Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 15:41:28 -0700 (PDT) From: David Divers Subject: A Singer's Story 1 - 2 This is an adult story which eventually gets around to gay sex. If you are not an adult or not into Gay sex please leave. You have been warned... If I have to come over there... For those who have read my story, Curious-50s-Boy 1-6, you know that I put in a whole lot more information than you really might want to know until I finally get to the sexy parts. Tough stuff...that is the way I write and if you want to read my stories that is what you have to put up with...None of my characters have giant horse cocks or glistening six-packs or continuous orgies ...just nice people occasionally blowing each other and then leading ordinary lives. Lets get it on...Two frigging chapters to start off with...By the way, as far as I know there is no "Stone Family" in Gospel music. But if there is, this is not about them--but I do have a hero in that Genre who is not gay as far as I know...I appreciate constructive comments at Daviddivers@ymail.com Chapter 1--The Awakening I stood there acknowledging the applause and the shouts of joy. I nodded and applauded back towards the audience in the balcony and the pews in the main auditorium. I really loved their show of support and appreciation. I set my guitar down and held up my hands, and the congregation slowly quieted. "You know we came here to glorify the Lord and I believe we did just that. Now its time to get serious. You know that my family and I have been ministering in song for nearly Twenty years. We started out in the hills of Tennessee when Daddy was a preacher with all these kids to support. For six years we ran the wheels off an old Chevy driving back and forth to different churches. For the last twelve years our home has been on a tour bus. I was just a kid back in those old days, but I have seen the power of God come down and people's lives have been changed. We hope our songs and messages have played a part in you having one of those life changing experiences. " "But it's a new season and it is time for some of us in the family to move on to new callings of God. For every man there is a season. Then a new season begins and new opportunities present themselves. My Mamma and Daddy are going to take some time for themselves to write new songs for the ministry and run the management end of things. My brothers and sisters want to settle down and spend more time with their families, so they also will be leaving at the end of the tour. The crowd gave a collective Awwwwww... I paused and said, "I guess I am the born gypsy in the family and I will probably be on the road until I die. We will get back together for special events and our family TV appearances, but this is the end of one of those seasons." "I will begin ministering on my own with a new backup group and some of the best Christian musicians around. Naturally we will keep playing the hit songs that you all ask for, but I will also be going in new directions and with a new record label. I hope to be back here next year and that you will support the new group as much as you have this one. You outgrew your old country church that we used to visit years ago and now you have grown into a mega church. We have also out-grown our old calling and hope to please you as much with this new one. We would like to leave you with this next song and a loving farewell" With that song, an era had come to a close...The Stone Family era had come to a close... My Daddy had been a country preacher with a wife, four kids and a mortgage--and a way with words. Serving as a pastor of a local church with a total capacity of one hundred souls was not the way to clothe, feed a family of that size. Besides having an agile tongue, he also could play a mean bluegrass guitar and many other string instruments and Mamma played old-time gospel piano and keyboards. Together they sang great gospel harmony and, from the time us kids were old enough to talk, they taught us to sing along with them. By the time we began singing outside our home church, we had a distinctive sound of our own. We had complex harmonies that were more suited to jazz than the traditional Gospel music--sort of like the Beach Boys and Bluegrass rolled into one. And it was controlled. If you are coached to sing from the time you are four or five years old, you learn control, breathing and other vocal techniques. Where traditional Gospel had four part harmony, we had six. We also were taught to play instruments. By the time I was seven, I could play rhythm guitar on most of the three and four cord songs that were to become the backbone of the Stone Family ministry. In private I also learned the lead guitar parts but in those early days, we didn't use the lead part in most churches. In order to make ends meet, Daddy began preaching revivals and camp meetings at other small churches. Most revivals were two to three day affairs that would usually start on a Thursday and end on Saturday night. Then the home preacher would take over and preach on Sunday. Meanwhile Daddy would drive all night in order to get back home in time to preach at his own church. A typical revival would always begin with prayer and then Daddy and Mamma would sing several duets. Then they would call us "younguns" up and we would join them in singing old time gospel favorites. In between songs, Daddy would preach, but after a few years the songs began to dominate and the preaching would be towards the last of the service. When