Montgomery Hall
A continuing series of interrelated stories

Roses

By John Yager

The following story is a work of gay erotic fiction dealing with the sexuality of boys of high school age.  If such stories are not to your liking or if you are not of legal age to read such stories in your jurisdiction, please exit now.

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.  I should also add that after the first story in this series,  Montgomery Hall: Peaches,  was posted,  I had several inquiries about the location.  These stories have been located in and around Winona, Mississippi.  Any other of a dozen or so locations would have been equally appropriate and the author is not attempting to suggest anything about the characteristics or culture of the locations chosen, and as previously stated, these stories are entirely works of fiction.

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.

This is the first of a projected series of interrelated stories which will appear under the collective title, Montgomery Hall.   While it is expected that the individual stories will stand independently,  they should be more enjoyable if read as a group.  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

Man, I'm worn out.  I worked in the rose garden with Mrs. Cutler for about four hours yesterday.  And she had asked me to stay for this picnic she was having and be a sort of unofficial lifeguard for her grandchildren and the other kids who would be there.   The picnic lasted until after ten last night and then I went home with Mrs. Cutler's grandsons to spend the night.  I guess I don't have to say we didn't get to sleep too promptly.  We just stayed up talking way too late, considering we had to be up early this morning.

I must say, though, that they really are a cool family.  Mrs. Cutler, she told me to call her Mrs. C, lives in this huge house which has belonged to her family for like one hundred and fifty years.  I guess the house has been worked on a lot because you'd never guess it was that old.

In addition to the main house, which sets at the end of a long tree-lined drive the way you'd expect an old southern plantation house to be, there are a lot of other buildings.  There's even a greenhouse, not just your ordinary greenhouse, but this really beautiful, really big, elegant greenhouse.  Then  there's this low building sort of built into the slope of the lawn at the back side of the house.  When you walk down toward it from the house itself, all you see is this paved terrace, which is actually the roof of the building.  But when you go down the stairs to the level of the pool, it turned out to be pool house with bathrooms and showers as well as this central room which looked almost like a living room but with big sliding glass windows facing the pool.  All the furniture is like really fancy porch furniture so I guess it can be moved out by the pool if they are having a big party.  It even has a kitchen.  Well, I guess it's really a bar, but there is a little stove so I guess it counts as a kitchen.  There's also a big gas grill outside by the pool.

They didn't use the pool house last night, though, except for kids running in and out to use the bathrooms or get soft drinks from the refrigerator.  There's also a regular barbecue up nearer the house and that's were they had the picnic.  Dave, that's Mrs. C's oldest grandson, said she always did that when all the kids were there so the adults wouldn't have to listen to the commotion around the pool.

Anyway, Mrs. C's place, is called Montgomery Hall.  It's east of Winona so my mother drove me over yesterday morning and will come back this afternoon to pick me up.  I wanted to drive my own car but my folks won't let me yet.  Maybe by the time school starts in the fall they'll loosen up a little.   I just got my driver's license in May so I guess I have to take it sort of slow for a while so I can get my insurance rates down.  If I go six months without an accident or a ticket I get a twenty percent discount, including a return of that much for the first six months.
 
Not that it isn't bad enough, even with the discount, but every little bit helps.  Man, young guys really get nailed on car insurance.   My car is cool thought.  My granddad gave it to me.  It's a 1953 Chevy and in perfect mint condition, light blue and white,  I've had offers on it you wouldn't believe but I can't sell it.  Grandpa gave it to me but he will keep the title `till I'm twenty-one.  Then I can sell it if I want but I can't imagine I'd ever want to, it's just so cool.

Well, anyway, Mrs. Cutler lives in this huge house on about a thousand acres of land.   There are gardens of just about every type you could think of.  There's a garden for iris and spring flowers and another woodland garden which has all these cool plants that used to grow wild all over but are now really rare.   And then there's this really neat little garden attached to the east wing of the house.  It's like a secret garden, surrounded by a really old and really high brick wall and all the flowers in it have white blossoms.  Mrs. Cutler took me to see it this morning while her older son, who is visiting from New York, was having breakfast.  He stays in that part of the house and she didn't want to bother him, so we waited `till he was up and eating breakfast before she took me to see it.

