Hey everyone welcome. I'm excited to finally reveal Counting Down. If you do enjoy Counting Down, please read some of my other works on AO3 (TuxEdwards): Counting, Counting Down (the sequel to Counting), Not Capable of Love, Fire (Boys of Grizzly Valley on AO3), Go Bag (Boys of Grizzly Valley on AO3), and Jaded (on AO3). Please take a few minutes to drop me an email to let me know if Counting Down is for you: Foxfire3730@proton.me

 

I wish a happy holidays for you and yours. Since this is the busy season, it's time for me to reflect, think of new ideas for possible stories, and write write write, so this will be the last chapter posted of 2023. Look for more amazing chapters of Counting Down to begin again on Jan 3. Thank you so much for your kind words about my stories. You don't know how much they mean to me.

 

If you like my stories and want to tip or donate to me, consider buying me a coffee at this link: Thank You

 

"The Universe is Made of Stories, Not of Atoms" -Muriel Rukeyser

Not Gay

AJ

"Can I change my mind?" I ask a little sheepishly. Mom and dad exchange concerned looks, and I ask again, "I think I've changed my mind; is that okay?" 

Doctor McGovern's eyes flip to mom's nod, then dad's eyes, and then he says, "I tell you what, let me start from the beginning, and if you still feel like you want to change your mind, then we'll go that direction. I mean, I did come all the way from New York City to talk to you."

He waits for me to think about it, and I agree--what could it hurt? "I guess that would be fine." 

He smiles, opens the file, shifts a few papers, and says, "AJ Colter, you were diagnosed at birth and have been surviving ever since." I shift into mom's lap, a little uncomfortable with the situation I'm in. He reads for a few papers and continues, "...your body wants to grow, young man, but your condition has stopped it from shifting into puberty because it's afraid your body can't handle the change." He studies me for a minute, then asks, "What do you think?"

The room goes quiet, and the walls seem to close around me as my mind begins to question my decision to change my mind. His papers move in slow motion as he thumbs through them to the point where they stop in midair. I focus and focus until all I can hear are my inner voices arguing over what is the right choice.

How can I be sure?

How can you pass it up?

What happens if it doesn't work?

What happens if I don't accept the treatment?

The papers in the doctor's hand burst into flame, and the cold darkness closes in on me until only a pinhole remains of the world where my parents are, a world where my brothers wait for me to come home, a world where I'm broken. It's quiet here besides the bickering voices tormenting me echoing around the darkness. I'm whole here, and I don't feel anything is wrong with me. I smile at the feeling of no pain. It's been so long since I felt it, but the bickering gets louder and louder. I can't take it! I need to scream! I need to drown out the voices.

Then I saw it. When I don't think I can take anymore of the darkness, I see it. It's a light that waves through the pinhole. It's rhythmic and constantly moves across the hole, left first, then, 3.7 seconds later, back to the right. I focus on the hole, waiting for the light to make its way, and the voices seem to echo softer, as if they are more interesting in the light than the argument. Then, as easily as I slipped in here, the hole grew, including more and more of the room I used to be in. The darkness turns into walls once again and pulls themselves away from me, standing back up where they belong.

The light passes by my eyes for the last time, and I see mom holding a small flashlight. I hear the crinkling and crunching of the cheap white paper on the bench under my bottom. How did I get on the bench? Mom's crying and looks as upset as she did this morning when she woke me up. Looking around the room, dad looks disturbed. There are two nurses in here now, along with the doctor, with an odd-looking cart with everything wired to everything on the cart. The doctor is the only one who looks as he did before.

I ask, "Is there something wrong?" I'm not sure why, but everyone seems upset.

"Fascinating," the doctor says, and then asks, "AJ, where were you right now?"

Where was I? Well, I would have answered him straight away that I've been here, but something eats at me that that isn't true. I think I remember being somewhere cold, but that sounds crazy. Am I going crazy? "I don't understand your question, doc. I've been right here," I say unconvincingly.

"As fascinating as this is, it only means that we're running out of time." He says. The nurses pack up their cart and leave the room, and Doctor McGoven moves his stool over to me. He plops down on it and takes me by the knees, saying, "AJ, let me go over the medical choices you must choose from."

