by  Jonas Mec
            (eastbayjag@aol.com)
 

This story is posted for the exclusive enjoyment of readers of the Nifty Archive. While you are free to make a personal copy, no copy of this manuscript may be published, copied, posted to another web site, or otherwise disseminated without express permission from the author, who retains copyright.

The contents of this story are fictional. Any resemblance of characters to living or lived persons is strictly coincidental. Certain characters engage in sexual acts which may or may not be legal in the state or country in which a reader may reside. Any reader with objections to graphic descriptions of sexual encounters between males who may not have reached the legal age of consent, or whose local, regional, state or national jurisprudence prohibits such descriptions, should not read further.

Chapter VII - Never say "Sorry"

I pulled back from Bill's lips, and suggested we go home for dinner. I was ravenous. I wanted him, wanted to make love to him like I'd never . . .

I had a momentary guilt trip, thinking on my Mary. I wondered if I was trampling on the love we had for each other, then rationalized a while. Mary loved me, in her special way. She would have wanted me to be happy, ergo, she approved of Bill and me going forward together. End of guilt trip.

I watched Bill as he walked beside me, tall and strong and proud. A man's man, what knew what it was to work like a slave, eat like a dog, sleep like a rock, month after month, year after year, to acheive his goals. A man what knew the value of truth, and loyalty, trust and friendship. I felt proud enough of him to bust.

I couldn't believe how fast things were moving. We were almost strangers - barely aquaintances - two weeks ago, even if we'd lived in the same town for gone twenty years. Now we were about to make love to each other. Me, the old geezer that remembers when his father was born, knew both his grandads when we went to school together, had been married for almost thirty years to his mother's second cousin, before he was born, was about to . . .

We had to take a last look at the Ship, just to make sure it was real, I guess. There it hung, the top almost scraping the top of the Hangar where the roof was too narrow in the arch, so beautiful, so still. I said a little prayer to Him, asking His help in getting the repairs done in time for Groth to leave with the others, not be . . . imploded into a singularity, like the one that got both Ships in a ridiculously improbable cooincidence on its almost infinitely rapid pass through space.

"Let's go," said Bill. He was holding my hand.

"Yeah," I said, looking at his hand in mine, feeling things I didn't yet know how to say, even to my man. I felt like I did when I first went upstairs with Mary on our wedding night, both of us still virgins, unsure of what it would be like, wondering if we would have a baby on the first pitch, dreading the prospect as well as curious beyond all measure.

We closed the Hangar doors again, and walked hand in hand to the Shop door, then locked up.

"Same car?" I asked.

"Jeep," Bill grinned. "I need to cool off a little."

So we piled into Jeep, and headed out Post, then down to Gove on the road between my place and Barret's. Or Dreeson's, if you want to be a stickler for detail. I didn't want to go through town, for some reason. I think I was afraid someone would see what we were up to. Paranoid, I know. We didn't pass a soul on the road.

Ted Barrat was perched on his IH, tilling on the northwest part of his parcel, but probably didn't see us for his corn, already more than two feet high, and the dust from his tilling. He was going to be late for his supper again, but Jane would hold Supper for him, even if she had to feed and put the little ones to bed before Daddy came in from the fields to kiss them goodnight. She come from a farm, knew the sacrifices you have to make sometimes to get the crops in, accepted the hardships because the rewards were so much more than just living in the suburbs and working on a computer . . .

It felt "right." having Bill's hand resting on my thigh, just keeping in touch. I looked across at him a couple of times, and every time he turned just at the same moment, and locked his eyes to mine, his whole face a smile.

"What you thinking?" I asked as we pulled in my drive to pick up the cider.

"Whether or not we should eat first," he said.

"I think maybe yes," I said. "I think maybe once we start . . . makin' love . . . we aren't going to want to stop for anything as trivial as food."

"I thought we already were."

"Were what?"

"Making love," he grinned at me.

"You got me," I laughed, getting out of Jeep at the front door. "Be right there!" sailed over my shoulder as I dashed into the house. I felt like a kid, like I was going to the best hoedown party ever, with the high school's most popular and desirable student, who I'd worshipped from afar since forever. Who I loved. I . . . loved.

And there it was. Right out there in the open, no more refuting it, I was in love. With a kid a third my age. A guy, no less. I thought again on my love for my Mary, and realized it wasn't the same with her. It wasn't the head-over-tail, "I gotta grab that ring, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my days loving, holding, cherishing, " emotion I had with Mary. We were friends, close, intimate . . . and I loved her. But I was never In Love with her.

