From: shed@dgs.dgsys.com (Umar Khan)
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories
Subject: Quatrain (m/m)
Date: 21 Nov 1994 07:32:25 -0500
Organization: Digital Gateway Systems
Lines: 1027
Message-ID: <3aq40p$gsu@DGS.dgsys.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: dgs.dgsys.com

                              QUATRAIN
                                 by
                         Omar Khayyam (ndp)
                (c) Copyright 1993, all rights reserved

                             -----

PREFACE:

If anyone tries to tell you, "You can't ever go home again," tell him to 
go take a hike! Home has often been called the place where they have to 
take you back, but as the following story shows, it may also be the 
place which takes you to places you've never been. In this fictional 
case, returning home was the best thing in the world. Like real life, 
the path to wholeness and self-awareness was marked by fantasy, pathos, 
premature ejaculations, no small amount of lust, and only ultimately, 
after the main character returns home: romance and satisfaction. The 
characters are all fictional, the scenes are all fictional, but there's 
more than a little bit of the author here and there in this story. 

                             ******


CHAPTER 1: The Carapace

Roanoke, Virginia used to be called Big Lick, back in earlier centuries 
when its importance was that it was a wide spot in a river where game 
animals came down to quench their thirst and lick the natural salt de- 
posits. For me, while I was growing up, it might've well have been 
called the Big Zip. My name is Michael -- not Mike, only people who 
want others to think they're close to me ever call me Mike and they are 
always wrong. And I come from Roanoke County in the beautiful valley of 
the same name between the Allegheny and the Blue Ridge mountains.
 
Coming from a conservative, Southern upper middle class white family, 
Roanoke was not the place to admit -- even to one's self -- that you are 
gay. So I didn't.  My few explorations into my own sexuality and that 
of others were marked more by fear, self-deception, rationalization and 
denial more than by discovery.

My earliest erotic memories were of my older brother, Jim, taking a leak 
and completely filling the toilet bowel with frothy foam from the force 
of his urine. He is seven years older than me, and that meant he 
reached and conquered puberty long before I could spell the word. He 
had nearly 9 inches (by my juvenile estimate, it was more like 90) of 
swinging meat framed by a glorious mat of soft curly hair. How I envied 
that hair until I had a tuft of my own in that area! And how I marked 
the years until I too could take a man's leak: one which filled the 
bowel with foam like my brother's.

Oh yes, I looked into the girl thing too. I went out into the woods 
with several neighborhood girls. Some were about my age and some a year 
or more younger. At 7 or 8, I was the "old man."  We dropped our pants 
(or panties as the case might be) and compared anatomy furtively. It 
was exquisite for us to be so daring. We giggled a lot and poked fun 
(literally) at each others plusses and minuses. Then we suited up and 
went innocently to our homes.

One of the little finks told her mother. Boy, did I catch Hell.  
Needless to say, there were no more trips to the woods with little girls 
for a while.

In those years, the YMCA also allowed swimming in the buff at their 
nearby indoor pool. It was all I could do to restrain my gawking so 
that others wouldn't notice. We also belonged to a fancy country club, 
where I had my first bold step, at age 13, in a shower room with my 
swimming and tennis buddy, Joey. Neither of us had the slightest idea 
what we were doing. But we delighted in finding a deserted corner of 
the pool where one of us (usually Joey) would calmly lean against the 
pool's edge, supporting his torso comfortably out of the water on spread 
arms, looking oh so very very casual. Meanwhile, the other (usually me) 
would slip the other's trunks down far enough to release his juvenile 
prick into the freedom of the chlorinated water. Then, beneath the 
water, lunch would be served. That's how I learned to give head (an art 
which I proudly boast mastery of today). In the showers after working 
out one day, Joe and I found ourselves alone. We lathered each others 
backs and thighs, then we concentrated on the crotches. Fully coated 
with a sumptuous covering of scented soap lather, Joe turned and 
presented his smooth ass to me to rub. It was toooooo much.  Soon I 
found myself inching a finger through his crack and past the wonderful 
pink puckered sphincter of his asshole.

Joe squirmed and groaned. We both looked around in a panic fearing that 
someone might have heard us. But the place was deserted except for us. 
Made bold by my penetration of his inner sanctum by my lowly finger, I 
withdrew and gently pushed my lathered and hardened six inches into the 
wondrous warm place recently vacated by my finger. I must have cum 
within seconds. I couldn't believe how wonderful it felt and I couldn't 
control the rush of ecstasy which spread throughout my body and seemed 
to focus entirely on my tightened ball sack and force its way carelessly 
through my cock and into Joey. We quickly disengaged in embarrassment 
at what we had done. I still remember Joey, so serious and so naive, 
worrying if I had made him pregnant. We continued our little secret 
games in the pool and the shower throughout the summer. Then, Joey's 
family moved away. I wonder if he remembers those times of delightful 
awakening of our youthful manhood as clearly as I do?

I discovered girlie magazines about the same time. But I never realized 
how my greatest moments of stimulation and lust were when the pictures 
showed a man fucking a woman. I didn't get nearly as aroused when they 
were pictures of women fingering themselves or spreading their cunts 
invitingly for the camera and the lusting men who were destined to cream 
their underpants as they drooled over the magazines. After all, I had 
discovered girls (although not sexually) and I wasn't a pervert.

The next summer, I found yet another opportunity to explore my sexuality 
with other boys. I attended summer camp - Boy Scout camp to be precise. 
A couple of the other scouts had invented a neat game for comparing 
weenie sizes of the whole troop. After we measured eachother, we began 
to take notice of some of the older boys in the shower. There was one 
boy, Eugene, who had red hair and a prick that was more than five inches 
in circumference and kinda squished in the middle, bulging out from east 
to west, not at all like the little cylinders the rest of us sported. 
It was huge and sexy as hell. It was man meat for sure.  And it was 
about nine inches long! The problem was, Eugene wasn't part of our 
group and none of us had the guts to approach the older, more muscular 
Eugene with so odd a proposition as wanting to measure his prick. 
But...

Eugene was a sound sleeper, and he snored to boot. And we were 
industrious little tikes, too. So, one night, bent on this resolve that 
we just had to measure what appeared to be the biggest cock of the 
troop, we crept silently into Eugene's tent. I was the bravest -- and 
the most curious I guess -- so to me fell the honor (and the 
considerable risk) of carefully unzipping his sleeping bag... oh so 
slowly, millimeter by millimeter so as not to make the slightest noise. 
Success!