Beau

"God damn it!" I shout at the top of my voice as the horse I'm supposed to be controlling spooks and slams me up against the metal fence, pinning me.

"Beau!" Yells my little brother from a few fence panels away as he panics.

"Here now! Shhh, here now, you're okay. Come on." Doc Connor soothes the horse, then it kicks up his front legs in the air, and for a split second, I was free enough to squeeze through the red fence slats, and the horse crashes into the panel, throwing me on my ass.

Doc and Colt hurry over to me as I sit in the dust, rubbing my ass. "Awe you otay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I assure Colt, trying to hide my bruised ego.

"Young man, I don't know where your head is, but it's not on what you're doing, and you're going to get hurt."

Colt and I exchange worried looks once I stand up. I brush the dust off my ass and apologize to the doctor, "Sorry, Doc, I'll try harder." He looks at me crossly and agrees to get back to work.

Doc and I work through the morning with the horses. Colt and Pop show up now and then to watch. I see the twins doing other stuff around the ranch. Lifting bales of straw and hauling bags of feed to the stalls. Zeke's body glistens in the sunlight, and I watch the sweat rolling over his chest muscles. I swallow and take off my cowboy hat, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my arm. I feel my dick begin to stir, and guilt snaps me back to reality just as Doc finishes with this horse.

We take a break for Doc to get more meds from his ranch, The Circle C, giving me time to cool off at the water pumping station. I hang my hat on the fence post and use all my strength to pump the handle a few times. I rush to the other side to hang my head under the spout. The water comes gushing out, and it shocks me at first but feels so good after. The water begins to trickle out, and I contemplate pumping the handle some more when I hear, "Hey kiddo, Doc says you're distracted."

"Zack, I can't keep my mind off of AJ," I say, kind of apologetic. "Do you think he's okay? Have you heard anything yet?"

He sits down on the bench and offers me the seat next to him. Sitting down, I fidget with the rim of my cowboy hat. "No, sorry, Beau, I haven't heard anything yet. I'm sure things will be alright. You couldn't imagine how many close calls that boy has had. To say that the last five years were rough for him is an understatement. But he wakes up every morning with a smile, even though he has every reason to be mad or upset all the time, but he isn't. He'll be okay, Beau; he'll get through it." 

When I lean against Zack, he gives me a bro-hug. "He's been so bad lately. You should have seen him this morning, Zack. It was like he couldn't hear me. He just stared out the window and worked on the Rubik's Cube in his hand," I say, a little deflated.

"Was he wearing his hearing aid?" Zack simply asks.

Suddenly, I feel stupid. "I, um, I don't think so," I answer him, a little ashamed for being upset at AJ. "Do you think he just couldn't hear me?" I ask, looking for hope.

"I couldn't say, but that's probably a good guess. Look, I know he's getting worse, but so do mom and dad, and trust me when I say that they are doing everything they can to help him," he tells me with a little waver in his voice. Sometimes I forget how close he is to AJ. He's been such a huge help to me with AJ's relationship. Sometimes AJ does things that don't make sense, and Zack has always been there for me.

I give him a proper hug this time, and he tells me to hurry up and go knock on Gran's door to get some lemonade before Doc Connor comes back. I get up and hurry across the ranch to the large log cabin where Pop and Gran live. On the way there, I meet Colt, his friend Boston, Boston's brother, and my friend Cooper.

"Hey, where's your brainiac boyfriend?" Cooper asks, making Boston laugh. It must have been a joke between the two since last night at the Bear Claw Creamery.

Colt and I are not amused when I answer, "He's at the hospital, Coop." 

"Oh, sorry, man. I didn't know. Is he okay?" 

"He's sick, but he'w be otay," Colt says. He turns and walks towards the cabin, obviously bothered.

Boston hurries to catch up to his friend, and Coop and I walk towards the back door. "Man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset your brother," Coop says, patting my back and then wiping my sweat off his hand on his shorts.

"AJ is a touchy subject around here these days. You're lucky you didn't make that joke last night; I would have kicked your ass. Right now, I'm too tired," I admit to him and pat his back, a little harder than usual for a pat on the back, leaving a dusty handprint on his button-up church shirt, making me smirk.

