Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:55:56 -0700 (PDT) From: Ben Ezra Jacobson Subject: The Thunder Storm Part One Please find enclosed a story that I wish to publish in chapters in the gay section of nifty stories. The writer is true as is the story..but the names have been changed to assure privacy of the participants. The Thunder Storm - Part One: The Thunder Storm By: Ben Ezra Jacobson ben_ezra_jacobson@yahoo.com The thunder awakened me and the prolific lightning lit up my bedroom with erratic flashes of blue and yellow light. Sleep was suddenly gone from my body as I staggered in a drowsy gait to the large window that opened to the court yard outside. My condo was one of twelve, three to each side with the common courtyard that we all enjoyed and which could only be entered from within one's own unit. As I looked out the large bank of windows, it was apparent that the rain was increasing in intensity and the garden beneath was hazy...almost like looking through a lightly frosted glass. Across the way, almost equidistant to my own room was another restless person gazing out into the storm. As the lightning flashed again and again...it became apparent that the figure was male...short hair, standing in the window totally unclad...as I was. When he became aware that he was being observed, he raised his right arm in a right square wave as one has often seen travelers on a ship do as they bid loved ones farewell on the dock. I smiled and returned the gesture in the same manner. It was too obscure to see if he was smiling or not...but he waved...and I waved back. When the next flash of lightning lit up the courtyard...the figure was gone. I returned to my bed, pulled the covers up around my chin and shivered a bit from the sudden coolness of the air. Naked beneath the sheets...slept caught me up quickly and upon rising...wondered if it had just been an erotic dream. I am Dr. Ben E. Jacobson, PhD in classical literature and have taught at the local university for the last twenty two years. I married my high school sweetheart when we graduated from this same university. Both of us had just turned twenty one and shortly there after...we were blessed with twin sons, Jacob and Levi who have also graduated from this university last year and now are teaching in their own fields...one on the west coast and the other Great Britain. My wife passed away a year ago after a valiant fight with cancer and I sold our home and moved to the condo...trying to put the grief and pain behind me and to devote my time to students and to become productive again. The boys encouraged me to write a book about my life...but how many sentences can one write that says anymore than I have had a wonderful life. The next morning after the storm, I drove to my classroom and office because the sidewalks and streets were still very wet and some were strewn with fallen limbs from trees, bisecting some of the pathways. In descent weather...it is much nicer to ride my bicycle. There are older professors than me who ride their bikes and so it was a natural for me to do likewise. This is also great exercise for one whose frame is sparse...a genetic trait from my mother's side of the family. During the day, I wondered if the night vision was true or a dream. If it was a dream...who might the image be? I could not recall any new person having moved into that side of the courtyard. That unit was not even completed, the last time I looked. Surely it was a dream...and best dismissed from my mind so as not to distract my instructing students during classes. In the evening, returning home, I parked my car under the canopy of the carport and walked around the complex to the unit where the mysterious figure had stood. It still appeared empty. There were no coverings on the windows and one could see ladders and buckets of paint sitting on the plywood underlayment. There were no indications of the space being inhabited. I walked up to the door and leaning over the porch railing, again gazed into the unit. Still, there appeared to be no evidence of anyone occupying the dwelling. " Get a hold of yourself...ol' boy. You don't usually get so caught up in a silly dream. The unit is empty. There is no occupant in this condo", the voice with in spoke. Smiling sheepishly, I walked on to my own unit...and closed the door.Page 2 The clock in the hall struck 11:00 PM with eleven distinct strikes which seemed like thunder to me. I sat up in bed and could hear the even beats of the clocks movement counting the time. A dream...no doubt, but it brought back the thought of the thunder storm the previous night and how I had gazed out and discovered a naked person in the window across the courtyard. Something prompted me to go the window again and as I gazed across the way...the window was empty. There were no lightning flashes...just the quiet of a still night and only enough light from a quarter moon to barely cast shadows on the brick walls. I looked again and still the window was dark. "This is foolishness," I said as I made my way into the bath room and got a drink of water with the glass on the sink, "people are going to think you are loosing it ol' boy...and you are going to think it too if you do not cast this dream off." If I blushed...I could not tell it in the dark...but it made sense and now, I was going to go back to bed and focus on lesson plans for tomorrow until sleep could over take me again. As I approached the bed, I thought...just one more look and then back into the sack. I walked to the window, curtains pulled back as far as they would go...looked out...and saw a naked figure standing in the window staring back at me. Again he raised his hand to the square and waved. I did the same...and stood there staring. The figure remained. I imagined him smiling as my own face was drawn up in a big grin. He did not leave the window...but stood there looking back at me. He looked like about my height of nearly six foot and had a lean frame much like my own but I could not detect any facial characteristics or body uniqueness. Suddenly he walked away from the window...but in a matter of seconds returned. Perhaps he was wondering if this was a dream on his part as well. He left a second time and a light came on in the far distance which shed only a minimal amount of light on the figure when he returned to his window...but it was sufficient to see that he was younger than me and appeared to be fairly physical fit. His shoulders were broader than my own and his hips appeared to be a little wider than my own. Suddenly he turned sideways in silhouette style and I could see that he was endowed greater than me. I could almost detect a smile when the light went out. I did not sleep much the rest of the night. The irony of the display from last night was that I had not considered being attracted to another male. Like most young guys, I had experimented with a couple of friends in my early years and had experience some intimacies with a friend or two in scouts when I was in my teen age years..but like most of my peers, made the adjustment to girls and had married and reared a family. Why now was I finding the mysterious interactions of a naked man across the courtyard erotic? Surely this had not been a second dream? If it had been...perhaps I needed some counseling. Was I "cracking up?" I continued to watch the condo across the courtyard over the next few days...but saw no one entering or leaving. When I inquired of the contractor about thinking that I had seen a personage across the way...he looked at me like I was some eccentric weirdo...laughed in my face and went about his business. Obviously...I did not mention that the figure was naked...nor did I mention that I was becoming aroused by his appearance.