This is a fictional story dealing with love and consensual sexual activities between males. If you are not of legal age, reside in an area where viewing such material is illegal, or are offended by homosexuality and/or homosexual themes, leave this site now.

The author retains all rights to this story. No reproductions or links to other sites are allowed without the permission of the author.

Note: Thanks to Tim for feedback on the draft chapters.  I owe special thanks to Robb and Rock for doing the final proofreading and catching all those silly little errors I missed.

Finding Family

by Jeff Allen

AT ADAMS STATE UNIVERSITY

JOSH'S PERSPECTIVE:

I didn't see Brandon again for almost two weeks. As he'd said, we were on two different schedules. His big dark red Chevy Silverado was always gone when I got home from practice in the evening. I thought I might catch up with him over the weekend, but we had an away game. The team left Friday afternoon, beat the pads off our opponents, and got home late Sunday afternoon. Brandon's truck was gone again.

The next week was pretty much a repeat of the previous week. The truck was there in the morning when we all left the apartments for morning PT but gone in the afternoon when we returned. It was that Thursday night before I got a chance to talk with him again

I'd drunk a can of Coke just before going to bed that night. Big mistake. I woke up about one in the morning needing to pee like a race horse. The nights were still fairly warm so we had the windows open, and I heard Brandon's truck pulling into the drive next door as I was heading back to bed after relieving my bladder.

I pulled on a pair of jogging shorts, sneakers, and an old tee shirt and headed across the back yard to Brandon's.

Mason gave a short bark as I climbed the stairs to the door of the apartment.

Brandon met me. "Hey, Josh. It's kind of late for you, isn't it? Come on in."

He opened the screen. I stepped into the apartment. It was amazingly neat! I didn't see a stray paper or a single article of clothing lying around anywhere. Trey, TJ, and I were basically tidy, but there were always some open textbooks or a discarded sock lying around. There was nothing out of place in Brandon's apartment!

He was still dressed for work in a long sleeved white shirt, black slacks, and black dress shoes.

"You're right. It is late, but I had to get up to take a leak, and I heard your truck. Thought I'd take the opportunity to come over and say `Hey'."

"I'm glad you did. I was just about to make a pot of coffee and start some studying. Do you want some?"

"No, I'd better pass on the coffee. This is the middle of the night for me, and I need my beauty rest. I just wanted to let you know that the Carterville crew is coming in over the weekend, and we'd like to have you come over for dinner on Saturday night...that is if you don't have to work."

He smiled, and his eyes seemed to change color again from gray-green to more of a gray-blue. "Thanks, man. I'd like that a lot. I'm scheduled to work, but I'll see if I can get someone to take my shift Saturday evening. I'm due a day away from Cantana's. I've worked everyday for the last three weeks. You sure I can't interest you in some coffee?"

I was tempted. "No, but thanks. I'd really like to, but I've got to be up and over to the field house for morning training in about five hours. Like I said, I need to get my beauty sleep."

"I think you look pretty good as is."

Hunh? Did he just say what I thought he said? Was that a come on line?

I tried my best 10,000-watt smile and my best Southern gay boy voice, "Why thank you, kind Sir. You do know the way to a boy's heart."

That got a genuine laugh from him. "Okay, I asked for that. I'll find out about Saturday night and let you know."

"Cool. Everyone'll be going to the game that afternoon. I can get a ticket for you too if you want."

"Thanks, Josh. I'll let you know."

I went back over to my apartment, but I had to jack off before I could fall asleep. As I masturbated I kept seeing Brandon standing in the doorway in his white shirt and black pants. I watched him slowly peel off the shirt to reveal a hairy chest. I shot my load all over my chest before I could imagine him shucking off his pants. Damn, maybe tomorrow night.

**********

When I got back to the apartment from practice on Friday afternoon Trey handed me a note from Brandon that had been stuck on the screen door. It said that he'd been able to rearrange his work schedule and would be able to come for dinner. He asked what time and if he could bring anything. He also wrote that he wouldn't be able to attend the game because he had traded shifts with another waiter so he'd be working in the afternoon.

**********

Wes and I had to leave for the field house before the Carterville crew arrived on Saturday so we didn't see any of them until after the game.

The game was a rough one, but we won it, and I played most of the game. I got my ass handed to me on a couple of plays, but on the good side I managed to sack their quarterback twice and batted down a couple of passes. Not a bad day for the wanna be first string middle linebacker!

