Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 17:26:54 -0700 From: David Cross Subject: cameron-2 The usual disclaimers apply - ie. no reading this if you're not of age to read it, and no peeking at this if you can't stand gay people (which would bring to mind the question of what the hell you're doing reading this anyway). Names and places (but not the city I lived in) have been changed to protect the privacy of both myself and the people who I'm inserting into this story. All questions etc can be directed to dcross1@home.com "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot." This phrase will run like a theme throughout this story. It was originally applied to the short-lived period of the early 1960s when John F. Kennedy was President of the United States, and for a time it seemed that nothing in the world could stop the nation from achieving greatness beyond imagining. I've applied the theme similarly here, because although this story is almost entirely fictional, there will be moments in this story where it truly seems as though myself and Cameron have entered Camelot - a place where nothing can touch us, nothing can harm us... but the times will be so short, that they are but "brief shining moments" in a world that is harsh and unforgiving. There have been times in my real life as well, that I have felt that I entered Camelot, but I'd prefer to keep those to myself just now ;-) ---- As I approached the front door of my house, I paused for a second to take in what had happened that day - in less than 2 hours I'd gone from me, the 14-year-old normal guy (outwardly, at least), to me, the same 14-year-old guy with a cute 15-year-old, brown-haired, brown-eyed, 5 foot 8, 130 pound (He was a little heavier than me, and had more muscle definition), awesome guy. One small step for my body, a giant leap for my brain. I opened the door and walked across the tiled floor of the front hallway, then quickly dashed up the stairs to dump my bag in my bedroom. Then it was back downstairs to say hello to mom, albeit with some trepidation. I wondered if she'd be able to tell if I'd been quite naughty; I then reflected that she might hit the roof anyway even if it had been a girl. Anyway... into the kitchen I went. I said, "Hi, Mom!" She said, "Hi! It's just about 6, and your dad's home. Good to see you came back in time! Would you set the table please?" "OK, Mom." Such enthusiasm. Not. But dutifully I set the table anyway. "So how was the library?" "Uh, All right. No books I liked though." "Oh, OK. Well, sit down; supper's ready now." I could have sworn she looked at me funny. Or maybe it was just my paranoia working overtime. In any case, *phew!*. The Gestapo was kept at bay this time. I'd have to be careful, though. I'd also have to figure out how best to introduce Cameron to her, seeing as we were, at least for outward appearance's sake, friends. Cameron Walker. I liked the sound of that name... "Hi, son!" My father's voice jolted me out of my reverie. He was still in his good shirt and pants from his job, but he'd managed to have enough time to put his briefcase in his den and get rid of the suit jacket and tie. "Uh, hi, Dad." "How was your day?" "Oh, the usual." "Ah. OK. Mom, this supper smells great!" My parents always called each other Dad and Mom around us kids. Must have been a holdover from when we were much younger. By this time my brothers were at the table, and I wasn't as antsy about the possibility someone might subliminally detect something wrong with me, since my father at least during the week tended to not be too intrusive, and my brothers were always off in their own world. Even Mom didn't seem to be suspicious. Supper was uneventful, and at the end, I cleared my plate, set everything in the dishwasher, and asked to be excused to go to my bedroom. I again reflected on my comment to Cameron about how my dad seemed to always be so right-wing. He even just about referred to the NDP as the socialist hordes, even though they seemed to be pretty run-of-the-mill by Canadian standards. Given my general shyness and sexuality, I wasn't too inclined to be personally right-wing, and if pressed, would have described myself as a "left-wing moderate". I worried that along with Dad's political conservatism probably went a good deal of social conservatism; look at the way our family was structured. If mom stayed at home and did the cooking and cleaning, et cetera, then it was a good bet neither of them might be inclined to be supportive of any social path except that of dating women and settling down and having kids in the time-honored tradition. Which, of course, increased the anxiety I felt at having to say what amounted to, "Mom, Dad, I don't fit in your mold." And then society... what would people say if they knew Cameron and I were "going out"? He was more popular than I was, though I managed to cultivate the trait of being able to say hi to anyone and not have to stick with any particular group, so there wasn't the whole "in-gang vs. out-gang" BS that so many other people engaged in. With my school being focussed on sports as it was, the jock psychology was going to be there, so the macho male stereotype would almost demand that they assume gay people to be swishy, feminine and otherwise unacceptable to anyone other than a dark corner somewhere to be disregarded. My gut feeling was that I ought to roll with the punches of school and society at large, and bide my time. Maybe there'd be some surprises