This is a story of hope. It is the story of a young man coming of age in a culture of prejudice and misunderstanding. It is a story which deals with difficult and often disturbing issues but, none the less, issues which must be confronted in today's world.

Again, special thanks to Andrew for proofing and editorial help.

This is a work of fiction and in no ways draws on the lives of any specific person or persons. Any similarity to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.

This work is copyrighted © by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written permission of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the terms of their submission agreement but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the written permission of the author.

If you wish to receive e-mail notification of subsequent posting, please let me know by sending your request to the e-mail address below.

jvoyager@hotmail.com

I was walking down Elm Street thinking that Spring River was probably one of the prettiest towns in the world. Of course, at seventeen I hadn't seen many other towns, so maybe I wasn't the most qualified judge.

I had been to Memphis a few times and I would take Spring River any day.

In fact, it was in Memphis, about three months ago, that I finally admitted to myself that I was gay. I guess I'd know it for at least two years but I hadn't really admitted it, even to myself. Not that I'd done anything about it. I'm still a virgin. I still haven't told anyone else that I'm gay.

But three months ago, just after school ended in May, my dad had asked me if I'd like to go to Memphis with him. He'd taken my older brother, Ted, a couple of times, but Ted was away in college and dad asked me.

Dad owns the lumber company in Spring River, the only lumber company. But to call it a lumber company doesn't give you the whole picture. Dad sells lumber and all kinds of building supplies. He also has the biggest hardware selection in town as well as a good line of home appliances. There is no other supplier who can rival our place within fifty miles.

About twice a year dad goes into Memphis to meet with wholesalers and suppliers and usually stays two or three days. I'd been to Memphis before with my folks and Ted on family outings but I'd never gone with just dad before.

We stayed at the Peabody, which is probably the finest hotel this side of New York. At least that's what the people around here say. In case you don't know, the Peabody is famous for the ducks they have in the big fountain in the center of the huge lobby.

We got to Memphis late on Wednesday evening and went to dinner in the hotel restaurant, which was really fancy. The food was also very good. Dad and I had a big room with twin beds and a big bathroom and we went to bed more or less as soon as we got back up from dinner. I was so tired I slept like a log.

The next morning dad and I had breakfast together before he went off to his appointments and I was left on my own. The plan was for me to be back at our room by about six o'clock. We'd have time to clean up and then go to dinner together.

At seventeen I'm may be big for my age. I guess I look older than I am. At least a lot of people tell me that. I play football and basketball and run track for the Spring River High School and have gotten into really good shape over the last year or so. In any case, dad wasn't concerned about my being alone in a big city like Memphis and just told me to see the sights and be back in time to meet him for dinner. He'd given me twenty dollars spending money, which seemed like a lot, but everything is more expensive in Memphis than it is at home and he didn't want me to run short.

One thing about playing sports for a school like Spring River High is that you learn to know a lot of guys. Several of them are close friends. But hanging around the locker room and hearing all the talk, you learn that they hold some strong opinions about things. One of the things they seem to hold the strongest opinions about is sex.

By the time I was fifteen, the age when I first began to think I might be gay, I had learned that if I really was, I'd sure better keep my mouth shut about it. Gay, fag and queer were words you heard a lot around the locker room. I guess it was just assumed by all the guys that if you were into sports you were okay. If you were into sports, you sure weren't gay.

Gays and fags and queers were pansies. They were the little silly effeminate kids that ran around together and joined the drama club. They were different from "us" regular guys and "we" hated them. So I just kept my mouth shut and kept my thoughts to myself. I also prayed that what I was feeling was just a phase and I'd grow out of it. I sure knew I didn't choose to be gay. I didn't want to be gay. I just wanted to be one of the regular guys. I tried dating and really liked a couple of the girls I went out with. I just didn't want to do anything physical with them.

When I changed or showered in the locker room I was really careful. I didn't look too closely at the other guys, even though I really wanted to. I showered quickly and got out of there as soon as I could, fearful all the time that I'd get a hard-on and give myself away.

Maybe, I kept thinking, I'd stop dreaming about Hank and Tom and Clyde and start dreaming about Nancy and Sue. But so far it wasn't happening. I had to be real careful around the guys and it was hell.