We get our lemonade and sit by the unlit fire pit. Coop says with a chuckle, "Krew says Gunnar fucked May."

"Bullshit, he wouldn't know what to do with that tiny cock of his." I laugh, making sure our conversation is out of the earshot of any adults.

Boston chimes in as I look around. "No, it's true, we asked May. She said they did it in her parents garage. She even described his birthmark on his dick." When there was a break in our laughter, he added, "He didn't last long!"

"Two pump chump, huh?" I say, laughing uncontrollably.

"That's gross!" My brother adds to the conversation, and we all laugh at the mental picture of what those two might look like.

"Like you can last longer," accuses Boston.

"Are you kidding me? I can almost last an hour. I get lots of practice," I boast to the sounds of disbelief from Coop and Boston. Colt's embarrassed look doesn't escape me as I get playfully pushed by Coop.

"That doesn't count. You're having sex with a guy," Boston says, looking for his brother to back him up. "...right Coop?"

"Sex is sex, little bro, and the sad fact is that gay kids get way more sex than us straight ones," Coop states while overacting how sad he is. "But," he says, holding a finger up, "...the pussy... mmm, the pussy is something to strive for. It's something to crave and need." Coop holds up his hands like he's holding something of great value up to his face and looks longing into it, making the rest of us giggle. Then he continues, "To want it so bad that when you finally get it, you're willing to put your face in it and eat it."

"Yuk, dude, you're so gross! I can't see how you guys can do that. I've seen what pussies look like in health class. They're nasty-looking. Like some alien sea creature or whatever," I laugh with a body shutter to empathize with my disgust.

"Well, you suck dick," Boston hits me back, apparently offended by my comment.

"But that's no different than sucking your thumb," I say with a smile on my face from thinking about AJ cock. Then add, "The magic comes from who's cock you're sucking."

"You're thinking about sucking cock right now, aren't you?" teases Coop. 

"Yeah, probably Colt's," giggles Boston.

"I'm not gay!" Colt blurts it out and goes inside the house in a huff.

The fire pit falls silent after Colt's outburst. I've never really thought about Colt's sexuality before or how he felt about me and AJ making love to each other. It's not like we do any of it in front of him, but he has walked in on us doing different stuff before. When he was little, it was a game to him. He would burst through the door, yelling, "Caught'cha!" Then sit and watch. We didn't mind; it was kind of exciting to be watched.

"I guess we'll go inside too," Boston says quietly and heads inside.

"What are you two even doing at the Double H?" I ask Coop as he stands up and takes my empty lemonade glass.

"Colt called us and invited us over to play PlayStation games for the afternoon," he answers, and heads inside.

AJ

I watch the doctor as he tells me my two options. He looks confident and sure of himself as he talks. "AJ, option one is: We take you to the hospital for a week every thirty-one days for three treatments. Once this procedure is done, what it will do is fix the section of your brain that is causing you all this trouble. I'm not going to go into it; I'm just going to tell you, it's our best option."

"Now, there are some rules," the doctor continues, "...if you pick this. Rule one: you must have the treatments thirty-one days apart. You can't wait any longer, or we'll lose progress, and it will damage your body. This rule isn't flexible and can't be broken. If it is, I don't believe there's anything I can do for you. Your body will begin to break down as it tries to go back to its state as it is now, but it won't be able to do that because I'm going to be changing it. Does everyone understand?" 

I'm speechless as a single tear trickles down my cheek. My dad speaks up and says, "That's enough; we understand."

The doctor collects himself and gives me time to do the same before he begins again: "Rule two: AJ must promise me that he'll tell you everything, and you must tell me. Every fever, cough, blurry vision, seeing spots, muscle soreness, etc. I'll decide if it's important. Nothing can be ignored." 

He waits and then continues, "Option two: We can make the serum a little stronger to try and keep up with your body, but that's just a bandage, and to tell you the truth, AJ, you're getting older. The serum is only going to..." 

"That's enough!" Dad interrupts him sharply.

The doctor takes off his glasses and rubs his nose. I can't take my eyes off him as my mom gives me a hug and wipes the tears from my eyes. "Are you okay?" Dad asks me as he does his best to console me.

