Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 14:52:18 EDT
From: Writersrealmmm@aol.com
Subject: Discovering Gregory Chapter 43

Discovering Gregory
By:  Rick Beck
Writersrealmmm@aol.com

Chapter 43
Putting Wheels on the Wagon

	When I pushed through the door, Greg was propped up in his bed,
laughing at something appropriately stupid on the television.  He only
glanced to see if it was me before going back to something more important.
I went to my chair and sat down.  He didn't speak until the first
commercial.

	"You're late again," he said, staring at me with those steely eyes.

	"Do you know how long it takes to get up here from school?  I can't
always get a ride."

	"You get a ride today?"  He asked, seeming almost concerned.

	"Part of the way.  I walked in from the gate."

	"It only gives us a few hours," he said.  "I liked it better when
you came in the morning."

	"Greg, I've got to go to school.  I don't want to end up being a
dummy," I said.

	"No chance of that," Greg said.  "You worry about your brain a
lot."

	"Well, I want to get through high school.  I don't know if it is
equipped for college."

	"Where are your books?  Don't you have homework?"

	"You think I'm lugging those fuckers all the way up here?  Get
real.  I go in early and do it before class."

	"You hitch all the way over here.  You stay until seven and hitch
home.  Then you go to school early to do your homework?"

	"Yeah, I get up when my old man gets up.  He rides me to the
corner.  That only leaves a mile and a half walk to school.  The janitors
open the doors at six thirty and I have until eight to get my homework done
if I don't fall asleep."

	"It sounds like a long day to me," he said, clicking off the
television and taking my hand after giving me the third degree.

	"I get my bath tonight, you know," he said, leaning back in the bed
as the motor lowered him to about a forty-five degree angle."

	"I'm happy for you.  How do they get you in the tub?"  I asked,
considering how he was strung up.

	I'd seen them unhook him one time, and it required an engineering
degree, not to mention three men and a great deal of caution.  I couldn't
imagine them wanting to do that very often.  He pulled my hand up onto the
cast and over to the bunched up sheet between his legs.

	I'd created a monster, or at least I had encouraged one quite
often, and now it was always the first thing he wanted from me.  How he
could make an impression like that on a bunched up sheet, I don't have a
clue, but it always seemed to be at attention for me when I got there.

	"A nurse does it with a sponge.  She pretends she doesn't notice
what happens.  A couple of times it has been a really nice chick.  Maybe
twenty-five."

	"I don't know why I bother if you have a stable up here."

	"Well, it's embarrassing.  If you take care of it then the problem
won't come up.  It will only take a minute believe me.  I've had all day to
think about you.  It's about ready.  You know, I used to be able to last
for a long time but now it just goes off.  I mean it's really nice and
feels good and all, but I'm so fast.  Maybe it's the meds or something,
huh?"

	He seemed concerned about his hair trigger.

	"You couldn't get it up last week," I reminded him.

	"That's before someone got me up," he said.  "I was really worried
about that.  The first bath I can remember, it never so much as twitched.
She had that puppy in her hand, scrubbing it like she knew something should
be happening, only it weren't."

	"Wasn't," I corrected.

	"That's what I said," he said.  "I didn't feel anything down
there."

	"You were all doped up," I said.

	"I've been doped up before and it only made me want to fuck all the
time," he said.

	"Yeah, but that was party drugs.  Different principle.

	"Yeah, well, it simply bypasses my mouth now and goes straight in
the veins.  Must be some good shit.  Too bad I can't enjoy it."

	"What happened to your girlfriend?"  I asked.

	"She broke up with me.  She thought I was a dick.  Can you imagine
that.  Me, a dick?"

	"Yeah, can't imagine that at all," I said not selling it, and
looking up into his now sad eyes.

	He used the back of my hand to rub himself through the sheet.  My
mouth always went dry at that point.  I couldn't get within a foot of him
when he was like that and not have hot flashes and dry mouth.  Maybe Greg
was my drug.  Whatever he was, no one ever made me feel the way he made me
feel.  Even if he was only using me to scratch his itch, no way I was going
to say no .

	"So who were you doing it with over there?"  I asked.

	"Nobody!"

	"Greg!  I wasn't born yesterday."

	"There was a place a guy I worked with went.  They did lap dancing.
I liked that okay, only you never got pussy."

	"Just enough to get you all worked up," I said.

