Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2021 05:32:49 +0000 (UTC)
From: thinsmooth <thinsmooth@yahoo.com>
Subject: My Friend Max

I've told other stories on Nifty, mostly true sometimes. But I've never
written about my first teenaged "love" before.  This is absolutely true in
every respect.  But beware the truth.

Before we begin, please consider donating to Nifty.org, to help keep this
incredible gay story archive operating.

*****************

My family moved to Florida when I was 11.  A year or so later I entered
jr. high, and met Max in a 7th grade class which brought former elementary
students from across our part of town together.  He was just one of the
kids then, because he came from another elmentary school.  A year or two
later we found ouselves with common friends and interests, including
camping.  I became close to his family and he to mine.  His dad later
became our scoutmaster.

From then on we were best friends, went camping and worked in a partnership
together mowing lawns over several summers.  I started feeling more than
friendship toward him, but I didn't even realize it.  We'd be mowing a
lawn, shirtless both of us, and I began to notice him sweating profusely,
slightly hairy chest even at 15 or 16.  We never argued or disagreed about
anything, ever.  He always had a smile, and laughed easily, expecially at
all of my jokes. I suspect the sexual feelings for him began and were
reciprocated even before we entered high school.  In the meantime we
continued through jr. high.

One day recently my younger brother referred to Max as "effeminate", which
disappointed me in terms of my brother but shouldn't have been unexpected.
I guess Max was effeminate, but that barely registered with me at the time.
I wasn't "effeminate", or at least tried hard not to be, but Max didn't
seem to make the distinction, and in retrospect (thanks to my brother) I
can see that my best friend was indeed somewhat so.  It didn't even
register with me back then.

Maybe now is a good time to describe us both physically.  I was a
bullet-headed Dutch-English mix who grew smooth and skinny, but could run
and play hand-ball.  Max was a wide-shouldered Armenian or something, maybe
of Caucasus origin, a strong broad-shouldered boy equal to my 6ft height
who grew hair on his naturally well-defined chest over time. By high-school
he was very hairy and becoming muscular from sheer genetics, and I was
definitely not.  I didn't even shave for real until after college.  Max had
a five-o'clock-shadow at 3 o'clock when he was seventeen.  Even now I don't
like hairy guys as a rule.  Max will always be an exception to that rule.


Eventually in high school we parted somewhat academically, in different
classes, but always came together at lunch or during PE, and after school.
I slept at Max's house from time to time. I really loved his family.

It only took so much camping, but mostly sleepovers at his house, before
one night Max and I were horsing around in his bed after lights out, and he
grabbed my hard dick through my underwear - just after I'd pressed one of
my bare feet into his hard-on.  We both froze, and by pulling back my foot
I gave him an out which he took, and we both withdrew from the preliminary
stages of feeling each other up.  He had an older brother who was really
cool, a couple or four years older than us, I wasn't sure then and I'm not
sure now.  He sort of had a finger on our pulses.  The morning after that
crotch-grabbing session, when we were in Max's bed in only our underwear,
barely awake, Bobby opened the door and walked in and said "Did you ladies
sleep well?", or something to that effect, alluding to what must have been
noise our horseplay was making the night before.  We turned red and smiled
back at him.  I don't think we cared that he had heard us.  Little did he
know, or maybe he did.  Little did WE know, to tell the truth.

After HS graduation I went to an out-of-state school and Max attended a
state school there in central Florida.  During the summer after freshman
year I visited him in his dorm in Orlando.  I could tell things had
changed.  Not that I was the most exciting person in the world, and we were
still best friends, and yet.

On my last night visiting him we were in bed when he told me he'd been
fighting against homosexual feelings.  He didn't elaborate much.  I tried
to initiate some of our horseplay as in years gone by, but he showed no
interest, and I could only acquiesce.  I wish I'd addressed his fears more
directly and openly, but I was too close-to-the-vest, even when half-naked
in bed with an erection.

I returned to school, and because my parents had moved I didn't see Max
again the next summer.  Fast forward almost two years, while I was taking
classes abroad, I received news from an unrelated family friend that Max
had died in surgery for a brain tumor, age 19.  Ever since then I've needed
to write this down, and now it's done.

I wrote a long letter to his parents, multiple pages that I can't even
remember through my grief.  His father wrote back but his letter was
incomprehensible, and I learned later his father had pretty much gone
insane from his own grief.

If you SERIOUSLY love someone, don't wait to tell them.

Peace Be Unto You All