Date: Sun, 4 Jul 2021 14:46:36 +1200 From: Ben Highlander Subject: An Unexpected Pleasure 2- Dreams Come True Consider donating to nifty to keep this amazing site going. Ben Highlander ............................................................................ I slept fitfully that night in my hotel room. My dreams were haunted by a set of blue-green elvish eyes that seemed to gaze into the very heart of what I thought I desired, and call it a lie. The mischievous smile of the diminutive Ollie tugged at my heart in a way that I couldn't fathom. I knew that this boy had called to a part of me that I thought I had forgotten forever; that I had hoped never to retrieve from the painful forgettery of my childhood. In my dream I was nine again. My little friend Bennie, who I had known forever, and that I loved more than I loved my own brother, was staying over after my birthday party. The two of us were inseparable and I couldn't pass a day without seeing Bennie at least once. Bennie felt the same. We were drawn together as if by a magnet by an innocent love from the first time we saw each other. In my dream Ty, as Bennie called me, was hiding in our late-night game of hide-and-seek, which my mother only allowed because it was my birthday. We had access to the back courtyard because it was secure and well-lit, and we had been given strict instructions not to leave the protected space. I had chosen to sneak inside an old VW carcass that my dad was going to fix up when he got around to it, if my mother would let him keep it long enough. I was securely wedged in the back cubby between the engine and the back seat, and had an old hessian sack draped across my back to make sure I was invisible. It had been possible to sneak in because the passenger door, which now lay beside the skeleton of the vehicle, had severed in the accident that rendered the wreck undrivable. "Coming, ready or not," Bennie called in his Afrikaans accent. I stifled a giggle as I knew that Bennie wasn't likely to find me in my hiding place. Sure enough several minutes passed and I could hear the increasingly frustrated friend sniff in every nook and behind each cranny with no success. "Ty ek gee op," he eventually called. "Ek kry jou nie!" (Ty I give up, can't find you!) I decided to let him suffer a while longer, still struggling not to give away my hiding place by laughing out loud. "Ty? Ty? Nee man, dis nie snaaks nie!" (No man, it's not funny!) I heard the frustrated Bennie look inside the VW, but because he didn't know about the back storage space, gave up when he didn't see me in any of the visible spaces. He had just turned his back when I revealed myself with a blood-curdling shriek. The result wasn't funny. Bennie turned quickly and in so doing lost his footing and fell over backward, narrowly missing bumping his head against the detached door of the wreck. Although he didn't hurt himself he did end up on his back and both of us got a big fright. "Ty dis nie snaaks nie!" he repeated heatedly. I launched myself right out of my hiding place and clambered over the back seat to reach my red-faced chum as he tried to get up. Unfortunately for both of us I covered the last meter or so out of the VW flying through the air because I tripped over the hand brake. I landed full length on Bennie, face to face, crotch to crotch, knocking the wind out of both of us. We both just lay there wheezing and looking into each other's eyes. When I recovered my wind, I realized that Bennie and I had our hard little dicks jammed snugly against each other. a "Bennie, ek is jammer." (Bennie I'm sorry) "Ek wou jou nie skrikmaak nie..." (I didn't want to scare you) "Ty, dis reg so." (Ty, it's ok.) There was a long pause. Both of us realized we were still lying face to face with me lying on top of Bennie. We were both painfully aware that the other was hard and and both of us were completely confused by our little erections, but also by the feelings that we couldn't identify that were welling up in our hearts. "Bennie, wat gaan aan?" (Bennie, what's happening?) "Hoekom is ons pieletjies styf?" (Why are our little cocks hard?) "Ek weet nie Ty." (I don't know, Ty) "Maar dis lekker." (But it's enjoyable) I was just putting my hand down his front to feel Bennie's little erection when we heard the back swing door open. "Tyrone, waar is julle?" (Tyrone, where are the two of you?) The two of us were instinctively struggling to get up off each other when my mom came round the side of the Beetle only to discover two red-faced boys hastily trying to extricate themselves from what can only be considered a compromising condition and position. "TYRONE!! Wat op aarde gaan hier aan? Kom onmiddellik hier!!" (Tyrone!! What on earth is going on here? Come here immediately!!). When she was upset, her native Afrikaans roots came out big time. I hastily got up and stood next to my mother. She grabbed me by the hand and forced me behind her. "Go to your room!" I hastily obeyed my mother and made my way through the back door and up the stairs. As I dashed to my room I heard his mother shriek her indignation and outrage at Bennie. What she said broke my heart. "Gaan huistoe en moet nooit were jou moffie-voete naby my seun sit nie. Ek gaan jou ma bel en haar sê dat jy my Tyrone probeer verlei het. Skoert!" (Go home and never set your queer feet near my son. I'm going to phone your mother and tell her that you tried to seduce my Tyrone. Scram!) --------------------------------------------------- I woke up in a sweat. The pain I had experienced during that time of loss oozed and bubbled up out of my gut like tar in a swamp. I found I was retching as I gasped out hoarse cries of despair that I had buried for years under layers of manhood and success. I suddenly remembered that I never saw Bennie again, because my mother made sure of it. We couldn't even see each other at school because he was in an Afrikaans school and my school was English. She watched me like a hawk and any hint of any behavior that looked suspect to her was punished. My father could see what it was doing to me not to see my friend, and it worried him that I was taking it so badly so he suspected that she was right and supported her. Gradually, over the next year or so, the pain settled down into a dull ache, but I was somehow different. I was no longer the carefree boy of my ninth birthday. I became driven to perform and excel at everything in an effort to please my parents, and my temper would flare up at every sign of resistance and provocation. When my boyish frame started to fill into the athletic man that I was to become, I excelled at sports, particularly judo and rugby, because they allowed me to channel the anger at the sense of loss that was never far away, never more than a hair's breadth below the surface. I got up out of bed and lurched to the bathroom to empty my bladder and drink some water. Bennie's face somehow hovered in my vision, and merged with the sublime, smiling visage of the beautiful Ollie. I knew that I wanted Ollie/Bennie, to make me feel alive again, the way I did when Bennie and I played blithely in our backyard, before that awful moment when my innocent heart was forever ripped out of my chest and my friend disappeared forever. I looked at my brown eyes in the Motel mirror and saw that my cheeks were tear-stained. In my mind's eye I could vaguely see the boy that I had been when my mother had, doing only what she thought best for me, robbed me of my soul-mate. I splashed my face with cold water, stumbled back to the ¾ bed, and flung myself down on my back, looking at the ceiling fan that was aimlessly turning above me, merely muddling the dry Free State air, but bringing no relief. Can a heart have pins and needles, like a foot that had gone to sleep and had the blood flow restored to it? I welcomed the heart-felt pain as the memory of Bennie flooded my being. I had forgotten. But now I remembered. My hand made its way downwards, to bring some temporary relief to a part of me, but not the heart of me, that still so desperately missed my little friend.