This story is a continuation of the story of Kevin Foley, Rick Mashburn, and their "sons," Tim Murphy and Kyle Goodson, that started in "Tim." It is about gay men and gay boys, and it contains descriptions of sex. The sex is never intergenerational. If you are offended by descriptions of gay sex, or if the law in your area forbids you to read them, please exit the story. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy it. I appreciate feedback, and you can send it to me at brew_drinker23@yahoo.com.
--Brew Maxwell
Justin
Chapter 4
We each took our own vehicles to the motel to meet with Justin. Rick and I started to ride together, but then we decided we didn't know what would have to be done after Tyrone interviewed the boy. I might have needed to go in one direction, and Rick might have needed to go in another.
Tim was the first one we saw when we drove into the parking lot. There were only a handful of people around the pool, and he didn't look very busy. He was wearing a Speedo for some reason that day, and it looked like he might have just finished a workout with the weights. For whatever reason, he looked really impressive.
We introduced Tim to Tyrone. Tim said that Justin was on the beach with Kyle, so he used his cell phone to call them up to the pool. Kyle was in a Speedo, too, and he, too, looked unusually good. Poor Justin most closely resembled a plucked chicken, with his too-white skin and very baggy board shorts. He looked pumped up, too, but, without so much as a trace of a tan, his physique didn't really compare very well to the other boys.
After the introductions, Tyrone moved aside with Justin to one of the tables that had an umbrella so they could talk privately. That left the four of us together.
"Have y'all been working out," I asked.
"Yeah. Can you tell," Kyle asked.
"Definitely," Rick said. "Y'all are looking pretty good there, little brothers."
They beamed.
"Do you guys want some water or something," Tim asked.
We all said "yes" to the water, and Tim got us each a bottle. We sat down at one of the other tables that had an umbrella.
"What's going to happen," Tim asked, after we had settled down.
"He's going to live with us," I said.
Tim and Kyle looked at one another, grinned, and touched their fists together.
"What," Rick asked.
"We knew that was going to happen," Kyle said.
"Are y'all okay with that," Rick asked.
"Of course we are," Kyle answered for both of them.
"What about you, Tim," I asked. "You're going to be with us while your dad is gone. Is that all right with you?"
"When Kyle first said he thought you guys were going to take him in, I got a little jealous. But he made me see that Jus needs us, and I am very cool with having another brother."
"It's going to have to be a team effort, boys," I said. "All four of us. Y'all are probably going to end up spending more time with him than we do. Are you sure you can handle that?"
"Piece-o-cake, buddy," Tim said.
Rick and I grinned at our boys. "Y'all are something else, you know that," I said, and they both grinned. In some ways Tim and Kyle were grown-ups in a full-fledged sexual relationship that could easily last a lifetime, but in other ways they were still little boys who craved the attention and approval of the adults they cared about.
"Y'all are the ones, Kevin, not us," Kyle said. "Do you happen to have cigarettes with you? I gave mine to Justin yesterday, and I haven't had one since yesterday morning."
I reached into my pocket to take out my pack. "If you haven't had a cigarette in over twenty-four hours, why don't you just quit," I asked.
"Why don't you," he replied.
"Touché," I said, chuckling.
Kyle and I lit up smokes, and Tim got up to look after a customer who wanted a bottle of sun screen. He came back to the table with a deck of cards.
"Who wants to play cards," Tim asked.
"I do. Let's play strip poker," Kyle said.
"Very funny," I said, and all of us laughed a little.
"Let me see those cards," Rick said.
Tim handed them to him, and Rick proceeded to entertain us with card tricks. At one point, Kyle stood up and started digging into his butt with his hand, obviously scratching himself.
"What the hell are you doing," Rick asked.
"My butt itches. I'm scratching it," he said.
"Ain't that supposed to be his job," Rick said, indicating Tim.
"Jeez," Tim said. There was no trace of embarrassment on the face of either of them. We've come a long way with these two, I thought.
After talking with Justin for a half hour or more, Tyrone walked over to our table.
"What's up," Rick asked.
"Would you excuse us, please, boys," he said to Tim and Kyle. They started to get up to leave.