	"No doubt.  One would give head in a little hall next to the men's
room if she liked you.  I never knew whether the guys who were stopping to
watch were watching her or me, you know.  Anyway, I did that a couple of
times but she quit after a few bj's."

	"Because of you?"  I asked.

	"I don't think it was me that time.  My roommate had girlfriend.
She wasn't bad."

	"What good did that do you?"  I asked, already suspecting the
answer.

	"He didn't have a car.  I drove him when he needed to go out.  I
always knew he wouldn't be back until he called to be picked up.  I don't
think he ever figured it out either.  We worked together so there weren't
that many chances.  She said he was a lightweight compared to me but she
still loved him.  I was merely a good fuck.  I don't think she even liked
me."

	"Why me, Greg?  I mean, why not the nurse.  Why not some girl you
know from god knows where?"

	He moved the sheet so my flesh and his flesh met for the first time
that day.  He put the sheet back once I was where he wanted me to be, but
he didn't let go of my hand and this was to get my mouth off of my
inquiring mind.

	"You're different."

	"Yeah, tell me about it.  Just your basic house fag, huh?"

	He looked at the ceiling and I could see the relaxation coming onto
his face.  He held my hand tight so it pressing very hard against him.  I
watched his moist lips separate some as his breath became heavy and he was
making an ever so slight moaning sound.  He pulled my hand even harder
against his stiffness as he moaned out a sharp gush of air.

	"Oh yeah!"

	"You want me to do you?"

	"I was going to do this as long as I was young, you now.  Kid
stuff.  Kids do that kind of thing.  Fool around and like that, but you had
me thinking maybe stopping wasn't all that great an idea," he was panting
when he leaned his head up to look at me.

	"Greg, we never did anything.  You acted like I had the plague," I
complained as he dropped his head back down.

	"You know, you still scare the hell out of me.  Your coming up here
every day, I hate that I can't wait for you to get here.  I know I
shouldn't feel like that about a guy, but you've always upset my apple
cart.  Every time you were around....  Well, you see what it does to me.
It's not the way it's suppose to be.  Little boys and little boys don't go
together.  Only when you're kids is that okay.  It was supposed to end when
I got older.  It did with the other guys."

	He let go of my hand and leaned his head back over his pillow so he
was looking more toward the headboard.  I could feel him pulsing as his
chest swelled and his muscles tightened.  He was swollen up like just
before he lost it.  I knew by the way he reacted to my fingers, he was a
stick of dynamite ready to go off.  I wasn't in a hurry and preferred
feeling the incredible activity stirring in his hardness.

	His hips moved ever so slightly.  I used my free hand to feel
across to his strung up leg.  It had been shaved and was like velvet.  He
was still ever so slightly tanned and he had the obligatory tan line from
summer time fun.  His skin was like no one else's skin I had ever felt.
Doug's was of a similar delicate softness but Doug was delicate everywhere
all the time.  Greg was only delicate to the touch just after the
stimulation started and before it led him to the promised land.

	Greg wasn't delicate.  He was hard and tough, except now that he
was a captive audience that needed me to help him to feel alive.  I was the
only one that knew what he liked and how he liked it and everyone else had
gone away from him.  He had been denied by those who had once loved to love
him.  Being strung up in a hospital isn't the doorway to fulfillment.
Well, it was for me and in turn, I shared my satisfaction with him.

	I'd admired him before for his lusty appetite and his ability to
feed it.  Knowing what I knew, it wasn't hard to get him going and to keep
him going on those days when I was feeling particularly randy or devilish.
Well, to say it wasn't hard is a misnomer of sorts.  It was almost always
hard while I was there and he always wanted me to know.

	He snorted and groaned and blew billows of air against the
headboard while churning as far and wide as he dared while rigged up the
way he was.  It left no doubt in my mind that he was completely lost in my
hands.  I saved other temptations for later so the stakes were raised as my
visit went on.  The first one was always worth the all day wait and the
discomfort the thought of it gave me in my classes.

	"You have your drivers license yet," he asked, looking at the
dinner menu.  "You think submarine sandwiches and chips sounds good?  I'm
getting my appetite back."

	"God yeah!  I haven't eaten since lunch.  You going to give me a
bite of yours?"

	It was a shameless solicitation but I was hungry.

	"Surely you jest?  I only get three squares a day.  You can eat any
time you have a notion to."

	"That's the problem.  If I want to get up here I don't have time to
stop.  The only food places are in the other direction unless I eat
downstairs and I can't afford that very often.  I'm fine until I get home.
There's always something in the fridge."

