WARNING
This story details explicit gay sex between men, teens and boys. If you find this kind of thing distasteful, or if you are underage where ever you live, then stop reading this now, and delete this file. The story is completely fictional, the author does not condone or encourage any of the acts contained herein.
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Chapter 17
I awake to Bedlam. Kenny is in the doorway, screaming, sobbing. He rushes over to the bed and shakes me. "Tim...Tim...Please, wake up..."
I'm disoriented. I glance at the clock. It's a little before 6am, four hours before my normal wake-up time. I give Kenny my nastiest look in its drowsiest form, but he continues to shake me, sobbing. What the fuck is going on. Something. I come instantly to life, and jump out of bed. "What the hell is wrong, Kenny?"
He grabs my hand, and pulls me out of the bedroom, down the hall, and towards Andrew's room. Kenny is absolutely frantic. He pulls me into Andrew's room, and Andrew is on the floor. Glancing around the room in a cursory way, I see the drug paraphernalia on the bed, a hypodermic, a spoon, a bag of powder. I instantly tear up, and run to him, checking the pulse on his carotid artery. There is none. And he's stone cold, clammy, gray, and stiff. He's been dead for hours. I look at Kenny, who is standing naked several feet away, sobbing, and I start to cry. What did we miss? What the fuck did we miss? Where'd he get this shit? I start at anguish, and then move to rage: "Where the fuck did he get this shit? When'd he do this?" Then I descend into despair. I thought we had this solved. I thought this boy was cured. I am such a fucking idiot. And that's what I scream: "I am such a...fucking...idiot..."
Jason is by now in the room. He has his hands over his mouth, wide-eyed...repressing a scream, I think. I see him vaguely through my tears. I bend over the body, and weep, and both Jason and Kenny come to me, hug me, but I throw them off. I am sobbing, now. "I am such a moron, such an idiot." I've gotten up from the floor and am pacing the hallway outside his room, back and forth, muttering to myself. I don't know that I've ever been this angry with myself in my life. I'm sobbing and screaming at the same time. And then I collapse in the hallways, bent over on hands and knees, and start to sob, and I continue to sob for maybe 30 minutes. I am a total moron. You don't recover from this so soon. I'm an idiot. I should have put him in rehab, should have taken him to someplace, someone that knows how to deal with this shit. Finally, I get control of myself, tell Kenny and Jason to go get dressed, and I do the same. Then I dial 9-1-1.
They send paramedics and police who arrive with sirens blaring. They confirm that he's dead, and remove the body. The cops collect the drug paraphernalia, asking us endless questions about where he'd gotten it, what it was, why he'd done it, his history. Endless questions. Of course, they figure out what they're dealing with rather quickly. This is a house full of fags, and that assessment doesn't help us...me. They inspect the boys' drivers' licenses and passports, and, of course, my documents. And then, with my permission, they search through Andrew's room, finding an additional bag of white powder stuffed inside one his shoes. They ask me if he was suicidal, if he had ever done drugs before, what kind, when? On and on, the questioning continues. Then they say they want to search the rest of the house, and I demur. Their eyes narrow. "What's the objection?"
"Privacy," I reply, evenly.
"How do we know there aren't more drugs spread around the house?"
"You don't, yet, but you can rest assured that I will be searching for them, and if I find them, will turn them over to you. None of the three of us touch this stuff." The last thing I want is for them to find themselves in my basement before I've had time to clean it up, or to explore my bedroom before I've had time to remove some of the toys.
"I'm not sure that will be satisfactory," the inspector replies.
"Then get a warrant."
"I think we'd like to take you to the station for further questioning."
"Fine,"
I say. "Let me get my jacket. Jason is in tears and follows me to the bedroom,
and as I grab my jacket from the closet, I whisper to him: "Clean everything
out of the basement and out of the nightstand and take it to
"Where do you think he got the drugs, Mr. Jensen?"