But that day in Memphis, I'd sort of worked out what I wanted to do. I went to a music store to look for a couple of LPs I wanted and couldn't find at home. Then I spent about two hours just walking along the river front, looking at the big barges being loaded for the run down to New Orleans. I found a little park overlooking the wharves and sat for a while watching the men working the barges and river boats. It was a warm day and most of them were shirtless, their hard muscles bulging and rippling under their loads. I took my own shirt off and let the sun play on my skin. I felt restless and aroused. Later I found a little café near the river which had great barbeque and stayed there a while just eating and watching the people, mostly black folks, come and go.

About two, I headed back toward the hotel, figuring I'd buy a magazine and read in the room till dad got back. Maybe I'd get naked and lie on the bed and beat off, thinking of the men I'd watched along the river.

But heading back toward the hotel, I managed to take a wrong turn. I ended up on a street of rundown bars and dingy rooming houses and cheap hotels. I figured out where I'd taken the wrong street and was heading back toward the Peabody when I saw the shop. I knew at once what it was. The windows were painted black and there was a neon sign which wasn't working properly. It said, "Ad lts O ly."

For some reason I found myself looking around to see if anyone was watching me, as if anyone I knew would be there in a dingy back street in Memphis. Then, without thinking any more about it, I quickly ducked in the door. There was no way I was going to miss that opportunity.

Now I should tell you that I knew a lot about sex, even though I'd never done it with anybody. I knew what men did with women and I knew what men did with men. I guess I don't need to tell you that I found what men do with men a lot more interesting. I'd heard the guys at school talk about it and I'd read everything I could find. But I'd never seen it done and this as my big chance.

The guy at the front counter was doing a crossword puzzle and just sort of looked up when I went in.

"Need quarters?" he asked.

"Maybe, I'll just look around first." I answered, not exactly sure what I'd need the quarters for anyway.

"Suit yourself," he said and went back to his puzzle.

There ware several racks of magazines and paperback books in the front of the shop. Right in the center of the back wall, between the crowded racks, was a door which went into a dark corridor. Just inside the door was a lighted glass case with a bunch of posters in it. I knew at once they were movie posters. And these weren't the kinds of movies that ever made it to the theater in Spring River, that was damn sure.

I walked around the racks and looked at the magazines and books. There was an older guy in the back corner looking at a magazine. He turned away when I passed him. He was older than my dad, maybe as old as my granddad. I could see the magazine he was holding had full page pictures of naked women. I took a turn to the left and found a rack which had only gay magazines and books.

If I stood there very long the old guy in the corner and the fellow at the front desk would figure I was looking at the gay stuff, which I wanted to do, but I didn't want to be too obvious about. I pulled one magazine off the rack and went on down the aisle until I was in an area with a lot of straight porn. I stood there and paged through the magazine I'd chosen.

I'd chosen that particular magazine because of the color photo on the cover. It was of a blond guy about my age. He was naked and had an incredible body. His dick was covered with a black sticker about the size of a quarter but I figured he was really hung. Inside the magazine there were a lot of ads for gay novels and dildos and penis pumps which would help you double the size of your cock. Then, in among some stories and more pictures, there was a four page spread of black and white photos of the same guy who was pictured on the cover. There were no stickers covering anything in them.

I had been right - the guy was huge. His cock was bigger than I'd ever seen on any guy before. I have seen a lot of naked guys and a lot of cock. You can't play sports and not see naked guys in the locker rooms or showers. But nobody I knew in Spring River had a cock as big as this guy. It was huge and in at least two of the photos, it was hard. I just stood there staring for about five minutes.

The old guy with the girlie magazine went to the counter and paid. The sales clerk slipped the magazine into a brown paper bag and the old guy left. I wandered back by the gay section and slipped the magazine I'd been looking at back into the rack.

I walked into the dark corridor and looked at the posters in the lighted frame. There were six sections labeled with numbers. Each section had six posters. Three of the sections had all straight posters, mostly of women with big tits posing with middle age men. One of the posters showed two women together kissing.

Lesbians. I knew they existed, but had never seen anything like that poster before. Then there were the other three sections. Each one of them had posters advertising five straight films. The sixth poster in each of those sections showed two guys together. Gay films! I couldn't believe it! They were showing a total of three gay films.

I couldn't figure out how the whole thing worked. I looked back at the front desk and the guy was still working on his puzzle. He wasn't paying any attention to me.

I walked back into the dark corridor and realized there were six small booths. One door was shut but I could hear the muffled sound track of a movie coming from inside. There was a female voice moaning a lot and a guy saying, "yeah, take it, bitch, take my big cock." He didn't sound like he really cared whether she took it or not.

