Kyle, Part 3
Chapter 20
Disclaimer: This story is a continuation of the story of Kevin Foley, Rick Mashburn, and their "sons," Tim Murphy, Kyle Goodson, Justin Davis, and Brian Mathews that started in "Tim," continued in "Justin" and "Kyle," "Kyle, Part 2," and now continues in "Kyle, Part 3." It is about gay men and gay boys living and loving together as a family, and it contains descriptions of sex. The sex is never intergenerational, though. 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
(Kevin's Perspective)
The year for us was marked by major holidays, but it was also marked by family events. One of those family events at the beginning of May was Tim's sixteenth birthday. His birthday, May 5th, was on a Tuesday, and we were going to have a party, an almost-all-day party, on the following Saturday, May 9th.
"How are we going to do this for Tim's birthday," Kyle had asked Rick and me about a month before the actual event. He had made a joint appointment with us at our offices to discuss this.
"What are you talking about? We're going to have a pool party, like we did for Jus and you, and like we will for Kevin on May 25th. I don't get the problem, Kyle," Rick said.
"Walk through this with me, okay?" Kyle was so intense. "We have two very different groups of people, Rick. We have our friends, who are all guys and who would like nothing better than a naked swimming party, and then we have people like my mom, Sonya, Beth, and Cherie. Cherie might like a naked swimming party with us, but I don't think the other ladies would."
Rick and I laughed because we knew he was right.
"You're pretty serious about this, aren't you," I said.
"Yes, I am, Kevin. This is important," Kyle said.
Rick and I were both tickled to death at him, but we also knew he was right, and we knew not to laugh at him.
"Where were you thinking about having this party," Rick asked.
"Your house. Where do you think?"
"Well, we could do it in two places, though, Kyle. Our house and your house. Skiing, pool, ping pong, clothing-required swimming, basketball, and dancing at our house; clothing-optional swimming at your house," Rick said.
"And we could eat in the clubhouse. That's it! This is perfect! I hadn't thought of having two locations."
"Thanks to you, we've got the tables and chairs and all that other stuff," I said.
"Is two o'clock too early to start," he asked.
"No time is too early to start, but we need to do a little timetable," I said.
"What do you mean," Kyle asked.
"Let's start with dinner. What time do you want to serve that?"
"I don't know. Seven o'clock," Kyle said.
"Seven is good," I said. "That means drinks and hors d'oeuvres beginning at six or 5:30?"
"I think 5:30," Kyle said, "but we'll have to have soft drinks and beer out from the beginning, won't we?"
"Yeah, and probably some nibbles, like nuts and maybe some chips and dip, too," Rick said.
"Who's going to cook? You," I asked.
"Yes, sir," Kyle said.
"Do you have a menu?"
"I thought we'd do the same as we did for Brian's birthday," Kyle said.
"I don't know, Kyle. It's mostly the same people," Rick said.
"Yeah, but they all said it was good," Kyle said.
"You have to have a totally different menu, Kyle," Rick said. "It's the same people, man."
He looked so discouraged.
"Cowboy up, Stud. You can do this," Rick said.
"I don't know. Maybe this is more than I should do. Maybe we should have a cookout or something."
"How about a pig? A whole pig? You can cater that, Bubba. From one of our hotels," Rick said.
"I don't know about that," Kyle said.
"Yeah, but you need to think about it," Rick said. "Have you ever seen a suckling pig presented?"
"No, sir," Kyle said.
"Well, let me tell you something, Bubba. It's spectacular. It's the whole pig with an apple in its mouth. That means a buffet, though. Can you live with that?"
"What else will we have," he asked.
"I recommend wild rice, stewed apples, and sautéed asparagus. Birthday cake, ice cream, and asti spumanti for dessert."
"Talking about this is making me hungry. Will the caterer cook that other stuff, too, or just the pig," he asked.
"You cater this one 100%. You're the host, man. If it starts at two o'clock, you won't have time to cook," Rick said. "You can't cook while you're driving a ski boat."
"I didn't think about that," Kyle said.
"Kyle, you worked your ass off for Brian's party, and you learned a whole lot by doing that. This is a different kind of party, and you're going to learn a lot from this one, too. You know, you could try to serve exactly the same menu as you did at Brian's party, but you couldn't get it done. This is different because of the activities you want people to have a choice of doing," Rick said.