"Can't they stay," I asked. "They're going to play as big, or bigger, role in looking after him as we are."
"Yeah. Sure," Tyrone said. "He seems to be pretty excited about living with y'all. At first he grilled me about who I was and what I wanted, and so on, but then he relaxed and opened up a little. He's been through a lot, but I think he's got potential."
"Well, that's good," Rick said. "Did he proposition you?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, he did, but that's one of the hazards of working with street kids. It happens all the time," Tyrone said. "He seemed really pleased about having you two as brothers, boys. Then he said something I really didn't understand. He said he felt like Eddie Haskell. Do y'all know what that means?"
It took us all a second to process the reference to the kid on Leave It to Beaver who was always dripping with politeness around adults but who was a pure jerk with the other kids. When we got it, we all laughed.
Tyrone looked a little puzzled at our reaction, but an explanation would have taken too much time.
"Well, anyway, there is going to have to be some paperwork, of course. I'll need to do a background check on the two of you, and that means being fingerprinted. You'll both have to apply for licenses as foster parents, and that might take a couple of weeks to process, unless I can get them to accept this as an emergency placement. Ordinarily, with a couple who are legally married, we license the home, but I think it's a good idea to license both of you individually. That way you can both act as his guardians. In the meantime, though, Justin will continue to live with you fellas."
"What happens if there's an emergency," Rick asked. "We both have power of attorney to take care of Tim if we need it. Who do we call or what do we do if that happens with Justin?"
"That's a good question. I'll request a decree of temporary custody just as soon as I get back to the office. In fact, can I use that phone, son?"
Tim handed him his phone. Tyrone dialed a number and gave instructions to someone to get temporary custody papers in the works. He asked us for the exact spelling of our legal names, and he also needed our Social Security numbers, our address, and our phone numbers at home and at work. He asked if we could stop by his office that afternoon to sign the papers. We said we could.
The whole time we were talking to Tyrone, Justin was waiting patiently at the other table. When we were finished with our conference, Rick said,
"Tim, go get your brother. Y'all put some clothes on, and we'll go eat lunch."
Tim got up and walked over to Justin. Kyle got up, too, and headed off to get their clothes.
"'Go get your brother,'" Tyrone asked, somewhat in disbelief.
"Was that okay," Rick asked.
"You're kidding, right," Tyrone asked.
Rick didn't answer, but he looked confused.
"That is so okay, Rick, I don't even know how to begin explaining it," Tyrone said. "Justin is one lucky young man. I sure hope he can learn from you guys."
Tim and Kyle didn't spend that night at our house. George was leaving on Saturday for two months of intensive study at the dental school of the University of Florida to get ready to take his state licensing exam, and Tim would be with us while he was gone. George had wanted to do something alone with his two "sons," as he put it, that night.
George had been over the previous Saturday afternoon, and we had talked about Tim and Kyle.
"When you guys told me Kyle might very well turn out to be my son-in-law, I was a little shocked at first. Now that I've been around the two of them together, I think you guys might be right," George said.
"What do you think about that," I asked.
"Kyle seems like an extremely nice kid," he said.
"But...," Rick interjected.
"But they're so young. They seem to be very much in love with one another. Do you think they're having sex," George asked.
"They haven't said anything to you about it," I asked.
"No. Not yet."
"Would it bother you if they were, George," Rick asked.
"We're Catholics, as you know, and all my life I've been taught that premarital sex is wrong. It's sinful. I'm worried that I'm condoning something I've always been taught was wrong."
"So, it's not the fact that two guys might be having sex that bothers you. It's the fact that the two guys aren't married to each other yet. Is that the problem," Rick asked.
"I know it makes absolutely no sense, guys. I mean, I've thought about it and thought about it. I can't get comfortable with it at their ages."
"George, the day you left, we had friends over for a Super Bowl party, and Tim invited Kyle. That was the first time we had met him, and he charmed us and our friends completely," I said.
"Oh, I have no doubt. It isn't Kyle, Kevin, believe me."