"I really have no idea. If what we found on the bed was all he had, I'd have guessed Guernville, where we were yesterday. But you found more in his shoe. I don't think he would have bought that much at one time in Guernville, and frankly, we were all together for most of the trip. He wouldn't have had time to buy that much, I don't think."
"What was your relationship with him?"
"He was one of Kenny's friends from work. They both worked at Nordstrom's. Kenny called me several months ago to ask if we could help him kick a cocaine habit."
"And, how did he think you'd do that? Are you a counselor?"
"No, not by training, but I've help people before with life's problems, including Kenny. He thought I might be able to help Andrew, and, honestly, we thought we had helped him. He'd been drug-free for several months, as far as we could tell."
"And why didn't he go to some kind of rehab?"
"He didn't want to, and, frankly, it wasn't my place to insist."
"But he was living in your house. He'd brought drugs into your house, cocaine, you said. At the very least, why would you let him stay?"
"I told him that I ever found drugs in the house again, he'd be out."
Pause. "What's your relationship with the other two guys? Why are they living with you?"
"They're friends," I reply.
His eyes narrow. "Are you gay, Mr. Jensen?"
"Yes," I say, looking him in the eyes.
"And are the other two also homosexual?"
"Yes, they're gay, too," again looking him in the eyes.
"Do you have sexual relations with them?"
"Yes," evenly.
And with the other guy...umm," looking at his notes, "...Andrew?"
"Yes."
"But, the three of you never supplied...umm...Andrew with drugs."
"Never."
"How do you know the two other guys didn't supply him with drugs?"
"I know Kenny and Jason...intimately. I believe we just established that," I say, smiling.
"How long have you known them?"
"Many months. In fact, I'm married to Jason."
The inspector looks surprised. "So, let me understand this: you're married to...umm...Jason, but were also having sexual relations with the two other...umm...guys."
I really think he'd wanted to say "the other faggots," but had caught himself. "Yes."
"Doesn't Jason have a problem with that?"
"No. Do you?"
He gives me a long look in which I sense disgust, anger, and just a tinge of curiosity. "It's a free country."
"Yes, it is."
He pauses. "You say you were in Guernville yesterday. When did you arrive?"
"We drove up Friday afternoon, camping."
"And, where did you camp?"
"Sleepy Hollow campgrounds. I have a small camper. We slept in it."
"All four of you?"
"Yes."
"Together?" He is disgusted, again.
"This bothers you, doesn't it?"
He pauses. "As I said, it's a free country."
"You know, I'm sensing enough latent hostility here that I think I'd better call my lawyer before we continue this."
He looks angry. "Fine, Mr. Jensen," and leads me to a pay phone.
I don't have his number with me, but they have a phonebook, and I call him, and, thankfully reach his secretary, who puts me through to Robert Titus, "Bob", my lawyer for many years. I lay out the situation, and he advises me to shut up until he gets there. The inspector takes me back to the same room where I wait the 45 minutes until Bob arrives. Bob knows me well, very well. Always be honest with your lawyer. I fill him in on Andrew's death, the discovery of the drugs, and what I've already told the inspector. "I'm glad you stopped when you did," he says. "So, he knows you're gay, that the boys are gay, that Andrew was gay, and that you were all having sex together?"
"Yes."
"Does he know about...your toys?"
"No, and with any luck he won't. I'm hoping that Jason will have taken care of that."
Bob pauses, thinks. "Okay, for now. What you do is not a crime. Consenting adults can do pretty much what they want, short of killing each other. But the...gear...does complicate things on the basis of perception, and if for some reason a jury is made aware of your activities, it would be difficult to control their perceptions. Perception has lost lots and lots of trials. Good. Let's get back together with this inspector."
Bob knocks on the door, and is escorted from the room. Half an hour later he returns. "You're free, for the moment. No bail. They have their search warrant. They'll be there waiting for us when we get to your house. I'll drive you there. We can talk on the way."
We leave the station, and head to my place in Bob's very sleek BMW 850. He's done well for himself. "I called your home on my cell," he begins, "and got someone who said his name was Kenny?"
"Right."