Then there is this rose garden, which is enormous.   The only way I could get an idea of how many roses
there are was to figure and average number of plants per bed and multiply by the and number of beds.   I think Mrs. Cutler has some kind of contract to  test new kinds of roses but it's my guess that she does it more to get to see the new varieties than for the money she gets for doing it.  Anyway,  I paced off the beds I worked in yesterday and they were about thirty feet long and six feet wide.  I figured there were an average of about twenty plants per bed and I counted 54 beds laid out in a huge rectangle with grass areas between them.  Man, if I'm right that is over a thousand rose bushes.  No wonder she needs to hire some kids like me to help!

At the far east end of the gardens there's this huge peach orchard.  I don't know how big it is but it seemed to go on for ever.   Mrs. C doesn't manage it.  She has it under some sort of contract and they have a lot of temporary workers who come in just to harvest the fruit,

Mrs. C's two oldest grandsons work for her, too.  They work several days a week in the rose gardens.  But they usually work mornings  because they have tennis lessons some afternoons and then just hang out at the country club.  They invited me to go swimming out there one day soon. I knew them already because they were in swimming classes with me two years ago and then Dave, the older one, was in water safety class with me last summer.  Monty, the younger one, is taking the water safety class this summer so he'll be qualified as a lifeguard by the end of the summer, like Dave and me.  Monty couldn't  take the class last summer because of some dumb age requirement.

Dave is fifteen.  He'll be able to get a learner's permit in about four months and he wants me to take him out to do a little practice driving real soon.  He says there are some back roads on his grandmother's property where he could drive now because they're private roads on her private property.  Monty is just fifteen months younger than Dave.  He'll be turning fourteen next month.

I also know Dave and Monty a little from church.  They don't come to the youth group much because of the distance from Winona to Greenwood but the whole family is at the services almost every Sunday.  It's like their ancestors were among the founders of the church or something.  There are memorials to various Montgomerys on the walls and in the churchyard.

I don't know them from school, though.  They go to this private school over here in Winona.  I
go to the public high school in Greenwood, where my mother teaches.  I guess I should say that just about everybody asks me how it is to go to a school where you have a parent teaching.  In my case, no problem.  But since mom teaches home economics, there isn't much chance I'm going to have her for a teacher.    My dad teaches too, but in the agricultural school at the state campus west of town.   That's how I got hired by Mrs. Cutler.   My dad had invited her to come over to speak at the university on the development of new roses.  She and he really hit it off, which isn't surprising because she is a really cool lady and my dad is this really friendly, really enthusiastic kind of guy.   She was looking for some students to work for her over the summer and he suggested she hire me.  I guess she had been looking for college students but most of them are off working on their own family's farms over the summer or else they are at the experimental farms run by the university.  Anyway, it worked out fine for me.   That is, it would, if my folks would just let me drive over on my own.  I'll have to keep working on that.

Anyway, Dave and Monty had been telling their grandmother that they needed more help with the roses.  My dad had given her our number and my name and she had called me just before classes let out for the summer.  But I couldn't start `till now because I took this advanced placement math class in summer school and the classes just ended. My folks had said they didn't want me working `till the classes ended, which was dumb.  The summer school course wasn't really that hard.  I aced it and I could easily have been working a couple of afternoons a week all summer.   So Dave and Monty told their grandmother they knew me when she mentioned hiring me.  That's why I got invited to stay over and help out with the little kids in the pool during the picnic last night.

One more thing,  Dave and Monty are both really great guys.  I guess the family must be really rich but you'd never know it from them.  They are just really nice, really regular teenage guys, not a bit spoiled or pretentious.  They're also really cute.