"I'm beginning to see the logic of this whole party-giving thing," Kyle said. "Giving a party might just mean organizing a party, right? I mean, I can get other people to do the work and still say I'm giving it, can't I?"
"Kyle, this is what your family does for a living, man. Hospitality is all about entertaining people and not killing yourself in the process. Besides, it's work organizing something like this."
"Simple hors d'ouevres, right?"
Kyle was rolling.
"Exactly. What are you going to serve," Rick asked.
He thought for a little while.
"That cheese-meat-tomato dip stuff," he said.
"Great choice. It's easy to make, people love it, and it's filling," Rick said. "Now, see, that's something you can make that morning and warm up when you're ready to put it out."
"Vegetable-and-dip tray," Kyle said.
"Oh, yeah. Always," Rick said. "But get the caterer to do that because of all the time it takes to get the vegetables ready."
"Raw oysters?"
"Not at this time of year, Kyle. There's no 'r' in the month. You can't serve raw oysters then," Rick said.
"How about crab fingers?"
"Now you're talking," Rick said. "Broiled, though, not fried. Fried is too labor-intensive at the last minute. You can broil them in the morning and warm them up, too, before you put them out. And just serve cocktail sauce with them, not drawn butter."
We kept that up for a while, and Kyle left our offices with a menu and a plan of attack. Before he left, he called and made an appointment with the Director of Catering at the Laguna. After he had gone, I called her up and told her who he was and that he got the same rate his father got.
(Kyle's Perspective)
I wanted Tim's birthday party to be special and memorable for everybody, so I got started planning it about a month ahead of time. I was glad I did, too, because this was going to take some pretty serious coordination on my part.
I put an announcement about the party on the Web site, but I also got a guest list from Tim so I could mail invitations. I pretty much knew who he wanted to have, but there might be some friends of his that I didn't know all that well that he wanted to include. As it turned out, there were a couple of people he wanted to invite that I wouldn't have thought of.
The party was going to be in two parts. The first part, from two o'clock until 5:30, was going to be swimming, skiing, and other games. Clothing-optional swimming would be at my house, and the rest would be at Kevin and Rick's house. The second part, dinner, would start at 5:30 with drinks at their house.
They helped me set up a menu, and I got with the Director of Catering at the Laguna to handle that. That lady was really easy to work with, and she said she'd take care of everything, including having a few wait staff there to serve the buffet. We were going to figure on fifty people, but it would probably be a few less than that. I had ended up ordering five ten-top tables and fifty chairs for the clubhouse, along with china, silver, and crystal for that many, and table linens for that many, too, so that much was all set, at least. I had never seen a whole pig cooked before, and the first time they served one of those after I started talking to the Director of Catering, she called me to come see it.
"Wow, this is something," I said when I saw it.
"Yeah, this is pretty spectacular," Jessica, the catering lady, said.
"What does this cost," I asked.
"For them or for you," she asked.
"Both," I said.
"For them, it's $35 per person; for you, it's $15."
"Does that include everything," I asked. "The hors d'ouerves, too?"
"Yep. Everything but the bar, of course. Are you going to want a bartender, too?"
I thought about that for a minute. I had never done anything that had a bartender, but I knew that somebody was going to have to make drinks. I kept thinking about what Kevin and Rick had told me about me being the host. I knew I'd have to mingle and talk to the guests. True, they were all our friends and wouldn't mind making their own drinks, but to go to this much trouble and not have a bartender seemed wrong, somehow.
"Yeah, a bartender, too," I said. "But we'll supply the liquor and soft drinks. A lot of the people there will just be drinking soft drinks."
"That's not a problem," she said. "Sometimes we do parties where no alcohol is served at all, and people still have a bartender. It really makes it much nicer and easier for you."
"How much does that cost," I asked.
"Just add another fifty, since you're supplying the beverages," she said.
"Just out of curiosity from a business point of view, are you going to make anything on my party," I asked.
"We'll do slightly better than break even on that one," she said.
"So why would it ordinarily be more than double what you're charging me," I asked.
"We've got to have room to negotiate. If a big client wants this, say for 350 people, I'd start at $35 a person. Then we'd work down to $30, and the client would think he'd saved money. We've actually got the best prices on the beach, by the way."
"Isn't that sort of dishonest," I asked.
"Not at all. We have to make a profit, Kyle, or we'd go out of business. This same meal next door would be $40 a person," she said.
