The contents of this story are fictional. Any resemblance of characters to living or lived persons is strictly coincidental. Certain characters engage in sexual acts which may or may not be legal in the state or country in which a reader may reside. Any reader with objections to graphic descriptions of sexual encounters between males who may or may not have reached the legal age of consent, or whose local, regional, state or national jurisprudence prohibits such descriptions, should not read further. by EastBayJag (eastbay@hotmail.com) The year 2006 was not my favorite - in fact, it was about the worst year in my life, and I was glad when it finally ended - although I was so drunk on New Year's Eve, I missed the whole Times Square thing as well as the Rose Parade that afternoon. In February, my mom's second husband and the only father I'd ever known (my father died before I was born - he was a pilot in Vietnam) went and had a massive stroke at the ripe age of 58, which left him a breathing vegetable until we all agreed to follow his living will and pull the plug on the respirator. Bill and mom and I held his hands as he slipped away, and watched as the monitor thing showed the gradual end of his heartbeats. Strangely, watching my Dad die helped me cope with the grief. When we took his ashes to our cottage on Sanibel Island on the west coast of Florida and scattered them in the garden in early March, we were all pretty much okay with his passing. We grieved, but not the heart-thumping agony of new loss, more the sadness of not having him there to share with, to lean on, to look up to. My Dad's brother lives in Tampa, and after the scattering he drove mom up to Tampa for her flight home to Greenwich Connecticut, while Bill and I stayed on Sanibel for a couple of days to recharge. I had taken a long weekend off from my company - I had a thriving real estate management business, and my office manager could handle things on her own as long as I was available on the Blackberry if something complicated arose. The next morning was Sunday the 5th of March. We got up a little after dawn, then jogged on the beach as far as Shell Beach, where we'd first met. On the way, we passed the old mansion where Bill had been living back when we met. He stopped and looked at it, and I doubled back to stand with him. I knew it brought back not-nice memories of when he'd been a kept boy. "You okay, Bill?" I said softly when we'd been there a minute or so, saying nothing. There was moisture in his eyes that had nothing to do with the sweat we'd worked up. "Yeah," he said huskily. "I was just thinking how life gave me a second chance when I came to live with you and mom and Dad." "I kidnapped you, remember!" I joked. "Yanked you out of Paradise into the bitter winters of Connecticut!" "All the better for cuddling, my dear!" He grinned lop-sidedly. He's right - a cold bedroom is a lot more fun for two people in love or heat. "Let's make breakfast," I said "I need coffee, and an omelet or one of your quiches would taste perfect." "You got it," Bill said, and we jogged back to the cottage. I ran to the bathroom for a constitutional, then jumped into the shower. As I stepped out of the shower, the smell of coffee was already coming down the hall. "Phew!" said Bill as he pushed me out so he could use the toilet. "Something died in here." "Smartass!" I hollered as I went for coffee. I didn't bother to dress - the towel was enough, and we'd be in swim trunks most of the day anyway. Something smelled good - I looked in the oven, and he'd already set a veggie quiche. No dirty bowls or tools in the sink, all had been washed already and put away. Bill does most of the cooking at home - he's good at it, enjoys it, and makes mouth-watering meals with a minimum mess in no time at all. I, on the other hand, am hopeless at doing anything more than making coffee or boiling an egg, and I've actually burned a boiled egg. Bill said I would use three pots just to heat a can of soup. I set the breakfast trays up so we could eat on the deck while it was still cool, then poured my first cup of caffeine. I'd barely had a sip or two when Bill came back, still dripping a little from his shower, his towel loose around his hips. Bill has one of those naturally slim bodies, with narrow hips and a masculine chest with hair between his pecs and a treasure trail I loved to explore. Not exactly six-packed, but there was no spare flesh or skin, and the arms are sinewy and well-toned. "He's become a truly handsome man," I thought to myself. Utterly masculine swagger, rugged jaw and deep-set eyes, sort of blue-black hair with one or two grey flecks already at the sideburns. A real hunk, and he chose me ! "Yum," he said as he nuzzled me from behind as I turned to pour him some coffee. He pushed up against me, and I could feel the bulge of his not-quite flaccid dick as he pushed me into the countertop. "We have time for a little snoozle," he purred into my ear. "The timer is set for 45 minutes." "Don't know," I rumbled back. "Might end up falling asleep again. We DID have to watch the Late Show last night." Bill loves to laugh with Leno - even if he hates his politics. "I promise not to let you sleep through the timer," he said. I knew he wanted more than twenty winks. The lump in my butt was definitely getting harder. "Shall I bring your coffee?" I said, turning my head for a kiss. I