I got to be 13 years old, they always had me sing a lead solo and they would sing backup. I could make the old folks in the congregations cry with delight. I had a strong clear voice and I could phrase things just right to make the songs "my own." In practice Daddy would try to make me sing them the traditional way. But young as I was, I didn't want to copy the old records, tapes and CDs that we listened to at home. Even at that young age I secretly listened to secular country music on an old transistor radio and I wanted to add some of that style to my songs. When I could get away with doing it, I always got a lot of applause and "amens". After a short time, I began to solo more and more by popular request. The other kids also were called on to sing, but they were shy and preferred to sing in the background. So, I developed a grown-up voice and what they call "stage presence" at that early age. Revivals didn't pay much--maybe gas money and someone's spare bedroom to spend the night in. Momma and Daddy would stay at the congregation's Pastor's house and each of us kids would be "farmed out" to congregation member's home for the duration of the revival. Most of the money we were paid was collected in the form of "love offerings". In those old churches they would pass the hat and take up collections. The offerings could be pennies, or could total as much as $50 to $100. The real "grocery money" came from selling homemade cassettes or CDs of our songs. Daddy would record us on a reel to reel tape recorder and then transfer the songs to cassette or CD. We didn't have fancy labels, just a type-written card with a picture, our name, and booking information. We would set up a table in the church lobby or in a Sunday school room and, after the service, we would be available to meet and greet the members of the congregation. Momma and Daddy would sell the recordings for three to four dollars. We didn't pay royalties to the owner of the copywritten music and, a case of blank CDs or cassettes only cost a few cents each. Furthermore, the "Revenuers" never saw a penny...We made a living... As years went by, some of those old recordings got passed around from home to home and everybody in the community soon bootlegged a copy. Then they copied them again for distant relatives. Daddy didn't mind because led to many revival bookings in other areas. Our name spread out from the small churches to larger congregations in bigger southern towns. So we began doing revivals and special services at larger churches. By the time 15 years old, I had been singing "professionally" for more than five years. I began to notice that not only the adults, but the girls and boys in the congregations would pay attention to the songs and the service when I sang. The kids no longer played under the pews or slept beside their parents. I seemed to be touching something in them. They would stare at me in awe and sit quietly throughout the whole time I was on the platform. And, it was the kids that led the applause afterward. I suppose I was precocious and a little conceited. But, I didn't really know how to be a kid. We couldn't go to ordinary school because we were gone so much during the school year. So Mama home-schooled us. Except for my brothers and one sister, I was never around other kids and if I was, it was always in a religious environment. Adults were always telling me how wonderful I was to do the Lord's work, how much they liked my singing, etc. And when I witnessed to the congregation, I felt like a grown up preacher. I knew all the right words to say because I had heard my Daddy say them a hundred times and, to tell the truth, I could have filled in as preacher because I had memorized everything he said. Everyone said I had a calling...eventually I did...even if it was only a calling of my own and not necessarily of God's. In one of those revivals, I was farmed out to a local family for a five-day revival in a farming community in southern Tennessee. When we arrived in town for the week, we went first to the church to get settled in and set up the music equipment. A boy about my age named Bobby followed me around and helped carry in instruments, the sound system, and to hook up all the wires. During the sound check my family sang a song or two and I did my solo in order to check my mike. When I was introduced to the family I would stay with, it turned out that they had several kids about my age. One of them was Bobby, the boy who had helped me. After the usual admonishments from Mamma and Daddy to be good, etc. we finished up and I got my suitcase and rode out to their farm where I would stay. I had all my street clothes for the week as well as my "stage" clothes with me and I would rest, eat dinner, and then they would get me back in plenty of time for the evening service. When we arrived at their farm, it turned out that I would be sleeping in the Bobby's room with him. Country church people had no qualms about sharing beds--I had done it dozens of times over the years and I didn't mind a bit--it was sure better than sleeping in the car which I had also done many times. Bobby was anxious to show me around the farm so, before anything else, we toured the barns and outbuildings, looked at their cattle and crops, and then went back to the house to get ready for dinner. His Mamma asked if I would like to get cleaned up before dinner. She got me a clean towel and showed me where I would be sleeping and the bathroom. After my shower, I wrapped the towel around me and went into