But he was wearing jockey shorts! Undaunted by the challenge of 
breaking into the cotton safe which hid his family jewels, I gently slid 
the elastic down, taking even more care that I had with the sleeping 
bag's zipper. The danger was palpable. But I knew the rewards which 
awaited me. I listened all the time to the sound of his deep breathing 
and his occasional snoring. Then, finally, I exposed his glorious prick 
to the dark night air. As I fondled it, it swelled and became fully 
engorged. Still, Eugene snored on. Oblivious to his admirers.

That night started a fad of sorts. One by one, we sneaked into other 
tents and conducted midnight measurements. We had this form of erotic 
breaking and entry down to a science. Soon, I was striking out on my 
own escapades. I wanted to try something I hadn't done since Joey moved 
away. I wanted to taste cock again.  Eugene, needless to say, became my 
prime target. I must have given him one hell of a series of wet dreams. 
He never woke up, unless he was a good actor and could keep up the 
uninterrupted snoring and the same relentless pace of his breathing. A 
few times, I was even able to urge his cock to produce its wonderfully 
salty pre-cum. I never risked making him (or anyone else in the camp) 
really cum though. But these solo forays kept up throughout the two 
weeks of summer camp; it was my own secret that I didn't dare share with 
anyone else.

But someone told!

The scout master called up my parents who called me on the carpet in no 
uncertain terms. All they knew about was that we had been comparing 
weenie sizes. That was bad enough but it could still be written off as 
boys growing up. Had they ever found out how far I carried those little 
games, perhaps, they wouldn't have found them so harmless. Perhaps I 
wouldn't have been merely grounded. Perhaps I would have been dead 
meat. But fear and guilt put an end to further excursions into manhood 
beyond the usual collecting of girlie magazines and nudist publications 
and beating off in privacy. For the rest of the time I lived in 
Roanoke, fear and guilt made my hand my best friend. I really liked 
those pictures with giant studs mounting buxom babes. I still didn't 
dwell on the solo shots of women or even the scenes of women doing 
things with women. Give me a good, manly fuck scene any day!  Right?

I heard about a gay bar in Roanoke when I was about 18. It was called 
the Silver Saddle I believe, though that might have been the name of a 
straight bar and I have forgotten the name of the gay bar in the 
intervening years. But the stories we heard about the gay bar!!!!  We 
heard that men sat around tables and put their hands on other men's 
thighs as they drank beer and kissed... actually kissed. The stories 
were shameful. And I wasn't even the slightest bit interested in going 
into such a disreputable place. Oh no, not me.

Besides... I might get caught. And, after all, I wasn't gay.

                             ******


CHAPTER 2: Mentation Perfect

"You're in the Army now." Cute name for a song.  Lousy when it's a 
statement of fact. It was Viet Nam.  What can I say?  In those days it 
was join the military, wait with your fingers crossed in the hopes that 
you won't get drafted, or run to Canada or Sweden. I chose to wait it 
out. Boy, was that the wrong move! Uncle Same inhaled me, no one even 
asked me if I wanted to inhale.

While in the Army, I was caught up in the regulations and the discipline 
and the constant living with lots of other guys, sharing tents, 
latrines, mud, and if we were lucky, washing facilities. While I was in 
Nam, the lice and leeches and stink preoccupied my mind to the exclusion 
of all else. I didn't have the privacy most of the time to do anything 
more than catch a peek of the odd bit of ass or cock as we dressed in 
close proximity. I never even got close enough to a city to find out if 
I would "turn on" to the pretty young ladies who always seemed to figure 
highly in the stories told by others who had enjoyed days (and nights) 
of R&R. But the war ended and the politicians brought me home after 
only a couple months in theater. 

I served the rest of my short hitch stateside at Fort Campbell, in 
Kentucky. If I had though that Roanoke was the armpit of the universe, 
I discovered how wrong I was when I was shipped off to Fort Campbell. I 
was so disgusted with myself and my surroundings that I barely explored 
my sexuality any more. Even though I had reveled in the nearness of so 
many men who kept in good shape or died (or died any way), Nam had done 
nothing for helping me break out of my state of denial. 

I still wasn't gay when I returned from Nam and Fort Campbell did 
nothing to change that. The only difference between Nam and Fort 
Campbell was that in Fort Campbell I could start up my collection of 
girlie magazines once more and find a bit of private time to jack off. 
I had really become the master of my celibacy and began to believe this 
was natural and OK.

After I was discharged from Uncle Sam's Army, I discovered that vets 
weren't exactly the A number 1 candidates for jobs. So, after trying my 
hand at working in a service station, I decided to take advantage of my 
G.I. Bill and finish to college. I had completed two years of college 
prior to being drafted and the G.I. Bill made it easy to finish my 
degree in Political Science. For this, I returned to my native 
Virginia.

I got accepted in a small college owned by one of the Protestant 
denominations. No alcohol on campus.  No fun on campus.  Very few girls 
on campus. But, mixing with so much adolescent manflesh was beginning 
to have its effect on my shell and I was beginning to awaken. Being so 
much older than the run of the mill college junior, and given my leader- 
ship training in the Army, I was judged fit to be the Resident Advisor 
in a men's dormitory. This stretched my G.I. Bill even further because 
it came with free room and board. And, I was just beginning to enjoy 
that when...

All Hell broke loose. Two events literally served to put the fear of 
God in me. In the first instance, one of my residents was caught using 
a screwdriver trying to remove the alarmed protective screen on a first 
floor window of a girls' dorm. It was the middle of the night, long 
after the girls' curfew and he was trying to open the window -- so he 
could get *out*. The Dean of Men summarily sent the young man and his 
co-ed friend packing, never to blacken the ivy-covered corridors of that 
college again.

The second instance struck closer to home. One of the new group of vets 
to be admitted to the college was found to be gay. Bill was in his 
first year, fresh back from Nam, like me. But unlike me, he had served 
two full tours in Nam and was a much decorated Lieutenant with a 
battlefield commission.