"I filled him in a little, and asked to speak to Jason. I asked Jason if he'd `cleaned up,' and he said he had. So that part may be okay. What else will they find, Tim?"
"Well, they won't find anything of a sexual nature, but I don't know how long Andrew has been back on the dope, or where he might have stashed it. I'm absolutely sure that Kenny and Jason are clean, and that they weren't procuring for Andrew, but Andrew may have a stash somewhere that we haven't found, although Kenny has been looking. I'm concerned about my camper, frankly. If he did get his drugs in Guernville, the camper would have been how he transported them, and I'm not sure that Kenny will have thought to look there."
"Jason and Kenny will be the next in-depth interviews, I'll wager, probably at the station, and probably today. How will they hold up?"
I think. "They were both distraught this morning, but they're both innocent of anything except cleaning up and searching for another stash. If they can keep that under wraps, we should be fine."
"Is that a big `if,' or a small `if'?"
"I think that's a medium `if'." I expect Jason to cry through most of the interview. He's the more emotional of the two. Kenny, I think, will be stoic."
"Okay. Good to know. I'll want to be present for both interviews," he says, as we arrive at my house, and sure enough, there's a van there with quite a crew of cops, including our inspector, who hands Bob the search warrant. Bob glances at it and nods, and I open the door and in they file. Bob had given Jason and Kenny a heads-up that the house will be searched, and so they're dressed preppy. They look very nice, though not as nice as usual.
The search of the house is very thorough. It thankfully turns up nothing. I give Kenny a quizzical look as we sit in the living room, and he shakes his head. As they head down to the basement, I look urgently at Jason, and he nods. I smile. Then they head out to the garage, and I look again at Kenny. He nods. We might just get through this. The inspector calls to me from the kitchen, and leads me to the garage. Is this the camper you took to Guernville," he asks.
"That's
it."
"We'll need to impound this for the time being and take it back to the station so that forensics can make a thorough search." He seems a bit cooler, a bit less aggressive, a bit more respectful, but I'm not hopeful. That may be Bob's doing, rather than his current lack of evidence. I told Bob about the inspector's reactions to our living arrangements, and he smile, saying he'd take care of that.
"Fine," I respond.
"We're also going to want to talk to Mr. Leong and Mr. Hsia (Jason and Kenny) tonight at the station. I'll take them with me now. You're lawyer may want to attend."
"Oh, yes," Bob chimes in.
I motion to Jason and Kenny, and fill them in. They run to grab their jackets, and come back to the entry hall. The cops have all but left, driving the camper away, and the inspector leads the boys to his car. Bob follows quickly. "Guys." The boys and the inspector all turn to him at the same time.
"Don't say anything until I get there, please." He smiles at the inspector, who smiles back. He pats them down, as he did me, before opening the back door of the squad car and tucking them in.
"So far, so good," Bob says, getting into his own car. "Stay calm," he says, reassuringly, as he backs out of the driveway.
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My prediction about how the boys would respond to their interviews was half right, Bob later tells me. Jason was very emotionally, sobbing so hard, at one point, that they suspended the interview to let him calm down. He had defended me staunchly, telling them how I'd reacted to finding Andrew's body and the drugs, how I'd sobbed, how I'd cursed myself. Kenny too corroborated this independently in his interview. Both boys had been asked about their sexual preferences, and had explained our living arrangements, omitting anything having to do with our dominant/submissive relationships. Bob had objected to a couple of questions that he felt were both too personal, and irrelevant.
Kenny was the one I mis-predicted. I'd forgotten that he'd been the one to find Andrew, how frantic he'd been, how he'd sobbed with me as I'd sobbed. Reliving this had him in tears for a few minutes, but he was able to regain control and go on with the interview. After a total of four hours, at 10:45pm Bob brought the boys home, exhausted and emotionally spent. I told them both to go to bed, that I'd be there a little later, and then gave Bob a Scotch on the rocks, his drink of choice, and we chatted.