the bedroom. Bobby was lying on the bed and watched and chatted as I finished drying off and then began getting dressed for the performance. Because I was innocent up to that point, I didn't think anything of it. He told me how much he loved my song and the family's harmony. I told him I would sing it again for him that night. After dinner we drove back to the church. Altogether that night the family sang ten songs and I sang two solos. Everyone loved them and many people came down to the altar before the night was over. Bobby and his Mom came up to the platform afterwards and hugged me and told me how proud they were to have me staying at their house. When we got back to their house it was after ten and time for bed. The parents had me lead everyone in a bedtime prayer and Bobby and I headed for bed. While getting undressed for bed I saw Bobby undressed for the first time. I felt a strange tightness in my chest and a tingling in my groin. He was a well developed boy and somehow I was attracted to him--like many country boys he had muscles on top of muscles that developed from work not from exercise. Although I was pretty well developed too, he was attractive but at that point I really didn't know why. He also looked at me with a different look in his eye. We got into bed and said good night. He seemed to fall asleep almost immediately. I knew I shouldn't be feeling the attraction that I felt towards Bobby. Even though I couldn't identify why, I knew it was something forbidden. I lay awake for a long time thinking about all the sermons that I had heard over the years about gays and homosexuality. Although I was essentially a country boy, I had led such a sheltered church life that I didn't even know much about heterosexuality let alone what gay or homosexuality actually was. In fact, the only thing I did know about being gay was that God hated it and that was good enough for me--they were bound for hell and I was bound for heaven. But I knew I was feeling something that didn't seem right and it worried me. I had never felt anything even remotely like this before. My mind was in turmoil. I had experienced hardons before and I knew if I rubbed it a certain way that I would have pleasurable feelings. But why did I feel that tightness in my chest and get a hard on just looking at him? I was supposed to feel that way about girls. After tossing and turning for awhile, Bobby suddenly rolled over and whispered, "You can't sleep either can you???" I quietly said, "No, but I thought you were already asleep." I pretended it was just excitement over the service. I said, "Sometimes it is like this after a service. If everything goes right I just can't relax and fall right off to sleep. I get to daydreaming about the future and imagining what I could become someday." Bobby said, "It is more than that isn't it?? I can feel the heat of your skin and the beating of your heart from clear over here. I can show you how to relax if you want me to!" I was too embarrassed to let him know how much I wanted him to. I said,"Naw, I'll be ok as soon as I lay here and relax for awhile." He reached over and tried to grab my crotch but I instinctively drew my knees up to my chest so he couldn't reach it. He said, "Come on. Just relax and I'll show you how me and my friends take care of that problem." I told him, "I can't do that. It is forbidden in the Bible!" He said, "It is just innocent fun and a pamphlet at school says it doesn't really harm you! Just doing that is not gay or anything and I won't even touch you if you don't want me to. I'll just how you how to do it and then you can do it all by yourself. You can even go in the bathroom and do it in private. It is better than a sleeping pill!" With that he threw back the covers, rolled on his back, raised his knees up and slid down his underwear. He said "now you do yours." Red faced, "I said I don't think so..." But I knew that I eventually would because my peter was rock hard and throbbing just looking at him in that position. Knowing that I was in hot agony, he reached between my legs and grasped my peter through my underwear. He said,"You might say you don't want to, but this says differently." Spreading his knees he said, "Look here. You can see mine all you want. Take a look and feel it if you want to." I kept staring at the ceiling. Taking my hand in his he guided it to his hard peter and said, "Come on give it a try, just follow my hand and do yours the same way." With that, he began to gently move my hand up and down on his peter. I looked at his crotch and thought to myself, "His is just like mine...red and hard." So I withdrew my hand and lowered my shorts. He raised up and looked at it closely. It was uncut but the head was fully exposed. He reached down and grasped it with his fist and pumped it two or three times and said, "Do it like that for a while." Gently I stroked it up and down and it kept getting harder and harder. Suddenly Bobby reached over and grasped my hand and took it and placed it on his own peter and placed his on mine. We began stroking each other until I felt this powerful feeling welling up in me..."You better stop I whispered, I'm gonna pee"..."Better stop or I'll pee the bed," " Better stooopppppp!!!!" But he didn't stop...he kept on a few more strokes and suddenly the most glorious feeling came over me and I had my first conscious orgasm of any kind that I knew about. (My Daddy had explained to me about wet dreams but this was the first time I ever had an orgasm while I was awake)...it