance. This time they dominated the conversation which was masturbation. I got the idea that these guys were really sex focused because that's about all they wanted to talk about. I think they were looking for a third partner and I was being interviewed. Don't know if I passed but nothing happened that night or any other night between us. I was way too shy and lacking self-confidence to do anything with them without being forced into it. Chapter 2 In two weeks we met again, same plan, same everything. This time he brought his little brother along. Scott was almost two years younger than Mark, but very close in size and appearance. This time they dominated the conversation which was jerking off. We planned the second pool trip during our next visit to the bowling alley (the BA) pinball machine arcade. When I arrived Mark had a few free extra ball credits and a helluva score on his favorite machine, one with a spinning wheel in the center. We always learned stuff from watching each other master paddle/ball control and subtle hip movements on the front of the pinball machine. Mark was way much better than I was but I had a couple tricks he never knew on two other machines. We rode our bikes to the bowling alley which was at the edge of the business district but also sat next to the tracks. He had a ten speed Raleigh and I had a nearly indestructible Schwinn ten speed with toe clips. There were lots of bikes in the rack when we arrived. We got coffees from the vending machines right next to the arcade loaded with sugar and creamer. Mark asked me if I ever met two of the other guys he knew since elementary school who were also on channel-14, I answered 'no'. He warned me about one he called Butthead, telling me he had an arrest record and smoked pot, to be aware of him and not bring him into my house or let him know where I lived. He never made eye contact when he told me who to avoid and who was cool, so I didn't really believe everything he said. He also warned me about GraveDigger being a mean old man who owned the lawn and garden store in town. We discussed a pool meeting time and day. Finally picked one that would be good for both of us. I left after using the bathroom. It was on Thursday night, 1am, same place we now called 'Papa-One' short for 'pool-one'. For times we always subtracted six hours and never said AM or PM. 'Home' was channel-14. 'Heat' was the police. 'Threes' was for bye. 'Union' was code for un-cool, 'Ocean' was code for cool, and 'Peter' was for parents. So we could say on the radio or phone something like: "You ocean for seven papa-one today, peter union." Which meant he wanted to know if I wanted to meet at the condo pool at 1am but we had to pick our words carefully because his parents could hear our conversation. My reply would be: "Ocean three's." Which meant: "yes, cool, nuff said, bye." During the day Thursday I rode my bike to Walgreen's to get a pack of Vivarin pills. I took a short evening nap then went to bed around 10pm, laid in bed reading then listening to my radio quietly until midnight. My routine for late night escape was to get up around midnight walk to the bathroom, pee, flush, open the door, shut off the light but head for the kitchen instead of my bedroom. I would hover a while in the kitchen to listen if anyone woke up, then silently slip out the back door, down the street, around the corner, down the street, down the foot path and onto the tracks. Just before walking up the hill to the tracks I could watch out in both directions to make sure nobody else was there, then head for the condo. The tracks crossed two streets on the way. Part of the trip was in the woods so the risk of being busted was low but it was always scary. You always had to be on the lookout for the cops because a fourteen year old walking the tracks at 1am was never a good thing. Like last time we met on the tracks. Mark was late so I sat on the rocks to wait. In the distance I started to hear voices, then they emerged from the dark. I wasn't expecting two people. Never knew Scott was interested in these late night adventures. Mark produced a tiny amount of pot, a lighter, and an onyx pipe. We all took a single hit and the dope was gone, barely enough to feel anything. Same as last time, we quietly approached the condo property, stopping to make sure the pool area was empty of other late night illicit users. Scott had a hard time remembering to be quiet. Mark had to hit him a few times when he spoke in a normal volume, he whined but tolerated his older brothers strikes. Scott had the same basic body as Mark but a little shorter. They were both skinny hairless pale boys. Mark was about 5' 8" Scott was maybe 5' 6"? I was the same as Mark but thicker and had some chest and arm muscles from weight lifting in the basement with my older brother James who was in college. Mark and Scott had shaggy brown hair that covered their ears but just barely touched their shirt collars in back, but hung down to their eyebrows. They had identical outy bellybuttons and small dime size nips. Mark said he was a baby when Scott was born. Their mom was a large woman, probably over 300lbs, blond, huge booming voice. Their dad was a small man who was a produce company executive and travelled a lot all around the state. They were Catholic I think. We made it to the fence, Mark pushed his brother over the top by pushing up on his butt, then I helped Mark the same way, but I vaulted the fence like it was a gymnastics pommel horse. I made the most noise when my shoes landed flat on the concrete patio around the pool. Scott shushed me with an angry look, Mark reached over slapping his chest with the back