What surprised me is that I hadn't even guessed he was gay. Apparently, 
the mythical gaydar is not highly developed in those too near or in the 
closet. And, he kept his orientation quite secret.  It seems that he 
ironically had a lover in Roanoke, about 80 miles away, whom he visited 
nearly every weekend. All the time I had lived in Roanoke, I hadn't 
even known a single gay man (or at least one who I knew to be gay). At 
the very moment in my life when I was getting up the courage to admit my 
sexuality to myself, I was stuck with the fact that a close friend was 
not only secretly gay but that he found his outlet in Roanoke. Perhaps I 
might have seen that as a prophetic source of hope for me had the 
disclosure of his homosexuality not been closely followed with news that 
he had committed suicide.

He slit his wrists. A note he left behind explained that he couldn't 
live with the shame he had brought on his fine old Southern aristocratic 
family from Mobile, Alabama. I was shocked.  The college was shocked. 
But then the recriminations and accusations began. The officials of the 
college held mandatory student meetings in which they explained that 
Bill had been morally weak and that had lead both to his perversion and 
to his inability to cope. He had experienced the punishment of God in 
this world. He would surely suffer even more in the next.

It seemed that neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality were viable 
options for a student in that college at that time in history. So, I 
managed a few peeks by tactically showing up in the shower room at the 
right time to run into the newest or the cutest students assigned to my 
dorm. Thank heavens that as R.A., I had the rare luxury of a private 
room so that my hand and I could find time alone with my stressed out 
cock. I was comfortable with my safe collection of girlie magazines, 
imagining steamy threesomes with me fucking away at a slick wet cunt 
while one of my best friends was pumping her face. Such fantasies are 
safe because they are never shared with anyone.

Armed with a degree in Political Science, I burst upon the labor market 
with thousands of other vets and millions of younger non-vets. It still 
wasn't a good time to have been a vet if you hoped to compete with the 
kids who were lucky enough to be born a couple of years later than you. 
And my peers were all either, like me, looking for a job, or (if they 
had had a student deferment) in cushy jobs already and looking down at 
me for lagging behind them in the corporate rat race for the brass ring 
and the key to the executive washroom.

After weeks turned to months and shoe leather grew holes on top of 
holes, I succumbed. If the civilian sector wasn't going to hire a vet 
who had risked his life for them, then I'd apply to go back to work for 
Uncle Sam. So, I took the civil service exam. Not that it was any 
surprise, but I passed. What was a surprise was how quickly the 
Department of Defense said they'd give me a job. Less than two weeks 
and five interviews later, I found myself behind a plain green metal 
desk in the bowels of the Pentagon, the worlds largest office building. 
It had 17 miles of corridors, hundreds of bathrooms, and God knows what 
other Guiness records. But the important thing at that time was that it 
had me.

But I had something else: a security clearance... a very high security 
clearance.

Since I had served in the Armed forces and been honorably discharged and 
since I never had so much as a parking ticket (until my first day on the 
job, when I accidentally parked in a restricted space in the Pentagon 
parking lot), getting the clearance wasn't hard at all. When it came to 
the life-style questions, it was easy to say I wasn't gay -- I wasn't. 
OK, I stretched the truth a bit when it came to the variant of that 
question, the one which went something like: "Have you *ever* engaged in 
a sexual act with another man." OK, I downright lied.  But I still 
wasn't gay (in my own mind). And a condition of my continued employment 
was that I continue not to be gay.

By this time, my collection of girlie magazines was continuing to 
burgeon. I decided that my sanity and my social life that my hand get a 
friend. So, I started dating a real nice girl from the secretary pool, 
Julie. Pretty soon Michael and Julie became an item of gossip through 
all of those 17 miles of corridors (corridors which are well known to 
have ears every- where). Not long afterwards, we were married.  But as 
of our wedding night, Julie was still a virgin.

Sex with Julie was hard. We kissed and cuddled.  We tried several kinds 
of foreplay I had seen in the girlie magazines or had imagined. As a 
man who had sucked other men, I was uniquely qualified to know both how 
to stimulate a man and how I wished to be stimulated. Obviously I 
didn't share that part of my resume with Julie, but I did try to get her 
to give me head. She gagged and gave up.  Sex was a disaster.  Over the 
ensuing months, we tried harder and harder but I couldn't get any 
harder. So, we simply tried to enjoy making out and making the best of 
foreplay, touching and feeling without coitus very often. On one of the 
rare occasions when I was able to get it up and in, something must have 
happened because Julie was suddenly and surprisingly pregnant.

Four months later, Julie had a very painful and shattering miscarriage. 
While we were close enough to eachother for me to provide moral strength 
when she needed it, the months without sex while she was pregnant had 
been far too habit forming for me to even contemplate another attempt at 
giving her a baby. There was no further hope for the marriage. She 
wanted a child and I was impotent according to her doctors (though you 
couldn't tell from my sperm count).

After the divorce, everyone in the office was supportive. They thought 
it was more a tragedy than I did. But I couldn't let on.  Besides, I 
now had a very valuable entry in my personnel file that helped me to 
avoid probing questions as to my sexual proclivities: I had been 
married.

So, security clearance in tact and with newfound freedom, I still wasn't 
gay.

                             ******



CHAPTER 3: The Zone.

Alone once more with my hand, I came to the realization that my hand and 
I still needed companionship. I had also realized from my failed nights 
with Julie that it was dishonest for me to continue to hide behind my 
own mental label "bi-sexual." Calling myself, even in my own mind, a 
bi- sexual was a cop out. And now I knew it.  Though I didn't accept it 
gracefully.

Believe me, this was no eureka experience. There was no light bulb 
which suddenly turned on and allowed be to say "I'm gay," and then feel 
greatly relieved. I only wish it had been that way.  I knew I couldn't 
be openly gay (or even bi-) in my office. I'd loose my clearance and my 
job. I was still very much in the grip of the fear of being caught and 
a certain amount of shame at the realization that I *might* be gay.

But, I had needs which must be met. My hand was not a sufficient 
release for the sexuality which by then was almost screaming to be 
released. So, I became a vulture.

Near the Pentagon is a park, a famous park within the Washington D.C. 
gay community. It is a known haunt for random and usually anonymous gay 
sex (and even the occasional banging of the secretary by the boss on 
their lunch break). The bushes and gullies are havens for that which 
society wishes to hide. I started to frequent that park.  I was on the 
prowl.