"Let me finish my story. There was a guy here with his brother and his brother's partner. I wasn't sure the brother, Fred, was gay, so I asked his brother, Mont, if he was. Mont told me that Fred had lost his partner in a diving accident the previous April. He said they had been together since they were the ages of our boys."
"That's tragic. I'm sorry," George said.
"When was it okay for Fred and his partner to start having sex? I don't know if those guys ever had any kind of commitment ceremony or anything, like we did, but let's assume they didn't. Would it ever have been okay for them to have sex?"
George was apparently troubled by what I had said.
"The Church used to teach that being homosexual was intrinsically disordered, George. Now they say it's okay to be gay, but you just can't have sex because you aren't married. They won't let you get married, and they fight hard against laws that allow same-sex civil marriages, but they say guys like Rick and me can't express our love for one another physically because we aren't married."
"Well, to me that whole position is absurd. I see your point. But they're just so young," he said.
"Is it that they're too young to have sex, or are they too young to be sexual," Rick asked.
All of a sudden, it was as though a light bulb had gone on in George's head and he could see clearly.
"I guess that's it, Rick. I guess I want him to continue being my little boy. God, how stupid of me," he said.
"I don't think it's stupid at all, George. I think it must be a natural parental instinct," I said.
"George, you've honored our relationship many times, Kevin's and mine. Sure, we made a public commitment to one another, but if we hadn't fit well sexually, it never would have happened. The boys are horny, no question. But there's much more to their relationship than that. They've both said a bunch of times that they want to be like us, and, except for the age difference, they are like us, as best I can tell."
There was a long pause. I knew George was thinking. He was one of the most decent men I had ever known, and I knew he wanted to be right and do right by his son.
"I think you're right, Rick. Thank you both for helping me with this. I feel much better about it now."
"So, are you going to let the boys fuck," Rick asked facetiously.
George laughed. "Like I could stop them if I wanted to. But after this talk, I don't even want to."
I was already home from work when Kyle dropped Justin off that first day. He came in, and I told him to get himself a snack, if he wanted one.
"In fact, Justin, just help yourself to anything but booze, okay? We don't do a sit-down dinner, usually. It's pretty much a snack for us at night."
"That's cool. After that lunch I had today, I'm really not very hungry," he said.
He came into the den with a bowl of ice cream and a coke.
"How do you feel about Rick and me being your foster parents? Tyrone said you seemed excited about it? We're excited about having you here."
"It's great. Is the state going to pay you something to help out with me?"
"Yeah. Speaking of that, we need to see about getting you some clothes, don't we," I said.
"I guess so. I don't have anything."
"I know. Do you feel like going shopping tonight?"
"Sure. Where's Rick?"
"He belongs to a club that has a meeting on Thursday night. He usually goes directly from work to the meeting. I guess that's what he did tonight," I said.
He ate his ice cream quietly.
"Tim and Kyle are boyfriends, huh? That sort of surprised me this morning," he said. Then, "I wish I had a boyfriend."
"Maybe you'll meet somebody," I said. "You've only been here a day. They have lots of friends, and I know they know some other gay guys."
"I'm not sure I'd know how to act with a boyfriend. I've never even had a friend before, much less a boyfriend," he said.
"You have friends now, Jus. You'll see just how many before too long. Rick and I have lots of friends, and they'll be your friends, too."
"I sort of like older guys, you know," he said. He smiled shyly.
"How old," I asked.
"I don't know. Between twenty and thirty, I guess. Would you have a problem if I got a boyfriend who was older than you?"
"I don't know. There might be some legal things to consider if you guys were having sex. Did you ever think of that," I asked.
"No, I didn't. You mean like he could get into trouble, or something?"
"That's what I mean. You wouldn't want a boyfriend to get into trouble because of you, would you," I asked.
"How would anybody know we were having sex," he asked.
"Well, I guess they wouldn't, unless you told them. Were most of the johns you had sex with older," I asked.
"All of them were. I've never been with a boy my age." He was quiet for a few minutes. "Kevin, I'm sorry I was such a jerk yesterday. I knew I shouldn't be coming on to you. Thanks for not being mad at me and for still wanting to be my friend."
I found that pretty moving.