of his hand. We walked to the pool side to stand and listen for a while and inspect our surroundings to be sure nobody was watching from a nearby condo. Although there were about twenty condo units that could see the pool the bushes they had growing just outside the fence mostly obscured any direct view of the water but not the top of the fence which is why approaching by stealth was so important. The closest two condos could see almost every thing on the pool deck, we kept an eye on them for any signs of life. Scott was the first to go, he pulled off his shirt over his head, kicked off his shoes, pulled off his socks, dropped his jeans and underwear then silently climbed down the ladder, then Mark did the same. Me being the more modest walked over to a lounger and stripped to my underpants and climbed in the shallow end. We all went under water to wet ourselves then slowly moved together in a cluster so we could keep our voices low. At first I thought he was shaking because he was chilled but I soon figured out that Scott was jerking off under the water. Mark flinched a few times but stood maybe two feet from me. The brothers were almost touching side by side. I watched as Mark reached his hands up to his hair to slick it back out of his eyes then suddenly lurch forward as if groped, Scott must be grabbing him too. He glanced over at his brother who was smiling and still jerking rhythmically in the water. They were like shoulder to shoulder touching close, I was close by in front of them, facing. Scott would say more than once that it was impossible to 'do it' in the water, Mark would agree, but I had done it in the bath tub at home with success so I disagreed. So Scott challenged me to strip and prove him wrong. He said it about three times, but I mostly ignored his challenges. About fifteen minutes after we got in the water a rent-a-cop drove slowly past shining his flashlight in the pool area but we were too low to be seen from the street. Not sure if someone saw us and called or it was just a routine check. It was a good reminder to stay quiet and not be seen. After maybe a half hour in the water, Mark waded to the closest side of the pool, put his hands on the deck and boosted himself, naked, onto the deck and sat with his lower legs and feet in the water. Scott and I moved nearby. Scott lifted his left arm laying it on Mark's thigh still twitching like he was stroking himself under the water. They asked me all sorts of questions about masturbating, like how often and how long and stuff like that. A few times I saw Scott reach over and gently tweak his brother for maybe a half second, then as if to catch himself would go back to working himself. Then they tried to convince me to skinny dip, which I also declined but when asked why not I just froze up and didn't answer. Twice Scott went under water to tug downwards on my underwear and poked me in the bellybutton twice. I managed a few times to get the subject changed to bikes or radios or music but they always got the topic back to crotches and themselves. Scott was fine but I got the impression they were trying to recruit me to join them in a pool romp, which I might have had they pushed harder. It's not that I didn't want to but I was too scared and naive to say yes. I think we left early because Mark wanted to get his little brother home earlier than 5am. We got our stuff and walked to the fence. Mark started pee'ing through the chain-link lower section while we stood by watching, then Scott did the same looking like he wanted us to watch and admire. I pretended not to watch but did out of the corner of my eye. I think they were both semi hard. Same as our arrival, Mark boosted Scott over the fence, then me, then him. He groped me on the way over the 2x4 railing on top. There was one spot that had no bushes on the outside which is where we were forced to scale the four foot chain-link and wood fence. Back across the driveway and out to the tracks. It was cooler out tonight so we were all shivering. Scott was in front of Mark who stood right behind him holding him in an embrace from behind while we briefly talked. Mark was slowly rubbing his hands all over his brothers bare chest while we talked, I don't think he was really aware he was doing it in front of me. I thought it was a little odd to show your brother such physical affection, but maybe it was my family who was weird and not them. About the only thing my older brother did to me was to punch my arms or upper body. A few minutes after we parted ways I looked back but couldn't see them any more. They had to go through part of the business district on their way home so I had no clue how they did that without being seen by the cops. I got home around 3am. Again, another perfect night out. Didn't get caught, no laws were broken really except a little trespass and curfew violation. And in the pool area we're probably quieter then most of the residents in that condo. I rode past it during the day before and saw it full of screaming kids and drunk men yelling at each other. It was a fairly nice condo, one of the earlier ones in the city. You had to have a good income to live there but that didn't mean you never got drunk and acted like an jerk. Mark told me that next week his family was going on their annual trip to Disneyland so it would be a while till we could meet again. We did talk on the CB almost nightly for a few minutes or so. We mostly talked about music or CB radio stuff, skip, band conditions, and stuff like that really. One night while he was out of town I was scanning the channels and I think I found the guy he called Butthead, he warned me about him but his