I pushed on the partly open door of an empty booth and stepped inside. The light was dim but I could see that there was a bench along the left side and a TV screen on the other side, built into the wall. There was a big box of facial tissue on the end of the bench and I could just see that there was some sort of machine beside the TV screen . There was what looked like a coin slot at the bottom and above it, two knobs. One knob was labeled "Volume." The other knob had numbers around it from one to six.

It didn't take a genius to figure all that out. I hurriedly went back to the posters and looked at them again. Of the three gay films there was one which really got my attention. It was called "Camping with Todd." The poster showed two young guys in a pup tent, both naked, lying on sleeping bags and kissing. The way the photo was taken you couldn't see their cocks but at the bottom of the picture was printed, "XXX. Two cute campers get it on. Booth four, channel six."

I went to the front desk and held out a five dollar bill.

"You want all this in quarters?"

"Yeah, sure. What does a quarter buy me?"

"Six minutes. Most of the films run twenty-five to thirty minutes. They're all loops."

"What does that mean?"

"It means a quarter gets you six minutes. You can put in as many quarters as you want. Or you can put in one quarter and let the film run till it stops. Then, if you want, you can feed it another quarter and it will start again were it left off. Loop means it's a loop. It just keeps going around, so if you have more money in than you need to see it to the end, it will just start again unless you change channel and use the rest of your quarter to see part of another film."

"Got it," I said and made a quick retreat. The guy went back to his puzzle.

I ducked into booth number four and shut the door. I noticed it had a latch so I locked myself in. I sat on the bench and turned the volume knob to the lowest setting, remembering that I could hear the sound track from the other film through the door and not wanting anyone out in the corridor to know I was watching a gay movie. I turned the other knob to channel six and dropped a quarter in the slot.

The TV screen came to life quickly and I was watching two guys walking through a forest along a narrow trail. The image was in black and white and the quality wasn't too good, but good enough. The camera cut from a shot of the two guys walking single file to a shot of the first guy's butt. I guess it was supposed to be the way the guy in back would have been seeing it. It really was a cute butt, round and firm, filling the fellow's khaki shorts. His legs below the shorts were muscular and covered with a lot of light blonde hair.

The camera moved up to show the front guy's back and shoulders. He was wearing a heavy plaid shirt and, over it, what looked like a heavy back pack with a sleeping bag and tent rolled and lashed to the pack itself. Despite the shirt and all the gear, you could still tell he had a good body.

"Ready for a stop?" the guy in front said, turning to look back at his buddy.

"Yeah. It's getting a little hot. I'd like to get rid of this shirt."

"Me too," the front guy replied. It wasn't great dialogue, but hay, I wasn't expecting Shakespeare.

They unbuckled the straps holding their backpacks and slipped them off. They handled them as if they really were heavy.

"I could use a rest. What about you, Chad?"

"Me too, Todd."

Well, now I knew. The front guy was Todd, the one behind was Chad. It occurred to me that the names sounded odd, affected. I sure didn't know anybody named Chad or Todd in Spring River.

At that point the TV screen went blank. I took me a few seconds to realize what had happened. My time from the quarter had run out. I hurriedly dropped three quarters in the slot, not wanting to risk further interruptions.

The screen came alive as the two guys pulled off their shirts slowly as they eyed one another. Chad had on a tight T-shirt under his heavy flannel shirt. Todd was left wearing an equally tight tank top. Both of them were really built. They had hard, knotty biceps and shoulders. Even with his T-shirt still on it was obvious that Chad had a deep, muscular chest and a thin, hard waistline. Todd was equally muscular but a little bigger and a little thicker around the middle. While Todd was blonde, Chad seemed to have somewhat darker hair, light brown, perhaps.

"Let's just lie down and rest a little," Todd said as he lay back on a patch of grass beside the trail.

"Want some water?" Chad asked.

"Yeah."

Chad unfastened a canvas covered canteen from the side of his back pack and took a couple of swigs.

"Here," he said, not handing the canteen to Todd, but holding it to his lips.

Todd lifted up his head and opened his lips a little. His eyes were fixed on his friend and as Chad poured the water between his opened lips, some of it ran down over his chin and neck and over his tank top, making it stick to the contours of his chest.

"Damn," Todd said.

"Sorry."

"It'll dry." He sat up and slowly pulled the tank top up and then lifted it over his head and off. As he did so, his upper body came into view. He was completely smooth and his chest was magnificent. I felt myself aroused, wishing I were there with them, or there as one of them. I wanted to reach out and touch Todd's chest, run my hand over it as Chad was now doing. My cock was hard in my jeans, throbbing, wanting out. I looked at the fastened latch on the door and thought, why not?