"I want to hear him," I whisper to everyone, afraid that if I hear myself admit it, I'll lose the self-control I'm maintaining.

Mom and dad exchange looks again, and mom begins to tell me I don't need to hear it. The doctor didn't hear me. I can tell from the look on his face. He's packing up his paperwork, knowing he mentioned too much. "I want to hear the rest," I say loud enough for him to definitely hear this time.

My dad looks at the doctor, and he thinks carefully over his words, then says, "Look, I was out of line. I'm sorry; I'm just so excited about what this could mean for you, but I just need you to understand.

"Finish what you were going to say, please!" I say it louder than I mean to. 

Doctor McGoven takes a deep breath and says softly, "The new injector serum is only going to add one or two years. I am sorry." He finishes packing up his paperwork and gives us the room.

"Honey, I'm so sorry," my mom says, barely audible. "The procedure is too dangerous."

Dad picks me up from the table bench, and I lay my head on his shoulder. "Don't worry, kiddo, we're leaving," my father says, heading for the door.

I'm not sure what made me do it, but I stopped him. "I didn't tell him my answer."

"You can do it later, honey. It's best we talk it over and come back later," my mom says, going for the doorknob.

"I don't want to leave. I want to do the procedure. You said I get to choose; that's my answer." 

After two hours, I had my own bed and shared a room with a seven-year-old boy named Stevie. We had just enough time to talk to each other before a pretty, olive skinned nurse came in, and Stevie took no time flashing her a big old smile and greeting her. Her name was Maisy, and she was the room nurse. I've had a room nurse before, no problem, but she was here for me, and it was not going to be pretty.

"You must be AJ; do you know your birthday?" She asks as she closes the privacy curtain separating me and Stevie. "Hon, do you know the year?" Was the next question while she rummaged through a nurse's supply closet kept on my side of the room.

I answer her again as she takes a seat on my bed and in her hand is four blue packets about the size of ketchup from a restaurant and a skinny tube about three feet long in its own sealed wrapper. I listened to her closely as I began to have a bad feeling about this. "AJ, do you know what a urinary catheter is?" She asks as she puts on rubber gloves. The gloves are pretty see through and her olive skin shows through the latex. Even though I had a pretty good idea what she's about to do to me, but I shrugged and pulled the blankets a little closer to my face.

"It's a penis tube!" Shouts Stevie. 

"The curtain is closed, young man; you best behave," the nurse says with authority without raising her voice. She looked at me, hiding behind my blanket, and began to comfort me by saying, "AJ, you have nothing to fear. I've done this for countless boys and men, and I've gotten real good at it."

No matter how you say it, the thought of a plastic tube being inserted into my cock's urethra is horrifying. Maybe it would be easier if a man went there. I mean, he has a dick too; reason dictates that he'll be a little more experienced. "Is there a man that can do this for me, please?" I ask softly, quivering my young voice.

"Hon, don't be silly; it'll be done faster than you know it," she says and proceeds to remove the blankets for me that covered my face to the half that covered my legs. Her hands sped to the location of my stolen blankets, and I felt her expertly yanks my underwear before playing with my balls and stroking my two-inch cock. Tears start to tickle down my cheep bones and follow my hands to my lips, giving my pleas for a male nurse kind of hard to understand and taste salty, but it shouldn't have been too hard to figure out since this is my second request for the male nurse.

"AJ, I've already started. Hmm, that's odd." She tells herself.

I part my fingers just enough to look at what she's doing. "What's wrong?" I ask while I sob from embarrassment, shame, and nerves.

"Normal boys your age get hard right away when touched by a lady. I even stroked it a little, but you've gotten softer and smaller," `Nurse Ratched' says with a little contempt in her voice, and I swear, I heard Stevie's muffled giggle making me plea just once more.

"You don't understand; please go get a male nurse." Nurse Maisy must either understand or get tired of trying. She walks to the door and hesitates at the knob, then looks back at me with a shocked look of disbelief and leaves.

"Dude, that was the hottest nurse on the floor. How could you pass on her stroking your meatpole?" Stevie giggles, completely missing the point.