One night, there was no moon, and clouds obscured the moon. Near 
midnight, I was working my way from grove to grove within the dark park. 
In every nook and cranny there were couples or groups of men in various 
stages of undress. All of them were there for one reason.  Some of 
them, like me, were vultures, looking for delicious manflesh, following 
this pair of hot buns, or responding to that sound of grunting from a 
nearby bush. We were literally stalking our prey, and, when finished 
with one morsel, we moved on to the other. Lines of men followed other 
men in the hopes of a momentary passionate encounter with a nameless but 
delectable stud.

Obviously, if there were vultures, there was also prey. And, oh what 
wonderful prey some of them were! Though some people had lower  
standards than others, I sought out the youngest, the cutest, the 
biggest, the hairiest, the any-est. Nothing mundane.  Years of 
deprivation demanded such attention to detail. So, I went for the 
gusto.

I first made eye contact with him when I accidentally bumped into him in 
the pitch blackness. There was enough light to sparkle a bit in his 
eyes. And the occasional head lamps from traffic from Route 1, on the 
far side of this grove, allowed me to see his naked silhouette and - the real 
turn on: his bushy full blonde beard. I stopped in my tracks.

I drew closer, until I could feel his breath on my cheek. Then, I 
reached forward and pulled him so close that breathing became difficult. 
But this was one piece of manflesh I wasn't going to let go to waste. I 
rubbed my beard against his, then reached past his mustache with my winding red
serpent of a tongue. Our tongues found eachother and explored what they 
found. Meanwhile, my hands delicately explored his hairy torso, back, buttocks,
and thighs. I felt at once that there was something very special about this 
young man, and that something was making its presence known between my legs, 
tantalizing my cock which was still trapped within my jeans screaming to 
get out and play.

Without releasing his tongue, I slipped out of my jeans and shirt. I 
don't think I have ever been quite as frantic about getting out of my 
clothes as I was at that moment. I even tore off a couple buttons from 
my shirt as the price for this feeding frenzy. Once I was unimcumbered, 
we resumed our crushing embrace. Only he was holding me with equal 
force. We were panting like a couple of rutting elks.  And, a crowd of 
horny on-lookers had gathered but we were consumed with eachother and 
oblivious to all else for what seemed like an eternity of fevers kissing 
and groping.

Then, just when I was feeling like I couldn't restrain myself from 
taking his glorious young cock (which by now I had estimated at well 
over ten inches in length and no less than four in girth) down my 
throat, I felt an unwanted, third hand reach around from my back and 
grab onto my engorged rod. Other hands had latched onto my young 
conquest, too. Seven to ten others were intruding on our passion! They 
were fondling our chests, our thighs, our buts... everywhere.

I turned to see just who had arrogated to himself the right to milk my 
tool, and I saw a wizened old man in a trench coat and battered fedora. 
A second's glance at the open coat revealed that he wore nothing 
underneath it. Still more of the onlookers were frantically jacking off 
while they stared at our bodies. As I stared at the one who had cruelly 
distracted me, trying to decide how to gracefully tell him to get lost, 
he began rotating his dental plate with his tongue! That was it.  I was 
not going to be a spectacle for these old men.

With one hand and arm, I started sweeping aside the groping paws of the 
intruders. With the other hand, I pulled my partners head forward and 
whispered in his ear, "Would you like to come to my place?". That 
invitation was all he needed too to start pushing away from the crowd, 
reaching for his clothes (which he had neatly hung on the boughs of the 
nearest bush), and grabbing my hand as he rushed away from the 
disgusting scene.

We were almost to the parking lot at the far end of the park before we 
stopped to don our clothes. The knowing looks we exchanged as we 
dressed in the dim light of a street lamp along the path spoke volumes 
about what we felt and about the recent events. Without even lacing up 
my oxfords, I asked him if he wanted to ride in my car or follow in his. 
I told him that I only lived a couple miles away in Arlington. He chose 
to follow me in his own car.

Those two miles were the longest drive imaginable. I thought that all 
the lights were against me. I kept thinking of him aggravatingly nearby 
in the Dodge Dart following my car but totally out of reach. Damn it, 
even his head lights looked sultry as the seemed to beckon me.

When I got to my apartment, I didn't even take the time to lock my car. 
And in parts of Arlington that's not always a wise thing to forget to 
do. My newfound romance pulled in the parking space beside mine in the 
lot. I fumbled taking the keys out of the ignition and headed for the 
front door with my young godling in tow. We took the stairs two and 
three at a time, reaching the third floor in haste. Again I fumbled 
with my keys trying to get them in the keyhole while he was fingering my 
asshole through the denim of my tight jeans.

We burst into the apartment and onto the sofa in my living room. Both 
of us had our clothes off again in record time. In literally 
heartbeats, we had resumed where we had left off before being so rudely 
interrupted in the park.

This time, my tongue left his and began its long, winding, sensuous, 
frustrating (to him) journey down his thick neck, to their first real 
stopping point: a reddened, stiff left nipple. I lavished great 
attention first on one nipple then the other. Meanwhile, my partner 
whose name I still didn't know, could do nothing but grunt and groan, 
trying to grapple his own cock to keep it from exploding. I pulled his 
had away from his cock and shifted my position so that he could use that 
hand to caress my waiting cock while my tongue continued its lucious 
journey towards its next stop en route: his navel. He had a fur-lined 
"outie."  I nibbled and kissed and licked and buffed with my eager tongue 
while he squirmed with delight and expectation of where my tongue would 
logically go next.

He needed no coaxing to begin doing to me what I had just demonstrated 
on his satin body. As he licked his way downward, one hand began 
lightly brushing the hairs on the back of my neck (which were standing 
up -- like everything else on my body). His touch was so sensitive, and 
so delicate that the brushing of my neck hairs aroused me even more than 
what he was doing with his mouth. It was electric.

Then, we both shifted our position and began a desperate 69 session. He 
was uncut, with ample foreskin hiding an enflamed, maroon-helmeted 
glans. Before taking his beautiful cock in my hungry mouth, I lightly 
inserted my tongue into the chute formed by his sensitive foreskin. 
Delicately, I rolled my tongue around and under the lip of his cockhead 
within the womb formed by the foreskin. The scent and taste of the 
cheese within the sausage case of his foreskin was fit for the finest 
gourmet. And while I my tongue worked the inside of his foreskin, my 
fingers caressed his huge ball sack, rolling first one then the other, 
increasing the pitch of his frenzy.