"Failing anything incriminating from the camper, I think we've done pretty well. That's still a very open switch, of course. If they find drugs there, they're going to want to know how they got there, and our response will be Andrew. They didn't find anything else in the house, nor the garage, so they don't have anything to charge you with. And the boys' interviews went fine. What they think they're dealing with is four promiscuous, immoral fags, and that's their right, but it's not a chargeable offense. Everyone was, and is, a consenting adult. They spent a good deal of time probing the comings and goings of the boys, trying to establish, if they could, any connection that Jason or Kenny might have to the drug trade, but couldn't find any evidence there. And they asked both of them whether they thought you had ever done drugs. I objected to the `they thought' bit, and they changed the question to whether they'd ever seen or heard about you doing drugs. They both gave an emphatic no. Is that true?"
"That true. I have drunk too much, on occasion, but never anything illegal."
"So no convictions?"
"None."
"Drunk driving? Public drunkenness?"
"No."
"Good, so you're squeaky clean?"
"I think so."
"How about sex in public."
"No, although..."
I tell
him about N'Touch, and he laughs. "Well, again, that
could be used as a perception issue, but if they have no other evidence,
there's little to charge you with. Public indecency, I suppose, but that would
be a municipal issue, something the city of
Bob gets up, and we shake hands. If he were gay, I'd have hugged him, but Bob is firmly heterosexual, with a wife and four very charming kids, all of whom I've met. I've complained for years about the lack of parenting that has small children running around restaurants, their dirty finger in the ketchup bottle or grabbing food with their hands from luncheon buffets. I'd watched Bob's kids grow up, had been to family barbeques. They were both happy and well-behaved. He was an exemplary parent, and took an active role in their upbringing rather than leaving it solely to his wife. Quite impressive in this day and age, especially given how hard he works. (I suspect those kids had very red behinds occasionally, but never asked Bob. It think it would embarrass him.)
I show him to the door. Before he walks through it, he turns and looks at me. "If they call you, I want you to refer them to me. Don't talk to them anymore. You gave them too much personal information in the first interview. I mean, there's being `out and proud,' and there's being incriminating. Let me handle them. Got it?"
I smile, looking as submissive as I can, "Yes, sir..."
He snaughs as he walks to his car and drives away.
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This is
an ordeal that is not quite over. Six days later, the Inspector (whose name is
Holmes, by the way, which I think is amusing – a Sherlock he is not). He wants
some additional information, a second interview with me. I do what Bob told me
to, and ask him to call my lawyer. Two hours later, Bob calls me. "They found
traces of Amphetamine and want to talk to you some more. They want to know
where precisely the camper has been. They also found five sets of clear prints:
yours, Kenny's, Jason's, Andrew's and a fifth set belonging to someone they
have been able to cross-match to a nationwide database of drug-offenders. Last
known address:
I am very, very worried, now. "Did they check him for HIV?"
Long, long pause. "I asked the same thing. They did, but won't have the results for another three weeks."
Silence. Long pause. "So, think back, Tim. Try to recreate where you were and when on your Guernville jaunt. Be as meticulous as you can. I think they're off you and the boys, and will go after this other guy. And, please, don't think about doing anything rash. They specifically didn't give me this guys names because they didn't want me giving it to you. If convicted, this will be his third offense; he'll be in jail for the rest of his life. The boys are definitely cleared, and..."
He stops. He hears me sobbing. "Tim? You okay? Tim?"
I try to pull myself together, just as Jason wanders through, stopping to look at me with concern, seeing my tears. "I'm not a proponent of capital punishment, but if this guys did this to my Andrew, he should...be killed."
There's a long pause in the conversation. "I don't disagree, Tim, but if we can get him convicted, he won't be going anywhere, ever. No parole in three strikes. That's probably worse than death."
"Okay," I sniff, "finally getting myself under control." When do we meet them?"
"Tomorrow at 10am. They want to meet then. Does that work?"
"I'll make it work."
"Great, I'll meet you at the station. Please don't start talking to them until I get there."
"You have my word."
"Good. See you then."