"I guess I have a lot to learn," I said.
"Yes, and you're learning it. By the time you're ready to come to work here, you'll know what you need to know," she said.
I thought about college and medical school and residency, and about all the years it would take for us to get through that before I'd be working there. By then I'd have six or seven years under my belt working for a hotel in New Orleans, probably. All of a sudden, it seemed doable. I would know about all of this by then.
She had a contract for me to sign, and I felt like a grown-up when I signed it.
"Don't worry about a thing, Kyle. It will all be taken care of, and it will be very, very nice. I guarantee it," she said.
Phew!, I thought.
*****
"Have you talked to your dad about getting you a car for your birthday," I asked Tim.
It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon in late-April. It was the last School Improvement Day of the school year, and he and I were in his bed at his house. We had finished class at 11:30 so the teachers could have the afternoon to train or plan or do whatever they did on those days once a month. We had eaten lunch at our usual place and had come home and made love. I had been disappointed that we weren't going to be able to take the boat out like I had wanted to, but it was nice having time to just be together like that, too.
"Yeah. I'm getting one," he said.
"What do you want to get," I asked.
"I was thinking about a Jeep. What do you think about that?"
"You mean, like a Wrangler?"
"Yeah. You like those, don't you," he asked.
"No. I love 'em. Yes! Get a Wrangler. Oh, Tim. Man. That will be so cool," I said. "Let's go look at 'em this afternoon. You want to?"
"Sure," he said. "How about some more of this first, though."
He started playing with me, and I just moaned, it felt so good. Then he got me in his mouth.
"Oh, Tim. That feels so good," I said.
Then I moved around and took him into my mouth. It took us a while, but eventually we both got there for the second time in an hour.
*****
The only dealership that had jeeps was in town, so that's where we went. They had about a dozen new ones in stock.
"What color do you like," I asked Tim.
"Not that yellow one," he said. "Those white ones look pretty good."
"I don't like the yellow, either," I said. "The advantage of the white is it has that light-colored top, and that'll be better in the heat than the dark tops. Let's see if they'll let us take one out."
A young salesman was sort of loitering around the door of the place, standing under the covered area in front. We went over to him.
"Hi, fellas," he said. "How many can I sell you today?"
Tim and I kind of chuckled a little bit. The guy seemed real friendly, and he was pretty cute, too.
"Can we take one of 'em out for a test drive," I asked.
"You got a license?"
Of course I've got a license, asshole, I thought. I drove up here, didn't I? Then it dawned on me. Tim didn't have a license. Shit, I thought. They're not going to let him drive it.
"Yes, sir. I've got one," I said. I took out my wallet and showed it to him.
"Kyle Goodson. You're not related to Gene Goodson, by any chance, are you," he asked.
"Yes, sir. He's my dad."
"I've known your dad for a long time. I used to work for him, in fact."
"At a hotel," I asked.
"At a motel, actually. I was the pool boy at one for a few summers when I was in high school and college. Don't you have a brother? Clay, is it?"
"Yes, sir, I did, but he passed away last fall," I said.
"Oh, shit! What?"
"Yes, sir. He got sick and died. It was real sudden."
"Oh, man. I'm so sorry. How's your dad doing?"
"He's doing okay. Er, can we take the car out?"
"Of course you can, Kyle. Please tell your dad hello for me. My name's Allan Simmons. He may not remember me, but I sure remember him. He's such a nice guy."
"Thanks, Allan," I said. He wasn't moving. "Can I get the key?"
"Oh, sorry. It should be in the car."
We walked over to the car, and the key was in the ignition. We got in, and I fired it up.
"Don't be scared if it's a little jerky. It's my driving, not the car," I said. "It's been a while since I've driven a stick."
I backed up without any trouble, and we took off.
"This rides good, Babe," I said. "Do you want to drive it?"
"Can I?"
"Well, not officially yet, but if you're going to buy it, you need to feel how it drives."
I pulled into a parking lot and let Tim take the wheel. He had a little trouble with first gear, but he did okay after that. We were at a big-ass shopping center, and there weren't any cars at the back of the lot near the street. He drove around in there a while.
"Do you like it," I asked.
"Kyle, I love it. I want it."
I was grinning and laughing at how cute he was being. That was a fun car to drive, and I knew we'd both enjoy it.
"I wish we could put the top down," he said.