in store from society as time went on. Eventually I came down from the Promethean heights of introspection and dimly realized I'd been sitting on my bed letting my mind wander. I grabbed my phone book and looked up Cameron's last name in the phone book; I felt like a dumbass for not having asked for his phone number when I was over at his place. See what happens to my brain cells when I get kissed for the first time, and by a guy, in addition! "Walker, Walker... AH! Walker." Strangely enough there was just one Walker listed for Richmond. Hallelujah! Now... Should I call him? My brain stumbled on that one. Oh, great. Another thing the books I read didn't tell me about - gay social etiquette. Being a person who usually wasn't too "forward" I figured I'd file the number away for future reference, and ask him properly tomorrow. With that, I decided I might as well get started on that bane of teenage existence - homework. Then after that, sleep... *** The next morning *** I woke up at about 7 AM, and a flood of memories rushed into my head from yesterday. It seemed somehow unreal and yet real; I had a boyfriend! I rushed into the washroom, and did the usual shower/shave/etc. Then it was downstairs for breakfast, which was usually just cereal. On the weekends, my mom cooked some fantastic breakfasts, though. :-) Just before I headed off to school, Mom was just coming down the stairs from the master bedroom, and she said, "David, you look different." I stared for a second, and blurted out, "I do?" "You're smiling more." "Oh, well, um, that's good, I guess." "Is it a girl?" "MOM!" "OK, OK, I was just asking." She smiled at me, and gave me a hug before I made a mad dash for the door to avoid having her ask me any more embarassing questions. So much for not being noticed. I guess last night I'd been so preoccupied with analyzing the possible reactions of my brothers, parents and the outside world I hadn't had time to "glow", I guess they called it. As luck would have it, when I was walking up the street towards the school, from the opposite direction was Mr. You-know-who himself! I could barely restrain myself from running up to him and giving him a huge hug, and from the smile I could see tugging on his lips, he was having the same problem. We met, exchanged a high-five, and I said "Hello," hoping my voice would hold steady. We began walking together across the school's front lawn, towards the main entry door. He said, "Hey, what's up? I just remembered, I didn't get your phone number... I guess you could say we had other things on our minds." That trademark wink again. Geez, but was it cute or what? "Uhm... yeah. Anyway, here's mine." I scribbled it on a piece of paper I'd found in one of my coat pockets (thankfully, my parents had given me a separate phone line for my own use, and the number wasn't listed in the phone book - another example of my fine paranoia at work), and he wrote his on a similarly dog-eared piece of paper. It matched the one in the phone book, and I smiled inwardly. "Um, Dave, I hate to sound like a weirdo, but this doesn't match the one I tried to find in the phone book." Well, I'll be dipped. He did the same thing I did, and neither of us could bring ourselves to pick up the damn phone; it apparently was for the same reason - awkward question time if someone else answered. Interesting, this parallelism. I wonder if the connection between us went deeper; we already seemed to know how to share things with each other through our eyes alone. "That's OK. It's actually the line my parents got in for me. See, I have a computer and modem at home, and they didn't want me using the household line all the time." Yeah, sounds boring now, but back then a modem wasn't a thing a lot of people had. "You'll have to show me that sometime. My parents have a computer, but I don't think it has one of those, uh... what did you say?" "Modems." "Oh, right. Anyway, see you at lunch?" "Yeah, that's cool. Listen, if you get a busy signal on the line you call, just keep trying. I'll eventually get off the damn modem. It'd also be safer, I guess, if you called me since your parents are probably used to you using the phone." "Good idea, but don't worry too much about calling me, Dave. I'd like you to meet my parents soon, you know, otherwise they'd probably wonder why I always called you." "Yeah, I'd like to introduce you to my Mom and Dad someday. I just hope that one day we can tell the truth..." I trailed off and looked wistfully at some vague spot down the hallway. He didn't say anything at that point, and just put his hand on my shoulder for a couple seconds, then left for his locker. By this time it was about 5 minutes before classes began, and I walked quickly towards my locker, and grabbed my books. As luck would have it, I remembered that the first class that day was French. Now I liked that class because it *was* honestly fun to learn another language, especially one I was already partially familiar with because Canada is officially bilingual, but now I had another reason to like it, since Cameron was in it. ;) Thankfully, I was near the front and he was a couple rows back, so I wouldn't have the distraction of looking at him all period. Mrs. Thompson, the shortest teacher at that school, came in and quickly began the day's French lesson, which was about conjugating verbs in the past tense. Almost an hour later, the bell rang. We got up and filed out the door, and I noticed Cameron deliberately getting close to me