Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 23:03:38 +0000 From: Java Biscuit Subject: Arjuna, chapter two This is a story involving teen/adult, male/male graphic sex and not intended for reading by minors. If you are a minor, or this type of material is illegal where you live, please stop now, and go read something else! This story is a fantasy meant only for the purpose of pleasurable reading. Other stories of mine can now be found in the prolific writers index. Feedback, always appreciated, may be sent to: javabiscuit@hotmail.com Arjuna ~ chapter two by Biscuit Freddy grew quiet and heavy on top of me and then passed out into a dead sleep. I was the one who wanted to cry then, trapped under him in my sticky pants. Any time I tried to move, to shift him off me, he'd wake enough to grasp me tighter. I was like a pillow, or stuffed animal, in the arms of an overgrown child. I don't know when I finally drifted off. I don't know when he roused himself and left, but I woke up alone in the morning feeling like I'd ruined my life. More stealthily than ever I snuck into the bathroom to shower. I was cringing, inside and out, still tender from the rasp of his beard. I felt like I'd done a horrible thing with Freddy. So wrong. And the scummy, mildewed shower stall only reflected back the feelings of shame inside that made my skin crawl. I fled to the ashram that morning like a stray lamb crawling back to the fold. I'd missed the early meditation but joined in the long chant that came after it. Gradually, my self loathing dissolved in the spiced perfume of incense and the building cadence of chanting. Images of Bhakti, the man I loved purely, replaced Freddy's face in my mind. Every time I caught myself thinking about what I'd done the night before, I renewed my efforts at mantra. I dreaded going home, afraid to see him. Part of me was scared that he'd be angry at me for what we'd done while he was so drunk. Part of me was afraid he'd think he could come in my room anytime he wanted now, that he'd expect me to do things with him. Maybe worse things than we'd already done. I couldn't let that happen. I went to my first job straight from the ashram. A man named Elliott Hurst, seventy-two years old, recovering from a stroke, needed someone to make lunch for him three times a week. I was nervous on my way there though I knew my job wasn't going to be hard. Just to walk into the house of a stranger intimidated me. Elliott lived not far from me. All the clients I'd been given, in fact, were within walking distance of my house. His street was narrow, richer than most, with beautiful single family homes and well tended lawns. He was nothing like I expected. Unsteady on his feet, but lithe, a white haired sprite of a man with crinkly blue eyes and sweeping gestures that I feared any second would send him sprawling. I'd never met an elderly gay person, not that I knew of, and certainly none who looked at me like he did. His fluffy eyebrows quirked as he scanned me on his doorstep, grinning flirtatiously. "Oh look," he said, as if he was addressing an unseen listener, his voice somewhat slurred. "They sent me a twinkie for lunch." He laughed at his own joke and I stared at him, puzzled. It was the first time, but not the last, that I'd hear that expression. I followed him to his spacious gleaming kitchen, ready to grab him a thousand times as he teetered more than walked, using the wall as a kind of constant reference point. He had a walker, it turned out, but he hated it. That first day, he felt his way into a kitchen chair and merrily issued orders in a halting, fuzzy voice. I wasn't sure how much of the way he spoke was caused by his stroke and how much was just Elliott. But I soon got used to deciphering what he was saying and made him the ham and cheese sandwich he wanted. I sliced up cucumber to order, very thin, and dolloped it with sour cream to his specifications. He had an old-fashioned hand crank coffee grinder mounted on his wall. I didn't know what he meant at first when he asked for Celebes, but it turned out to be the coffee beans in the fridge. So I ground it and brewed it and he urged me to drink a cup with him. When he lifted a cigarette in a shaky hand, I lit it for him and accepted one for myself. "Let's hear about your boyfriends," he said. "No boyfriends," I said, not disturbed by him assuming I was gay. Even at seventeen I was used to that. People just looked at me and thought it. What could I say? I'd thought the same thing about him. "None!" It was like I'd insulted him. His wavery hand went to his forehead. "Sorry," I said. And I was, in a way, to disappoint him. I blushed, thinking of Freddy. Oh God. "What?" he asked, seeing the color in my face and sensing something. "You're lying." His cigarette hand made a shaky descent toward the ashtray. "No, really. I'm not, uh, sexually active." That was the term I used for my virginity. If only I still was one, I