advice seemed too exaggerated to be true so I called and he answered. We met on the radio and agreed to a friendly pinball challenge at the bowling alley. It seemed all the locals called the bowling alley in town the "B.A." instead of Victorville AMF Lanes. Terry and I agreed to meet tomorrow afternoon 3pm at the BA. Chapter 3 It was almost the weekend of the 4th of July. Today was June 24th. My new friend Mark was at Disneyland. I was set to meet Terry at the BA for a pinball challenge, loser buys pops or coffee. The new machine this summer was Gold Rush by Williams. I liked the basic layout and ease of mastering it. Required little if any side boosting and was pretty much a one to four player game. I had no idea what Terry looked like but when I arrived there was a kid my age sitting outside against the pole that supported the canopy at the main entrance, I introduced myself, we shook hands and went inside. I noticed right away that he was a little brownish skinned and a bit taller than I was, maybe 5'11". He sounded like the guy on the CB too. There were about twenty machines in the arcade so I pretended not to see Gold Rush hoping he would suggest it as their newest machine, also the one I had the must luck with. In this era of mechanical pinball there were no previous high scores displayed, just those for the current game. I changed a dollar, he did the same. We laid our quarters on the glass. He pulled out a pack of smokes, lit one and laid it on the side too. Not sure if he was trying to impress me or not. But I mostly thought that was gross. My dad smoked and I hated the stench but knew enough to keep my objections to myself. We played enough two player time for him to pull in the lead with one really lucky ball that seemed to go on forever. He was so lucky on that one ball. It took forever for that machine to tally up his points and light up the free ball counts. What should have been a twenty minute challenge turned into fourty five minutes. He won. I bought coffee for both of us so we sat in the concession area and talked over the loud noise of the bowling alley. Like Mark and me, Terry was also to be a freshman at Victorville Central High in September. We talked about CB and stuff for a while. He finally asked me if I knew Mark, which I said I did, then he asked if he talked about him at all, which I said yes. Then he started boasting about being arrested in 7th grade for robbing a house and spending time in a lock-up and being on probation for a year. That all was behind him. He seemed to be trying to look all big and bad really, I saw right though all that tough talk. He seemed decent enough, not sure why Mark hated him so much. I kept that to myself. He invited me to come see his CB radio set-up at home and spend the night if I liked some weekend, which I accepted but never set a date, sort of leaving it open-ended, someday we might, sounded like fun. He described where he lived. I knew the area but never really been on his street because it was a dead end. I think I had a cousin that lived close to his place a few blocks over maybe. During our talk about Mark and others on CB he told me about all the trouble Mark got into last summer, wrecking his parents car without a license at age fourteen, one pot arrest the same summer, caught shoplifting beer, and said he was a fag too. I never reacted to his stories, doubting their accuracy for now. We parted ways after a hand shake out front of the BA after about three cups of coffee and three quarters worth of pinball. Total cost of this trip for me was $1.50. He came out ahead but I think I made another friend. The next day I heard Mark on the CB as they were driving home from Anaheim on the I-15. His dad had a CB in their station wagon, Mark couldn't resist. Several of us talked to them for the final twenty miles of their trip home. We exchanged code for talking on channel-14 later that evening. Four days later we met again at the BA for more pinball, this time we spoke very little, played different games but did have one coffee together at a table then left. That night we made plans to meet at the pool next week on Monday night, 1am, same time/place as last times. Monday June 29, 1971 That evening we talked briefly on channel-14, "ocean" was about all we said, which confirmed our plans as discussed last weekend. Same pattern as last time. I actually freaked out a little because my dad fell asleep on the sofa in front of the TV and didn't go to bed until around midnight. He nodded off at 10pm during the news. I was afraid Mark would walk to the pool and find me not there and get pissed. He never showed me how he managed to leave his place late at night. My escape route plan was based on parents being in bed. I had no idea how bullet proof his technique was but I figured it must be good because he said he went out after midnight lots of times. His parents must be on guard. Mine were totally ignorant. We met on-time on the tracks, didn't talk much. After we crossed the fence I asked how his Disneyland trip went, he mumbled something about having to play 'the family game' for 72 hours that it wasn't fun. I suspect there was a whole lot more he never mentioned. Same as last time, we silently approached the water, him in the nude, me in my underwear. We slowly slipped into the water and swam back and forth across the short length of the pool underwater. We didn't speak much but it felt nice to cool off since it was rather sticky warm outside. Mark tried to wrestle with me a couple times but I resisted fearing we'd make too much noise. He seemed determined to do whatever it took to slide his hands across my body as much as he