Wes had a good game also. He got more playing time than ever before, but he was also on the receiving end of a couple of vicious looking tackles.

Everyone including Isaac's dog, Mutt, was at the apartment when Wes and I trudged up the hill from campus. We got lots of congratulations and hugs. Just being around the guys who had become my family was a treat.

When Brandon arrived around dinnertime I was down on my hands and knees in the middle of the back yard being the horse for two giggling little boys...Grant and Micah Micheaux.

The day had been warm. Brandon was dressed in sandals, khaki shorts, and a long sleeved tee shirt. To my surprise he immediately got down on the ground with the boys and me. While Mutt and Mason circled and sniffed each other's butts, Brandon and I provided transportation around the yard for the boys.

Grant and Micah finally tired of riding our backs and departed for other areas of the yard. Mutt and Mason followed the boys. Brandon and I sat side by side in the grass.

"You really didn't need to do that, but thanks."

He smiled. "Hey, you looked like you needed some help. Besides, I miss playing with my nieces and nephews."

"You come from a big family?"

"You might say that. I've got four brothers and four sisters."

"Wow! I was an only child raised by a single mother. A year ago I couldn't have imagined having that many brothers and sisters." I gestured toward the crowd beginning to gather around the grill. "Now I've got a lot of brothers. They were there for me when Mom died. They're all my family now."

"You're lucky. Families aren't always blessings."

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. It's just me. I don't get along too well with my family."

"Sorry to hear that. The only other real family I've got are my mother's parents, but I don't want to have anything to do with them. They claim to be big Christians, but they never wanted me around because I was a bastard and my mother raised me on her own. Last time I saw them was at Mom's funeral. It was ugly."

"Sorry to hear that."

"It's okay. No problems. Hey, it looks like the burgers are ready. Come on."

We got up and joined the line forming for the food.

After dinner Donnie came over and started talking with Brandon. Within a couple of minutes they were over at Brandon's GTO with the hood up. Donnie was checking out the engine.

Brandon motioned me over.

"Come on. We're taking her out for a spin."

This time Donnie sat up in the passenger's seat, and I was in the back so I wasn't able to ogle Brandon's crotch while he drove. Bummer. On the bright side, Mason was drooling all over Donnie's shoulder and not mine.

ISAAC'S PERSPECTIVE:

The lab section for my biology class didn't start until after the Labor Day weekend. I got to the room just a minute or so before the class was supposed to start. The room was set up with lab tables that held four students around each. I looked around for an empty seat. There was one table up toward the front with just one guy at it. He looked Middle Eastern with black hair and medium brown skin. He sat with his eyes cast down on the table in front of him. There were a couple of empty seats near the door, but I walked up and took one of the empty chairs at the kid's table.

He looked up at me as I sat down. He had extremely dark, almost black eyes. I smiled and received a weak smile in return.

I extended my hand. "Hey. I'm Isaac South."

He took my hand briefly. "I'm Ahmed Kahn."

His name confirmed my theory about his ancestry, but I didn't hear an accent.

The lab instructor started talking, so Ahmed and I caught little bits of personal information in between the lab instructor's periodic explanations and demonstrations. He was freshman like me, but lived at home. His parents were both faculty members in the math department.

He seemed like a nice guy so I asked him over to the student union for a cup of coffee after lab.

We chatted for a couple of minutes about the lab. Then Ahmed said, "Thank you for sitting with me today."

"Hey, no problem. You looked a little lonely up there."

"Yes. Lonely and nervous. I watched people come in. They looked at me and went and sat somewhere else. They must have thought I was some sort of terrorist."

"I wondered about that. That's why I came over and sat with you. I can't stand it when people prejudge others because of their looks or their name or their sexual orientation."

"Thank you. I've always felt out of place in school, but it got worse after 9/11 and then much worse after the war in Iraq started. At first I kept trying to tell the other kids that I was Pakistani not Iraqi. It didn't seem to make much difference. I didn't have many friends in high school. Some of it was because I was a different skin color, but it was also because I was in advanced classes and all the kids were older than me."

"Weren't they your same age in the upper grades?"

He cast his eyes down on the table. "No. I skipped a couple of years of school."