I stumbled down the stairs to the little cellar, got the cider down from the shelf, clambered back up the stairs (making more racket than a charge up a school staircase after school let out for summer vacation) and practically sprinted back to Jeep. All this deep thinking was making me thirsty.

I whooped as I burst out the door, brandishing the jug of cider like a war trophy, laughing like the idiot I felt - and promptly tripped over the loose floorboard on the porch, struggled to keep my balance for a second, lost the battle and tumbled over, then rolled mostly sidewise down the steps to the drive, still laughing like a damned fool.

"Graham!" Bill shouted. "Graham!"

He was getting out of Jeep, 'Concern' writ large on his handsome face, despite the laughs he was sharing with me.

I got up, still holding the jug, miraculously still in one piece.

"Nothin' broken," I laughed back. "Nothing important, anyways! Half full, it is!"

I lept up on Jeep after I stooped and picked up my hat (which of course had rolled half way under Jeep) dusted my jeans off a little and handed him the jug, grinning like an idiot.

"What?" he said, this huge smile on his face. "What?"

I leaned over the gearshift, grabbed his face and planted one on him, my tongue half-way to his heart, his hands all over me, my heart beating like a harvester in October, right in my ears.

I pulled back and looked into his pupils, surrounded by that wonderful blue-black, and told him. "I just realized I'm in love with you," I said. "I don't know where we're going with this, but I love you more than I never thought possible." I wasn't smiling so much. I was serious. I was a little afraid he would pull away, no - I was a lot afraid.

Stupid old man, what did I know?

"Yeah," he said. "Me, too."

I was stunned. Then grateful. Then loud. I just shouted up to God, no words, just a pure get-it-out-of-the-gut-as-loud-as-you-can holler of joy. The man loved me!

I guess he thought I was nuts, but he just laughed, his head rolling back a little, his adam's apple bouncing a little on that beautiful neck, which I just couldn't resist, so I pulled him to me a little more and kissed it, then all over his neck, his shoulders, the top of his chest. I ripped open his shirt somehow, and his magnificent, tight, tanned chest was mine to savor, to touch with my lips, to inhale his wonderful scent, a little salt, a little must, a lot of sweet.

He had his arms around my head, his fingers running through my hair, down my back, his kisses on my stubbled pate barely getting through to me, my mind so occupied with what was happening to my tongue. I found his left nipple, and took it between my lips, torturing it with the tip of my tongue, feeling it tighten up even more, hard like licorice in my mouth, but sweeter, so much sweeter.

My hands were on his back now, under the shirt, feeling the warmth of him, the ribs just under the skin, the silken smoothness, and I wanted to just do it right there, right then, just tear off his jeans, take him with me to heaven.

"Let's go," he said in my ear, whispering. "I want . . .  I want . . . I . . . so much!"

I managed somehow to gather my senses, slow them down a little, stop the niagara of lust.

"You gotta feed me first." I mumbled as my tongue worked back up to his lips, tasting the saltiness of his day, the honey of his perspiration.

"Hope you like your meat rare," he said back as I came up for air. "I don't think I can wait for it to cook long."

We sat in the Jeep, in front of my house, and just spooned, nibbling kisses at each other, me holding him one minute like he was glass that might shatter, the next like a guy in a wrestling match. My penis was screaming for release from its blue prison, and his was, too.

"Let's go," he said. "We've got a lot to do before midnight."

"Yeah," I said, sitting up and starting the engine. "And after."

"Graham?"

"Yeah?"

"Say it again."

"What?" I said in my daze as we pulled down the drive. "Oh. I love you. I'm in love with you."

"God, I thought I'd never hear you say that to me. I love you, too. Don't stop saying that - as long as you feel it."

"Promise."

"I feel . . . I feel like everything has finally clicked into place. Like everybody always said would happen, but I didn't believe them."

"Your Mom is gonna shit green nickels."

"She already knows."

"What?" I almost rolled Jeep into the ditch, turning onto Gove so fast.

"You see her this morning?"

"Of course!"

"She looked at you, then at me, and she knew. I think she thinks we're sleeping together."

"Uh . . . about that," I said, trying to find the words.

"Yeah!" he said brightly, giving me a 'let's get on with it' look.