	"You need a car and then I wouldn't be waiting for you all the
time.  You do have your license, don't you?  Didn't someone ask you that
once?"

	"Thanks for letting me know what I need.  You can jack yourself off
from now on.  You really get on my nerves some times, Greg.  You're really
a prick deep down."

	"Big prick if you please.  Let's not understate things if we're
going to be rude and bring my genitalia into our discussion.  Does that
mean I've got to blow myself too?  I'm not like Herbie or Kent.  I do have
some dignity, you know.  Although I'd probably go for myself if I had the
chance."

	"Yeah, right, the only reason you don't is because you can't," I
said.

	"Not because I haven't tried.  So, you didn't answer me."

	"Fuck you.  I don't know why I waste my time.  You never think of
anyone but yourself.  It gets old after a while."

	"Not true.  How would you like to drive yourself home this very
evening?"

	"Yeah right.  Why don't I just stay here and sleep with you," I
said.

	"Now, that makes me want to rethink what I was about to say.  No,
I'm going to say it anyway because I like making you feel bad.  Open my
nightstand."

	I got up and walked around to the other side of the bed and opened
the drawer to look at his wallet, papers, nail clippers, and an assortment
of paraphernalia too numerous to mention.

	"What?"

	"Right on top.  The keys."

	"These to your heart?"  I asked.  "I've got my doubts you have
one."

	"You really make it hard to do anything nice for you.  Why do you
always think the worst of me?"

	"Sorry.  It somehow comes natural.  What up with the keys?"

	"My car is parked right below my window.  Now I'm taking someone
else's word for that but my mother rarely lies to me.  It's the ugly green
four door jobby, and don't bother saying anything mean to me about my
taste, my old man got me a deal on it.  Anyway, mom thought, since I'm not
going to be driving for a while, and you are such a "nice boy"," he said,
rolling his eyes back in his head, "to come visit me every day, well, you
get the idea.  By the way I didn't tell her you only came up to blow me, so
you don't have to avoid her because of your embarrassment."

	"I only come up here for what?  Excuse me?"  I said, my usual
indignant self.

	"You're always accusing me of stuff.  Why shouldn't I make up stuff
about you.  Let's lay off of each other for a change, okay?"

	"You really letting me drive your car?"

	"Well, as you can see, I'm in no condition to drive and letting my
little brother tear up my car isn't really in my best interest.  It needs
to be driven and who better to drive it than the guy that spends so much
time putting smiles on my face."

	"You're a real piece of work," I said, gushing as I leaned over to
hug him.

	With his car keys in my hand and with me in his, he relieved me of
my most distracting problem.  Two very pleasant gifts in only a few minutes
and the second had me weak in the knees and grateful for his loving
attention.  He seemed unwilling to relent until he had me where he wanted
me, which just happened to be where I needed to go.  He took special care
not to miss anything.

	When he was finished with me he rolled onto his back and his head
disappeared over the back of the pillow again.  I sensed something in his
posture that didn't please him but I didn't know what.  His just completed
act of contrition was the most logical cause in my mind, but I didn't want
to go there.

	"I think I'm turning queer," he said in a sorrowful voice after an
appropriate lull.

	"Greg, get real.  You like sex.  Who don't?"

	"Doesn't," he corrected."

	"I've done that to you twice and I've never done it all the way for
anyone before, you know.  Not since I was thirteen, anyway."

	"Who'd you do when you were thirteen?"  I quizzed.

	"Any German boy who wanted me to," he lamented.  "That was then.
This is now.  I stopped that before I came back, or I thought I did.  Guys
there don't call you queer.  They just call you when they're horny."

	"We like each other.  It's okay," I said.  "I won't tell anyone."

	"Lots of people say it isn't," he said.

	"Fuck them.  Look around you.  Look at what people do to each
other.  No one seems to object to the cruelty and hate everywhere.  I
hardly think what we do hurts anyone enough to worry about it."

	"Didn't hurt you at all.  That's for sure.  You trying to drowned
me or some thing?  I can't only drink so fast, you know."

	"Your gross," I said, not liking the sound of it.

	"I'm gross.  You're the one doing it in my mouth," he said, but he
was smiling as he lifted his head to peak at my reaction to his reaction.
"If I am I am, that's all.  I just don't want that."

	"Am what?"

	"You want me to say it, don't you.  You would love for me to tell
you I'm queer.  I know you, Martin.  You've been waiting for this since
that first day.  I still knew what you wanted.  I knew what was on your
mind."