was getting aroused already. He does that to me every time. "Not just now, love - we can make another pot when we eat." "I thought you were hungry after the run," I teased. "I am, David. I am." We were already moving towards the front bedroom, and my towel fell off. "All the better," went through my head. "Won't get in the way." We were in lip-lock mode before we even hit the pillows, our tongues coiling around each other like mating anacondas, and somehow he was lifting me and lowering me to the pillows before I could even think about a protest. Not that I would, of course. We caressed and cuddled, petted and raised the level for a couple of minutes, and I was vaguely ready to have him come inside me when he broke off our kiss and looked me in the eyes with that mesmerizing stare he has when he gets serious. "I want you to breed me, David." He whispered. "I want you to come inside me and put your seed so far inside that it can't ever escape." I didn't have time to answer - his mouth covered mine at once, and he rolled us over on his back, wrapping his legs around me as if to imprison me, lifting his hips and sliding a pillow under them without breaking the intensity of our love-making. We don't play roles in our sex life - he is as happy to bottom for me as I am for him. But I guess I had him inside me more often than not, because sometimes it was a little difficult for him to take all of me. When we first met, I was just 17, and not quite full-grown down there, but we were the same size in most ways, same height, same build, same weight, except I'm sandy-haired and he's dark. Besides, his seven inches plus were a perfect fit in me, and he'd had a little too much of being plowed by his keepers. But by the time I graduated from Universtiy (I went to Princeton, and he worked in an Advertising/PR firm in Windsor township doing voice-overs and writing copy and scripts) I kept growing, and ended up a couple of inches taller and longer than he was. Sometimes when I got a little too heated up when I was inside him, he would wince when I hit bottom, and I hated the thought of hurting him. "Sure?" I whispered as I backed my hips away a little to set my oozing dick into his soft spot. "More than anything," he grumbled." I need you." And without any ado, he pulled my hips down as he thrust his upwards a little, and the helmet of my dick popped into his tight little antechamber. He grimaced almost imperceptibly, and I held still while he got used to me being there, and I felt his hand milking the base of my dick to milk a little more lube into him. "Want some Wet?" I whispered. All I had to do was reach over a bit to the nightstand drawer. We used it most of the time, because it made it easier to reach orgasm at the same time. "No!" he almost growled. "I only want you in me. Nothing else." So we continued our love-making as I gently rocked into him a half-centimeter at a time, milking out a little more of my lube with each mini-stroke, until I was at least two-thirds of the way in. He's awfully tight, and fucking him dry is far from easy on my John Thomas at first. Then the little barrier inside him gave way to the head, and I slipped the rest of the way in, making guttural noises as our passion grew. "Now, FUCK ME!" Bill begged, and I started the all-too-short in duration fucking, moving slowly in and out, at the same time grasping his dick and slowly jerking it in time with my strokes. He was moaning and grasping my balls, gently massaging them, holding them so they wouldn't slap too hard against his butt as I plowed into him. His other hand was on the back of my neck, his legs splayed wide frog-like to allow maximum access, his feet on my buttocks. He has this way of squeezing his muscles down on me on the out-stroke and opening completely on the down-stroke . . . "Feel you on my nut," he gasped at one point. "Not gonna be long." My dick seems curved at just the right point for us - I only pull out a couple of inches, and it rubs his prostate - I can sometimes feel it when it starts to signal his climax, pushing down on the top of my dick, making me rush faster towards my orgasm when the head moves against it. I slowed down a little, trying to prolong the pleasure for him. "No,!" He said. "Plow me! I want you to fuck into me until your dick hits my spleen!" "I'm going to blow, babe," I cried, almost squeaked. My butthole was starting to tingle, a sure sign that all hatches needed securing. "Yes! Yes! Put it in me! All the way in! Now! Now! NOW!" he cried, and I felt the head of his dick expand in my hand, just as I felt mine go into overload, and we both shot the first volley in sync - it was as if my dick was shooting through his. "God I love you," someone said somewhere in there, and I kept pulsing into him. His fingers kept moving on my urethra at the base, under my balls, as if he could squeeze out a little more of my semen while I was buried deep inside him, and I continued moving my hand up and down on his dick, as shot after shot followed the first - which had landed in the little hollow of his neck, awaiting the hungry lap of my tongue. "Stay inside me," Bill commanded. I was in no condition to pull out, and I felt another weak pulse of my semen flow through the head of my dick. "Ummm . . . " I hummed with pleasure and after-glow. "Forever." "Forever," echoed Bill. "I'm yours forever." We spent another twenty minutes