So yesterday I actually started working for Mrs. C.  I was with her in the rose gardens when up comes her son, the one who lives in New York.  I guess he had arrived late the night before.  This is her older son.   It is her younger son, David,  who has the kids.   She introduces him and tells him I'm really learning fast, which was sort of crazy, considering I'd just started working for her about two hours before and most of that time she had been showing me the gardens.   The older son is Martin Montgomery Cutler.  Can you believe a name like that?    It sounds so aristocratic and kind of English. They all call him Martin or Marty.   But, man, he is gorgeous.  I know he's the older of Mrs. C's two sons, but in a lot of ways he seems a lot younger than Dave and Morty's dad.  It isn't just the way he looks, it's also the way he moves and stands.  You know, kind of athletic.  But anyway, when he came strolling over while Mrs. C was trying to show me how to trim rose bushes, I just couldn't keep my eyes off him.  He was so relaxed, so poised.  He was wearing these really cool white slacks and a white polo shirt.  I read The Great Gatsby in American Lit. last year and, man, this guy looked like he had walked right out of the pages of that book.  He obviously works out.  He has the kind of body a guy only gets who's kept himself in shape for years, really trim.  And he's got a really handsome face, high cheek bones and a dimple in his chin and  this wonderful tan, like dark honey, not too dark, just kind of golden and glowing.  And to top it all off he has golden hair that kind of waves, kind of doesn't, kind of hangs down over his forehead and looks like he goes to some barber who charges a couple of hundred for a cut.   He really could be a male model.  In fact, he's a lot better looking than a lot of those guys you see in clothing ads.  I know he must have thought I'm an idiot.  He said he was glad to meet me and all I could do was stare at him.  I guess maybe Dave and Monty get their looks from their uncle's side of the family.  They sure don't look like either their dad or mom.  One other thing, later I figure out that it's the uncle that  Monty is named for.

Last night when I slept over with Dave and Monty and they gave me the whole  family history.   I asked about their uncle and they told me Martin is an attorney in New York, I guess he's really successful.  He works with the entertainment industry.  But I couldn't believe it when  Dave just out and said it, but he told me that their uncle is gay.  Man, I about dropped my teeth when Dave said that,  just calm,  like he was saying his uncle has blond hair, which he does.   But that's not something you just blurt out in my family.  I kind of think it would be cool if we did, but we don't.

They also told me a lot of other really interesting things about the family.   They told me that in addition to the huge old house and all the land and the gardens around it, their grandmother  has about umpteen thousand acres of land pretty much spread across central Mississippi from Greenville clear over to near Columbus and as far south as Yazoo City.  Dave wasn't even sure where it all is, but anyway, their dad, David senior, I guess, runs it all.  He has an office in Winona and another big office in Jackson.  In addition to all that land there are a lot of businesses which the family owns, too.  Mostly related to  agriculture like feed mills and farm equipment companies.  But there are a couple of more high tech companies which are sort of new and were started by their dad in the last few years.  Dave has his heart set on getting to run one of them when he gets through college.  He wants to go to MIT, would you believe,  and as smart as that guy is I bet he does it.

So any way, Dave and Monty and I are sleeping, or supposed to be sleeping, in this really cool room up on the third floor of their house, which by the way, is nothing to be ashamed of.   Not as big as their grandmother's place for sure and on a regular city lot.  Well, maybe three regular city lots, but not  acres and acres like the old place.  And their bedroom is  unbelievable.  It's the  attic but it's been converted into a huge room with the kind of windows which stick out away from the main room under the slope of the roof.  I'm not saying that very well but maybe you get the idea.  It's one big room but there are two alcoves at either end off the main space so they each have a sort of private area,  There's also a day bed in the central area, which is where I slept.  They have their own huge bathroom up there, too.  It is really cool.