The effect on him was so strong that he forgot what he was doing to my 
cock and became fully absorbed in what his own unsheathed cock could 
feel like when caressed by the lips and tongue of a master (I'm not 
bashful about this ability, up until then, it had been the mainstay of 
my sexual life). Slowly, I removed my tongue from the chute and gently 
sucked his foreskin into my mouth, keeping the head itself outside. 
Then, I massaged the ends of the gathered foreskin with my lips and 
tongue, occasionally breathing warm air across the head. All the while, 
I kept fondling his plump balls in my warm hand. He was almost out of 
control and I still hadn't taken his cock into my mouth.

Careful not to push him over the edge just yet, I relaxed my attentions 
to his foreskin and allowed him to resume his role in the 69. While he 
took my cock into his mouth, running his rhythmically up and down the 
shaft, I was lost to the world. This was sex like I had never known 
before. He was the first man I had ever brought home and I had never 
been to bed with another man before. All I had known were the casual 
encounters in T rooms or in the park. Sex had always simply been a 
concentrated means of release. This sort of passion was entirely new to 
me. I was experiencing pleasures heretofore unknown.  And loving it!

Not to be outdone, I went back to work on his cock. This time, I made 
short work of his foreskin. I was after the prize I had lusted for all 
night. And, at 2 a.m., I relaxed every muscle in my anxious throat, 
preparing for the onslaught of the biggest cock I had ever swallowed. 
Then slowly, bit by bit, I inched his cock past the lips, over the 
tongue, and started it down the throat. I had to resist the urge to gag 
because of its massive size. After a glorious eternity, I found the furry
base with my nose. Grinding my nose into his pubic hairs and abdomen, I 
wanted to get all of that great cock down my throat. Only when I was 
sure that this mission had been accomplished did I begin to reverse 
direction and slide back up the shaft to its head. With my throat 
already expanded, the next moves were easier. Slowly, I pumped his cock 
from hilt to head, time and time again.

My right hand found the hair-lined crevice of his ass and teased apart the two 
protections to his waiting ass hole. Wetting one finger on the saliva 
drooling from my mouth, which was still filled with his man tool, I 
began to probe his ass hole, keeping him on the edge in anticipation of 
my ultimate penetration. There was little resistance as my slick finger 
slid past the sphincter to find the warm, moist interior. He squirmed 
with unbridled delight and groaned his appreciation.

He began to make gentle thrusts with his hips in pace with my mouth 
action. And, he was keeping up the work on my cock.  We rocked and 
grunted in this mutual face fuck. Then as I felt my ballsack tighter 
from within, I felt his balls begin to retract as if we were 
synchronized. With one more trip down my throat, his balls exploded, 
spilling what felt like gallons of warm cum down my throat. At the same 
time, the dam inside of me burst too, and he was showered with white 
sauce.

For more than a minute after this orgasm, we both kept the other's still 
stiff cock in our mouths. Neither willing to give up a drop of juice or 
a moment of pleasure. When we though we were drained, neither cock had 
shown the slightest sign of withering. Both of us sported as massive 
and raging a hard-on as we had that first moment in the park.

What could we do? There was nothing else to do but spend the night 
sucking and fucking, fucking and sucking. By 6 a.m. we were both 
wonderfully and gloriously spent. I had cum six times during the night 
and I fell into a totally satisfied sleep in his muscular arms with my 
head laid across his bare torso. I didn't have the strength to endure a 
moment longer.

At about 10:30 a.m., my sleep began to dissipate. My eyes didn't want 
to open and sleep refused to release its clutches altogether. I could 
still smell the scent of his sweat and images of the fabulous entwining 
of only hours before danced through my mind as near-waking dreams. I 
was absolutely in love as well as in lust with this man from the park. 
Still without opening my eyes, I rolled over to once more bring him into 
my arms.

All I found was an empty space where my hunk had been. Startled, I 
opened my eyes and could see that the sheets still bore the shape of his 
body in their depression. I strained my ears to listen for sounds of 
him about the room, or in the bathroom, or in the kitchen fixing coffee. 
Nothing. Dead air.  Silence.  Abysmal, unkind silence was all that 
greeted me. He was gone.  And I still didn't know his name.

I got up and looked around. It was clear that he had left while I was 
asleep. On the night stand on his side of the bed lay my wallet, the 
wallet which had been in the back pocket of my jeans when I took them 
off the night before. My heart sank.  In a moment I confirmed what I 
had suspected. The $100 which had been in my wallet was now missing.

I had been taken for a ride by a cheap hustler, not a god, and certainly 
not a lover. But I was now gay -- irreversibly and undeniably gay.  
How- ever, I was still firmly closeted by fear of being found out.

 
                             ******



CHAPTER 4: The Pomegranate.

For a while, I continued to return to the park when I was lonely. 
Looking for sex and, I guess, subconsciously looking for the bastard who 
had made me feel so much like a cheap trick or a pick-up from the bath 
house. I never saw him again.

Finally, I became disgusted with my life as a vulture. I was finding 
that all too often, the vulture can become the prey. I know it sounds 
like a clichi, but I knew there had to be more to sex than this. I had 
found sex with Julie to be a difficult chore, a duty. I had found sex 
in the park more satisfying for the moment, but often felt "dirty" 
afterwards.

Early on in this phase of my life, I would go to the office after a 
successful night on the prowl and delighted in thinking to myself as I 
looked at the other preppy grey suits around me: "If only you cunt 
fuckers knew that I had fucked three gorgeous young men last night." 
Increasingly though, I began to wonder if my sleazy midnight encounters 
could somehow be sensed on my face. Was there a brand on my skin or a 
mark on my forehead which they could read and know that I was living 
such a cheap life?

Every time I got a cold or a rash, I began to worry about sexually 
transmitted diseases.

It was time to reassess myself. I knew I had to break myself down, look 
inside and say, "Hey, man! This is what you are: you are G-A-Y.  So, 
what are you gonna do about it?" I decided to come to grips with my 
sexuality and damn the security clearance an cushy job -- if only I 
could find Mr. Right.