"Let me see if I can figure it out. Stop for a minute."
It wasn't raining right at that moment. It was sill real cloudy, though, and the air was thick with moisture. It was the kind of day when ordinarily you'd leave the top up, but I was just as curious as he was about what it would be like with the top down.
It turned out that putting the top down was pretty easy, and I got it down in less than a minute. He drove out into the street, and it felt great riding like that. I made up my mind right then and there that my next car was going to be a Wrangler, too. The trouble was, my Mazda was less than two years old, and I knew my dad wouldn't let me trade it just to get a toy. It didn't actually belong to me, anyway. It was a company car assigned to me. I'd just have to enjoy Tim's car.
We stayed gone from the dealership for about an hour. I took another turn driving it so that I'd be the one driving when we took it back. Tim was sold on that car, though.
"Are you looking for something for yourself, Kyle," Allan asked when we got back.
"No, sir. It's for him," I said. "I'd love to have one, though, but I know my dad won't let me trade yet."
"Guys, I apologize. I did this all wrong. I didn't even catch your name."
"Tim Murphy," Tim said, shaking Allan's hand.
"So, do you like it, Tim," Allan asked.
"I love it. What time do you close," Tim asked.
"Not until six o'clock," he said. "Are you going to be trading something, Tim?"
"I'm not sure what you mean," Tim said.
"No, he's not," I said. "He meant, do you have another car to trade in for this one, and you don't."
"Oh, yeah. Right," Tim said. "I wonder when my dad is going to get off today."
"You want to call him and see," I asked.
"Yeah."
I got my cell phone out of my car, and Tim called Doc. It turned out he was in the middle of surgery, and the receptionist told Tim that Doc had a late appointment that day.
"Damn, he can't get here today," Tim said.
"We're open every day but Sunday," Allan said.
"Let's ride up to Marianna. There's a Jeep dealership there. We might be able to do something with the price," I said.
I said that as much for Allan's benefit as Tim's.
"There are Jeep dealerships all over the place, too, Tim. Maybe we should do some shopping first," I said.
"I doubt you'll find a better deal anywhere around here," Allan said.
"What's the best you can do for us," I asked.
"Well, let's sharpen the pencil," he said. "Come on inside, fellas. Can I offer you a cold drink?"
"Yeah, please," Tim said.
He got each of us a soft drink, and he got one for himself, too.
"Let's see here. The sticker price is twenty-one five. We can do better than that, though."
He did some figuring with his calculator.
"Just a second. Let me have a word with my manager."
"We probably shouldn't have been as excited about it in front of him as we were," I said. "That might end up costing us a little."
"We can drive up to Marianna, too, though. And Tallahassee and Ft. Walton, too, even," Tim said.
"Oh, yeah. No question about it. We can also wait until the end of the month when he really wants to make his quota. He'll come off more then than he will now."
Allan came back out with another man.
"Mr. Sparks, I'd like you to meet Tim Murphy and Kyle Goodson."
"Jimmy Sparks," Mr. Sparks said. We all shook hands.
"Kyle, I've known your daddy for years, son. I just saw him about a week ago at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Had lunch with him, in fact. He's a fine man," Sparks said.
"Thank you, sir," I said.
"Tim, Allan here tells me you're interested in a Wrangler. Great car for a boy your age. Are you pretty active outdoors?"
"Yes, sir," Tim said.
"Do you do any hunting, son," Sparks asked.
"I haven't yet. I'm mostly on the water, I guess," Tim said.
"Well, you've got to be one or the other, if you live around here, now, don't you?"
"Yes, sir," Tim said.
"Tim, I think we can put you in that car for right at twenty thousand. It's got a lot of extras, and the stereo is about the best you'll find in a sport vehicle like that one," he said. "What do you say?"
"Well, I like the car, but . . ."
"But your daddy's got to see it, don't he?"
"Oh, for sure," Tim said.
"Well, bring him around, son. We're here every day but Sunday. Who is your daddy, anyway? Do I know him?"
"I doubt it. He's an oral surgeon on the beach. We haven't lived here very long."
"An expert at pulling teeth, huh?"
I knew that was supposed to be a joke, so I laughed to be polite, but there wasn't anything funny about it.
We told them goodbye and left.
"What now? Marianna?"
"Do you feel like going up there," Tim asked.
"I just want to be with you. I'll do whatever you want," I said.