Well, I guess I should tell you a little more about myself.  First, my full name is Timothy Michael  Arnold and I'm an only child.  My folks are from Indiana.  Well, I guess I'm from Indiana, too,  I was born there.  I was born when my dad was finishing his Ph.D. at Purdue and I was only three when we moved to Greenwood.  He jokes about not even knowing were it was when he got the offer, but it turned out to be a really good job and a good agriculture program, so he took it.    That was thirteen years ago and dad has tenure now so I guess we'll stay.

My grandparents, all four of them, still live in Indiana and we go back there a lot, about a month most summers and every Christmas.  It seems a long way but we drive up to my mom's folks in about six hours so it really isn't too far.

One thing, all my friends at Greenwood think I speak this really odd Yankee accent.  Then when we go up to see my parents' folks and all my cousins, they think I sound like a southerner.  They even think my folks have begun to sound like they are from the south, which I don't think is true.  And anyway, the south, or at least this part of it, is really changing a lot.  There are so many people who have moved here in the last ten or fifteen years that you really have to look to find a native born Mississippian.

My school in Greenwood is really into football.  It's the big sport.  I don't really like it, or at least I didn't think I did.   I preferred swimming and track but  when I started ninth grade, I went out for football, too, just because it is kind of expected.  All the really cool guys play football and they kind  of put up with my swimming and running track since I was going out for football, too.  I didn't really expect to be all that good at football but it turned out I'm a lot better than I or anyone else expected.  I guess my running track had helped make me fast on the football field.  I'm not too big for my age, well maybe a little above average, but not the kind of animal you are expected to be if you play football line or something.  I have a good body, you know, toned, no fat, well defined muscles, but  not all bulked up.  What I don't have is a really great throwing arm.  But what I can do is catch.  With my speed and my ability to  catch just about any ball thrown my way, I have run up a really great record of goals scored.  Last year I was just a sophomore and I officially played second string.  But the first varsity game the coach told me to suit out . I figured I was supposed to just warm the bench.  But the last quarter, I got put in and I scored a touchdown in the last few minutes of play.  From then on I suited out for all the rest of the games and got a  fair amount of actual playing time in.  In fact, I had the most playing time with the varsity team of any sophomore in the school's history.  As soon as the opposing teams caught on that I could catch and I could run, they were after me big time.  But as long as our blockers could protect me, I do great!  You've got to understand, that without the big guys blocking for me, I'd be dead meat.  I knew that and they knew that, but it's okay.  I guess  they thought of me as their sophomore mascot.  They called me the team's secret weapon, which wasn't true after the second or third game I played.  I mean, I wasn't a secret any longer.  But it made me kind of a local hero and got me some major points with my classmates.  As a result, I was elected class president for next year.

One other thing about sports.  I had a really hard time getting used to locker rooms and group showers.  The older guys all seemed to take it for granted and I have sort of gotten used to it.  Sort of.

So far as classes are concerned, I do real well.  I don't have any idea what I want to do but it's for sure I'm going to college.  My folks have always just assumed I would go to college, no argument.  Between good grades and a good record in football, I may end up with some  descent scholarship offers.

So I have the sports thing covered and the academic thing covered.  Where I come up short is on the social side. I have plenty of girls after me so I can get a date any time I need one.  And that's what it comes down to, "when I need one."  If there is some social event, a party or a school dance, I always have a date with one of the cute, popular girls.  But I have no interest in them and try to avoid dating the same girl more than two or three times.  As sure as I do, it starts getting messy.  They think we are getting serious and want to go steady.  I've learned to avoid that at all cost.

So, you ask, am I gay?  I've thought for a while now that I probably am, but I have never had sex with anyone, girl or boy.  When I think about it though, I think about boys.  The most I've done is give a few girls the mandatory goodnight kiss after a date, and that does nothing for me.  I must admit, thought, there are a few guys I could get into kissing!

In fact, I have to tell you that when we were getting ready for bed last night, I couldn't help giving Dave and Monty a rather careful inspection.   We had all been hanging out around the pool at their grandmother's,  and of course, I'd also seem them in bathing suits during the swimming classes we'd had together, but this was the first time I'd seen them naked, and I must say, they are cute.  Major cute.