in the mini-traffic jam of students. Daredevil that he was, when nobody was looking (or paying attention), he pinched my butt! I stifled a yelp, and just shot him a quick look that said "You devil, you..." after I touched his hand briefly to let him know I wasn't mad. English was the usual, easygoing class since the teacher was an ex-hippie (or so I'd heard) from back in the 1960s, and religiously believed in never assigning homework that had to be done on a weekend. End of sermon. Then, right before recess was U.S.S.R. No, it wasn't a propaganda lesson on the virtues of the Soviet Union, it meant Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading. I usually liked it because I had a book with me and could actually get a little intelligent reading in. I can remember the times I'd forgotten a book and for lack of better to do, memorized the Periodic Table of the Elements backwards and forwards. Maybe that's why I love chemistry so much, even now. P.E., though, was going to be a tough one. Cameron happened to be in that class, and I wasn't sure if I could handle seeing him change. Deep breaths, remember? Be calm and logical. You've been logical for 14 years, what's one day more? Um, right. Body won out over mind, somewhat, and I still had butterflies in my stomach. I changed in probably record time and got out the door, which was a good thing because I'd seen Cameron with his shirt off, and just about drooled on the spot. I didn't know when I'd become such a chest fanatic, but I started realizing just what a wonderful sight the male chest was, on a lot of the guys in P.E. class. Thankfully, the sport of the month we were being taught was badminton, which I tended to be OK at but not otherwise great, so I gave all my concentration to whacking that birdie across the net. Still, what a distraction guys in shirts and shorts were, especially the ones that weren't wearing much in the way of shorts (or the ones that wore spandex under their shorts such that the spandex showed beneath the end of the shorts. It was a popular thing back then). After P.E. ended, it was back to the changeroom. I had never thanked providence, fate, whatever you want to call it, so much as at that moment that the school had a semipermanent policy of no showers, due to the fact that half the showerheads were broken and there wasn't enough money in the budget to get them fixed. I don't know how I would have handled it at that moment if I'd had to shower in front of a bunch of other naked guys. I *also* didn't know how to handle the fact that I'd become so painfully conscious of the fact that I found guys amazingly attractive. I was going to have to do a lot of deep breathing... "You OK, eh?" Cameron's gentle hand materialized on my shoulder along with the rest of him seemingly out of nowhere as I stepped outside the changeroom. "Damn, how'd you sneak up on me like that?!" "Heh. It wasn't hard. You were walking almost like a space cadet after you changed so fast I barely got a peek at you without your shirt." I blushed and nodded. "Lunch?" "Yep, Look, why don't you grab a table while I go get us a couple pizzas?" "Sure, here's a couple of bucks for a pizza and a Coke. I'm damned thirsty." With that, he made a beeline for the lunch concession. I'd never been able to get over how absolutely crowded this mausoleum of a lunch room could get - it was more like someone had stuck a room with the dimensions of a cathedral smack dab in the center of the school. So dividing up the labor meant we got a good table _and_ a short wait for the food. Not 5 minutes later was my lovable angel, and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Cameron looked like that as he was bringing the pizzas and Coke back. Damn, but that white silk shirt he had on left nothing to the imagination about what was underneath, and looked very good on him besides. Add in the new slacks he had on, and I had to do some shifting around in my chair to keep from being too "obvious". I said, "You know, man, you look like you're gonna go out to some big wedding!" He replied, "Yeah, sure, tease me. But you look pretty good yourself there." "What, me? In this outfit? Gimme a break, pal. It's positively ORDINARY!" "You sell yourself way too short sometimes, Dave." I just gave him the hairy eyeball as I dug into the pizza. Of course, try as I might to concentrate on _just_ the pizza, I had to sneak peeks at the... well, what would you call it? A work of art, I guess. Yeah, the work of art sitting next to me, eating that pizza. A perfectly ordinary act, one done thousands of times all over British Columbia, and I had to sit here and sneak peeks at a guy eating. Yup, my brain cells had decided to book off the logic session for the day, all right. I finished off the pizza and guzzled the Coke to wash it down. I spoke fairly quietly so as not to be heard by the people at the other tables, and said, "I'm gonna get you for that little trick at the end of French class!" and winked. He got the hint and said back, "Oh, you will, will you? The word 'blow' comes to mind, you know." It was all I could do to keep from near about busting up laughing completely, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't sit there trembling with internal laughter. Obviously, the sadist over in the other chair was thoroughly enjoying the show, since he was grinning his fool head off. In revenge, I poked him in the shoulder, and got the satisfaction of seeing him wince momentarily. After that, we just