caressing, whispering little thoughts of love, moving only a little as my dick gradually deflated, finally popping out despite the vain attempts to keep it in him. "I think we drilled a new well, pardner," Bill said with a smile like a cat. "That was definitely one for the diary." "You? Keep a diary?" I joked, rolling a little to the side to take my weight off his chest. He still held me close. "For what, blackmail when you're tired of me?" "Naw," he said with a glint in his eye. "When we're in our seventies and doddering, we'll still have something to refer back to in case we forget." "Babe, that's one thing I'll never forget," I promised almost too seriously. "I can't imagine anyone ever having sex as monumental as what we have." I leaned over him and lapped up a drop I'd missed. Then the timer in the kitchen rang, and the moment was over. But it has stayed in my mind as fresh as if it was this morning, not five years ago. ----------------------------------------------------------- We scrambled out of bed and threw on board shorts - no point in showering again - we'd spend the day in and out of the water of the Gulf anyway - then sat on the front deck/porch and ate the quiche. The coffee was still hot in the coffee maker. The rest of the day was heavy - languid is the nice way of saying it - and we ended up back in the cottage early in the afternoon, as the sun was a little stronger than we'd bargained. The tops of Bill's feet were a definite pink. Even though he's got very dark hair, his skin is almost like alabaster, and he burns easily unless he's got a deep tan. We have no idea of his ancestry, but I suspect there's more Irish than Italian blood in his veins. That night was just steak and salad and cuddling on the couch watching a serial film - a British made-for-TV political drama with Ian Richardson playing a vicious Prime Minister who murders his way to the top. After the fourth segment, and second murder, I was more than ready for bed, and Bill as well. I don't think we made love that night - it was gone eleven when we shut off the DVD, and we had an early flight home on Monday morning. We got to Tampa airport a little late - around 5:15am for a 6:45am flight to Newark, where we'd left the car. We chose Newark over LaGuardia so that we could get out of the New York area before the afternoon rush began - the only flights to LaGuardia got in at 2pm or later. We could have taken Continental directly to Fort Myers, right across the bay from Sanibel, but mom wanted to swing through Orlando to spend some time with my uncle. Flying into Orland and out of Fort Meyers was a lot more expensive that a simple round trip, so . . . Of course, because we only had carry-ons, and Bill had checked us in on-line, we went right to the end of the security line and got to the gate with an hour to spare. So much for a two-hour check in. We both learned to travel in sweats without belts and sandals instead of shoes, of course. How I'd like to hang all those idiots who forced us to endure the humiliation of flying! We're like sheep being dipped before herding onto the slaughter trucks. Anyway, the flight was uneventful, and we got to the car and were on the New Jersey Turnpike extension that heads towards the George Washington less than an hour after landing - and there was no traffic to speak of! We got back to Westport just after lunchtime, so went to the deli to get sandwich fixings. It was raining a little, and after Florida for a couple of days, the cold was biting, so we looked forward to getting home, lighting a fire and warming up. Just before we crossed Weston onto Easton, my Blackberry rang, and I fished it out to answer it. I won't talk when driving, but Bill had the wheel. It was my office manager, Cindy Carter, just checking to see if I'd made it okay. I started to say everything was fine, when there was a screech of brakes, the Volvo spun a bit, and I lurched forward and twisted from the seatbelt. I looked towards Bill and saw this enormous SUV heading for us straight on. I remember nothing after that first glance. I don't want to. The airbags blew up in my face and knees, deafening me and I was out. I didn't wake up until the next day plus one. I was in a body cast, unable to move anything, but blessedly fuzzy around all the edges. There was someone fussing with something I couldn't see down towards my waist or maybe a little lower, but I could only see the shoulder and the top of the head. I couldn't feel anything down there. I tried to talk, but only got out a burble. A face in a mask appeared above my forehead. It wasn't attached to the person with the shoulder. "Relax, mon," said the Mask. Masculine. His eyes were Jamaican green-jade in color. His forehead was the color of light oak. Pockmarks, a few. A green paper hat. No glasses. "You're at Bridgeport Hospital, we're watching your back, and in a few weeks you'll be all better, you know. For now, you lay quiet, listen to what we say and doan worry. " The Shoulder rose up, and it was another nurse - grey-haired, hornrim glasses, dark moustache shading the mask under his nose. I immediately thought "gay." "Bill," I tried to say. I don't think anyone understood me. My lips and tongue wouldn't work. "Don't try to talk yet," said Shoulder. Deep voice. Not gay. "The painkillers make it too hard. You'd rather have them than talk, believe me." I couldn't move my head to