could. He never did that before. He tried to dunk me several times. Once he yanked my pants underwater as he swam beneath me. I didn't respond quickly since I knew he just wanted to see my junk, which I was getting closer to tolerating. He got a glimpse of me tonight. We even goosed each other twice tonight, a first for us. But it was all in good fun as we tried to dunk each other sort of in slow motion trying to be as quiet as possible. I think it was really us just trying to feel as much skin on each other as we could since we deliberately did it in slow motion every time. After about one hour in the water he climbed out to sit on the edge like always. I stood between his feet with his crotch less than two feet from my face. I think it turned him on a little. I even checked his stuff out visually a couple times while he watched, probably hoping I would do more. One time he lifted his lower legs trapping me with his feet into staying really close to his knees. I never reacted, so he dropped his legs back down. After two hours we decided to leave. I helped him scale the fence, I boosted myself over. This time he tossed his clothes over and let me handle his rear nude (on purpose I assume) then got dressed in the grass with one hand on my shoulder to balance himself while he struggled to get his pants on, socks, shoes, and before he could get his shirt on we saw a cop car drive in the condo entrance. We ran like mad for the foot path heading for the tracks. I was dressed he still had his shirt in his hand. We ran to the tracks then towards my house maybe fifty yards then down another path and laid in the dirt side by side listening for the cop if he saw us at all. We saw a search light scan the tracks shining on the tops of the weeds above us, going side to side slowly. He must have seen us run. We stayed on the ground for a few minutes pressed into each other. He was on his back, I was on my stomach right next to his side leaning into him. He looked at me covered his mouth and chuckled a little. He reached over and messed up my hair, I reached over and pinched on of his nips. We both laughed a little. After maybe ten minutes we both got up, he pulled on his shirt, but I stopped him to hand wipe off his back. He did the same to me, then we shook hands and parted ways. I knew he had a harder trip home because the police department building was also near the tracks on his way home. For Mark to go home he took the tracks only part of the way then a sidewalk the rest of the way because the tracks turned moving further away by the time they got near his neighborhood. When I got to my neighborhood I had about five blocks to walk home, he had about twelve blocks to go when he got off the tracks. I walked them for about a mile, he had about 3/4 mile on train tracks, we made out about the same really. One time on my way home I encountered two strangers, young people walking towards me. When I saw them I stopped but decided not to act afraid and kept on going. Eventually we passed each other. It was two boys. They stepped off the tracks walking on the other track bed where the rails and ties were removed years ago, as if to yield the way to me also not knowing if I was a murderer or what since it was 3:30am and very dark and scary in the woods on the freight train tracks. You could scream for help out here and nobody but raccoons and possums would hear you, and maybe later on eat your remains. I never told Mark that I met Terry. He never talked about Disneyland. We had a good time and agreed to do it again. He did ask me if I wanted to sleep over sometime, which I also gave a tentative yes. We talked lots the next night on the CB but never used our codes or talked about the BA or the pool. I liked Mark. He seemed to be very discreet and trustworthy. Oh yeah, and he never once mentioned the name Scott. A week later he asked me to sleep over on Saturday July 18th. I asked if Scott was going to be there. He sounded annoyed and said he had no idea if the little twerp was going to be there or not. Strange. Chapter 4 It was the weekend I had waited for. I got my chores done at home and headed out on my bike for the other side of town, he lived about four miles from my home. Our future high school was about halfway between our homes. I had to ride through the center of town which slowed me down. I thought that I needed to find another route to take to avoid all the lights and downtown traffic. Just for fun I made a short loop through the condo complex where we went swimming a few times just to see it during the day again. The place almost didn't look like the same pool, it was busy and crowded with moms and little kids. Hard to think it was the same location. Back on the sidewalk heading for Mark's place. His mom was home, he introduced me. His father was out of town on business in northern California acting as wholesale buyer. He acted like the perfect gentleman in front of his mom, so did I. We discussed food and evening plans. We agreed on shooting some hoops in the driveway then maybe popcorn and a movie on TV or some TV show or something. His mom mostly stayed in the kitchen, we sat in the small downstairs TV room and picked out a show or two to watch. Then he got up, slapped my knee and challenged me to a game of around the world on the driveway. He grabbed his mom's car keys to move it in the garage, which was huge. Their house was almost three stories tall and had a gigantic two car garage, deep, opened up into the entire basement. They could easily fit maybe ten cars in there if they did it right. Out came the ball, down went the garage door. He grabbed a couple pop cans from the basement