	"Yeah, well, I never wanted it from anyone before I met you.  And
if you knew what was on my mind, what the hell was on yours."

	"What I don't know is why you put up with my shit.  You should have
kicked my ass a long time ago, you know.  I was way mean to you.  I am
sorry about that.  I mean that.  It's only because you fucked with my brain
all the time.  I knew exactly what you wanted and it made my dick hard
because I did.  For some reason that pissed me off.  I didn't want to feel
that."

	"Why do you need to put a label on it anyway?  None of us are
anything like they say.  How can a word describe love?  I could read the
entire goddamn dictionary and never be able to describe to you what I feel.
I could read all the greatest writers, Shakespeare, Whitman, King, and I'd
never find words that explain what it is you make me feel."

	"You should be a writer.  That was nice what you just said."

"Greg, you say a word and think it describes something but all that word is
is hateful.  It's the way people make themselves feel like they're
superior, only anyone that uses that word, or any word that diminishes
others, they're totally inferior and always will be.  I don't need a word.
I don't need anything as long as I'm with you, and that's the god's honest
truth.  That's what I know about words.  You taught me that."

	"You should hate me, you know.  I'd ah hated you if it was
reversed.  I knew what you wanted.  I couldn't stand it either."

	"What's going to be is going to be, Greg.  I don't think we could
ever hate each other.  Maybe it could have turned out different then this
but no matter what, we couldn't hate each other.  Never," I said, moving
back to the head of the bed to move his pillow so it was up under his head.

	I was tired of looking at him holding his head up.  I kissed his
forehead, each eye, and then I hesitantly went for his lips.  He had no
objection.  It was always the hardest thing for me to do to Greg.  I always
feared he'd move his mouth away just as I was about to find bliss in his
lips.  He didn't move his lips, well, he did, but I'm not going to tell how
absolutely wonderfully he did it.  No matter what I said, it wouldn't be
enough.  I know the taste of his mouth was like heaven to me.

	"Yeah, I got a feeling you're right about that.  My dick got hard
that day I looked back over my shoulder at you.  I knew we'd end up in bed
together one day.  I just didn't figure it would be like this."

	"I bet," I said.

	I sat closer to the head of the bed and held his hand on my chest
as we stared into the television later in the afternoon.  My stomach
started to growl and he kept giving me these weird looks.  Eating once a
day, and some times skipping that, my energy level was starting to crash.
When I thought of the car waiting for me, it did perk me up a little.  The
almost hour walk would now be a five minute drive.

	At five thirty I could hear the food cart in the hall as they
dispensed the evening meals.  My stomach started going nuts and I couldn't
keep it quiet.  He laughed each time it rumbled.  He'd want me to stay even
later since I could drive home, and my pockets were totally empty.  I hoped
the gas tank wasn't.

	When the door opened, the airman brought in a tray overflowing with
chips surrounding a foot long submarine sandwich.  I mean it was a foot
long and stacked high.

	"Oh man, that looks good," Greg said, grabbing half of the sandwich
and starting to eat as I watched enviously without begging him for his
food.

	The orderly came back with another tray, equally overflowing with
chips and milk and a big slice of yellow cake with a thick chocolate icing
that called out to me.  The second tray was sat beside the first as Greg
made room for it.

	"Go ahead and eat.  I asked the head nurse.  She said you could
have anything you want.  What's that about anyway?  You two an item or
something?  I'd ask her only she'd kick my ass.  Oh yeah, I've got
tomorrows menu in the drawer.  You can pick out what you want," he said,
smiling with some lettuce fowling up his front two teeth.

	"God, I'm starved," I said.

	"Tell me about it," he said, reaching for the second half of his
sandwich.

	Some days everything just works out really good.  This was one of
those days for me.  It was what made life worth living.  Even if I only got
a really good day once in a while, it would have been worth the wait if it
was anything like that day, but of course every day was like that day as
long as I had Greg to myself.

	It was the most amazing time in my life.  I had someone and I
imagined he had me.

	The car was full of gas, fully insured, and I had wheels for the
first time in my life, and orders not to get carried away.  I felt the
steering wheel carefully, knowing my loves hands held it before me.  I
could smell him in there but I had to stay awake until I got home.  It had
been a very long day.

	Oh yeah, the bath that night, no way he was going to get it up once
I was finished with him.  I really had a lot of energy after dinner and
then I woke him up for a long goodbye before I left him.

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