Chad leaned over to kiss Todd on the mouth as I unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down below my knees. The front of my white jockey shorts was tented and wet.

"Let's get your T-shirt off, too," Todd said as he pulled Chad's shirt from his jeans.

Chad raised his arms and Todd pulled it off over his head.

Like Todd, Chad was smooth and as muscular as I had expected. Todd reached out and pulled Chad down to him. They two young men rolled together until Todd was on top, their lips glued together in a wet, lusty kiss.

I began to stroke my pulsing cock through the soft cotton of my jockeys. A groan moved up from deep in my chest and escaped my half opened lips. I had never seen anything like this before. It was as if every dream I'd ever had was coming alive on that little screen.

I ran my hands under the fabric of my briefs and grasped my cock and balls. My cock was steadily dripping now and I pushed my briefs down so as not to get them even wetter. I squeezed my balls with my left hand as I stroked my shaft.

On the screen, Todd rose up a little and lowered his mouth to Chad's chest. He licked his nipples and then locked his lips over the left one, sucking it as Chad thrashed and moaned. My longings were being played out by these two boys on the screen. I felt my climax rising and grabbed for a handful of tissue. My body came up off the bench and I shot ropes of cum into the waiting tissue, groaning as my body was racked by the intensity of the orgasm. I crashed back onto the bench, exhausted, spent.

I was gay. I knew it now, I admitted it to myself at least, if not to anyone else. I felt as if I had opened a whole new chapter in my life.

The scene went on for a minute of so longer and then cut to the two boys back on the trail. They were bare-chested now, with the straps of their backpacks defining the muscles of their shoulders and their chests.

I cleaned myself up a little and left the wadded tissues on the end of the bench, wondering if I would be adding more to the already sizable collection.

The scene shifted again to some short shots of Todd and Chad setting up their tent. There was a thirty second clip of them cooking and eating dinner as the light faded in the woods behind them. There was another scene shift and the boys were in their sleeping bags in the tent.

Todd lay on his back, the flap of his sleeping bag folded over, his muscular chest exposed. He seemed to be asleep. Chad was reading a paperback book by the light of a suspended electric lantern. It cast a soft glow over the cozy interior of the tent and over the boys' bodies. Chad was wearing wire-rimed glasses, and looked over from time to time to stare at Todd. Todd's head rolled from side to side as if he were dreaming. The camera moved over his chest. His hands thrashed around a little and the sleeping bag slipped down to expose his hard, throbbing cock.

Slowly, deliberately, Chad took off his glasses, folded them and put them in the backpack which lay at the end of the tent. He flipped the top of his own sleeping bag over, revealing his own nakedness. Then slowly, deliberately, he bent over Todd, lowered his lips to the sleeping boy's pulsing cock and began to lick away the clear fluid which oozed from it.

My hand moved involuntarily to my own cock and began to stroke it. I had come only moments before but I hadn't even lost my erection.

Chad opened his lips and took the head of Todd's cock into his mouth. His cheeks swelled out as he pressed down, letting more and more of the throbbing shaft slip over his tongue. Slowly the entire length of Todd's cock disappeared into Chad's mouth. I couldn't believe it! Todd's cock was far too long to fit into Chad's mouth, which left only one possibility. Chad had let the head of Todd's cock slip beyond the back of his mouth, into the tight recesses of his throat. How could he have done that without gagging? I was amazed. Such a thing had never occurred to me.

My right hand was slowly stroking my own hot cock as my left hand began to fondle my balls. I felt as if I was going to come again. The visual stimulation of the film was driving me to a level of sexual bliss I had never know before.

Chad was going up and down on Todd's cock with increasing speed and Todd was now clearly awake. He put his right hand on the back of Chad's head and pressed down as Chad lowered his mouth over Todd's cock. With each downward stroke, Todd pressed Chad's head down further, driving his cock deeper and deeper into Chad's willing throat.

As the speed of the action on the screen increased, my own speed kept pace. I was pumping my own cock with lightning strokes now, knowing my climax was building fast but doing nothing to slow it down.

"Yeah, Chad, take my cock," Todd was saying on the TV screen, "deep throat my throbbing cock." Unlike the male voice I had heard earlier while I stood in the corridor, Todd sounded like he really meant it.