I took another look at him. He did look young. He didn't have much of a beard. A little darkening on the upper lip and some stray hairs on his chin and cheeks. He maybe needed to shave once or twice a week. I hadn't thought much of that `cause my own beard was pretty sparse.

"How many years is a couple?"

"Three."

"So you graduated when you were like fifteen? You look a little younger, but I didn't think you were fifteen."

"I'm not fifteen. I'm sixteen. My parents tutored me at home last year. The university wouldn't admit me until I was sixteen."

"Jeez, you're not only a terrorist, you're a genius as well."

He gave me a startled look at first. When he realized I was kidding, he broke into the biggest smile I'd seen on his face up to that point.

"I could be useful as a lab partner."

"Hey, I think we make a good team. The genius terrorist and the red-necked queer."

He gave me another startled look. "You mean you're..."

"Yup, just like a three dollar bill."

He laughed, "I think I'm going to like being your lab partner."

Indeed, we made good lab partners. He also became my personal tutor in math which was a good thing for me. I was struggling with college algebra while he was already taking graduate courses in the math department.

When our first biology test rolled around Ahmed and I decided to study together the night before the exam. The only problem was that his parents didn't want him wandering around the campus late at night. I could see where they would be concerned about that because of his age. The solution was for me to go over to Ahmed's house to study.

That was an experience.

Ahmed told me to come over for dinner. I'd never seen a house decorated like the Kahn's. I guess it was what his mom and dad had grown up with. There weren't many chairs in the house. Instead there were lots of brightly patterned and colored velvet and satin pillows placed around the rooms. Ahmed and I sat on pillows at a low table in the living room while dinner was prepared.

His parents were very nice. Dr. Hasan Kahn and Dr. Sonia Kahn were both professors in the math department. It was easy to see why Ahmed was such a genius at math.

The Professors Kahn asked me a lot of questions over dinner about my background. It was obvious from the first couple of questions that Ahmed had told them I was gay, so I was pretty open with them. I told them about losing my parents in a fire, about being taken in and later adopted by Coach, and highlights about some of the other members of Coach's Cubs. I left out some parts...like having been beaten and forced into prostitution by my old man.

Every once in a while the elder Kahns would say something to each other in some foreign language which I assumed was Pakistani or Urdu or some language like that. Those exchanges were generally very short, and Ahmed was careful to translate for me. A couple of times his parents' lapses into their native language caused Ahmed to blush and lower his eyes. He didn't translate those comments so I assumed they had something to do with me. That was just a little uncomfortable for me, but I figured `What the heck, they know I'm gay. Let `em talk.'

After dinner we had coffee and a fantastic pastry dessert that was a little like Baklava. Man, I don't know what they did to the coffee, but I was charged! I left Ahmed's house around eleven that night, and I was still too wired to settle down and go to bed until almost two in the morning.

Even with the lack of sleep, I aced the test the next morning.

I really had a blast my first semester at college! I liked the classes. I made a lot of good friends like Ahmed and like my roommate and suite mates. It was good.

The only down side was that I was perpetually horny, and I wasn't getting any. Tyrone and I had been boyfriends for two and a half years, and we'd been getting it on almost everyday. I wasn't used to long bouts without sex so I wasn't pleased with my new `hands only' situation.

I know you always hear stories about the wild, uninhibited sexual exploration that takes place on college campuses. Well, my straight roomie and suite mates were all managing to get laid, but the closest I got that entire term was when some guy who was standing next to me at a urinal in one of the library restrooms started stroking his dick and looking over at me. Naturally I started stroking mine too, but just about the time the guy was working up the courage to reach over and put his hand on my dick someone else came into the john. Man, both of us had our junk stuffed back in our pants quicker than most guys can shake off the last few drops of pee. My partner in aborted restroom sex was gone in a flash. I never saw him again.

JOSH'S PERSPECTIVE:

Football season ended early for us that year. We lost the first post-season game. I was both disappointed and relieved. Disappointed because we had been playing real well at the end of the season, and I had finally secured the first string middle linebacker slot on the team. Relieved because without PT in the morning and practice in the afternoons I had a lot more time to fully prepare for the upcoming final exams.