I hang up, and the tears start to flow again. I tell Jason to go find Kenny, and we converge on the living room where I fill them in. I'm sobbing, and as I relate what Bob told me, Jason starts to cry, and then Kenny. A dozen needle marks. We haven't really grieved, yet. We need to get on with that, and to do that, we need to get this investigation out of the way. Now that the autopsy's done, we can start work on a funeral.
I look at the boys. I've withheld the really scary news.
"Which of you did he fuck," I ask, very nervous. Both shake their head.
"Which of you fucked him?"
Jason shakes his head, but Kenny nods: "I did."
"Either of you suck him off?"
Both shake their heads, and then Kenny gets it, and starts to cry. And, finally, Jason gets it, too, and starts to sob, hugging Kenny, and then running to me.
"They tested him. It'll take three weeks, and I don't even know whether the virus would show so up quickly, depending on how long this has been going on. Coke wasn't a problem; he was snorting it. Needles are a problem. Kenny, you and I are at risk. We need to get to De Frank and get tested tomorrow after my interview, and we'll need to do it again in three months, and again in six months."
He nods.
And then I think, start to actually use my brain – for just a moment – and I tear up. I look at Jason. "If I'm infected for fucking Andrew then you may be infected by being fucked by me." And, then I think some more... The most at risk is the bottom. Had Kenny had sexual contact with Andrew before or after he fucked me. After, I finally resolve, and feel just a tiny bit better.
"Okay, we all need to get tested on this schedule. "Condoms for those six months, guys."
They nod, mournfully.
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The next day, I drive to the station with my best-can-recall list of where we'd been. Jason and Kenny have participated. I meet Bob in the parking lot. He's waiting for me. "So, you got an itinerary?"
I nod. "The best I can recall. And we all tried to concentrate on when Andrew was out of our collective sight. There was only one time when none of us know where he was for about an hour."
"Great. That's what they're looking for."
This is a much different interview. "I'm sorry, Mr. Jensen, if I offended you during our initial interview. I'm honestly not homophobic, although I was rather surprised by your living arrangements... I have straight friends and gay friends, and I really don't care much about their sexual orientation. I was sure you were lying to me, but the facts seem to bear you out."
From there, he launches into a series of questions about our whereabouts for the entire weekend, and I give him the details I can remember, finally telling about that one-hour absence during which none of us could recall seeing Andrew. "Jason thought he was across the street swimming, and I thought he was taking a shower, although if I'd thought about that very much, I'd have realized how stupid it was: a one hour shower at a camp ground would cost you more quarters than we had. Kenny hadn't thought about it. It was only yesterday, when I asked him, that he realized that he hadn't been around."
"Where can he have gone?"
"None of us knows, but we left the camper and took a hike, without Andrew. We got back maybe an hour later. Andrew was sitting on the back seat of the Van, and greeted us warmly. He looked normal, maybe a little giddy."
"Where could he have gone in an hour?"
"Well, I supposed he could have gone to town and back if he'd gotten a ride from someone." And then it hits me. I've been stupid. "Oh, Christ," I exclaim, thinking back. "The camper was turned around," I blurt. "The side door of the camper is on the passenger side, so I'd driven it straight into the camp site so we weren't facing the road, more private. When we got back, it was parked with the door facing toward the road. I remember wonder vaguely when that had happened, but the boys were so excited about relating our hike among the wild flowers and redwoods, and then it slipped my mind. We all have a key. Can I use a phone?"
Inspector Holmes takes me to his office, and I dial my home. The Inspector remains in the room with Bob. I get Jason on the phone. "Get Kenny, and put me on speaker." There's a pause, and then Jason returns with Kenny, who says hello. "You guys remember the hike on Saturday?"
"Yeah," they both respond.
"And you remember when we came back from breakfast Saturday morning, I pulled into the campsite front first, so the side door faced away from the road."
Pause. "Yeah."
"Did either of you move the van after that."
Pause. "No."
"And, when we came back from the hike, how was it positioned?"
Long pause. "I'm not sure," Jason says.