see if there was anyone else about. Just my eyes. But Green Eyes saw. "Your motha is here," said the Jamaican. "You'll be able to see her once we've got Doc's benediction." The lilting emphasis was not critical - just the way he spoke. "Doc will fill you in on the details - we're just here to watch you." Then I was asleep again, even before the doctor showed, and when I woke it was dark. My mom was leaning over me, holding my hand. That was comforting. Her eyes were all red from crying, and dark pouches hung from her lower lids. "Where is Bill," I tried to say. Mothers are better at interpreting their babies' babblings. "He's gone, sweetheart," my mom said. "You rest and get better. I'll be right here. You'll be up and out in a few days." Gone. Gone home? No, he was between me and the monster. Gone. It meant no longer there. Not ever again. I tried to think it through, but sank back into the pit of the painkillers and exhausted wreck of a body. I had lots of time to think it through, though. First was the hollow ache in my chest where my heart had been ripped from me, then the anger that follows inevitably, ugly and hateful, vindictive and selfish. Thoughts of what I would do to the other driver when - if - I got out. I pictured a drunken salesman behind the wheel of the giant SUV. As it turned out, I was in hospital for fourteen weeks. The doctor was almost beaming when he told me that my vertebrae didn't have to be cemented together, my knees were only bruised, not broken, the broken bones in my left arm and both legs knit together perfectly without complication, and my concussion was mild thanks to the airbag. My internal organs were intact but bruised, my nose reconstructed (he - the doctor - promised it would be better than new, but it still dooesn't breathe quite right) no expense spared, and my jaw would eventually look normal once the bones knit properly and the swelling went down. So much for prognostication - the jaw has never really healed, so looking at me head-on, my face is lopsidedly skewed to the left due to the swelling that never went. It was my heart that was broken the most, and they could do nothing about that. Bill was killed instantly, as the giant SUV crushed the roof of the Volvo on his side down to the seat. The woman driving was charged with negligent vehicular homicide and child endangerment - her children were in the car as she argued with her decorator over plans for redoing the living room of their MacMansion and drove with one hand on the telephone, the other holding the steering wheel as well as a full Starbucks container as she ran the red light. The security camera and the driver of the bus just behind us saw everything, and despite the protests of the woman's lawyer, their testimony was ruled admissible by the presiding judge at some hearing they had before they were supposed to start jury selection. The opposing lawyers caved almost at once. Or, rather, they discussed the case with the insurors, who caved immediately. Bill was not yet 37 when it happened. Then mom died just after I was discharged in mid-June. The police found her the day after she died, still in bed in her nightgown. I wasn't able to call yet, and had to scream as best I could at the home nurse to have someone check on her when she didn't show up for breakfast. It was a massive myocardial infarction - the thing we used to call a heart attack - nothing suspicious. We don't believe in funerals, so Bill and mom were both directly cremated after essential salvageable organs were donated. I kept their ashes at home until I was strong enough to come back to Sanibel and scatter them in the garden, eight months later. I almost didn't go back to Connecticut, but the cottage was rented for that summer, and it would have been unfair to throw the tenants over. They'd stayed at the cottage every summer for years, and were grateful that they had one more before I moved down permanently at the end of the season. --------------------------------------------------------------- I had to sell the property management business, of course. I couldn't work for nearly a year, as the legs took a long time to get their strength back, and I had to have a little extra plastic surgery done on my nose and jaw so that I wouldn't scare the bejeezes out of women and children. Luckily, my insurance was paid up, and the business brought enough - barely - to keep me going until I could get some money from mom's estate. I sold it to my office manager - Cindy - and her husband, probably for a lot less than it was worth, but she'd been with me for as long as I'd had the business, knew all the customers, and was the logical successor. I wanted her to keep the business going, and from what she tells me in her letters, everything is humming along quite well. Her husband keeps his nose out from under the tent, and she has haired a new office manager so that she can sell and service clients. Good on her. The most amazing thing was, I sold mom and Dad's house in Greenwich as well as our home in Westport for unbelievable prices, multiple offers above the asking prices, and in just a few weeks, in early 2007. By the time all was totted up, mortgages paid and all that stuff, I had quite a nut to invest. I moved down here after selling everything in both houses to an estate clearance company. I wanted nothing but a few photos and a couple of paintings we'd collected. I