"I'm not the world's greatest . . . uh . . . I mean, I haven't never been with . . . I mean, I'm not that experienced in that department."

"What department?" He was being plumb evil.

"Sex with a guy!" I managed to get out between clenched teeth, only to regret the pain in my gums from biting down, Not as bad as before, though.

"Me either," he said back at me. "Guess we'll have to learn together, won't we?"

I gave up. "Yep."

"I love you Graham," he said as softly as the wind in the Jeep would allow. "I really love you."

"I know, B.B.," I said. "I love you back more than my words will say."

"Then you'll just have to show me with your body, then, won't you!" he laughed, and stroked Roger like a puppy.

Roger was no puppy, though. Roger was a drooling, sex-crazed hounddog trying to bite his way out of my jeans.

"Jesus, Graham!" he said huskily. "We're both in a fix."

I reached over to his crotch, and felt a man hard for the first time ever. Besides me, I mean.

"We're going to have to do something about that right soon," I said. I was all of a sudden a little hoarse, too.

"You could kill a man with that," Bill said, holding Roger like a man holds . . . another man, I guess.

"I will never hurt you, Bill," I said, barely above a whisper. "I swear that to God and to you."

"I know," he said, as we was turning into his drive.

There was water in our eyes, and things got a little blurry. But we weren't crying. Men don't do that, do they?

I managed to get up up to the front of his place without knocking down any trees or plowing up the roses, but only by instinct.

We actually managed to walk inside before we were all over each other again, the jug of cool cider pressed against his side, until he took it from me and put it on the commode in the hall. There were more "I love you's" than any sane person could possible stand to see on the printed page, so I won't bore you with our conversation. I wasn't totally hard, but definitely not soft, and it was the same for him - these were kisses of feeling, of affection, of love and deep longing, but they weren't foreplay - not yet. Well, maybe a little towards the end, there. I am - we are - human, after all.

We took the cider into the kitchen, and Bill got down a couple of glasses, holding them for me to fill part way, waiting for me to put the jug down on the table. We took a sip, staring into each other's eyes, not talking, just enjoying. I made all sorts of vows to myself, made myself promise to tell him - every day I lived - what I felt for him.

"Let's get supper started," he said. "I cook, you make salad."

Somehow, we managed to do it all. He put the meat in the oven, along with potatoes, and got some pole beans sliced up to zap with butter when the meat was done, and we went out and did his chores. I showed him a little trick with hooking up the milker that made things go just a little faster.

While the cows got their relief, he mucked and lay straw while I sorted out the chickens and the cats. I hate cats. I know they taste a lot like chicken, and keep the mouse/rat population under control, but I likes songbirds too much to keep more'n one barnyard cat. He has three. They all tormented me with attention, from the time I accidentally rubbed one absently while I was watching Bill finish up the milking. I guess cats are about the most perverse creatures on the planet - ignore you if you love them, won't leave you alone if you hate them.

I couldn't help watching him, his every movement, as we worked together. He moved with a fluid grace, every visible muscle sharply outlined, his long legs slightly bowed, strong, slim, totally masculine. When he lifted the milk collector to transfer to the refrigerated storage tank, the muscles on his arm and neck right bulged, in all the right places.

While I was putting the teats into the sterilizer, he set the feed out for his little herd, and then raked a little more where needed. The tension was building up in us like no man should never experience but once. I wanted inside him so bad, I couldn't think straight. I had to reseat the teats twice.

Finished, we looked at each other and smiled broad grins, then carried the few eggs I'd gathered from his little flock and a gallon of raw milk inside. I gave him a playful swat on the butt as he went in front of me up the back steps into the kitchen, and he backed up into my hand a little when he opened the screened door to go in. His butt is a perfect fit for my hands, one cheek for each.

"Careful," he growled. "Don't mess with what you can't handle. Unless you mean business."

"Just warming up," I said. The kitchen smelled wonderful, the roasting meat and potatoes attacking my nostrils, letting me know I was ravenous. I hadn't et roast meat since I couldn't remember. Elva sticks pretty much to chicken and grilled beef and pork loin, 'cause of Jerry's condition.

"I'll bet," he laughed. "I sure am!"