But then Kenny chimes in. "I am." Pause, a revelation. "It was the other way around. I remember thinking that the noise from the other campsite was pretty oppressive, and the pop-top was facing the highway. How'd that happen?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out. But you guys didn't do it?"
"I can't drive a stick," Jason responds.
"Me, neither," Kenny chimes in.
"Okay. Cool. Thanks. I'll be home soon." I hang up.
"Could Andrew drive a stick," Inspector Holmes asks?
"I honestly don't know. The car he came with was automatic, and all my cars are automatic, except that one. I was always the one driving. I assumed that nobody else knew how, but I never asked Andrew."
"So, with a car, where could he have gone?"
"Well, to any of the other campgrounds along the road, to any of the restaurants along the way, hotels, and into town, into downtown Guernville."
Suddenly, Inspector Holmes eyes light up. "Did he have a cell phone?"
"Yeah, we share minutes. Verizon. A five-way plan." And, then I understand where this is going.
I look dubiously at Bob, who has also decoded this foray.
"No," he says, "not without a warrant. But," he looks at me, "we'll do the research ourselves, and give you any number we can't identify."
I nod.
"Let's start there," Inspector Holmes replies. "We may still want to go for the warrant, but if we find what we're looking for, that'll be sufficient. When?"
"Assuming I can get current data from Verizon, tomorrow."
He smiles. "Have a fax, e-mail?"
"Yeah."
"I'll have Verizon send you your current data ten minutes after you leave here."
Now, I smile. This guy isn't so bad. I give him the fax number. I don't want law enforcement to know my e-mail address, quite frankly. Not much they can do with a fax number."
"Okay, maybe tonight, but certainly by 1pm tomorrow afternoon."
"Great." He smiles.
"So, are we done," Bob asks?
"For the moment," giving me his e-mail for the unrecognizable phone numbers.
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Bob drops me home, asking me to copy him on my note to Holmes, and then drives away.
I find the boys in the kitchen, both dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. "Umm..."
"We didn't know," says Jason. "We weren't sure you'd be alone."
I ruffle his hair. "Go get naked."
They disappear for maybe a minute, and then return in their daily uniform, which is a lack of uniform. Both are carefully groomed, even Kenny, so Jason has been helping him shave.
We sit down at the table, and I recount the interview, and then remember that I'm expecting a fax. Sure enough, good to his word, Holmes has contacted Verizon, and there's a fax in the tray. The good news is that they itemize their bills by phone number, so it's easy to find Andrews list, and because they also itemize it by date, it's even easier to isolate the likely numbers. I return to the kitchen, and we all three mull over the list, pulling anything we know. "No, that's a Nordstrom number. I can tell by the prefix," Kenny says.
"No, that's Nathan's number. Schoolmates," Jason chimes in.
We get this down to six numbers we can't identify, one dialed four times, and I toy with the idea of calling them, but decide against it. I don't want to tip him off, if one of these numbers is his, and I don't want to mess in Holmes' business. Let him do his job. As Bob said, if this guy is guilty, he's going to be in jail for the rest of his life.
I hoof it to the computer, and send him the e-mail I'd promised:
Detective Holmes:
There are four numbers on Andrew's section of the bill we can't identify: 408-619-4822, 408-285-4582, and 707-486-3289.The latter was dialed four times over the last five days.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Tim Jensen
While I'm writing this, Kenny runs to the phone book to look up the 707 area code. It includes Guernville.
Having sent the note, I return to the kitchen. Jason mopes. "I miss him."
"We all miss him," I think. "I wish he could have beaten this. I wish I hadn't been such an idiot and assumed that he had."
Jason gives me a hug, but Kenny is more direct. "You've got to stop this, Tim," he says, sternly. "Andrew wasn't your fault, wasn't our fault. We did what we could. I'm sorry he did this...to all of us...to himself, but it wasn't our fault." He tears up. "We need you, now."
I smile at him, and give him a hug. "Thanks, babe, for a swift kick in the ass."
Nevertheless,
the next day, Friday, I call
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