fridge. He shed his shirt, so I did the same. It was kind of hot outside so I really wasn't much in the mood for a hard game, my heart was only half invested in this. As it turned out, Mark was a pretty good shot on his home court. Of course he kicked my butt. Of course I think the main reason for this game was to have as much skin contact time as he could manage just short of outright goosing me in the driveway. This game lasted about 45 minutes when I finally gave up. We finished our pops and went inside up to his room. He asked me if I wanted a shower, I told him I had nothing to change into. Mark went to his dresser to get out last years gym shorts tossing them into my chest and face. He left the room only to return with wet hair about ten minutes later with a towel around his waist. In the lights of his bedroom I saw he was really skinny. Not much muscle above the waist. He had no hair to speak of above the towel around his hips. His nips were small his bellybutton was a small outy. He noticed I was checking him out and seemed to stall in front of his dresser like he was wanting me to stare at him as much as I wanted. Then he told me the towels were in the cabinet behind the bathroom door, help myself. Everything I needed was in the tub. I walked down the hallway, past another smaller bedroom I assumed was Scott's which was clean, bed made and darkish with royal blue walls and carpet. Mark's was off white with a black ceiling and lots of star decals and a wooden floor. I took my shower then returned to his room with the towel on just like he did. Now it was his turn to check me out by the light of day. I had a small inny, nickle size puffy nips and some decent muscles for a 14 year old. Mark was sitting on the desk chair with his feet kicked up next to the CB. He had on his old gym shorts, I had his other pair in my hand and was sitting on his bed watching him watch me while we both listened to channel-14 on his CB. It sounded like he pulled in tons more signals than my little car antenna on the house rain gutter ever would. When he started talking to someone I stood up dropped the towel and pulled on the shorts. I looked up he had been watching me the entire time. He turned on the TV in his room changing the channel to the one the movie would be on in about one hour. Just then I heard the front door shut and voices downstairs. Then footsteps up the stairs, I saw a blur walk past his door, I assumed it was Scott coming home. The evening went by. We watched the show, ate our popcorn and hung out in his room. Mark has a twin bed on a wood frame and a desk, sofa, dresser and two windows, plus another door going to a large attic over their huge living room that overlooked the driveway and front yard. Their house was huge and had a large yard at the end of a dead end street. Later on he showed me outside where his antenna was and the grounding rod his father installed for him a couple years ago. Mark said he was studying morse code to get his ham radio license. I had no idea what any of that meant. We put the basketball away and went back inside, his brother tagging along everywhere we went. After midnight his mom shouted upstairs that we shouldn't stay up all night, so he shut off the TV and closed his door, but Scott came in sitting on his bed, me on the sofa and Mark at his desk by the CB, which he shut off. He got up to hit the switch on the wall by the door shutting off the lights. I heard them quietly mumbling to each other. I turned to stretch out on the sofa. There was suddenly a big grey blur as a large bed pillow flew across the room landing next to me. I moved into sleeping position on my back after kicking off my shoes and taking off my shirt. I heard his bed squeak and creak then the room got quiet. Eventually my eyes adjusted to the nearly darkened room enough to see the two brothers were in bed together. It was way too dark to see what was going on but I heard some mouth noises and bed frame creaking that went on for a while. At one point I think I heard one whimper, then what sounded like a muffled cry through a pillow, then it got quiet. Just as I was nodding off someone got up to the bathroom and back to bed. I heard more footsteps then silence. *** Next thing I knew was his mom was pounding on the wall at the bottom of the stairs yelling for the brothers to wake up. As I started to sit up I noticed my jeans were unbuttoned and unzipped but I remember they were all the way up and done when I went to sleep. About an hour after breakfast I thanked their mom and rode home on my bike. All in all a nice time, hope they enjoyed my company. Two days later I talked to Terry on the radio, he asked me to call him on the phone. I did. He wanted me to spend the night at his place that weekend, I agreed and asked my mom who always says yes if we don't have plans. And so it was set, next Saturday night, I would spent the night at Terry's on the 25th of July. This was turning out to be a really nice summer vacation. Chapter 5 He told me to come over around 4pm on Saturday. Terry said his mom was making us a pizza. We planned on listening to his stereo and the CB that evening. From what I heard Terry got run off channel-14 and was an outcast on channel-11 where all the noise was from every child's walkie talkie in the whole country. The noise level on our signal meters was always higher on channel-11. There were some older guys and other folks I never heard before. Terry also ventured onto channel-19 to hassle the truckers sometimes, giving bad directions and blowing a whistle into his microphone when the truckers were trying to talk from the truck stops in town. When I rode over he