spurted and spasmed until it reverted to a limp, floppy noodle in his hand. I was too focused on my own feelings to continue stroking Bobby, so he finished himself off with his other hand. Bobby cleaned himself off with a towel and then he handed it to me. After putting our underwear back in place, he must have fallen right to sleep. I thought and prayed for forgiveness for what seemed like hours but no answer came--sleep finally did. The next day we went about our business being boys. Not gay boys or straight boys, but just boys. I began to feel like maybe it might be all right after all. I wasn't going to be struck dead or go blind. I helped him do his chores and we went racing around the farm from one thing to another. We were inseparable. In the afternoon I showed him how to do a few licks on the guitar and a mandolin that his grandfather had given him. In the evening we had another church service and I had a hard time keeping from laughing every time our eyes met. I sang both of my songs to him and he later said he would be my fan for life. That night was hardly a repeat of the last. I wanted to share that feeling again. But this time it went farther. Both of us took a shower before bed and got in bed as usual. But I knew this was a step beyond turning back. As we lay down, Bobby said, "I feel so close to you its like we have known each other for our whole lives." Then he put his hand inside my shorts and began slowly jacking me. After he eased my shorts down, he licked his hand to make it slide easier as he jacked me. And, he kept on licking it over and over. After I saw what he did I copied him...it felt so good...slowly slipping and sliding over my knob. And, it didn't taste bad either. Slowly he bent over and licked the head of my peter directly. Then he replaced his hand with his lips. The feeling intensified. I stretched out and he followed downward, moving towards the foot of the bed. That put his peter close to my lips. I didn't really feel any attraction to do hat he was doing but I wanted to return the pleasure that he was giving me. So, I tentatively stuck out my tongue. It made contact with the tip and so I licked and licked while I continued to jack him. Loving the feel of the slick head I gradually took it into my mouth and began imitating what he was doing, bobbing it in and out of my mouth. The feeling in my peter began intensifying and I began pumping in and out of his lips. His did the same. Realizing I was getting close, he replaced his lips with his fist and began jacking me furiously. I could tell the head of his was expanding and I decided to jack him also. My peter erupted in a white surge of sperm. Pulse after pulse poured out. Throb after throb pulsed through my body. It went everywhere. When he came, it poured onto my fist and I was pumping so fast it splattered my face and chest. When our breathing slowed back to normal, we cleaned up as much as possible and he then snuck the towel into the bathroom and soaked it in the sink. Then he wrung it out and hung it on the towel bar inside the shower. We went to bed and slept until it was time for his chores. For the next two nights it was more of the same. We blew each other many times that week. In bed, in the barn and out in the woods at the back of their farm. Now I knew what gay meant...sort of...and I knew I had to keep it to myself. I had heard about the fall of the big named televangelists, but that was over money and women. The church could eventually forgive all that if you could convince them that you had a contrite heart and a humble spirit. But they could never forgive a boy being gay. You might claim that you were saved from it, but they would never trust you around their kids or listen if you were called to preach. And, if this was what gay was, then I concluded that I might be gay...and I didn't want to be gay... For months afterward I tried to figure out what God could hate about it. I prayed and prayed and the answer never came to me. My Daddy and I were very close and he knew something was troubling me but I couldn't possibly confide in him on this. It seemed perfectly natural to me. Not that I would go around bragging about it, but it just seemed that two boys engaging in innocent sex seems pretty natural to me, and it did not change me at all. I was still attracted to girls. Chapter 2 Several years and many revivals passed and Bobby and I had gotten together on subsequent visits to his church. I now was fifteen and, as they say in the country, growing like a weed. My voice had matured even more also and I was now one of the featured performers. We continued to do revivals and regularly played some county fairs and gospel sings in the surrounding states. Gospel sings are a southern tradition. A local promoter would hire a high school auditorium or National Guard armory or a church and organize a show with as many different Gospel groups as he could get to come. We had played some of those shows as opening acts and, although we got great response from the crowds, we got snubbed by the professional groups that followed us. They were polite but they treated us like country rubes. We now travelled in a small motor home and they had tour busses -- they also had contracts with some of the minor record labels. Most were quartets. They did basic four part harmony and the Bass singers usually cut up and did a few jokes to ingratiate themselves with the audience. Not a lick of difference from one group to the other except for their songs. Daddy said many of them