By the time we got back to their house it was about ten-thirty and their little brother and sister were both asleep in the van.   Dave just picked up Bobby and Monty took Sue and carried them up to their beds.  I followed along thinking how great they all were as a family and wondering what it would be like to have brothers or sisters.

Once up in their room, they said they wanted to shower to get the chlorine off.  "Grandma has way too much chlorine in her pool,"  Monty said.

"Don't blame Grandma,"  Dave said,  "talk to Ben."  Ben is this really cool black guy who works for Mrs. C.   I kind of got the feeling that the whole family regards him as the one who keeps the whole thing going.

"So, anyway, Tim, come on.  We got a shower big enough for the whole team,"  Dave said as he pulled off his polo shirt and shorts and started back to the big bathroom.

Sure enough, there was this big glass-enclosed shower about six feet wide by eight feet long with shower heads at both ends and two on the back wall.  I mean it is huge, way big enough for a health club or a small gym.    So we all three got in and showered off.   Monty tossed me some really great smelling shower gel and I lathered up.  "It's your all in one bath gel,"  Dave said, "body wash and shampoo."    So, anyway, there we all were, washing off  and,  you guessed it, I sprang a major boner.  Man, was I so embarrassed, like all my worst nightmares about the locker room coming true!  I'm trying to face the wall and keep the guys from seeing me all excited.  But when I finally turned around I saw Dave and Monty were as hard as I was and making no attempt to conceal it.  They were just lathering up and then standing back and enjoying the hot water pounding on their shoulders like nothing at all was wrong, and come to think of it, I guess nothing was wrong.  Just three healthy teenage guys.   So, anyway,  I kind of relax and wait for them to finish up .  After a few minutes, they grabbed towels, tossed me one, and dried off.   Obviously, I got a good look at them and they obviously had a chance to check me out too if they wanted.   I can tell you, both of them have really great bodies, tight, hard, no fat.  Nice equipment, too.  In fact, I'd guess we are all about the same height and weight.  Well, Dave and I are just about exactly the same height and weight.  Maybe Monty is a couple of inches shorter and twenty pounds lighter, but real close. We are also about the same in the male equipment department, all three of us pushing right at six inches when fully hard.

Monty even commented on how much alike we all three were.  "You know, we look like we could all three be brothers, not just Dave and me.  Nearly the same height, same build, all three of us have short blond hair and killer tans."

Well, not bragging, but he's right!

Anyway, we got out of the shower and I was kind of holding back, waiting to see what they'd wear to bed.  I'd brought a backpack with a couple of shirts and underwear and stuff for Saturday, when we were going back to work on the roses.   Both Dave and Monty went off to their own parts of the big room.  They came back to the central area, where I was going to sleep, a couple of minutes later wearing loose boxers.  I'd kept the towel around me, waiting to see what they'd put on, so when they wandered back into the living area, I quickly pulled my sleeping shorts out of my backpack.  I'd sort of hoped they'd just stay naked.  They seemed okay with it in the  bathroom, not at all self conscientious in front of me.  I knew they both played sports and guessed they were used to being naked in locker rooms and showers in front of other guys.   So naked would have been nice, except I'd have had a boner the whole time.  But if boxers were their standard sleeping garb, I was okay with that.   Not that my dick didn't stay hard anyway, but at least I had a some chance of hiding it.  I sure was wondering, though,  about the two of them and where they were coming from.  I decided they were just regular, easy going guys, at ease with each other and with me.  They made no move of a sexual sort, and I certainly wasn't about to.  I wondered, though, were they having the same thoughts I was having?  I couldn't take my eyes of them, they're both so cute,  with their well defined bodies, cute faces,  and as Monty had already pointed out, blond hair and great tans!