He had finished his ice cream and had lit up a cigarette. He stretched out on the sofa when he finished it, and pretty soon he was asleep. I looked at his face, and I saw that he was really better looking than I had noticed at first. With all the stress gone, he actually looked rather innocent, like any kid his age would look.
Justin took about an hour's nap. When he woke up, he went in and took a shower. I had washed the clothes he had worn home from the motel the day before, and he put those on. He looked okay to do what we were going to do.
We went to a few discount stores, and, for not a whole lot of money, we bought him what was essentially a complete wardrobe. He needed a few bathing suits for his job, whatever Kyle's hastily-concocted "beach-pool liaison boy" actually did.
I thought, for the first time, about the fact that Kyle had come up with a job for him and had gotten him all settled in employment in less than a day. Kyle owed nothing to Justin, but it was as though he had taken him under his wing and wanted to help us with him. Frankly, if Jus hadn't had a job, he would have had to hang around the house by himself all day, and that would have been a ticket to temptation for him. I made a mental note to talk to Rick about it and to let Kyle know how grateful we were to him for helping Jus, and us, out.
We bought ten tee shirts, four tank tops, and a couple of button-up shirts he could wear to church and other activities that called for more than a tee shirt. We also bought him underwear, shorts, a couple of pairs of long pants to go with the nicer shirts, and a pair of jeans. He wanted Levi 501's, and, even though they were a good bit more expensive than the discount brands, we bought those. I had worn 501's all my life, and Rick had, too. I knew they were good quality and, if he didn't grow too much, he could wear those to school the next year. He had to have shoes, too, of course, so we got a pair of Nikes and a pair of loafers to wear with dressier clothes. We also picked up a cheap pair of sandals. In about three hours, we had Justin fully outfitted.
That shopping trip was productive insofar as we got him what he needed, but we also had fun. We were both really relaxed, and we joked with each other the whole time. The ultimate criterion for whether to buy something or not was whether it was "boyfriend bait." After clothes shopping, we had to pick up a few personal items, such as a razor and shaving gel. He needed to shave every day, or at least be able to, so we bought those supplies, too. I realized, when you had to buy it all at one time, that you take for granted all the stuff you use in a day . He had literally come into our world as naked as the day he was born, and he needed everything.
Rick was home when we got there. After he kissed me hello, he commented on the ton of stuff we had to unload from my car.
"Am I gonna get to see it all," he asked.
"Absolutely," Justin said.
He sat on the floor of the den with his purchases piled up around him. He took out each item, one at a time, and showed them off for Rick. He was so excited that Rick and I giggled when he squealed a time or two over some piece of "boyfriend bait" or other.
"This is just like Christmas morning," Rick said. He was excited about the stuff we had bought, too.
"It's a million times better than any damn Christmas I ever had," Jus said.
"Oh, yeah," Rick asked. "What did you get last year for Christmas?"
"A carton of cigarettes and two twelve-packs of condoms," Jus said without any emotion, positive or negative. He was sorting and playing with his new stuff like a little kid.
Rick was sitting next to me on the sofa, and he grabbed my hand hard when Justin said that. I glanced at him briefly, and I knew he was close to tears.
Justin gathered up all of his stuff to take back to his bedroom.
"Put your stuff in that room that doesn't have anything in it, buddy," Rick said. "That's going to be your room."
"But it don't have any furniture," Jus pointed out.
"It will after this weekend," Rick said. "You and I have some furniture shopping to do. Kevin and them can come with us if they want to, Jus, but you and I are going to fix your room up good."
I squeezed his hand to let him know how glad that made me.
"He deserves his own room, don't you think," Rick asked me after Justin had left to put his stuff away.
"Absolutely, Babe," I said.
"Can you imagine giving a sixteen-year-old kid a carton of cigarettes and two packs of condoms for Christmas?"
"That must have cost all of thirty dollars," I said.
"If that," Rick replied. "And the guy probably shoplifted them, to boot."
I laughed.
"Oh, the guy has a name," I said. "Jus told it to me tonight. It's Burl Jackson, but Jus doesn't know if that's his real name or not."
"God, almighty! Who would name a kid Burl?"