He put the jug of milk into the fridgidaire and grabbed me from behind as I was putting the eggs into the bowl on the counter. His arms felt like they belonged around me, my body molded just to fit into his. He kissed me on the back of the neck, and I just stood there, my hands on the front and outsides of his thighs, kneading them as he traced up and down with his lips, his hands covering my chest, his fingers ocasionally tweaking my nips through the shirt, massaging. I wondered if it would hurt a lot when he took me, but only briefly. What's a little hurt when it's for the one you love?

"I love you," he whispered. "And I'll prove it after we eat."

"You don't have to prove anything to me," I whispered back. "I know."

Why on earth we were whispering, I haven't the slightest idea. Seemed right. Maybe our voices got drowned in the shivers going up and down my spine, down my legs. I wasn't aroused - it wasn't like that - not at first. I was in Heaven. Then all at once, Bill was HARD. Like granite. I was, too.

He does that to me.

"Let's eat," he said, slipping his hands under my jeans, his fingertips doing a medley on my boxers, just above jolly Roger, then slipping away, reaching for the kitchen cloth and opening the oven. I don't know where he learned to tease like he does, but it works on me every time.

I took a deep breath and stepped back, just looking at him bent over, that amazing butt stretching his jeans, the crease perfectly visible under the loose material, the impossibly slim waist under broad shoulders. I'd go on, but who wants to hear about the beauty of a man's knee when it bends just so, or the ripples in his wrists when he seizes the sides of something to lift it, the twinge I get when I see the little muscle under his ear roil when he clenches his jaw just a little?

He took the roast out, told me where to find the platter, which I managed to get out just in time for him to swing the meat onto. He reached into the oven and pulled out the potatoes barehand, putting them on the platter ends. I just stood like a butler, while he scooped onto it some carrots and parsnips that he had somehow snuck into the pan without my seeing.

The oven off, he told me to put it all back in, while he pulled out of a bag a loaf of crusty bread and put it in to heat up as well. Then he slathered some butter on the green beans and threw them into the microwave, while he got me working on the gravy on the stovetop. He added the flour and turned down the flame, but left me to keep stirring.

He breezed by with milk and water and salt as I stirred, and turned down the flame a little more.

In a minute or five, all was ready, the flour cooked through and the milk and water thickened. I expected he was going get down plates and silverware, but before I could say anything about where was we going to eat, in the kitchen or in the dining room, he opened the doors to the dining room. The sneaky bugger had the table all set, the two of us at the end, on the corner, with candles, the whole bit. Even proper napkins. I only use paper most of the time - paper towels more often than not, paper napkins if I remember them. I never used Mary's best white linen ones, the ones we only used when Elva and Jerry came to supper, or at Thanksgiving and things. The wash and wear napkins are at the bottom of a drawer som'eres.

Never did ask him if he did all that beforehand, or while I was making the gravy. Timing wasn't important, anyway. It was the care that was important. He took the extra step for me. That's flattering, and flattery is important if a couple is going to make it for the long haul. You realize how much someone cares about you when you look for the things they does to make you happy, and tell them how much you appreciate them, just as much as when they notices the things you say or do to make them happy. Never could figure why people don't realize that.

We sat to table and he said Grace. I don't think it's right to say what other people say to God in their private convcersations, but I guess saying Grace is sort of public. He thanked him for bringing us together at his table after bringing us together in love and spirit and body. I choked up a little, but I don't think it showed, what with my head bowed.

After Amens, we made a toast with the cider, just like it was wine, then he carved the meat, while I served up some vegetables and things on the plates. We ate quickly at first, then more slowly, enjoying the food. It was delicious, tender, flavorful. My gums hurt, especially when I chewed down in back. All the front ones felt like they were scraping the plastic of the chompers.

He'd done a great job, and I told him he had a full time job as a cook on the side.

He flushed a little, then said, "I only did it . . . I'd only do it for you."

We started to eat a little faster after that. We finished quickly, and carried the plates and things into the kitchen. He washed, I dried. I can't remember doing dishes like that since I was a kid. The tension was building.

"Sunset?" he suggested.

"Ayuh," I answered. "For a little bit." I went to the downstairs toilet for a pee, and took out my chompers. My gums really hurt, and I couldn't close my mouth all the way with them in. When I looked in the mirror, I could see why - I had my own teeth back. But they wasn't my teeth. These were straight, and perfectly white, and spaced right. I opened wide - there was loose skin on the top of the back teeth, sliding around when my tongue explored. My new molars was busting out.