changed the light bulb by his front door to a green party bulb to make it easier to find his place, which I thought was nice. I parked my bike in his back yard. He showed me his wheels, a Raleigh ten speed, blue, with a rack on the back and a big chain lock. Seems Mr.Crime didn't want to be the victim of crime himself. His bedroom was totally cool. He had a Marantz stereo receiver and record player and reel to reel deck, with Bose speakers. He had a blacklight mounted on the wall above his door and a collection of blacklight posters hanging around. We listened to Led Zepplin, The Who, and Pink Floyd all evening. He kept the door shut to keep his mom from complaining too much. Around 6pm we had their home made pizza and lemonade. His mom waited on us like a restaurant. She was very nice. During dinner she asked me a bunch of questions about where I lived, my name, parents names, and stuff like that. It was like I was being questioned by the cops. Around 11pm Terry got up from his desk chair and stripped to his underwear. He was taller than me and not too skinny. He had a normal inny bellybutton and rather large oval puffy nips that stuck out like a girls. He watched me closely while he took off his clothes down to his undies. I watched the show. Then he asked me to get changed for bed. So I pretty much did the same thing, but I had a swim suit on under my bell bottom Levi's. He watched me closely while I changed. It was then that I figured out there was no place for a second person to sleep but I kept quiet about the accommodations for now. About 11:30pm he pulled out a collection of Playboy magazines handing them to me. I leafed through one of them stopping to turn it sideways to check out the centerfold. It didn't do much for me really. I think he was getting turned on by the one he was inspecting. Around 1am we were both yawning. He turned down the receiver to a low volume on the local rock station, got up from his desk chair, climbed into his bed laying against the wall looking at me. Then Terry took his extra pillow tossing it to the far end of his bed by his feet as if to suggest I climb in with his but from the other end. I paused for a few minutes pretending to be reading an article in the January 1971 Playboy, then walked over to his bed climbing in next to him with my head by his feet. We laid there in silence. We were both on our backs. His underwear was brightly lit by the blacklight, my swimsuit not so much. It didn't take long until I started to doze off, not sure how he was doing. I woke up briefly when I felt a hand on my crotch, just cupped over by stuff not moving or gripping really, just laying there like an athletic cup. I never moved or said a thing. I wasn't really bothered much by being touched by people. The one thing Terry did that Mark and Scott never did, is he just went ahead and did it without asking. Mark and Scott always asked. Except for that one time in the pool when Mark and I pretended to play wrestle which was really just a huge grope-fest as we managed to touch about every part of each others bodies except maybe our feet. Around 4am I woke up to go pee. When I got back in the room Terry was sleeping on his side facing my side. I laid down in my spot with my face only inches from his feet, which had no odor. A while later I felt my trunks pulling around the leg hole and a hand slowly slide under grabbing my stuff but I never got turned on really. I also let him get away with that too. Next time I woke up it was about 8am, the sun was shining in his bedroom window through the curtains. The blacklight was still on. Terry was still asleep now on his back with his right hand in his underwear. I stayed awake but remained in bed until he woke up. Not too long after me, he woke up. We both got dressed in his bedroom facing each other. He had a much nicer looking body than me. His hair was longer, shaggy brown looked like he hadn't had a haircut in a year or more. We went to the kitchen for breakfast then back to his room. I thanked him and his mom for a nice stay over, he invited me to return again. By 10am I was home taking a shower thinking about being felt up overnight and how I might let Mark do it if he just started. Interesting night. We agreed to meet on channel-11 nightly. For the next two weeks the noise level on the radio was astounding, we talked by phone every few days for a short time. We mostly talked about music and electronics. Next week Terry and I got together one afternoon, I stayed for dinner. He still didn't know where I lived and to be honest, I had no plan to invite either him or Mark over since my parents were totally un-cool and nosey. I went to his place about 2pm, rode over on my 10-speed, it took about twenty minutes to get there taking short cuts. We looked at his album collection. He told me the reel to reel deck was his fathers but he lost lots of his hearing and really didn't listen to music any more so he let Terry use it. Terry preferred to use the record player since tape was expensive. We listened to his CB and his stereo talking about local radio stations and where each one was located. Terry said he wanted to work in radio when he grew up and was interested in getting his ham radio license, whatever that was. Around 3pm he came back from the bathroom wearing only his shorts, I was fine in my bell bottoms and t-shirt. I got the vibe he wanted me to strip too or admire his body or something. I was a little curious about his olive complexion. Terry leaned back into his swivel rocking old wooden office chair with his arms behind his head while I sat right to his side. I looked him over from waist to neck a few times while