Dave went down stairs and come back a few minutes later with popcorn and soft drinks. While Dave was gone,  Monty went off to his end of the big attic room and came back with a couple of sleeping bags.  He spread  them out on the floor, one on top of the other.   He and Dave stretched out on the sleeping bags and we continued talking,  me on the daybed,  lying on my side, propped  on one elbow, trying to keep the sheet up to hide my hard-on.  Dave and Monty lay there on the floor below me, kind of curled up together like a couple of cuddling puppies.  Man, they are so cute!  I couldn't get over how they just lay together, touching, not so much sexual as it was just loving, easy, relaxed.

I remembered the way they'd carried their little brother and sister into the house and thought again how nice it would be to have brothers like that.  I guess I'd never thought much about being an only child, but seeing them that way made me realize what I'd missed.

After a while Dave pulled a big chair over and propped himself up against it, his back against it, his legs spread out toward me on the sleeping bags.   Monty rolled over, first one way and then the other, staying right next to Dave.  He was obviously really sleepy but wouldn't give up and go off to bed.  After a while Monty just  rolled over with his head  on Dave's shoulder and his arm thrown over his brother's  chest in a kind of loose embrace.   Soon Money's breathing evened out and it was obvious he was asleep.   Dave seemed just fine with it and he and I continued talking.  I couldn't help thinking how nice it would be to lie with my head on Dave's beautiful shoulder, or for that matter, lie with Monty's head on my shoulder the way he was lying on Dave's.

 It was during our conversation after Monty had fallen asleep, that Dave told me more about their family and then dropped the really big bomb by saying that their uncle was gay.   There was nothing in the way he said it which gave me any hint about his own feelings.  It was just a statement of fact.

The conversation turned to sports and my football record.  I said I was really flattered that Dave even knew I played for Greenwood.

"You got to be kidding, man,"  Dave said,  "Everybody knows who you are.  Gee, you made the Winona newspaper just about every week last fall."

We talked about football, which he followed, but didn't play.  He told me that Martin had played for the same school he and Monty went to and then went on to play some for Old Miss.  I had no idea and made a note to check him out in the record books.

I would really have liked to ask  him some more questions about Martin, but it kind of seemed as if he had intentionally changed the topic of conversation after he'd said his uncle was gay, and I didn't have the nerve to go back to the things I would really have liked to know about.   I guess we talked quite a while with Dave just stretched out with Monty's head on his shoulder.  He just  kind of cradeling him, sometimes looking down at him, smiling in a loving way, at times brushing his brother's  hair back off his forehead and all the while, talking with me.   It was just so natural and so sweet.

Sometime later Monty shifted on Dave's shoulder.  He slid down until his head was resting on his brother's  hard belly and his hand come up to cradle Dave's crotch, cupping it, holding it lightly.   I couldn't tell that Dave was embarrassed at all.  He just said, "well, it looks like my bro has drifted off to dream land.  I guess I'd better get him into his own bed."

"Can I  help?"  I asked, forgetting that when I stood up my hard dick was tenting my boxers.

"Yeah, if you don't mind.   Seems like  he weighs a ton when he's asleep."

I noticed as I moved over to help take Monty's weight that we all three had bulges in our boxers.  It was like a universal condition!  I had no reason to be embarrassed after all.

"This happens often?"

"Yeah, all the time," Dave said.  "Can we just stand still a little.  My legs have gone to sleep."

We stood there, the three of us, with Monty's arms over out shoulders and ours' around him, our bear chests pressed together.   Both of their bodies seemed to radiate warmth.  Man, it was great!"

"Seems like two or three times a week he comes over to my bed and wants to talk.  Then he ends up falling asleep.  I used to try to get him back to his own bed but now I just let him stay there.  He always ends up all curled around me so I started kidding him, calling him my Teddy Bear."

Oh, man, what images were going through my sleepy brain!

After we managed to get Monty on his own bed, Dave and I just stood there looking down at him.

"Awake he seems like a really grown up guy,"  I said,  "but asleep he still looks like a little kid."