I ran an ad in the Washington _BLADE_:

               GWM, EX-MILITARY BEAR, prof, versatile, gdlkg,
               33, 6'1", 175#, into healthy lifestyle &  regular 
              exercise,  clean shaven, HIV-neg.
               Tired of the bar scene and parks. ISO for
               relationship with stable, bright, profes-
               sional interested in rock music,  liberal
               politics. HIV-neg a must. Age, race unim-
               portant.  Uncut a +.        BladeBox Q430

You should've seen the responses I got! There were several that started 
of with the caveat: "This is the first time I've ever answered an ad..." 
What does that matter? Was I supposed to feel honored or deduce 
something about the respondent? Then there a number of envelopes 
stuffed with glossy photos of fat men, skinny men, hirsute men, bearded 
men, shaven men, balt men, men with tattoos, men with pierced nipples or 
pierced cocks, black men, white men, Asian men, Hispanic men, men of 
indeterminable race and ethnicity, all of them striking what I guess 
were meant to be sensuous poses for the camera. Most of them suggested 
what they might like to do with me in a bed or in a sling or, worse, in 
a dungeon. They were all assaults on my sensibilities. Not a one of 
them had obviously bothered to read my ad and respond to what I wanted! 
To them, this must have been nothing more than another means of finding 
random, anonymous sex -- just like the park.

Then, there arrived a neatly scribed letter accompanied by a photo taken 
in one of those booths where you get five photos for a dollar. It was a 
simple photo of a fully clothed upper torso and face.

Innocence and sincerity absolutely shone from the trim, bearded face in the 
overexposed black & white photo. And the letter!  Without a word about 
his sexual prowess or the length of his cock, he simply asked for a 
quiet rendezvous in a place of my choice where we could meet and see 
what might happen from there. He said he wasn't interested in jumping 
into anything too quickly. He just wanted to meet me and, if I wanted 
to, a photo of me by return mail would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I couldn't resist that face and that letter. I immediately dialed 
the phone number he had included. A smooth baritone voice answered the 
phone. In the brief conversation, I had discovered that he was an 
entrepreneur with his own small business on Rhode Island Avenue in D.C. 
He was soft spoken, obviously well educated, and he had just a touch of 
an undefinable Southern accent.. Neither of us was very confident, but 
we agreed to meet in a few days at a quiet gay piano bar in DuPont 
Circle.

The day arrived. Promptly at 6 p.m., Steve, my mysterious date from the 
_BLADE_ advertisement, sauntered into the bar in black Dockers and red 
print silk sport shirt. My bearded Adonis!  There I was, sitting nervously at 
the bar in a three-piece, dark pin-stripe suit. Suddenly, all I could think
about was that I had obviously overdressed for the occasion. But I was put 
more at ease when I sensed Steve's air of confidence. I still felt out 
of place. This was my first time in a gay bar.  I had always preferred 
darkened spaces for quick encounters with other men over the brighter 
surroundings of bars where I might be recognized or observed entering or 
exiting.

I hadn't even ordered a drink yet. When Steve asked what I would like. 
I said, "a beer, I guess." So, he ordered a couple of specialty beers 
from a local micro-brewery. "It's one of my favorites.  I hope it would 
become one of yours." So much for breaking the ice!

By the time we had finished our beers, barely a dozen words had been 
exchanged. Recognizing that we were never going to get anywhere as long 
as I was so uncomfortable, Steve asked if there was someplace I'd rather 
go to talk.

We were soon in his BMW headed for the Willard Hotel, an old Washington 
landmark across from the Treasury Building (the monstrosity on the back 
of a $10 bill). The Willard has a penthouse bar with a view overlooking 
the White House and other famous buildings. Once we had been seated 
near the window and placed our orders with the waiter, I opened up. I 
was in a safe element and away from the dangers (to my security 
clearance and job) of DuPont Circle. Whereas I had been a clam in the 
gay bar, I suddenly became myself, a sparkling conversationalist. 
Mentally kicking myself for being such an oaf, I silently vowed that I'd 
have to work on my self-confidence if this relationship was ever going 
to blossom into anything substantial despite our poor start.

It was surprising how well we got along. We had so much in common.  He 
was a Democrat and so was I (until the President had gone back on his 
promise to lift the ban on gays in the military). I liked U2, so did 
Steve. Then came the surprise of the night:  Steve was not only from 
Roanoke, but he had gone to High School in the same school I had and 
only a year behind me. We must've run in different circles because we 
never met, though he remembered be from a couple of the school plays I 
had acted in.

And, when we compared notes, I was shocked to find out how many of my 
friends and acquaintances were gay! People I had never suspected. Steve 
said they'd never have come out to me because I was always perceived as 
being so straight-laced. There had been a whole pot-smoking, boy 
loving, subculture in my High School, many of whom were my friends -- 
and I never so much as had an inkling. Steve told me about football 
players, honor society presidents, even other thespians in our drama 
club who were known to be gay by everybody but naive, blinkered me. 
Steve told me about the gay hangouts and the cruising spots in Roanoke. 
I had never known any of this had existed.

About midnight, Steve and I went our separate ways with a promise to 
keep in touch. Conditioned by years of every encounter with a gay man 
resulting in hot, passionate sex, I was strangely unperturbed by the 
fact that I had to go home alone after this, my first real date with a 
man. There was kind of a warm glow throughout my body and I could tell 
that I was just opening a door on what could be the next phase, the best 
phase, of my life.

Over the next few weeks we met for drinks, movies, a concert at the 
Kennedy Center, and even went to the Gay Rodeo when it was in town. 
Steve took me to all the gay bars, introduced me to his friends, and 
generally treated me like a debutante, making my first appearance on the 
gay scene. And he was right.  By the fifth week of our friendship we 
had still not had sex together. During that time, my hand had once more 
become my cocks best friend, but this time I didn't need pornography 
when I jacked off; I merely fantasized about how nice it would be to be 
between the sheets with Steve, glorying in his body, covered with
luxurious, thick hair.

When it finally came, the real thing was right in line with my fantasies.

One night in late November, I was at home with a fire going in the fire- 
place. I was snuggled into my favorite easy chair and wearing nothing 
but a red velour bathrobe and reading the latest novel by Anne Rice when 
the doorbell rang. When I looked through the peephole, I was surprised 
to see Steeve on the doorstep holding what looked like a couple dozen 
long stem red roses. Did I open that door fast!