thought, guiltily. "Why not?" He was disgusted with me. My spiritual aspirations annoyed him. Does it ever it ever make a difference when an older person tells a young one to stop wasting their youth? I listened to the first of many lectures, taking no offense -- after all, he was a senior citizen. Then I left, politely refusing any extra money for the almost half hour over that he'd kept me there. And when he held those shaky but elegant hands out to me at the end and said, "Come here," I hesitantly approached him and let him bus me on the cheek. Not a good precedent, but it was hard to say no to him. Elliott liked company though he savaged his other caregivers to me and swore he shuffled them out of his house as quickly as possible. I doubted that very much. You might think that a lot of my clients wanted company, a sympathetic presence, but it wasn't that way. Elliott was one of the few who did and he'd always try to keep me there, stretching our hour as far as he could. I eventually gave in and let him expand our visits to two hours, even though I felt guilty getting paid for doing nothing more than sitting around talking. He called me his little whore. "I don't mind paying for your time," he said. Most of the people I worked for had a very different attitude than he did, but then their physical challenges were very different. Most viewed their caregivers as extensions of their own limbs and they wanted as little as possible of you or your personality intruding into their lives. That's how it was with Rob, the client I met later that afternoon. Thirty-four years old and severely disabled by something called ataxia. I showed up at his apartment, a ground floor place you reached at the top of a slow inclining ramp. I was bolstered by my successful time with Elliott, ready to make a dinner instead of lunch. I felt confident ringing Rob's doorbell. A buzzer sounded and a garbled voice said something I figured must be, "Come in." God help me, I nearly went to pieces at the sight of him. Slumped in his wheelchair, a man so handsome that he'd have stunned you if he were upright and healthy. He was waxy white under his dark hair, his face so distorted by his diseased muscles pulling his face askew, that just looking at him wrenched my heart. Rob had the awkward use of one arm and hand and the muscles in his torso heaved with effort. He could speak, and like with Elliott I'd come to decipher the sounds, but every word came hard with big breaths to propel his voice out of him. His home was uncluttered and orderly with large spaces for him to maneuver his motorized wheelchair. Even so, he lurched often and the walls were streaked with tracks and dented from the many times he swung hard with an errant motion of his hand on the control. In his presence that first day, I felt almost ashamed to be in my own whole, healthy body. An intensely serious and private man, Rob struck me as severe and pitiable at first. His kitchen, under bright florescent lights, was spartan but marked by such an odd color scheme that I stared. Every drawer was painted a different, and to me, hideous color. The reason became clear as soon he started telling me what to do. Rob knew which color drawer and cupboard held every blessed thing in his kitchen and with minimal effort ordered me from one to another to get the utensils and supplies I needed. I was overwhelmed by pity as my awareness grew. He'd never seen the insides of those drawers and was totally dependent on every object being in its appointed place. The dinner recipe was printed out on a sheet of notebook paper in a well worn folder. I'd learn quickly that all of his food had to be cooked to mushy softness or he couldn't swallow it. What a mess I was and how patient he was! How many hundreds of people had passed through his home in my role? His attitude was brusque, maybe, but not unkind. Part of my misunderstanding was not knowing that the grimace on his face was from the disease, not an expression of his feelings. The worst moment came when he wanted a glass of orange juice. He needed me to help him drink it and I didn't really understand. His own hand was on the glass with mine and he seemed to have such a strong grip on it that I thought he was taking it from me. The moment I let go of the glass, the juice went flying, flung by the strength of his uncontrolled grip. Oh God. It seemed to take hours to clean up the mess and then pour another glass, apologizing abjectly the whole time. I'd never felt more useless in my life. The second time around, I held on tight, and it was a meditation in itself, drinking with him in my mind as he paused between gulps, to breathe, and I felt for the angle he needed the glass to tip. I was terrified of spilling juice on his beautiful face. I measured his breaths, the motions of his swallowing; watching his lips hug the glass. I felt suddenly like I never wanted to leave his side, like I had to be there if ever he