"Yeah,"  Dave said with a smile,  "that's my bro!  One moment the big guy on campus, the next just a little kid who wants to be held and rocked to sleep."  He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, steadying himself.  I realized his legs were still tingly and put my arm around him, supporting him.  He smiled at me and said, almost in a whisper, "thanks,"  then looking down at Monty, added, "you can't help love the guy."

He was absolutely right.

We walked back into the center of the big room with Dave's arm around my shoulder and mine around his waist.   When we reached the daybed, he said,  "Well, guy, thanks a lot.  Get some sleep, we have to be up early."

"Don't remind me,"  I said and leaned forward toward him. I don't know why I did it or  how I had the nerve, but it just seemed so natural.  We kissed, his lips lightly on mine.  It was just for a second, just a friendly, natural, goodnight kiss.  His arm rested gently on my shoulder, my hand rested gently on his back, his bare skin feeling so warm and soft.  Then it was over.  We stepped apart and he smiled and turned away.

As he walked toward his own bed, Dave looked back over his shoulder and gave me a goofy little grin.  Then he wave of his hand as he went off to his own bed.  I stood there for a solid minute trying to make sense of what had just happened, then I too crashed onto the daybed, but it was a long time before I could get to sleep.

I lay in bed a long time before I finally got to sleep.  I kept remembering the two of them earlier in the pool, their hard, muscular bodies wet and glistening in the afternoon sun.  I remembered them carrying their younger brother and sister up to their beds.  I don't know way that memory lingered except that it seemed so sweet, so loving.  And of course I remembered Monty asleep against his brother's hard muscular shoulder, secure, protected, knowing he was loved.

But most of all I remembered that brief, fleeting kiss.  It has only lasted as second.  But it seemed so natural, so good, so spontaneous.  It certainly went miles beyond any other kiss I had ever experienced.  It made all those regulation kisses at the end of dates with girls seem totally irrelevant!    I guess it was then, as my mind ran back over the last few hours that, for the first time I had to admit to myself that I really was gay.  Not just maybe, not just possibly, not just sort of.  I was gay!  And once I let myself admit it to myself, I realized that I had really known it for quite a while.  I certainly knew that what I was feeling for those two beautiful brothers was not just some phase.   Maybe I wasn't really in love, although that was certainly a possibility.  I had no frame of reference, nothing to compare it to.   Maybe it wasn't just Monty or Dave, or, God help me, Monty AND Dave.

I think it was seeing them together, so easy, so relaxed and natural in their physical contact with one another.  It helped me see something clearly for the first time, something about being a boy, no, about being a young man with other young men, about maleness, masculinity.

I guess that's why I'd almost lost it when Dave said his Uncle Martin was gay.  Man!  That gorgeous, successful guy!  Talk about a role model.  I wish.

But somehow I knew that I had to talk to someone, someone who could understand what I was experiencing, what I was discovering about myself.   Martin seemed like a natural candidate for such a conversation.  I felt I could talk with him and I suspected he would be the kind of man who would listen patiently and respond thoughtfully.  It also helped that I had just met him.  I could not seem myself talking with a member of my family or a close friend or a teacher.  I kept thinking about Martin and wondering if there was any way I could arrange such a conversation with him.   He was going to be around for a week so there was some way I could get to see him alone.  Then it occurred to me that I could ask Mrs. C if I could do some weeding in that small garden next to Martin's  room.  Maybe that would give me a chance to ask him a few questions.

Finally about three in the morning my brain stopped spinning long enough for my body to demand sleep.  Unfortunately, it only seemed like minutes, not hours, before Dave and Monty were moving around and trying to wake me.

"Come on, man,"  Monty was saying,  "Grandma wants us to get to work early while it is still a little cool."

I groaned and tried to set up.  "You guys taking showers?"

"Nah," Dave said, we'll be sweaty in ten minutes any.  Just bring your swimming suit.  We'll jump in the pool before lunch."

"Yeah,"  Monty called, already starting down the stairs,  "get your butt moving.  It's a new day!"