For some reason, that sealed it for me. I was getting younger, stronger, less homely, more vigorous. I wasn't the best catch, not by a long shot, but I was a good one, and Bill could do a lot worse than fall for me, even if I was an old fart. I went out of that toilet ready for what life was going to bring me, and I was going to enjoy it completely for as long as I had. Screw anybody that thought less of him or of me because I loved him. I used another word than 'screw' in my head, but I don't like writing it down.

We sat side by side in a swinging sofa on the back porch, where you could see through the trees better, and sipped at a couple of fingers of bourbon, holding hands like a couple of teenagers. Same brand as mine. I wondered if he found it before me. I mean, before he met me. No matter, as long as he likes it. The sunset was spectacular, and we actually saw a bit of it before we turned to each other, got up and began to dance. No music, just crickets and farm sounds, and breathing and spooning.

Somewhere or other, while we were kissing tenderly, the "on" switch for passion got flipped, and things took a turn for white hot. Our hands were all over each other, above the waist and below, and our tongues had got to be such good friends, they forgot which mouth they lived in. We abandoned the dancing and almost ran to the stairs, carrying our glasses, not even half emptied. We managed to get upstairs to his bedroom before we spilled anything, and we undressed each other, slowly, like a kid does on Christmas Morning,  when it's the very last package from Santa and he doesn't want the magic to end.

His chest came first, partly because I'd ripped off a button at my place. His T-shirt came off easily, and I smelled his musk under the arms, slightly sour, very sweet. The chest of a well-developed young man, tight and lightly muscled, every cord visible through the translucent skin, the nipples a tad rosy where I'd worshipped them before. A sprinkling of hair in the center, in a golden-brown double swirl, the center leading down to his "outtie" navel, then down under his jeans. I let him take my shirt off while I soothed his reddened nipple with my lips, nibbled on his skin, all over his chest, his shoulders, his neck.

He lowered his lips to my nipples after a minute, sending waves of ticklish pleasure and stimulation through me. Nobody ever did that to me, and I learned what I was missing. There must be a special nerve that goes from a man's nippless to his prostate - I felt it humming, shivering with each little nip of Bill's teeth.

His boots and socks were next, and I spent a few minutes holding his bare feet in my hands, feeling their strength, their tenderness, massaging them in my lap as he lay his head on my back, humming, his hands caressing me like nobody never did to me.

I went to turn to kiss him, but he moved away, rolled off the bed and pushed me back on it, kissing first my chest, then my stomach as he undid my belt and buttons, then reached for my boots. I just lay there, propped on my elbows, watching him, the top of his head, his eyes as he pulled the boots off and then my jeans right away. He didn't massage my feet so much as make love to them, kissing them, licking them. I was afraid they might stink after the long day, but if they did, he didn't seem to mind. And all the time, his eyes were locked on mine, his whole face a portrait of concentration and . . . devotion. I felt a pang - would I please him enough?

He came up to me and kissed me, and I rolled him over to pull off his jeans, in wonder that his legs were so fine, the down of golden hair against the alabaster skin above where his shorts ended, just above the knee, accenting the hewn muscles beneath. Where his legs were tanned, the hair was almost white gold, a gauze over his skin. I didn't dare look at his penis, imprisoned in his briefs, almost afraid somehow. I wanted to touch it, caress it, but I just couldn't, not yet. I kissed his knees, his thighs, as my jeans dropped to the floor, then went right to his lips, whispering of my love for him, how beautiful he was, holding him as I slid my hand under the waistband, felt his fine butt, hot under my hand, and then pushed the briefs down, as he lifted his hips and helped me get them off.

"Take yours off," he insisted in a hoarse whisper, "I want to feel you against me, Graham, I want to feel you NOW!"

I reared up a little and stood by the bed, then pulled them down and off, kicking them away as I kneeled back to kiss his knee again, then at last his penis, so big and hard just for me, drooling a little - a lot - and I kissed it again, taking the head of his cock into my lips just a little, tasting "Eau d'Homme" for the first time, surprised that it tasted of little other than slightly sweet, but smelled of his delicate musk. I traced the line of hair up the center of his body to his navel then his chest, then kissed his nips, his Adam's apple, his lips. I pulled him up against me, his cock hard against mine, oozing his passion, his arms around my shoulders, holding me to him, gently humping against me, as I was against him.

