This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Dennis Milholland -- All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments.

Love It or Leave It

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Eight

(Tuesday, October 4th)

I'm not altogether awake, but I know where and who I am. Raphie's arm is holding me tight, and his morning stiffy is poking me in the ass. I know that precisely this situation can result in complications. If he wakes up and realizes that he's been hugging me with a hard-on, it will probably turn into a guilt trip for him.

Although it's the most natural thing in the world to hug whomever you're in bed with and for any guy to have a stiff prick in the morning before he's been to the john. But society, particularly here in the Bible belt, has dictated that any red-blooded, healthy, American boy has to be ashamed of what comes naturally.

So, taking responsibility for our collective actions, I gently remove Raphie's arm and roll out of bed. It's difficult not to stroke him, kiss him, but I know it would only be a one-sided event, probably bringing our friendship to an end. My hormones are raging, and I have to pee.

I look at the clock radio, and it's well past eight. School has already started, a fact that Dad told us not to worry about.

He'd phoned Maman Mongrain last evening and convinced her in his basic school French with an inoffensive Dublin accent that Raphael and I were really not doing so well after Mack's funeral. And that we'd need a couple of days off, possibly even a week.

Of course, Maman Mongrain speaks English perfectly well, but she indulges Joey, mainly because she finds him so charming. At her own husband's funeral, he'd bowed formally, taking her hand and said with more than just a trace of tears in his eyes: « Madame, je suis inconsolable. »

Now, sitting on the pot and still trying to force urine through my erection, I wonder once again about my father. Why had a well schooled, middle-class Irishman chosen to leave his home to come to this country to become a working-class carpenter? Yesterday, he mentioned that he'd lost his best friend during the revolution. I wonder if the two events are related. And I'll probably wonder until my last breath, since he keeps a very tight lid on his past.

There's a soft knock on the bathroom door. "Dan? You in there?"

"Yeah, Raphie, come on in."

He hesitantly opens the door a crack and then slowly opens it. "You sure?"

"No, I'm going to let you piss in the hallway." Morning sarcasm, being my favorite, is not lost on Raphie.

He comes in grinning and closes the door. I stand up with my briefs still around my ankles and flush. He glares at my stiff dick. "Hey, Raphael, you've seen it before, maybe not this hard, but you have definitely seen it before."

"Yeah, I guess so." He drops his briefs, sits and tries the exact same thing that I'd been trying.

If there was ever any evidence against an intelligent god having designed humans, this would be it. Every man on the planet has to strain every morning when he gets up to empty his bladder through an erect penis. That's just one of the many reasons why I reject the concept of god.

Raphie's soft voice jolts me out of my ponderings. "I want to thank you."

"For what, this time?" I smile at him, wondering what on Earth he's talking about as I kick my briefs off.

"For being patient with me." He blushes, his complexion rushing from sienna to rosewood.

"Look, I know what you're going through." I squat in the bathtub, soap my crotch and armpits, and with varying degrees of success, try to shower with this rubber-hose contraption, that my mother found at Wild Woody's, which consists of a spray ring that you have to wear around your neck and a hose that feeds the ring. I rinse.

"Believe me, I do. But I promised you that I'm not going to make the first move, and I mean it." I sit down in the tub, trying to untangle the hose before the pressure causes it to fly off the spigot.

"Let me put it this way, Raph: if at some time in the future you want to experiment, I'll be more than willing to help you out. I could even imagine..." I don't finish the sentence; I don't think he could handle it.

"But that'll just have to wait. If you want to hug and cuddle, I'm all for it. We both need cuddles, just now." I pause to formulate my decision. "But we'll have to leave cocks and ass out of it, until we can figure out where we both stand. Deal?"

And before he can answer, the bright yellow hose kinks forcing the connection off the nozzle of the ancient bathtub tap, dousing us with a short jet of water.

"Deal." He confirms, wiping his face with his hand.

"You want to take a shower?" I chuckle.

"Let me into the tub, but I think that a washcloth and soap will be just fine."

While getting up to step out of the tub, he gets off the pot and hands me a towel to dry with. My nose comes within inches of his still not quite flaccid cock. I inhale sharply in passing. My own dick twitches.

There is nothing planned for today. We'll probably spend it talking, explaining and working through our loss. At some point the pain will have to subside. Maybe talking will help lessen the anguish. Or maybe it'll make it worse. No way of telling. We'll have to play it by ear.

While Raphie finishes his wash, I quickly dress, run my hand across my short hair and go downstairs to see what happened to Mother. Ah, yes, there's a note written on her Big Chief tablet. At some point, that woman will have to realize that I've grown up and stop buying grade-school supplies. She's across the alleyway, ironing for the Franklins.

I have to laugh. She's made me iron my own shirts for more than eight years, while she irons for the neighbors. Of course, they pay her; I don't.