"That's very sweet, Kyle. You're a very sweet boy," he said.
"You little shit."
We both laughed.
"Yeah, let's go to Marianna," Tim said. "We don't have anything better to do."
The dealership in Marianna didn't have as many as the one in our town, but they had one exactly like the one we test drove. The difference was the sticker price was twenty-three thousand.
"Maybe that Allan guy is right," I said. "Even if they come off some, it probably won't be any more than three thousand dollars."
"Do you want to drive it?"
"Not unless you do," I said.
We drove back to Emerald Beach. That night, Tim was at my house, and we were telling my dad what we had done that afternoon.
"Jimmy Sparks only came off the sticker by a grand and a half," Dad asked.
"Yes, sir, that's right."
"He can do better than that. Has your dad seen the car, Tim?"
"No, sir. He had a late appointment today. He'll like it, though," Tim said.
"Did he give you a ballpark, Tim," Dad asked.
"What do you mean," Tim replied.
"Did your dad say how much he's willing to spend?"
"I think twenty thousand is in the ballpark," Tim said. "He didn't know exactly how much they were, but I think he'll spend that much."
"You know boys, you can spend an awful lot of time and frustration going from place to place comparing apples and oranges when it comes to buying cars. If you know exactly what you want, and they have it in stock, sometimes you're better off paying what they're asking."
"Would you buy it, Dad," I asked.
"Yes, I probably would. Why, do you want one, too?"
"My car's just fine," I said.
"But you'd like to have one, wouldn't you?"
I covered my face with my hand. "Daddy, don't make me say it," I said.
He was laughing his ass off at me, and I wasn't even trying to be funny.
"Come here, Kyle. Sit in your daddy's lap."
What!?, I thought.
I sat in his lap.
"Jesus Christ! How much do you weigh?"
"One seventy-five. Why? Am I too heavy for you?"
All three of us were laughing at the foolishness that was going on.
"Yes. Get up."
"No, I want to sit on my daddy's wap," I said in baby talk.
"I'll wap you a good one."
"Can Tim sit on your wap, too, Daddy?"
I moved over to one knee, and Tim sat down on the other one.
"Y'all are going to cripple me," he said, laughing hard.
"Let's play horsey." I started bouncing up and down a little.
"Kyle!" he screamed. Then he started tickling both of us. We squirmed off his lap, though.
He got on the floor with us and started trying to pin me. We wrestled and tickled and played around for a good fifteen minutes before all three of us were out of breath. We flopped on our backs.
"We haven't done anything like that since your brother died, have we," Dad said.
"No."
He sighed heavily.
"You're growing up so fast, Kyle. It seems like a month ago you were just a little fellow. Now you're almost a man."
"Are you sad, Daddy?"
"I'm really not, son. I wish your brother was still here, of course, but you've given us Tim, now, haven't you? And he's about to turn sixteen. I'm just in a strange mood tonight, son."
"Daddy, I would like to have one of those Wranglers, but not right now, okay? I want Tim to get all the attention. It's his birthday coming up, after all. Maybe I can get one when I graduate."
He didn't say anything for a few moments. Then,
"Kyle, a minute ago, I said you're almost a man. I was wrong. You are a man, son, and a mighty fine one."
*****
Tim ended up getting that car we test drove. They came off the price by another $500 at the end of the month, and we thought that was a pretty good deal.
He went for his driver's license on the afternoon of his birthday, and he passed the test with flying colors. The car was in his garage, and he drove it legally for the first time that afternoon. He and Brian and I rode down to the Laguna where Jus was working the valet parking. We had him park the car for us so he could drive it, and then he came inside for a cup of coffee with us. When he got the car when we were leaving, Tim tipped him twenty-five cents. Justin flipped him off, and we had a big laugh over that one.
(Tim's Perspective)
My birthday was unbelievably fun. Besides getting my car, Kyle put on about the best party I had ever been to. He got them to cook a whole pig for us, and it was laid out on the table for everybody to look at. It was almost too pretty to eat, but we forced ourselves.
Besides giving me the party, Kyle gave me a new skateboard. He wanted to get me all kinds of stuff, like a custom-made cue stick in a carrying case, a new computer, a new suit, whatever. I made him limit it to only one gift, though.
The thing he did that meant the most to me, though, was to get a new tattoo. It wasn't another picture. It was my name tattooed right below his monkey. My name would be on his body forever. He showed it to me on the morning of my party.