Roger was going nuts. I was spurting - not drooling - my clear juices. Between us, the lubrication of our juice and our sweat was making it completely slippery. I kissed him with a passion I never felt before, my breath coming in long ragged spurts, every muscle in my body trembling as he raised his legs a little, as I slipped between them, a little lower, kissing his neck as he arched his head back, his breath as ragged as mine. I felt my penis slip under him, under the sac where his balls made his seed for me, looking for entry into him, pulsing, humping. I couldn't completely control it, I was getting so incredibly horny to be inside him, give him my semen, fill him with me, make us one  . . .

"Here . . ." he said, and his legs lifted around my waist, and I felt the soft crease of his butt along the top of my dick.

"I haven't ever done this, Graham . . . but I want you so bad." He was looking right into my eyes, and there was a trust, a love there that any real  man would gladly spend the whole of his family fortune to have, even if just once, but something no mere fortune could ever buy..

I nodded and smiled to him, and told him something like "I told you, my Love, I will never hurt you," and all the time Roger was trying to find the entrance, trying to get into him, make us one, give him everything of me.

Now, there's one thing about Roger I guess I have to explain. Roger isn't no horse cock, all straight as a fence-post. Roger is curved up a lot, sorta like a upside down banana. It made things easier and harder, all at the same time. I was shivering, trembling, every muscle shaking, almost like I had the ague. I'd never got that sexed up before in my life.

Roger found the soft spot almost right away, and Bill felt me pushing against it, even before his legs were locked around my waist, and he opened up to let me in without thinking, just as I thrust a little towards him. I was in - the whole head of my penis was in him, his ring thing snapped tightly behind the big flare of the head, trapping me in place. I just stopped, scared to death I hurt him bad, smashing into him like that.

I saw the hurt in his eyes, and I tried to pull back, but not only did his butt hold on to my dickhead - he pulled me in with his legs and his hands were on my butt pulling me in just as hard as I pulled to get out of him, with the result that I got nowhere.

"Wait a second," he said. "Don't move."

"I don't want to hurt you, Bill, let me out, we'll try later."

"No fucking way." he said with a smile and a grimace, all at the same time. "I got you now, Graham, and I'm not letting you go, not never."

I kissed him over and over, still trembling like a leaf, trying not to move, desperate to plunge into him, scared to death that if I didn't pull out of him, he'd hurt himself, afraid I was going to go soft and fall out, every horror story you ever heard.

I started coming. Just like that. I felt the first pulse explode behind my nuts, and I just let loose like a cannon, filling him with my seed, and when he felt me coming, he just slammed me into him, all the way inside him, buried right up to my whatever-bone, pumping into him and hollering that I loved him, oh God I loved him, smothering him with kisses, some of them sloppy, all of them for real.

He was shouting too, and I all of a sudden felt his insides squeezing the bejesus out of Roger as he came between us, his semen caught between us, shooting up against his belly. His legs were so tight around my waist, I couldn't hardly move, my thrusts into him no more than a half inch or so out, then back in to the bone.

It was a good bit before we could breathe again. I was drenched with sweat, and his face was beaded with droplets.

"I have all of you inside me, don't I?" he said in a half-asleep kind of voice. "I got you in before you came."

"Ayuh," I whispered on his earlobe as I kissed it, then his cheek, then his eyelid. "I couldn't hold it back. You got me too hot. Sorry."

"Don't you never say 'Sorry' to me if I make you come!" he said, playfully but still serious. "Never again!"

I murmured something incomprehensible about wanting to prolong it, make it better for him.

"What could be better? You got me, too," he said, kissing my chin. "Hot. I came, too. Just when you did. No hands."

"I know. I felt it on your insides when you did." I couldn't stop kissing his forehead, his nose, everything I could reach. His sweat was like nectar.

"It means we're really good together, doesn't it?"

"The best," I said. "And it's going to get better, I promise."

"And you always keep your promises."

"Always, my love. Always."

"I love you, Graham. I truly love you."

"Me too. Surely as God put us here, I love you."

We sort of rolled to our sides, huddling into each other, saying things I want to keep sort of to ourselves. Nothing dirty or anything - just private. And then we fell asleep, me still inside him, almost hard, his legs holding me in place, our arms wrapped impossibly tightly around each other, our breaths comingling.

"Graham." Said a voice. "It is almost time."

I don't know how long we had dozed, but I looked over his shoulder at the clock next to his bed, and it was a little before eleven o'clock. "Shit," I thought to myself, "I wonder if . . . "

"There is time." It was Groth.