I'm standing in the door of our pre-war Servel gas refrigerator to see if I can find anything for breakfast, when Raphie enters, frowning. "What's wrong?" I want to know.

"Had to put my clothes from yesterday back on. Sort of negated my wash."

"Go back upstairs. You'll find anything you need in that big chest of drawers next to the bed."

"Sure you don't mind?" He seems somewhat embarrassed.

"Not as long as you let me sniff the ones you've got on." I say with a certain amount of residual dignity.

"Aw, shit, Dan. Don't do this to me. Are you serious?" He looks as if he's about to gag.

"Nope, just teasing." I lie with a grin and a wink. But there it is, my confirmation: the guy's definitely not queer. Mack and I would spend hours just sniffing one another's scent and slowly jerking our meat. I've even fished my dad's sweaty jockstraps out of the laundry to sniff and then wear them myself for a workout. At least now, I know for sure about Raphie.

He returns after a couple of minutes with a neat bundle of his used underwear. Instead of letting myself drool, I want to know what we should do for breakfast. Since there is nothing in the refrigerator that does not require cooking, I offer to run down to Achety's Market on 24th to get a box of cereal.

"Let's go to my place. Maman's at work and Jordan won't be home until after basketball practice tomorrow. He's staying at our cousin's. So, we've got the whole place to ourselves, and you can tell me about the part of Mack, I didn't know about."

I leave a note on Mom's Big Chief tablet, secure the front door and collect Raphie and his bundle of underwear from the dining room. We go through the kitchen and out the back. I get a new pack of cigarettes out of the carton under the front seat of the Impala. I am coming to terms with the notion that it won't be going anywhere with me for a while.

The sun is climbing higher over 23rd Street, and it's promising to be yet another beautiful autumn day. He's carrying the little bundle of underwear between us, and I look at it longingly. He switches hands, frowning with his forehead but grinning with his mouth. I quickly inject an unrelated question.

"Have they extended you mom's contract, yet?" There has been talk about cutting back on foreign-language teachers.

"Yeah, the Kansas City, Kansas school board has decided to keep all the Spanish and French teachers, but to cut back on Latin and German. She's safe for the time being, or so they say."

"Does she still want to move you guys over across Stateline?" Pain of loss shoots again through the pit of my stomach. I must have blanched.

He looks worried. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be okay. The thought of you moving over to Kansas, just made me want to cry again." I grin shamefacedly.

"Ain't gonna happen, Dan. At least not in the near future. You know how those Jayhawker rednecks are, out in Leawood."

"No queers and coons, huh?" Although we laugh, there is an overlay of melancholy to the humor. Then we walk in silence for most of the way over to 24th and Norton. As we pass our old school, Ashland Elementary, I notice the playground full of kids from various backgrounds, showing a budding intercultural acceptance that hadn't been there, when Raphie and I'd started school, eleven years ago. It's good to see.

***

The Mongrain family lives in a smart, two-story, buff-brick cottage on the Southwest corner of Norton Avenue. We're out on the front porch in the sunshine, eating a bowl of cereal. Then with our coffee, I smoke a cigarette. Since all the Mongrain family are non-smokers, I only smoke outside.

As we sit on the glider, and I'm enjoying Mongrain's Cajun coffee, my cigarette and leisurely flipping my ashes into the flower boxes on the porch railing, Raphie asks out of the clear blue: "Would you teach me how to cuddle?"

Since this isn't a request I get every day, I sit up, look at him carefully, set my coffee mug on the porch, fieldstrip my cigarette and ask with not only a little astonishment in my voice: "You don't know?"

"Not really." His voice and his body go defensively tense.

"Relax, Raph. There's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm your bud, remember? And we're on this adventure together."

He lets go of the tension. "It's just that in my family... We aren't like you guys."

"Other than the obvious, what do you mean?" I place my right hand on his left.

"We're so don't-touch-me Americans. You guys, well except for your mother, are Europeans. You're always grabbing hold of one another, planting kisses on whatever comes near you. The first two men who ever hugged me since I was a very small kid were you and Joey at my dad's funeral. And I want to learn how to do it without getting all hung up."

"You hugged me in the park, yesterday. What was that?"

"I could do it because it was you. I'd like to be able to cuddle with other guys without, uh..."

"Okay, let's go up to your room." I rise to my feet and pick up my coffee mug off the porch.

"Why? Is this gonna be queer stuff? What about the neighbors?"

I sit back down and hold the coffee mug in my left while I take his hand again in my right. "No, Raphie, it isn't queer stuff. It starts being queer stuff, when you start acting around me like you did around Wanda last Spring." I squeeze his hand and laugh.

"Shit, Dan! Don't lay that on me, again." Blushing turns his complexion a deep redwood.

"Hey, Guy, there's nothing to be ashamed of. I thought it was sweet."

"Yeah, and she dumped my sorry ass, when I told her that I'm a virgin." He hides his face in both his hands and growls in mock frustration but real embarrassment.