"Why do you have that band aide on you," I asked. I hadn't noticed it the night before when we made love.
"Take it off and see," he said.
"Seriously," I asked. I wasn't interested in seeing some sore or cut, by any means. I might want to be a doctor, but I don't find wounds to be inherently interesting.
"Yeah. Take it off," he said.
I was pretty cautious about doing it, but, when I did and saw what was under it, I couldn't help myself. I broke down in tears.
He cuddled me to himself, smiling his face off. We rocked against one another, rubbing our erections together until we both exploded.
"I love you, birthday boy," he said.
"I love you, too, Kyle. More than I can even say."
"It's going to be a good summer, isn't it," he said. "I'm summer people, Tim, and I think you are, too. We've got to get Jeff a boyfriend."
"What?! What does that have to do with us being summer people?"
"Nothing, you little monkey. It just now came to my mind," he said.
"Kyle, what do you think about," I asked.
"What do you mean? I think about a lot of things. I think about you a good bit," he said.
"Do you ever wonder what kind of impression you're making on people or whether they like you or why somebody said whatever it was he said to you or about you?"
"I don't think about that kind of stuff," he said. "Do you?"
"Sometimes. If you had lost that election day before yesterday, would you have been upset?"
He thought for a minute.
"Probably not. But I'm glad I won, I think. I'll get back to you on that one, though."
I laughed.
"Are you nervous about today? About the party and all? By the way, before I forget, thank you so much for going to all that trouble."
He grinned.
"It's not trouble when you're doing it for love," he said. "And, no, I'm not nervous about it. The only one who has to like that party, as far as I'm concerned, is you. And you better like it, or I'll eat those bananas right off your gut."
I laughed.
"Today will be the first day everybody will see our tattoos. Have you told your parents about it?"
"No. Shit. I forgot about them," he said with a mock grimace. "They'll be cool about it, though. Have you showed yours to your dad?"
"Yeah. All he said was, 'hmmmm.'"
"That's just like him. Then he probably looked up the history of tattoos and the history of bananas."
I laughed hard. He definitely knew my dad.
"I think we probably ought to get up, don't you," I said.
"I don't ever want us to get up. I want us to stay right here forever," he said.
"All right, dude. Get your ass out of bed. We've got fun to have, food to eat, boats to drive, pool to shoot, and Chris to take care of."
"Chris is a nice guy, isn't he," Kyle said.
"No, get up. We're not starting on Chris. Yes, he is a nice guy, and, yes, he loves your ass more than anything, but we're not staying here talking about Chris."
"God, you are so strict," he said.
"Somebody in this family's got to be," I said.
He smiled so sweetly.
"I love the sound of that, Tim."
"Me, too."
(Justin's Perspective)
Well, Kyle did it again. He put on a hell of a party. Of course, I knew he would, for Tim. Hell, he'd' a bought Tim a pig farm if he had wanted one, much less a pig. But that was some good meat, let me tell you. And the best part is, we have a ton of it left over. For a minute, I thought Kyle was fixing to start passing it out for people to take home like a party favor or something. He had the servers put it away in little plastic freezer boxes, and I had a picture of all that delicious meat leaving my life for good. That was just to store the leftovers, though. He didn't give it away, except some to Doc and Sonya, and his parents.
Tim got him a nice car for his birthday, and right away I got to worrying about Brian. Who's gonna get him a car when he turns sixteen? When I thought about it some more, I thought, Why the hell can't you get him one? He's your boyfriend. I've got almost enough for what they paid for that Wrangler, and I'll have more than enough by next January. Plus, I know ole Kyle will help me with it, if I need him to. Realizing that took a load off my mind.
Most of the time Kyle took care of Chris on weekends, but he was going to be busy. I decided to step up and take over for my brothers.
"Justin, I have to go to the bathroom," he said to me.
"Number one or number two?"
"Number two," he said.
"All right. Let's go, Buddy."
Putting him on the toilet took some skill. You couldn't bend him up straight, so getting his pants and underwear down was a chore. I got 'em down, though, and put him on the seat. Then I started to leave.
"Stay with me. I'm scared," he said.
"Scared? Scared of what?"
"All these people who are here. What if one of them comes in here while I'm in here?"
"You want me to stay in here while you take a dump?"
"Yes, Bubba. Please."