he watched me check him out. Finally I asked, "So where you get your dark color skin from?" Terry: "My grandfather was from Panama, came here after the Canal was done." Me: "Oh. That explains it I guess. Looks like you always got a little tan." Terry smiled, reaching down to his waistband pulling it far from his stomach exposing himself fully to me saying, "It's no tan, it goes all the way to my toes!" I looked down at the skin under his shorts, sure enough, no tan line. Then I stared at his stuff, limp. I stood up, undid my bell bottoms showing off my lower stomach in the front pulling them down a few inches. "I got no tan line either, just pale me all the way down." I showed him paleness down to my thighs We both laughed. He started to get excited, I could see in his shorts. We never spoke about that stuff the rest of the time. By 5pm we were in the dining room with his mom eating stuffed peppers, scalloped potatoes, and peas, with lemonade to flush it down. She asked me a ton of questions about my family and school plans. Terry looked at me several times rolling his eyes. While we were in his room Terry left his hand on my thigh while we were talking. He squeezed my leg a few times near the middle, but I just pretended I really didn't notice or didn't care. Seems the more time we spend together the more he shows off himself and the more he touches me. I've never been bothered much by people touching me, even if I thought they were creeps. I guess I really don't care much about being touched. So I just ignored his hand in the middle of thigh. We sort of ran out of things to discuss about his electronic stuff when he reached over to the lower side drawer to pull out a couple Playboys handing me one then one for himself. Terry balanced one on the edge of the desk with the bottom on his legs while he paged to the photo section towards the middle. But this time he slid his other hand down to work his stuff with me right next to him. Our knees touching. I sort of ignored his show except for a few glances out of the corner of my eye. He had his chin down staring at the magazine, his left hand holding the Playboy, his right hand sliding up and down, half in his shorts the rest on display. He glanced at me a few times but never said anything. Not wanting to be suspected of being queer I rubbed myself outside my jeans when I saw his head turn towards me. After a couple more minutes he got off getting stuff on his stomach and chest. We both set down our mags as he pushed his chair from the desk walking around the room looking for something to clean himself up with, all the while showing off himself and the gooey mess. Terry was well built for a teen. He found a used towel near the closet door, turned to face me so he could wipe off his body. He started talking about my ride home and meeting on channel-11 tomorrow. I thanked him for dinner while he got himself back to presentable so we could walk out to his back yard. I got on my bike and rode home. Went right to my room, locked the door and relieved myself of built up tension. Wow! What an afternoon. Too bad I can't talk about it with anyone! Made me wonder, with all the stuff they have in common, what could have happened to make Mark hate Terry so much. They both'd been in trouble and on probation, so it wasn't that. Their families seemed to be about the same as far as money goes. And they had the exact same CB radios. Maybe if I let Mark touch me more he would be willing to talk about the problem. I was curious because I wanted to avoid the same trouble. Chapter 6 With less than one month until the start of the school year our family took the annual summer vacation disaster. It always started off with great plans and hype from mom but by the time we hit the road it usually turned into a great time for the Lawrence Welk generation, not for the British invasion generation. We started off heading for Las Vegas where having a teenager was a real liability to my folks. I basically had to hide at the pool and entertain myself while my parents smoked, drank, and played poker in the casino. I met a few other kids my age on my two days at the Tropicana. One girl, 'Sam' was like me, stuck at the pool while her folks gambled. We talked a few times, had lunch twice, but she always kept a safe distance from me. I think she feared for her virginity. Then Keith was a guy two years older than me who played a little pool basket ball with me twice. Helped pass the time. Next day we drove to St George Utah then to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We spent four nights there in the lodge, which doesn't even have a pool. We hiked part way into the canyon then back up. My mom refused to take the donkey ride to the bottom and back and dad refused to pay for a plane ride. Vegas was better. We left there for Monument Valley and spent two nights in a sleazy motel in the tiny Indian trading town of Kayenta. They had a pool but it was dirty with lots of sand in the bottom. Mom found two roaches while we stayed there. I think they came up the tub drain. We took tour buses both days around the area. The Indian towns were like slums. We drove home on the I-40 into California then down the I-15 to our house. I went right to the radio in my bedroom to call my friends on 7,11, and channel-14. Two nights later I met Mark at the pool. But when we got there at 1am the lights were on, the place was busy with a rather quiet late night party. On a whim we decided to see if we could crash their party so we walked-in and just sort of set-up for swimming just sort of ignoring the rest of the crowd. They stared at us but still went on with their toasting and