were just in it for the money. As individuals many of them couldn't make it in country music so they put together a Gospel group. They smoked and drank out behind their busses and chased after the women in the audience. Daddy had been writing simple gospel songs for years but had not really tried to record any of his own. But, as I said, the year I was fifteen he received a phone call from a man who was promoting for a new Gospel record label. He told Daddy that he had heard some of our tapes and that we could have a real future in what he called Southern Gospel music. Up to that time there were only the major record labels and they normally just recorded secular music. If a singer like Elvis insisted on doing gospel music, they promoted it like a novelty record. Or they might include it as filler music on an album that needed just one more song. They thought there was no money in it. There were a few "vanity" labels that would sell you studio time and allow you to record in their rickety studios for a price. They charged the performer by the hour and made all their money from encouraging marginally talented individuals to record. Mostly they were hustlers out for a quick buck. That is why they were called vanity labels. They played on people's vanity. But this was different. Modern Southern Gospel music was in its infancy. There were hundreds of Gospel radio stations but little new music to focus on. So the stations played anything they could find in the way of music. Usually it was old bluegrass or the four-part harmony quartets. It was obvious that there was a market for the music, but there was a vacuum in availability. So a retired producer from Nashville bought some modern equipment and set up a studio outside the city. They would record and promote new groups. We would be the second generation of groups that they would take on. They had all of the traditional Gospel groups they needed. Ours was one of the first one with what they classified as a modern sound. They would try to promote us as a bridge between traditional mountain style bluegrass gospel and the more modern country sound. One of their selling points was that they intended to try for cross-over songs that would appeal to both Southern Gospel and Country music fans as well . All we needed were the songs and fans. By that time we had grown physically and musically. Daddy had given up the church he had pastored several years previously but he hadn't give up the home place. It sat on 60 acres in a holler (hollow) in Tennessee. In case you didn't know, a holler is a small valley in the mountains. Ours had just about everything a simple man could want. Land for plowing, a spring for water and the most beautiful scenery in several states. Over the years he had accumulated enough money so that we didn't starve if there were no bookings. By that time he could be more selective in where we went and could ask for a guaranteed minimum on the love offerings. We also had a small motor home so we were not as dependent on the local church to house and feed us. In other words we were no longer talented beggars. We could pull up, plug in and be somewhat independent outside of church hours. Mamma continued to home school us even though we could have gone to public school. Although we had a calendar with at least weekend bookings nine months out of the year, she wanted some continuity in our education. So, when the promoter came calling, Daddy went to the record label to negotiate from a position of some strength. We were doing all right without them. But shortly, we were going to do better--lots better. In the end, he came home with two contracts--not only a recording contract, but a management contract that would take over our current bookings and begin to handle all of our future bookings. They would provide national management and would advance the money needed for equipment, touring , production and promotions. The studio booked a block of time for us to begin the following month. Mama and Daddy would immediately begin reviewing demo tapes from different southern writers. Many songs would be custom written for us by writers who had previously been sent tapes of the Stone Family. They knew our style and sound and would write songs to suit it. In addition, dozens of my Daddy's own songs were being transcribed from the amateur CDs that he had made as demos and were being orchestrated for our five instruments with professional arrangements. In the coming month we would be coached over and over by several A&R people in order to select the best for our first CD. The first thing to arrive in the holler was a tour bus. Part of the management contract required them to provide a late model leased tour bus. About a week after Daddy got back from the meeting, a metalic red, Silver Eagle coach pulled into the lane and parked out beside our barn. When we looked inside, it was fitted out with a stateroom in the rear for Momma and Daddy, a full bathroom, a lounge/living space in front with an entertainment center, and six curtained bunks each of which had small TV. It also had a kitchen/Dinette area with a full-sized refrigerator, a pantry and a stove and a microwave. In other words, for a small-time family band we were pickin' in tall cotton. As we would soon find out, we could comfortably live in the bus for months at a time. Although we had plenty of storage space inside, we could also access the lower storage compartments in basement of the bus from the inside so storage was never a problem. We could store