I lay my head back down on the pillow, and looked right into Bill's eyes.

"I love you," he said softly.

I kissed his lips, his gorgeous lips, and he pulled me closer to him with his arms and legs, his muscles taut and strong. Roger was still inside that silky glove, and he was as hard as he ever got, and I held my man as tightly as I could, almost afraid I might keep him from breathing if I held him any tighter.

We made slow, soft love for a few minutes, me just moving in and out at a slow pace, feeling the joy of his response, the fires going up in temperature with every stroke. Our kisses went from oh-so-tender to pretty hot to scalding, and we rolled so he was on his back again, everything just as natural as milk from the teat. He pulled a pillow under him a little, under his butt, and on the next stroke, moved his legs farther apart, and I was somehow getting even deeper into him than before.

I was holding him like a vise against me, one arm underneath him, below his waist, the only parts of us pulling apart being my hips and his butt. His cock was trapped between us, moving in and out of the hollow of my stomach, just below my solar thingamawhat, his seed from earlier still between us, moistened by our perspiration, providing a smooth glove for his prick. I was making noises, I guess, because I heard them over his regular moans as I went under and under his nut, again and again, with the head of my cock. I couldn't feel it - not with my cock, I mean - but he let me know when I did, a different note, higher that the other, in the moans he was giving me.

It was like a song he was singing, deep and loving, even though our mouths were almost glued together. Our breaths were only half fresh air, the rest coming from the lungs of each other as we breathed in almost opposite cycles, me breathing in as I pulled out, him breathing out, then in just when I was plunging back into him. It was like a narcotic, knowing I was breathing from him.

We started breathing faster and faster, then his moans turned into a deep roar, and he was jetting his seed between us, grasping Roger with his insides so tightly, there was no way I could keep from coming, and I just roared back into his mouth as my whole body, my whole nervous system went into overload and convulsed my semen into my love's waiting body, so deep it might never come out of him.

"My God!" I said as we gradually came up for air. "My sweet Jesus! That was the . . . the best . . . loving I ever had, long as I lived." I saw a pearl of his semen, just below his Adam's apple, in that beautiful hollow under it, and tasted it. It had more taste of his sweat than anything - a little salt, a little of his musk. I decided I liked it.

"Ummm." Bill said in my ear, agreeing. "Stick around a while. There's more."

"Long as I can," I said. "Even if there isn't. You have my soul, Bill." I wanted to tell him. Tell him there would never be another for me. Tell him I was his and his alone. But it was too early, too soon. It means . . . forever. I could never break a vow like that. Never. I was almost ready, but was he?

"And you mine, Graham, you have mine."

We kissed more intimately than I never kissed before, the love of what we were to each other so much in my heart I was bursting. I felt like hollering to the world that this was the man I loved, this was the man who made me a man, complete and whole.

So I did, thundering out some nonsense or other, just hollering out the joy that was in me what I couldn't hold back, Bill just looking up at me as I did, stroking my back, laughing, the twinkles in his eyes like tiny supernovas, his legs holding me inside him.

I laughed out loud, part out of embarrassment that I was making such a display in front of him, most out of just plain happiness, and then he pulled my lips back down to his and we calmed down a little, just enjoying the feelings of intimacy between us, the love we felt for each other.

"Forgive this intrusion. It is time. Please," said Groth.

"Go away," I said aloud. "We'll be there." I didn't say it nice. Not nice at all.

Bill said exactly the same thing. at exactly the same time. Groth had to us both spoken, had us both summoned. But it wasn't a command. The please was real. Like the please a guy would say if you had a knife in your hand and he was already in the noose, awaiting the floor to fall out from under him. From out of a computer . . .

We both regretted the tone of our voices, and leapt out of our embrace far too quickly for either of us. I took it slow pulling out of him, though. I could never hurt him.

"You must not regret," said Groth. "Your . . . loyalty and love have never been in doubt. It is I who am deeply sorry for having to . . . for needing to interrupt your most cherished moments. They are . . . more profound than I had been prepared to expect. I feel to be partly wrong in having to give the Mission priority over your mating - your love-making. But there is no choice. The Mission is prioritized to all but the extinction of your race."

How could you be mad at such a caring . . . I almost said 'person' . . . being?

"I am honored," said Groth, in my head.

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