eating activities. It looked like their party was winding down. Mark wasn't dressed for swimming so we both sat on the edge in our underwear while the rest of the crowd slowly disappeared. One woman that looked like she was in charge walked up to Mark telling him to shut off the lights and lock the gate on our way out. About five minutes later we did just that but stripped to our birthday suits then silently slipped into the heated pool water. Seems around August 1st they turned on the heat. This was the first time I got undressed in front of Mark, but he didn't seem too interested, more pleased by my decision to behave like him. We tried to stay near the side of the pool that gave us the most privacy from the nearby condo windows. We kept really quiet trying to get the most time without the cops being called. I was swimming cross laps underwater stopping to take a rest when Mark slithered up behind me grabbing me from behind with both arms around my upper body. We couldn't splash or yell so I just stood still while he squeezed me from behind. That's when I felt his stuff poking me from behind. He slid his hand down to my belly then down to grab me sliding his hand in and out. Since he had to release my upper body to do it, I slowly turned around to face him, reached down to grab him and move my hand like he did to me. We were staring into each others eyes with maybe eighteen inches between our noses. This went on for a few minutes when I stopped, them him. He climbed out of the pool like always, knees spread. This time I stood right at the side of the pool with my stomach pressed into the rough pool side underwater. For a minute or two I raised my arms laying my elbows on his knees while he asked me about my family road trip. He was excited the whole time with it only inches from my chin. I ignored the show. Mark slowly rubbed himself at my face but I decided to move further away and make a few more laps underwater. While I was swimming he got up to dry himself off with someones used towel. I wondered why he was suddenly wanting to leave. He pointed at the sky, it was already starting to turn dark blue from black. I said, "Oh crap!" way too loudly then slapped my hand over my mouth. We had been there way longer than we thought so I flew out of the pool, used the towel and yanked on my clothes. We got dressed in a flash, over the fence, out to the tracks. He paused a second offering his hand, taking mine then pulled me into him with a brief hug. We parted literally running in opposite directions. I raced for home. Running on the tracks was nearly impossible so I stayed on the old track bed instead. Running on rocks is not much different from running on the beach. When I got in the house I think I heard my father's shower running so I went to he sofa and crashed in the TV room deciding when mom asked I would tell her there was a mosquito in my bedroom that kept waking me up so I came out here. That's exactly how it happened, but she felt sorry for me, handed me the can of bug spray and sent me to bed with a kiss on the cheek. That was the closest I ever came to being busted for my late night escapades. ** For the rest of summer vacation I made a few trips to Mark's and Terry's too. We never made any more pool trips that summer. Every time I went to Terry's from then on he always exposed himself to me and often 'did it' with me in the room, once I joined him in a race to see who could be first. I suppose his mother knew based on the gooey towels in the laundry. I never saw Scott the rest of the summer but talked lots to Mark. At his place he always managed to take a shower while I was there. One time we played around the world in his driveway so he got me to shower too and that time he came in the bathroom to talk while I washed then climbed out to dry off. He was like totally hard when I got out of the tub with his old gym shorts on. I told him I needed to pee but he was sitting on the toilet. I think he just liked having me stand in front of him as long as he could keep me there with nothing on. After he started to stand up he grabbed me using it to pull himself to standing. I had to press down to aim it at the toilet since it got hard from his grip and pull. That's pretty much how the rest of our summer went. School started on the Tuesday after Labor Day. I had Mark in my gym class three days a week and had Terry in my English class. We almost acted like strangers for the first couple weeks. By October Terry had some girl on his arm in the cafeteria but Mark never did, which sort of re-inforced the rumor Terry said about him being queer. I really didn't care either way. Slowly I heard less and less of Terry on the radio but Mark and I became closer friends. Over Thanksgiving break after the actual holiday I slept over at Mark's place. Scott was there the whole time. Same as last time, he had a pillow and sheets on the sofa for me, Mark and Scott went to bed together. This time I'm sure I heard them doing it in the bed. This time they seemed less careful about hiding their relationship. I couldn't see it but I'm sure Mark did his brother. Overnight I woke up to someone's hand in my shorts but I never moved or opened my eyes. It made me hard and I think it went in a mouth briefly then the invader disappeared. I'm sure the person at my side knew I was awake but playing asleep. I thought the next day I would figure it out at breakfast by body language. At the kitchen table Mark made a gesture with his sausage link on his fork that made me convinced that he was the late night maurader. I really liked our pool times and looked forward to another summer of clandestine late night gatherings.