Brandon Harris and I had gotten to be pretty good friends. We didn't have a lot of time to hang out together because of my football schedule and his work schedule, but when we did, I really enjoyed his company. He was a frequent dinner or lunch participant at our place on those weekends when the Carterville crew came into town. I even stayed over in his apartment a couple of times so that TJ and Donnie could have a little privacy in my room. Brandon had a futon over at his place in the second bedroom which he'd converted into an office/study area.

I'd learned that there were some subjects that Brandon just wouldn't talk about. One was his experience in the army. From a few of his less guarded comments in conversations, I'd picked up the idea that he'd been over in Iraq. However, it was clear he didn't want to talk about it. The other forbidden topic was his family. That seemed to be an even more sensitive subject than the army was. He clammed up if someone asked him anything about his family. Like the bit about him having been in Iraq, I picked up enough little pieces of information to realize that something really bad had happened. One time I asked him how he had ended up in North Carolina after growing up in Utah. His response was, "Because North Carolina's about as far away from Utah as I can get." I think the lad had some major issues.

Another quirky thing about Brandon was his extreme modesty. Even when I stayed over at his place, I never saw him unless he was completely dressed. Oh, he might have on a pair of shorts that showed off his wonderfully muscled and hairy legs, but he always wore a long sleeved shirt. I knew he had chest hair `cause it peeked over the neck of his tee shirt, but I'd never seen that magnificent chest in all its bare glory. Dang it!

It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Break for us started on Wednesday. Brandon and I had gone on a run in the early afternoon before he had to get ready for his shift at Cantana's. As we were coming up the street toward our apartments I asked him if he'd like to come to Carterville for Thanksgiving.

He didn't answer right away. When he finally did respond, I was disappointed. "I don't think I can do that. It'd be better if I stayed here."

"Why don't you come, man? You told me before that the restaurant is gonna be closed that day."

"I just don't think I can do it."

The next thing out of my mouth wasn't very nice. "Is it because you'd have to spend the night in a house with a bunch of gay guys?"

"Don't you ever accuse me of being a homophobe."

He turned and started walking up the stairs to his apartment.

I followed.

"Brandon, man, I am so sorry for saying that. You've never given me any reason to think you're homophobic. I shouldn't have said that, but I am kind of hurt. I'd really like to have you with us at Thanksgiving, and I know the other guys feel the same way."

"Thanks. Maybe I could just drive over on Thanksgiving Day, but I'd need to be back here that evening. Let me think about it while I shower and get ready for work."

"Okay, you think about it. I'm going to plunk my ass down right here in your living room until you come out and tell me one way or the other."

"Suit yourself, asshole," but he smiled when he said it.

He went into his bedroom and closed the door. When he emerged to go into the bathroom he had on a bathrobe. Darn, I'd been hoping to get my first glimpse of him without the clothes!

Just after the shower started, Brandon's telephone rang. He yelled out for me to take a message for him so I picked up the phone. An operator told me it was a collect call for Brandon from some dude called Bart.

I asked the operator to wait and knocked on the bathroom door.

"Brandon, it's a collect call from a guy named Bart. Do you want to take it or should I tell `em to call back?"

The door flew open, and a very naked and very wet Brandon charged past me to the phone.

"Operator, I'll accept the charges......Bart, Bart, are you okay?......What happened?......Are you okay? Where are you?......It'll be okay, bud. You know I love you.......I know you can't go back there. Just hang in there, Bart. We'll figure something out. How much cash do you have with you?......Okay, that's enough to get a room someplace. I want you to get a cheap room and then call me back, okay? I'll try to figure something out.......I love you too, Bart. Call me back when you get a room. Hang in there, bud. It'll be all right. I promise."

For the first part of the conversation I stood by the bathroom doorway in a state of semi shock. Brandon had rushed past me to answer the phone, but I had managed to catch a look at the huge tool between his legs. I knew he had to be big because of the bulge that always showed in his pants, but I never expected it to be that big.

But it wasn't the sight of his monster dick that had caused my jaw to drop open, it was his back that was also exposed to me for the first time. It was covered with angry looking reddish scars that extended from just below his neckline to the small of his back and down the back side of his left arm!

(To be continued)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many of the characters who play parts in this story were previously introduced in either "When Love Comes" (last posted in the College section on Sept. 6, 2001) or "Love of a Lifetime" (last posted in the College section on May 19, 2003). While not necessary, readers may find it useful to read the two earlier stories posted on this site.  Both previous stories are also posted at www.crvboy.com.