He stuck that little bottom lip of his out so far you could've landed one of Brian's model planes on it, but he was cute as hell doing that. I couldn't say no.
"All right, but hurry up," I said.
"Okay, I'm trying. I love Tim's new car, don't you?"
"Yeah, it's a honey, all right."
"I wish I could drive a car. I'd want one just like that."
Still no action in the bowl.
"I wish I could stay here. I love my dad and all, but I really don't know him all that well. I know he loves me, too."
No comment.
"Do you think you might come to Montana to see me some time? You and Kyle and Tim and Brian and Jeff and Kevin and Rick?
I was getting a little bit impatient.
"Chris, do you really have to shit, or not?"
"No, I really do."
"We're not getting any action out of you, Buddy. Concentrate and stop talking. Get you a mental picture of your asshole with turds slipping out of it and hitting the water."
Saying that was a big damn mistake. He starts laughing and laughing and laughing, and finally he slips off the toilet onto the floor.
"Jesus Christ! Are you all right?"
Well, he thinks that's funnier than hell, and he starts laughing even harder. I'm trying to get his ass back on the seat, and all of a sudden, here it comes. Yeah, buddy! There's shit everywhere. God almighty!
I must have looked like some kind of possessed man or something because he starts crying like he was afraid I was gonna whip his ass.
"Don't hurt me, Bubba," he says.
I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to break his damn neck.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, Chris. Man, I'm your brother. Your shit-stained brother, at the moment, but still your brother."
Well, that got him laughing, at least.
"Are you finished," I asked?
"I don't know," he said.
"Well, do you feel like you've got more shit in you? Cause if you do, I'm calling the Guinness Book of World Records on this one."
He laughed some more.
"You're not really mad at me, are you?"
"What good would it do for me to be mad," I asked.
"I'm finished," he said.
Whoa! Then I had to wipe him.
"Can you sit up and bend forward a little bit so I can get to your hole, man?"
"I'll fall off."
"Well, how do they do this," I asked.
"Kyle picks me up and puts me over his arm so he can get to it."
I tried to get a mental picture of that, but it just wouldn't come. Finally what I did was pick him up, clean off the toilet seat, sit down on it, put him in my lap in the spanking position, and clean him up that way. When I had done as much as I could with the paper, I put him back on the toilet, got a washrag all soaped up, got him back on my lap, and did the final cleanup that way.
I looked at my watch, and we had been in there a solid hour. So not only was this a record-breaking crap in terms of volume, it was a record-breaker in terms of endurance, too. I got him back in his chair.
"Okay. Let's get out of here," I said.
"Justin," he said in this real sweet little voice.
"What?"
"I love you."
The End of Kyle, Part 3
There will be lots more of the adventures of the guys on North Lagoon Drive in Emerald Beach, but this seems like a good place to end Kyle, Part 3. It's the end of the school year, for one thing, and it's time for summer fun to begin. Justin turns 18 in a little over a month, Jeff's period of mourning for Clay is over, Gene's about to put the finishing touches on his big deal to buy the huge resort in the next town over from theirs, and Kyle's about to start his career in the hotel business.
Summer is typically the season when runaway teens--gay, bi, and straight-- flock to Emerald Beach from all over, and Tyrone Williams, the social worker, has Kevin and Rick's numbers programmed into his cell phone. Tim hasn't seen his grandparents in Boston for a long time, and Brian might get a surprise trip of his own. There's this cute black Labrador puppy that keeps hanging around the place, and Kyle and Tim just can't resist feeding her. Hurricane season starts June 1st, the amusement parks and attractions open for the season during the Memorial Day Weekend, and kids from every state and many foreign countries cruise endlessly up and down the twenty-five miles of "the strip." A lot can happen.
I have received some very moving and very-much-appreciated email, and I'd like to thank everyone who wrote. A couple of guys--young guys--have written to say that this story has made them feel better about themselves and about being gay. That's the point. We didn't chose to be gay, but, like the guys in the story, we can embrace who we are, move forward with life, and have fun.
Depending on when you read this, have a great time during whatever holiday is coming up. If you're a runner, try to find ways to run for charity. If you live in a place as hot as Emerald Beach, don't run. Stay inside, fill up the tub with cold water, dump in a couple of bags of party ice, and get in with someone you love. He or she won't care if it shrivels up to nothing. At least y'all will be cool.
Love, Brew