"And this is why we should go to your room." I stand up and hold out my hand for him to take, but he doesn't.

I rinse out the mug and set it on the draining board. And I then climb the stairs to his room. Raphie locks the doors, so that we'll hear when his mother comes home.

As does my bedroom, Raphie's also faces East, so that the amount of light in the morning is exactly the same. That's the extent of any possible comparison. As opposed to my room, his is very tastefully decorated; all the furniture matches. There are no bits and pieces strewn about. The entire house could have been from Better Homes and Gardens.

I kick off my penny loafers, mainly because the wall-to-wall carpet feels so good under the feet. He does the same and takes off his shirt. So, I take off my shirt. But since I'm not wearing an undershirt, he also strips off the undershirt. I feel as if we were playing strip poker.

"So, here goes. There's a difference between cuddling and petting."

"Really? I always thought they were synonymous?" He takes a cautious step in my direction.

"It's the result that's important. Take kissing for example. There is erotic kissing, generally involving tongues and the intimate exchange of bodily fluids in, on and around erogenous parts of the body, and then you have friendly kissing, which does not involve the tongue, nor any juices.

"Then there's petting. The object of petting is to get sexually aroused. When Mack would kiss me, we'd use tongues and even breathed air through each other's nostrils. And we did not limit the kissing to our mouths. We would stimulate our erogenous zones with our tongues."

Raphie hasn't stopped blushing, since coming up from downstairs. He takes a deep breath, and his voice cracks, which I haven't heard it do since he was twelve, as he asks: "What do you mean by erogenous?"

"Those are parts of your body that stimulate you sexually. Nipples, belly button, buttocks, ears, neck, among other more obvious parts."

"Are you trying to tell me, that you can get me turned on just by touching my nipples?" Incredulous accurately describes his tone. I take it as a dare.

I step closer and take his already semi-erect left nipple, which is the size of a pencil's eraser, into my mouth and work it with the tip of my tongue while sucking it and lightly tracing my index finger along the goose-fleshed skin just above the top of his jeans and inches below his belly button. Instantly rock-hard nipple. Instantly rock-hard dick.

"Oh, shit, Dan; oh, shit; oh, wow;" He growls like he did yesterday. "stop; no, don't stop; oh wow; please...", His breathing becomes sharp and erratic, his growls more guttural, so I pull off. Slowly, he calms down some and opens his eyes. "I think I came in my pants."

"Those are my pants, Stud. And I should be so lucky." He grins with a new-found sense of naughtiness, so I go back to my clinical mode. "I doubt that you've had an orgasm, Raph. The wetness you're feeling is your natural lubrication. It's a clear, smooth liquid as opposed to the globs you shoot when you cream."

He turns his back and checks. "Hey, you're right."

"And you don't have to turn your back. I've already seen your hard pecker. And if it makes you feel any better, I can show you mine, again."

He turns to look over his shoulder, so I unbutton my jeans and pull it out.

"You never seem embarrassed to show me your hard-on." He turns slowly, half way to show me his in profile.

"Good Grief, Raph, an erection is a totally natural reaction to stimulation. What's there to be ashamed of?"

"Have you ever seen your dad's dick hard?" He turns all the way around.

"No, but I imagine, that if I'd ask him, he'd show it to me."

"Can I touch yours?" The idea arouses him more.

"Of course." I pull his hand toward me.

His hand is smooth on my cock. The feeling is more exploratory than erotic. "You wanna touch mine?"

I smile at him softly. "I've promised you that I wouldn't start anything. Now, let me show you how to cuddle."

"Aren't you attracted to me?" He's still holding my throbbing prick.

"Are you fucking nuts, Raphie? I get a raging hard-on just by sucking your nipple for no more than a few seconds. And you think that I'm not attracted to you? Shit! I've been after your cute little ass since second grade."

"If you touched Mack's, then why won't you touch mine?" He gives me another squeeze, which damn near sends me over the edge.

"Because I would be taking advantage of you. We're both much too upset about Mack's death and with how he died. You've been my best bud for just about all of our lives. And possibly, just possibly, you feel in your subconscious that you have to make up for my loss by taking Mack's place."

I hold his face between my hands. "That would cause you so much long-term agony, Raphie, because you're not Mack; you're you. And failing to become something you're not might cause you to do something to yourself that I couldn't live with. Look at what Mack did to himself, because he wanted to be heterosexual.

"I love you, Raphael Mongrain, and I just couldn't bear the pain, if you were to get hurt." I plant the most virtuous kiss possible, considering the circumstances, onto his lips.

He falls limp into my arms, sobbing, releasing toxic grief. We lie down on his bed, and I hold him tight. I stroke his back. I scratch his head. I pet his sable hair. I kiss his forehead. Eventually, he starts responding, not erotically, and we cuddle for a very long while. Finally, he smiles into my face and returns the kiss of friendship.