know the estate guy made a packet - a friend went to the auction, and the furniture from my mom's house alone brought more than the agent had paid me for everything - but I didn't care. Just wanted to be rid of the memories and the burden of sellling it myself. This cottage in Sanibel was long ago paid off, so my expenses are pretty minimal. I have a little car and a big bad pickup, and found a cleaning lady who comes in three days a week. Her brother does the gardening for me, and his wife sends home-made bread with him every Tuesday. Being wary of the stock market, which I didn't pretend to understand, I put everything into treasury bonds and certificates, just before the financial crisis. Then in March of 2009, after I had studied at USF in Tampa and through correspondence, I plunged into the market just above the bottom, and bought shares in solid companies that pay good dividends, stuff I can buy and forget, like Boeing and Intel, Apple and Wells Fargo. But the stock market bores me, so I don't watch it much. The quarterly statements say I've more than doubled my money, but I don't use it for anything, just let it ride. Late last year, the insurance company settled, just before the trial date. The lawyers had witness statements from the bus driver, photos from the red-light camera, and confirmation from the cellphone company that the phone was in use between the woman driving and the decorator in New Haven, who was prepared to testify that she heard the crash in mid-conversation, and that the woman was screaming at her. We filed for $25 million, but settled for less - I didn't want to have to testify, and the lawyers said the insurance company would play dirty, trying to discredit my relationship with Bill, bringing up old ghosts I didn't want to face. The lawyers could have taken a third, of course, but without my asking reduced their fees to half that amount, then billed the woman's insurance company for the difference. Apparently they didn't blink, just paid. I had quite a packet to add to the kitty, and put it all into Apple, two fertilizer companies, and a Chinese competitor of Google. Money is nice to have I guess, but I'd trade every penny of it to have my Bill back. Anyway, I resigned myself to living out the rest of my life here in Sanibel, doing some writing and reading lots of works I had always wanted to get through. No interest in socializing, although I made the obligatory motions, joining the Golf Club and playing a little bridge now and then. Most of the players were in their retirements, so other than the occasional flirt from a widow older than my mom (and even a hint from a male member that he'd love to spend some quality time with me) they basically left me alone other than invitations to drinks parties when guests were scarce. I was self-conscious about the battered nose and jaw, especially when I caught someone staring, so venturing out was daunting. I started walking on the beach, even a little gentle jogging occasionally to keep as fit as I could, and got a great dog - a cross between a Heinz 57 and a Greyhound. I named her Tina, because she was the runt of the litter. She follows me everywhere, even from one room in the house to the next - and whines when I close the bathroom door. She loves to run with me on the beach. I won't win any races, but I can jog for half an hour now, and with a stop at the county park past Shell Beach to throw a tennis ball for Trina, I can get enough exercise to stay at my regular weight of 175. Friends from Westport came down a couple of times, and that was enjoyable, but not when they started pushing me to get back into the swing of things. Our closest friends, John and Corey, came three or four times and tactfully said nothing about me looking around for companionship - but I could tell they had bloody tongues. Corey is an inveterate romantic, and thinks everybody should be half of a couple. We only had one rough patch early on, and I put a stop to that by telling them that I was happier with a bottle of hand lotion, fantasizing about Bill on our bed and slowly masturbating, than I could possibly be with another man. Then out of the blue on a clear day early in March, my broker called with an investment idea. He felt I had too much of my assets in shares, and not enough in reala estate. There was an opportunity to purchase a new four-plex condo unit in Maui, which was being built as part of a seven-building development that had gone into receivership when the bank called its loans from the developer. The units were spacious, upscale without being pretentious, and best of all, right on the beach facing west, just a tad south of Kihei, 20ft above high tide. When he told me the price he thought would be accepted by the bank, I was flabbergasted. As part of my investment course, I had learned the principles of discounted cash flows and so on - but I asked a CPA in Cape Coral to run numbers for me to be sure I wouldn't make some stupid errors. He ran them - then said if I didn't proceed, he might talk to the broker himself. So, having got a little island fever on Sanibel, and not being all that averse to an Hawaiian holiday, I called a travel agent who arranged for the flights, a car rental and a condo rental for a few weeks. The next day, I dropped Tina at the boarding kennel near the Fort Meyers airport and boarded an American flight to Dallas then Kahului.