I mouth the words `Meatpole' confusingly. About fifteen minutes go by when a gorgeous man who looked in his late teens walks in. He has a swagger in his walk, the kind a gay man uses in every TV show or movie. I wipe my tears and marvel at his tight scrub shirt. It clearly showing every muscle and tone line. He isn't the `Rock' by any means, but for his thin build, he was on the perfect side of average.

I watched him blush when he asked me, "Your name and birthday, please," in the most perfect gay man's voice. I've only heard one other gay man sound as sweet as this face-to-face, and that was Aiden, Zack's boyfriend.

"A... J... It's AJ sir, um," and my brain stopped working for a few minutes as he sat on the end of my bed, looking at `Nurse Ratched's' tube and blue packets, then asked me again about my birthday. At first, I didn't know, but I quickly recovered and told him as I stared at his black chained necklace with a bar in the middle with six colors of the rainbow on it, separated by silver bands, meaning one thing.

In his right ear, he had three earrings, and the bottom one had the rainbow bar dangling from a silver cloud. A few fingers were also adorned with gay pride jewelry, except one, which was a silver band with a diamond mounted in the middle of a golden flower. It was definitely a marriage proposal ring.

As he takes off his rings and puts them on my nightstand. My hand rises up to my right ear as I wonder what I would look like with earrings. "You're not an inch long; what was Maisy talking about? I measure you at four and a quarter. That's a nice penis you've got for your age of twelve."

Looking down, my manhood is standing tall and is even throbbing a little. I smile with pride once again when he compliments me. He snaps on two latex gloves. "You would look great with an earring or two," he says, seeing the twinkle in my eye as he cleans my throbbing dickhead with an alcohol swab, making a moan softly slip out embarrassingly.

"You th...thin...think so?" I stammer. "Like what kind?" I wonder. 

Nurse Patrick, as I read it on the name tag, puts a cold dollop of clear thick lubricant on the tip of my dick from the blue ketchup sized packet and the rest on the tube. He begins to slide the tip of the tube in my pee hole as he asks, "Do you have a boyfriend? Oh, you must. You have a gorgeous body like this and a beautiful face like that."

I blush and suddenly get a full body shudder that feels amazing making another moan slip out. Although, the good feelings are short lived when I feel a pinch that makes me grip the sheets and hiss. To keep my mind off of it I answer him, "Yeah, his name is Beau, and we're the same age. He's more butch than me, but we love each other so much."

As he finishes up, he ends with, "May I suggest this: your birthday month is September, which makes your flower an Aster. It stands for loyalty, wisdom, and happiness. It means you try your best and always succeed in whatever you do. So, your first earring will be an aster flower with a blue sapphire in the center. Tell me about Beau's birthday."

"His birthday is February twenty-ninth, although I'm not sure he's a flower guy."

"It will be in your ear," he reminds me. "February's flower are Violets. It represents: humility, virtue, and morality. Of course, the gem for February is the Amethyst."

"He likes the color dark purple. He wears that color nail polish the most," I excitedly added.

Patrick smiles at my interruption and finishes his thought. "You get the two flowers and gemstones mounted in the center, then a chain to connect them together," he says, and with a flick of his light blue-painted finger nail on his index finger, he shows me the chain connecting the two flower stems behind his ear. "Just make sure you get your right ears pierced."

"I will, but which flower goes on top?"

It's Patrick's turn to blush and answer with a sly lift of his eye brow, "That depends on who is the top." Then he giggles as he takes his latex gloves off.

I thank him while he puts his rings back on and ask, "Hey, can I get you switched to my personal nurse?"

"Oh, it doesn't work like that. We're assigned to rooms, but I can come visit if that's okay."

"Yeah, of course it's alright, but I'll see what I can do about making you my nurse. Would you change if you could?"

"Sure thing, we make a good team, don't we?" And with that said, Patrick left, and my still-hard-on was never this big before.

The curtain slides all the way, exposing me and my throbbing four inches, to my seven-year-old roommate as he asks, "What's that mean, `who's on top?'" Then he sees my hard-on, and his eyes get as big as saucers. He practically ripped off his briefs to check his stiff, two-inch nail and just looked sad at it.

"Don't worry about your dick size; we're all different." I assure him enough to make him perk up and flick his nail a couple of times before joining me on my bed to watch some cartoons before bedtime.