sat there for a while, occasionally flashing each other looks that communicated far more than an outsider would have guessed. Those looks, for such a young mind as mine, seemed to communicate something as old and as deep as the length and breadth of civilization itself - the emotions of a shared bond, and the quiet satisfaction of being next to the one you had promised yourself to. At least for someone my age, I figured that promise might last 6 months or a year, depending on the relatively fickle nature of teenage relationships. I'd watched other couples form and break up, sometimes within weeks, others within months. Was I becoming a professional cynic already, so quick to dismiss possibilities? It struck me like a bolt of lightning that I might want this relationship to last... years??? I felt almost completely overwhelmed by these feelings that I'd been having throughout the day as I sat there, saying phrases devoid of content, but things you say for lack of anything better, such as "nice weather" and "check him out". It was kind of like my mouth and ears had gone on autopilot so I could introspect again. I introspected too much, it would seem, as I involuntarily jumped, startled, when Cameron reached over and grasped my shoulder. He quickly drew back as though he had accidentally struck me on the face; I could read the fear in his eyes at the possibility I might react angrily. I reached out, and nodded for him to clasp my hand in a style then-popular, similar to an arm-wrestling clasp. "Don't worry, man, it's OK. You just interrupted my train of thought. My mind tends to wander sometimes." I could see him visibly relax, the tension draining out of his body. Was there _anything_ wrong with this guy? Smart, gentle, gorgeous, sensitive and caring, to boot. Not to mention I loved the feeling of his warm hand in mine - for some reason my hands were always colder by a degree or two than most other peoples'. I'd noticed this when I began the "adult" practice of shaking hands with my dad's co-workers at the office parties he'd have at his house. Of course, being able to sneakily hold hands with your boyfriend in front of everybody else was an added bonus. Unfortunately, I had to release his hand or people would have started wondering. Society sucked. He said, "Yeah, I grabbed your shoulder to get your attention cause it's almost the end of lunch. What've you got after this?" I said, "Ah, just Computer Science and Science. Nothing major." He said, "Yeah, I've got Math and Social Studies. Bleah." "Catch you after school, your locker?" "Sure thing. I don't have anything happening with any of my friends, so it's not like I've already been booked for the night." "Mm-kay. I might stop at the lost and found, by the way. I usually swipe binders if I need any." He laughed. "Oh, so THAT'S why I always see it empty every day!" "You asshole, I just take the GOOD ones!" "Speaking of good, um, ass-" "No, man, don't or I'll die laughing, I swear!" God, he could be so comically evil at times. He just stuck his tongue out saucily and left for the last two classes of the day, as did I. Computer Science was more of the same, I think it was about manipulating spreadsheets on Excel using the Mac, which was something I could have done in my sleep, and Science was the naming of various categories of chemical compounds. At least we'd gotten the fish dissection out of the way last month, thank God. There I was again. 24 hours earlier, I'd stood in front of that locker, yacking aimlessly with a guy who, if I was pressed, I would have claimed was completely out of my reach. Now, Cameron had asked me, ME of all people, to be his and his alone. Now I knew what "warm fuzzies" felt like. Good, too. I said, "Hey." He said, "Hey, yourself, buddy." "So what should we do now?" "Good question. I'm tapped for ideas. You want to see if your mom's OK with letting you go with me down to Richmond Square?" "Sure thing, man. Might as well get it over with, eh?" Truth to tell, I'd never been so absolutely nervous as I felt at that moment about bringing Cameron over to my place. I had two choices: I could chicken out, or I could bite the bullet and hope that she figured we were just friends. I took the second route. I didn't want to regret something silly like being scared to get through the simple process of saying "Mom, this is..." - after all, it's a routine thing, no? Tell me that again when I'm not introducing a certain special someone. "Lemme just get my books in my bag here, and I can walk with you." I said in a smart-ass way, "No, I was just going to start without you." "Then I'd have to catch up with you and tackle you so I could have you all to myself." I couldn't help myself; I just started giggling like crazy. My funny bone, if nothing else, seemed to love the stimulus. Oh well, at least ONE part of me liked him, although you can guess the second body part I'd name, and I'm not talking about my big toe. By the time I recovered, he'd finished loading up his bag, and had locked up. Cameron said, "Ready to roll?" I popped off with, "Only if it's in the hay." "You smartass." "At least it's not a dumb ass." "Well, I'd have to say a cute ass." "C'mon, let's go..." ---- That ends part 2. For you sex maniacs, part 3's where it's at. (Ok, if I had my choice I'd put the sex parts in [censored] blocks and explore the dynamics of being a gay teen a decade or so ago, but let's face it. We all love reading that stuff, so you get to see it, in living text. ;-) )