was thirsty again. An ever present danger for caregivers, to fall in love. Rob actually fed himself, his wheelchair pulled up close at the table, the brakes set securely. He leaned way over and scooped the food with a spoon into his mouth. A long labor. While he ate, I did the first round of washing up in the kitchen. The dinner dishes themselves I was only to put in the sink. They were due to be washed and put away by the person who came at night to put him to bed. At the end, I sat at the table as he instructed me to write out my own check from his checkbook, to which he scrawled his signature. I was both relieved and grateful that he did want me to come back. One detail of Rob's kitchen nagged at me as I made my way home. In the refrigerator there was a shelf of junk food: cookies, a package of peanut butter cups, a tub of processed cheese,a poorly wrapped package of hot dogs. Things I found it hard to believe he ate. On the other hand, I thought, it was none of my business if somebody else fed him those treats. My own dinner I hadn't given much thought to. I knew I could stop at the Coop, a grocery store near my home where Jerrie had gotten me a membership. In my room was a jar of peanut butter and a bag of bagels, part of my "housewarming gifts" from the girls. One of the best things, I discovered quickly about living in California, was the abundance of awesome produce. I was walking through the Coop parking lot, thinking of avocados, daydreaming of feeding them to Rob, when I met up with Freddy. "Hey!" I heard, and looked up. He didn't even know my name. Big grin, if kind of sheepish; clear but very tired eyes. He was wearing jeans and boots, a Forty Niners tee-shirt and a suede jacket. His hair was brushed. "It's you, right?" he asked. "My little neighbor." "Arjuna," I said. I was relieved in a way, having dreaded the moment. At least we were out in public and he was being friendly. I didin't dare think about the rest, and tried not to look at his body, my eyes darting from his face to the store windows beyond. "Cute name, kind of odd. Arjuna," he tested the sound of it. Then he was the one averting his eyes. "Listen," he said. "About last night." The humor went out of him in the blink of an eye and I felt myself squirming to escape. "Forget about it," I said, not wanting to hear any more, my heart beating hard. "No, no, listen...I've got to apologize." His hand balled up on his hip and he seemed to have to force himself to look at me then. "You're a sweet kid. That was bullshit of me. I'm sorry." He kind of winced, and asked, "You have dinner yet? I'd really like to buy you dinner or something." "You don't have to do that," I said. "It's okay, really." "I want to. I need you to know I'm not such a bad guy. You like burgers?" My mouth watered, in spite of my vegetarian intentions. "Sure," I said. He was trying to be nice and it couldn't hurt to let him. There was nothing in the way he was acting that made me think I had anything to fear from him. "All right, RJ," he said. And so one of my nicknames was born. RJ, standing for nothing but the syllable sounds of my name. We walked toward Berkeley and he took me to a burger joint, then to a coffee house. There seemed to be millions of those in Berkeley. I heard about his work as a house painter, his battles with drinking, and I told him about the ashram and my first day of work, about Elliott and Rob. It was nice. I felt like I'd found a friend. Feeling an undercurrent of lust was something I was all too used to. In a way, it wasn't as bad as when I was with Bhakti, who was more attractive to me. In another way, it was worse. I knew how it felt to be touched by Freddy. I got little jolts as I watched him talk, as I watched him eat, remembering what we'd done. In the coffee house we were crowded in a sea of small tables with barely enough room for the waiters to walk between them. Our knees and legs kept brushing under the table and I started heating up. So transparent. I still am. "I wish I was gay," he said, breaking a pause. I was probably staring into my coffee cup with my cheeks getting pink. "That's crazy," I said. "You are what you are. It doesn't matter to me." Only to my hard dick, I thought, miserably. Shanti Om. Shanti Om. I was grateful to be wearing a long Indian shirt and a baggy zip sweatshirt. If my unruly flesh wouldn't behave, at least I wasn't going to have to stand up and show it. "If I was, I'd fall for you like that!" He snapped his fingers. Jesus. The same song the love of my life sang to me. Well, not the wishing he was part. Bhakti never said he wished he was gay, but he'd tell me that if he was, that he'd scoop me up in a second. When Freddy said it, he really meant it. He was a man with a big, aching heart. Walking home that night he slung his arm around my shoulders, asking if it was okay. I said sure, though I wasn't really sure. It felt too good to really be okay. As we got close to the