I would never have dreamed of receiving flowers from another man -- that 
men gave flowers to women... right? But coming from Steve, the roses 
seemed so right and rather than being offended, I felt deeply honored 
but this new form of attention. While I was putting the roses in a 
vase, Steve embraced me warmly from behind. He just held me and brought 
his lips close enough to the back of my neck for his breath to brush the hairs
on my neck and to bathe my earlobe with a warm, sensuous breeze. I felt
a tingling sensation all over, in every fiber of my being.

I dared not move and spoil the feeling. So, we stood in this quiet 
embrace for several minutes. By that time, my cock was pointing towards 
the ceiling and poking through the front of my robe, glistening with 
moist pre-cum. And I could feel Steve's body warming to a glow through 
his clothes and through the velour robe. He shifted his hips slightly 
and I could feel the bulge of his cock demanding release from his pants, 
positioned strategically at my back door.

I slowly turned and just gazed cow-eyed into the deep pools of his 
bright blue eyes. I wanted this moment to last forever.  Steve 
gracefully and tenderly untied the cinch of my robe and slipped the soft 
velvety cloth off my shoulders, allowing the robe to fall to the floor 
and expose my fully naked and ready body. As our lips found eachother, 
I reciprocated by unbuttoning his shirt, peeling it from his muscular, hirsute
frame, and allowing it to fall to the floor behind him. His nipples were 
blushing and stiff, demanding my undivided attention. But they would 
have to wait while our tongues entwined and while I unbuttoned his 
501's. As we embraced, Steve stepped out of his jeans. He was wearing 
silky briefs. His cock was straining the cloth of his underpants, 
making a tent and exposing the base of his cock in the space where the 
scant silk could no longer cover it completely.

Now it was my turn. Lovingly, I turned him around and had him in the 
position I had been in only minutes before. I wrapped my arms around 
his chest and drew him closely towards me. My cock found a space 
between his legs, beneath his prostate, and it boldly took up residence 
there. Neither of us spoke the entire time.  The only sounds were our 
heavy breathing and an occasional "Mmmmmmmmmmmm" of delight. Then, I 
reached down and extracted his cock -- about six and a half inches of 
uncut man meat -- thus relaxing the strain on the elastic and allowing 
me to roll his briefs down over his thighs. Once the briefs were low 
enough, like a dancer, he lifted one leg in flawless, studied movements 
and the briefs were nonchalantly kicked aside. My cock found its niche 
between his legs once more as we tightened our embrace.

My hands were roaming all over his hairy, exposed body. Then, Steve took my 
hand and lead me to my bedroom. My room was a mess with dirty clothes 
piled in the corner and the bed hadn't been made that day. But neither 
of us really cared. He flung aside the quilt, blankets, and sheets and 
firmly guided me onto the waiting bottom sheet. Then, he climbed on top 
of me. He stretched my arms by interweaving my fingers in his and 
reaching, it seemed, for spots of space way beyond the corners of the 
queen sized bed. With his feet, he pushed my feet into the same 
stretched position. We were a pair of X's superimposed on eachother.  
And the effect was electric.

With his tongue, he explored the lobes and then the canals of my right 
ear. Then, he began licking the nape of my neck, finding the soft, 
tender skin irresistible. He nibbled and then took a fold of neck flesh 
into his vacuum mouth, sucking and licking until I though I would be 
drawn completely into his mouth and become one with him. Though I 
didn't think of it at the time, I got a deep black and blue hickey there 
which I made no attempt to cover the next day when I went to the office. 
I paraded that hickey for the days it lasted as if it had been the 
purple heart medal from a particularly triumphant engagement (which it 
was).

There was no doubt, he was in total control of the situation, and I was 
in no position to resist even if I had wanted to.

He relaxed the stretching of my limbs and moved his tongue down for a 
tender circumnavigation of each enflamed nipple. Once in a while he 
would lightly nibble one of my tits, sending bolts of energy through my 
body with the mild but lovingly administered pain. His arms and legs 
began caressing the sides and front of my body, finding pressure points 
and erogenous zones I never knew existed.

Then, slipping gracefully towards the bottom of the bed, he refocused 
the attentions of hands and mouth on my crotch. He was careful not to 
touch the shaft or head of my cock though. He had other plans for now.  
With the touch of a honey bee on a dew-speckled flower, his lips barely 
brushed through my pubic hairs and found by balls. First he licked 
every inch of my scrotum, then he gently gulped down one of the orbs, 
rolling it around in his mouth and sending me through the ceiling with 
pleasure. Then he moved to the other testicle and gave it the same 
tender treatment. The touch of his thick beard on my sensitive
genitals was almost more than I could bear!

Slowly but surely, his tongue found the base of my tool. But, still, he 
withheld his graces from the shaft itself. And by this time my cock was 
screaming for attention. I was panting and grunting and a warm feeling 
had started in my balls which I feared might result in ejaculation too 
soon. Sensing how near I was to cumming, Steve kneeled and turned me 
over onto my stomach, elevating my butt to position it for the next 
phase of his plan.

With both hands he massaged my thighs and then began to knead by buns. 
Like a cat, he took one bun in each hand and flexed his muscles in a 
steady, rhythmic way. His movements were so subtle that my ass cheeks 
were apart and his tongue exploring the winking eye of my ass hole 
before I even knew what was happening. Steve had a pointed tongue and 
he knew how to use that point to best advantage when faced with a hungry 
ass hole. He circled the puckered skin and then, forcefully, began to 
insert it past the guarding muscle and into the warm velvety inner 
sanctum of my bowels. For nearly ten minutes he tongue fucked me while 
he continued to knead my ass. Periodically, he'd reach up from around 
and under my sides, to knead my chest too. He pulled my cock back 
through my legs and began attacking it from the rear. What he had 
denied it before was now lavished on the shaft and head. He searched the 
foreskin with his tongue. Then he turned me over and demonstrated that 
I was a mere novice in the art of felacio when compared with the master 
who was controlling me now.

I was in seventh heaven. He was doing things to me that no one had ever 
done to me before and I was loving ever minute of it. It was as if he 
knew exactly where all my buttons were and he pushed the right ones to 
send me into a nearly orgasmic euphoria. Time and time again, he would 
take me to the limit and then skillfully retreat, denying me the release 
of an orgasm.