With his left hand Chad was pressing down on Todd's groin. Todd's hard cock extended up between Chad's thumb and first finger. He seemed to be pressing hard, making Todd struggle against the pressure. With his right hand, Chad was working Todd's balls and it didn't look like he was working them gently. He had formed a ring with his fingers around the upper sack and was pulling it and the balls within it down so far it looked unnatural and painful. I knew my own balls tended to draw up into my groin as my orgasm drew near. If Todd's tended to do the same, they were being restrained by Chad''s grasp.

Both boys were groaning now and I was groaning with them. If anyone was listening in the corridor they would certainly hear my own moans joining with the sounds of the sound track. Let them listen, I thought, I couldn't care less.

Todd grasped Chad by the hair and seemed to be pulling him off. As Chad's mouth came off his cock, Todd grasped it and began to pump like a mad man. As he did so, Chad shoved his right arm under Todd's thighs and lifted them up. He stuck three fingers into his mouth and removed them dripping. He moved his hand along the crack of Todd's ass and quickly found the pulsing rosebud, shoving one wet finger into and twisting it as Todd flogged his own cock even faster. Chad withdrew his finger and just as quickly inserted two, continued his twisting action for a moment and then repeated the move, this time planting three fingers in Todd's widening ass.

"Yeah, Chad, finger fuck my ass, shove your fingers in there, buddy, fuck my ass," Todd moaned.

The camera cut back to Todd's cock just as it began to shoot. The first thick white volley shot over his torso and landed square on his face, some on his left cheek, some on his nose, some dripping down like some impossible icicle over his gaping lips. He moaned again and his tongue came out to snag the thick blobs and draw them into his mouth.

I felt my own cock jolt. I just managed to get my left hand under it before my own white seed shot out into my waiting palm. My eyes were fixed on the screen as Todd continued to lick his own cum from his lips. I raised my palm to my own lips and followed his lead, licking the pool of warm, white fluid into my mouth, letting it lie on my tongue, then moving it around until every part of my mouth was covered with it.

I groaned as the complex taste of my cum registered on my brain and a second jolt shot forth to run slowly down the surface of the TV screen. It was as if the barrier between the action on the screen and my own erotic action in the booth had suddenly merged. I groaned again and reached for the tissue.

The screen fluttered but this time I was there in a flash, dropping two more quarters in the slot and hardly losing a moment of the action.

Todd was up on all fours now, his hips thrust back as Chad moved behind him. I knew what was coming and wondered if my own cock could take it.

Chad spit in his hand and rubbed the saliva over his own raging cock. He moved up behind Todd and pressed in. Both boys moaned as Chad's cock slowly slid into the tight bud of Todd's ass. The camera angle changed suddenly and I was looking up from below the boys as Chad's cock began to move like a piston. It was over too soon. I suspected reality had been sacrificed to the half hour format of the loop. The camera angle shifted again and I watched spellbound as Chad withdrew his cock from Todd's ass and shot his powerful load across his buttocks and back, where it pooled in the deep recesses.

My own cock was hard and pulsing again but the action had been too quick. I watched as the image faded and after some static and a blank moment or two, the boys were back on the trail where I had first seem them.

I sat back exhausted and watched as the time ran out on my quarter and the screen again went blank.

I pulled myself together, got my jockeys in place and my cock tucked in. I pulled up my jeans and tried to check myself for overlooked evidence of my erotic exploits. The tissue, a large wad of it, presented a problem. Should I leave it in the booth? I didn''t think so. I took several more sheets and wrapped the damp mass of used tissue into something the size of a good snowball.

When I came out into the dimly lit corridor I looked to my left and saw the guy at the front desk still bent over his crossword puzzle. My world had for ever changed but his still went on, oblivious.

I looked the right and saw what looked like a toilet at the end of the passageway. I took my guilty tissue paper ball and slipped into the dank, stinking space. There was a stained toilet on the left and a broken lavatory on the right. I tossed my tissue paper ball into an overflowing rubbish bin and tried to coax a little water from the rusty tap. A few drops was all I got, but I managed to give my hands the semblance of a wash, dry them on paper towels and go on my way.

Back down the corridor, into the shop, by the puzzle worker at his counter and out into the blazing mid-afternoon sun. I walked as quickly as I could away from the incriminating door with the blinking sign overhead. ""Ad lts O ly,"" it still said

When I had walked half a block and my eyes had adjusted to the brilliant light, I looked at my Timex and saw it was just after three o'clock. My entire adventure had taken little more than an hour.

To be continued.