house, cutting through the park, he stopped me and put his hands on my shoulders. "You know, I can't imagine you'd want a guy like me, but I want you to know, if you did, if you feel lonely sometime ... I'm right next door, RJ." I felt pretty damn lonely right that second. My dick had a quick trigger, it filled up fast and hard with his big hands moving on my shoulders and his face so close to mine in the dark. "Thanks," I said, fighting the urge to leap at his mouth. "Okay if I kiss you?" Torture. His hand was sliding down, circling over my flat chest like he was wishing I was a woman, cupping at my nothingness. But it electrified me, my dick surging painfully in my pants. I groaned and my hand dropped to my fly trying to angle my hard cock into some breathing room. He laughed at me. That's how it was with Freddy. He was drawn to the feminine things about me and my dick just amused him. I tried to back away from him, hurt by his laughter, but he pulled me back and started kissing me, murmuring between the pressure of his lips and swipes of his tongue, "It's okay." I hugged him. I hugged him hard. His body was so solid. I felt like I could squeeze forever and never hurt him. Not mine, not gay, but still he was mine in my heart because he was the only man I'd ever kissed, who'd ever held me and made me come. Unlike the drunken night before, when he pressed his crotch into me, his cock felt as hard as the branch of an oak tree. He had a hand in my hair, holding the back of my head and was bending me backwards a little, reaching down to my ass. Oh God, oh God. Even my mantra was gone when his fingers curved around my butt cheek and he squeezed. In Freddy's room, still reeking slightly of beer and smoke even though he'd aired it out, surrounded by posters of bluesmen, I got fucked for the first time. I was scared, but I trusted him. The tears and intensity of the first night, the gentleness of him the second; for me it all added up to trust. He knew I'd never done it before. He told me that he had. Fooling around when he was younger, he said. Not ideal, maybe. Not the man I loved, but my lust for him knew no bounds. At least he didn't balk at wearing a condom. Everybody was trying to be safe, and his girlfriends insisted on it, so he was used to it. The light was dim and I was trying to breathe. Doing mantra as I lay on my stomach with his knees making pits in the mattress to either side of me. I wished I could see his face, but he probably liked it better, not seeing my hard dick waving at him. His pillow smelled like him. Even the hint of beer I found erotic. On our way into the house, we'd run into a couple of the other guys who lived there and Freddy had introduced me. I'd blushed like a fool, knowing that I was heading to his room. Guillermo, a slight Colombian guy, who struck me as being very handsome, was a student at Berkeley. The one ws older, with long dark hair and pale skin, and a scraggly mustache and beard, a graduate student named Phil. His long ponytail said "straight guy", as much as mine "gay guy", which pretty much goes to show it's not the hair, it's who's wearing it. He looked me over, but not in a sexual way, like he was curious. "Welcome to the monkey house, kid," he'd said to me. I'd only find out later that it was a literary reference, to Kurt Vonnegut, a hero of Phil's. I wouldn't have known a thing like that if it had bitten my ass. Did they have any idea what Freddy and I were doing? I tried really hard to be quiet, so conscious of the landing outside the door. We heard their footsteps when they came in the house. Only Phil climbed the stairs and his voice was so loud out there, saying good night to Guillermo, that it filled me with dread of how easily we could be overheard. I bit the pillow to stay quiet as his cock pierced me. It hurt going in, in spite of him using his fingers first and the ton of junk he'd slathered on me. "Stop," I whispered in a panic, as loud as I could, I felt like I was constipated and stuck with it halfway in and halfway out. Agony. He did stop, leaning down over me, his face warm at the side of mine. "Relax baby, breathe. It won't hurt for long, I promise." Mantra didn't help but his kisses on the side of my face did. I breathed in his breath and shivered when he ran his lips over my ear and down my jaw. Like magic, I felt my body start to open with him nuzzling me and stroking in slowly. Unbelievable, unimaginable how it felt when I was full of him. Why didn't I know it could feel like this? Wave after wave running through me, almost overtaking the sensations of pleasure in my hard cock. I loved him, I had to love him. How could I not love the man who was doing this to me? The bed was creaking with every thrust. Freddy was panting and groaning and by then I didn't care if somebody heard us. All I cared about was feeling him pump into me. I soaked the towel that had gotten rucked up under me, the hardest I'd ever come in my life.