The next morning around eleven I had a call from Herman at the motel. It scared me at first when Jeff told me who it was before he transferred the call. I immediately thought one of the boys had gotten hurt, and, I'm ashamed to say, I thought of my foster son third after Tim and Kyle.
"Can you come over here right away, please," Herman asked me. "The state police are here, and they want to question Justin."
I told Herman I would be there in ten minutes. I immediately called Rick and told him what was going on, and he said he would be there by the time I got there.
The "state police" turned out to be two suits from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The Florida Highway Patrol had apprehended Burl Jackson for a traffic infraction on an Interstate leading down to South Florida, and they found out there was a warrant for his arrest in Alabama for the murder of a policeman. He had still had the key to room 236 at the motel in his pocket when they arrested him, and they had showed up with a warrant to search the room. When they found out that Justin actually worked there, they had decided to question him.
We immediately called Tyrone Williams when we figured out what was going on. Tyrone said he would be there ASAP, and the officers agreed to wait until he got there to talk to Jus. While we waited for Tyrone, Herman ushered us back to the room that Justin was waiting in. To my total surprise, Tim and Kyle were in the room with him. The three of them were seated side by side, with Justin in the middle. They were holding hands.
"Kevin! Rick!" the three of them said, all at the same time, when we went into the room.
Rick took over.
"Are you okay, Jus," he asked.
"He's scared shitless, Dad, and so are we," Kyle said to Rick. By that point Kyle and Tim called each of us "Dad" as often as they used our names.
Rick squatted down in front of Justin and put his hand on his knee.
"You don't have anything to be scared about, Jus. Your family is here, man. You didn't do anything wrong, buddy."
Justin dropped the hands he had been holding, and he wrapped his arms around Rick's neck in a desperate hug. He started crying. He made deep, heart-wrenching sobs, and Rick just held him and rocked back and forth a little with him in his arms.
I motioned for Tim and Kyle to come with me, and they did, but only after they looked at Justin and Rick to make sure Rick had the matter in hand.
"Thank you for doing that," I said to them, once we were in another office.
"Doing what," Kyle asked.
"For holding his hands," I said. "That was support, and he needed that until we got here."
Both of them looked at me like I had just released a turd into the punch bowl.
"He's our brother, Kevin," Kyle said.
"Yeah," Tim said in rapid tandem. "What should we have done instead?"
"You did exactly the right thing, Tim," I said. "Thank you. Both of you."
"He's really scared they're going to take him away from you and Rick," Kyle said. "From us."
"Why," I asked. "He hasn't done anything wrong."
"He thinks he has, though," Tim said, "because those guys did sex things with him. He's really scared about that."
"Y'all know what child abuse is, don't you," I asked.
They both nodded.
"Well, Jus is a victim of child abuse big time. That guy, Burl Jackson, abused Jus by making him have sex with all those guys. Jus is totally innocent, guys."
"He's afraid they'll find out he's gay," Tim said.
"For once, that won't matter, Tim," I said. "We're going to stand by our brother, right," I asked.
"Right," they said in unison.
Tyrone finally got there, and the questioning was ready to begin. At first the police officers didn't want Tim and Kyle in the room, but Tyrone insisted that his "brothers" be present. The two suits were gentle and kind in the way they talked to Justin, and I thought they were thoroughly professional in the way they handled the questioning. They kept at it for about two hours, and they made furious notes as Jus detailed some of the things that Burl guy had done to him over the years. Justin told them the little he knew about the murder of the undercover policeman. They searched Room 236 when they were finished with Justin, but that turned up no evidence whatsoever.
When the questioning was over, Tyrone joined us for a big, but late, lunch at the hotel buffet the kids ate for lunch on school days. I learned during that lunch that the state of Florida would pay for all the clothes we had bought the night before and that they would pay a lot toward the furniture we were going to buy that coming weekend.
After lunch, the boys called Herman, and he told them not to bother coming back that day and to take Saturday off, as well. Rick and I each called our offices to tell them we wouldn't be in the rest of the day, either. We all went swimming at Kyle's house that afternoon, and we had a great time being a family together.