summer clothes, winter clothes and all of our stage clothes down there until we needed them. Next to arrive was a state-of-the-art professional sound system. The system was set up for us out in the barn where we had always practiced. The technicians explained the whole system to us and constructed a "Snake" with all of the color coded wires contained in a big cable with branch cables leading to different speakers. The system could be expanded as large or as small as necessary depending upon the size of the venue we were performing in. There was also a 32 channel sound board that could be operated remotely from the stage or platform. The remote console was for the vocal microphones and were on a rack over Mamma's keyboards so she could control everything from her position. The sound the system produced was huge. It had presence without being loud. It was a sound and vib that you seemed to absorb through your skin not your ears. I was in love with it from the first time I heard it. For the first month a technician would accompany us to all dates to set up and operate the board until we were comfortable with operating it. We were grateful that we had the extra bunks to accommodate him. We continued to perform at medium-sized churches off and on in the surrounding few states and the few show commitments that we had because that was normally our off season with few obligations. You ought to have heard the stir when we showed up in a real tour bus...Daddy sitting proud behind the wheel. He cranked the air horn a few times to let everybody know the Stone Family had arrived. They all jokingly said, "The Family has gone uptown..." We didn't have any hits yet so I am sure they thought that we were kind of pretentious showing up in a Silver Eagle, but it didn't bother us. We were confident that the "Blessed Hope" that daddy had preached all his life was behind us all the way. As time approached to go into the studio, the arrangements for Daddy's songs arrived and we began rehearsing them out in the barn. Daddy had written the lead vocal part of four of them for me and several others I shared lead with my Mamma and him. They were knockouts and the orchestration called for lead guitar on some parts. I practiced until I could play them flawlessly. On some he and I played dual leads. By the time we fired up the Silver Eagle and drove to the studio we had every one of them tightly arranged and we thought all we had to do was walk in and get them on tape. We were wrong. It was a different world when we went into the studio. The studio had 64 tracks on which they could record each one of them individually. Each instrument was recorded separately. Each voice likewise was recorded on individual tracks one at a time. When we were doing the instrumental parts we were each in separate booths and could only hear each other over head phones. Even when we were singing as a group, only one voice was being recorded on each take...and there were many takes. In that way all of the voices could be later blended electronically into a finished track. Often my brothers and sister had to repeat their parts so many times that they cried in frustration. But the sound engineers were creating a professional sound and hopefully a hit record. It took over a week just to record Daddy's songs. Afterwards, we had to record a dozen other songs written by the professionals from Nashville. In all we had twenty four songs--enough for two CDs. The reason for the extra songs is because the producer thought that Daddy's songs were too good to put all of them on one CD. They would release one with five of Daddy's songs and the five were written by others. Then we would go on tour and promote that CD. In the meantime, they would have the other one ready for release without us going back into the studio. If the first one hit, the second would be easier to promote. They were investing a lot of money and wanted us on the road and not in the studio. After the studio work was completed, we drove the Eagle back to the farm. Immediately the management team sent a show producer to design set shows around us. Although there is not too much "show" in Gospel music, every word that we said was rehearsed and every step was choreographed so that there were no surprises. For interviews, we each had set questions we would be asked and we had rehearsed answers; if we were doing guest appearances, we had 10 minute routines with single songs. We had half-hour sets for being an opening act; and, a complete one hour show if we were to be the featured performers. Each show had variations just in case we were playing the same location for multiple nights. Depending on the venue, Daddy would be given time to preach a rehearsed message. For our first tour we would be doing a package show that would cove churches, fairs, and package shows. Local Gospel groups would join us for Secretly, I also had my own private times carefully rehearsed. Except for Bobby there had been no further gay episodes. I thought maybe I had outgrown it. Mentally I still jacked off to those hot times with him but sometimes I thought about the girls that I met on the road. Although nothing physical ever happened, I had some hot make out sessions whenever I had the opportunity. There was even a hot female lead singer that tried to get in my pants one time but Daddy caught on and it was broken up. But memories were one thing, the actuality was that I had no privacy living on the bus. And in the hollow it was impossible unless I could somehow get away.