Once more I found myself on my stomach with my buttocks elevated and 
getting the rim job of my life. Then, he slowly inserted his middle 
finger into my ass hole without altering his ministrations to my ass 
with his hungry tongue. One finger became two, and two became three.  
The stretching was painful but oh so pleasant. Just when I thought he 
was going to try a fourth finger and tear my insides apart in the 
effort, he withdrew his fingers altogether and pressed his greased cock 
against the orifice. I guess that I had been so stretched by his 
fingers, that his cock was able to make it all the way in and be buried 
up to the hilt with no pain at all.

His wasn't the largest cock I had ever been fucked by (in fact my sex in 
the park had made me something of a size queen, though I was usually on 
the giving end and not the receiving end) but he certainly was the best! 
He established a slow steady rhythm which he maintained for what seemed 
like hours. He was fucking me and clutching me to his body with his 
giant arms and nibbling on my neck, driving me to a level of ecstasy I 
had never experienced before.

As he increased the intensity of his thrusts and the speed of his 
pumping, I could tell he was nearing his climax. So, I reached back and 
started milking my own cock in an effort to time my orgasm with his. 
Apparently, he had more in him then I imagined, because, when I came, 
spewing jets of jism, he was still going at it with full force. As my 
body was wracked with the spasms of my prostate being drained for all 
its worth, I felt him tense and withdraw his penis from my ass just in 
time to shower me with his own sweet milk. Then our exhausted bodies 
imploded in upon eachother as a final release when all the muscles of 
our bodies gave out at once.

We lay on the bed together, each engulfed in the tired arms of the man 
he now recognized as his lover for life. We were oblivious to the world 
and to the existence of any other human being in it. We were totally 
and absolutely lost in eachother.

He had been tender and loving, something I had never experienced in a 
man before -- or given to another man for that matter. There was none 
of the frenzy in our coupling that I had experienced before in what I 
had previously considered the best sex I had ever had. With Steve, I 
knew what it meant to be complete. This one wasn't going to get away in 
the morning like the hustlers and one-night stands who had occupied this 
bed with me in the past. He was mine forever.

And he was mine later that night too, as we went at eachother over and 
over. I found that he could be equally adroit being the bottom man as 
he had been on top of me. We found joy in every position as we invented 
sex for the first time in the history of mankind.

In the morning, we showered and shaved together. Steve agreed to be 
waiting for me in my apartment when I returned from the office. And he 
was.

I floated through the next week, spending every moment in Steve's arms 
that I could. I even became positively domestic, waiting on him hand 
and foot, looking to his every need while he looked after mine. There 
was no taking without giving in return for either of us.

On the seventh day of this affair, Steve sprung it on me without 
warning. He said he'd decided to move away for good, leave Washington, 
sell his business and his home. I was devastated.

Then he said he was taking me with him. He had more than enough money. 
I could quit my job and leave the stress of the Pentagon and the fears 
of being out do in the office and move with him to... you guessed it... 
Roanoke. He would invest his money in opening a bar in Roanoke along 
the lines of some of the finer D.C. bars. In other words, a bar which 
would become the finest dance bar in town for gays and straights but one 
which would open to gays exclusively on certain nights of the week. A 
bar with sports and food and drinks and live music. Of course, the 
scale could be reduced because Roanoke was hardly as large a market as 
D.C., but on weekends, Steve felt we could draw the students from nearby 
V.P.I. in Blacksburg as well as a dozen other colleges in the area which 
offered no real social life for either gays or straights (but especially 
for straights). He had thought it all out.  Actually it was a plan he'd 
been brewing for a few years. He'd needed the right incentive to make 
the jump. And I was to be his incentive.

Sure, it would be hard at first. The religious right had closed 
Roanoke's lone gay bar years before and they would try to close this one 
too. Of that we could be certain.  We shouldn't be surprised even of a 
cross burning should one occur. But times, they are achangin', as Dylan 
had predicted. Even a backwater like Roanoke couldn't resist the tide 
which was slowly allowing gays a certain acceptability. Hopefully, by 
catering to a broad clientele of gays as well as straights and by 
filling the void which exists in that region for young people, we'd make 
a go of it. We'd run the bar together and offer employment to others in 
the gay community, as limited as it might be in that city.

So, tomorrow, I'm going in to the office to hand in my resignation with 
a smile on my face. It's not that I dislike the job, it's a fine job.  
But, you see, I've found myself and my future. I cannot make the 
concessions which a government job and a security clearance demand any 
more. Because, as I've finally admitted to myself and the world...

I'm GAY.

                             ******
Epilogue:

A pomegranate is a tropical fruit. Unlike apples or citrus fruit, its 
seeds, not the flesh, contain the delectable red essence which people 
desire. The outer shell of the pomegranate is thrown away..  Like the 
pomegranate, people contain their essence on the inside. It is an 
essence with full potential -- Homo Sapiens have the potential of 
becoming human when they realize the beauty of that essence, whether 
that essence is fulfilled through planting in the soil to form new 
pomegranates or through being consumed by appreciating connoisseurs, 
thus forever denying them the chance of germination in the soil of 
mother earth. Both purposes of the pomegranate are honorable and serve 
a divine purpose in the grand scheme of things. And in many cultures, 
the flower of the pomegranate has very romantic connotations. Lovers 
exchange these flowers as symbols of their love and faithfulness. So 
should love, in all its forms, be acknowledged and given precedence in 
our lives.

But realization of the purpose of a pomegranate is a slow process. The 
path from seed to flower is beset with problems. It passes through 
stages in which the essence of the seed must be first protected in a 
shell, then that shell must be broken down in the dirt, only then can 
the pomegranate release its essence and grow into a wondrous, flowering 
plant of great service, value, and of course -- beauty. So it is with 
learning to love. But the process should not detract from the result 
lest we become less than human and the pomegranate become extinct, 
without meaning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheers!
;-{>}Umar
                        ^----^
                        (-  0)
______________________oo0-(..)-0oo_____________khan@spdcc.com____________
                           U     -------------shed@DGS.dgsys.com--------
               "Your pain is the breaking of the shell
                that encloses your understanding."
                         --Kahlil Gibran
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GCS d<++>@ -p+(---) c++(++++) l u+ e++ m* s+/+ n+ h f* g+ w t+ r- y+(*)
B6, t, w+, d, e, g++, k+, s(s-), r-(r)