Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:59:14 -0400
From: niftyreadersclub@aol.com
Subject: The Journey - Part One

Once I again, I am submitting the beginning of a new story between a father
and a son.  After submitting my stories `My Son's Request' and `Being Dad's
Hands,' I got so much good response, and inquiries to write more, that I
have carved out the following story.  As before, not all of my chapters
will be sexual, as I write in a manner of building up to key moments
between characters.  After reading this submission, for those of you that
remember me, I hope that you'll look forward to following chapters much the
same way you did with my other story.  If you have any comments, I can be
emailed at niftyreadersclub@aol.com.

PART ONE

My wife didn't want me to do it, but as time went by, and not telling her
my personal concerns, I couldn't help but be premature in having a talk
with my son about sexuality.  Realistically, I wasn't sure if I was ever
going to have a conversation about sex with any of my four kids.  I didn't
have to, or haven't, with my oldest son Corbin, who's sixteen, but Zavid
was different.  At the age of fourteen, he was a typical teenager yet
withdrawn in subtle ways.  We noticed it when he was twelve, and had many
hushed conversations that there were signs of his possibly being
homosexual.  The wife, Gena, didn't want to believe it, and ignored its
very possibility.  I didn't want to believe it either.  She wouldn't ignore
it, however, if I told her exactly what I was seeing from my perspective.
I couldn't voice anything without facts.

For over a year now, I was feeling this growing sensation that I was being
watched, studied, spied on even, and that Zavid spent more time around me
then any of my other kids.  The latter was true, in an unusual way.  Zavid
seemed to want to be around me during times of showering, changing, wearing
little clothing.  During these times, I always made sure I was completely
alone when I did change or was showering.  It was an odd sensation that
brewed in my thoughts with nervousness, and something told me not to say a
word to Gena because in all honesty I would have no idea how to word my
suspicions.  It was perplexing to me, and a true sign that I most likely
had a gay child, and he seemed to have a fascination with me, David, his
father.  What was more alarming to me was that I knew nothing about
homosexuals, especially teenagers who might be exploring that route, that
possibility.

I purchased a few books regarding parents with gay children.  There was no
indication in my readings that made mentions that a young boy had...sexual
thoughts about his own father, at least not the ones I read.  They focused
on dealing with and accepting a gay child.  So I decided to make a motion
to find out where my son's mind was, even though Gena argued with me to
wait and let him tell us in his own time and way.  But that feeling I had,
it wouldn't go away.  The feeling didn't anger me, or sicken me, or
distance me.  For my own son's sake, it was more of a curious feeling than
anything else.  What literally sparked me to move forward with talking to
him was one Sunday afternoon a couple weeks past.  I learned something that
I never knew was possible.

We live in a rambling, four bedroom, two story home in the suburbs.  A
wraparound porch circled the house.  There a huge, thick branched oak tree
on the east side of the yard, almost but not quite fully in the back yard.
Years ago, when my oldest son turned five, I decided that our property
needed fencing, so up went a six foot high cherry wood fence, and as an
afterthought, looking at that tree and the way it was proportioned, I had
the carpenters build a tree house, complete with window spaces and draw
shutters, for the kids.  It was a family success.  These days, the only one
who really made use of it was Zavid.  My two younger daughters weren't tree
climbers.

So on this particular Sunday, I went into the bathroom, stripped off my
clothes and was about to take a shower.  It was a beautiful day.  I glanced
out the window to the back yard, and it caught my attention immediately,
something that never had before.  To my left, I could see the tree house,
just a little higher than the second story bathroom, and I saw Zavid in the
window on that side of it.  He saw me see him, and he backed into the
darkness of the tree house.  The inside of the bathroom could be viewed
from it.  The funny thing was, moments earlier, I announced downstairs that
I was going to run up and shower, and he was in the family room at that
moment.  Suddenly, he was there, in his little hide-away.  It was that
moment that I decided to do what I was about to do.  Abandoning the thought
of a shower, I redressed and headed to the tree house.

He was there, sitting in the middle, on a cushion.  Just sitting there,
doing nothing.  I climbed in and knelt across from him, looking at him with
directness.  It took him a few moments, but he finally looked in my eyes.
I nodded, looked at the tree house window he had been at.  "I didn't know
that the upstairs bathroom could be seen from here."  At that, I moved over
to the window and looked in that direction.  There really weren't a lot of
the bathroom innards to see, but there was enough.  One could definitely
see a quarter of the bathtub/shower, its faucets.  Zavid didn't remark.  I
moved back into the kneeling position before him.

"Zavid, were you trying to see me in there?"  I kept my voice as evenly
toned as I could.  He didn't answer, and looked down at the floor of the
tree house.  "Zavid?"  He shook his head then.  I sat down and crossed my
legs, exactly the way he was seated.  "I want to talk to you about
something."

Whatever way he took it, I saw nervousness overwhelm him.  He cowered just
slightly.  I had no idea what to do next, but continued what I started.  I
was afraid, to say the least, of what thought, I wasn't aware.  As a
father, I brought my children into this world to be there for them no
matter what.  I was naïve to everything until I taught myself how to deal
with things, but I wasn't afraid to learn.  In the books I read, there was
always some struggle, some battle, some blame, some denial to deal with and
confront.  Some of those things rushed through my mind now.  `What was I
doing?'  I asked myself.  I found myself staring at his down turned face.

Shaking myself out of the invading, negative thoughts, I shook myself and
asked him, "Son, do you like boys?"  Quickly, my breath was held as I
waited for a response or answer, but didn't need to wait long at all.  He
bolted up, and I mirrored his movement with my own.  "Wait!"  I stammered,
grabbing him by the arms and holding him in position so he couldn't back
away.  "Wait."  I said with more calm, more reserve.  "Just wait."

Our breathing took moments to be considered back to normal, even though my
son's eyes had filled with tears.  Zavid still wouldn't, or couldn't, look
at me.  I let go of my grip and hugged him to me.  It was then that I
realized...he hadn't responded at all verbally, not negatively or
positively.  I was in a new realm of fatherhood.  Our relationship depended
heavily on what could possibly happen next.  His non responsiveness
confirmed in me that I had a homosexual child, and I had no idea now what
to do about it.  I kept him hugged to me in this silence as his body
shivered against mine.

Finally, I lessened my hold on him, and he backed up, but didn't try to go
anywhere.  He was terrified.  My son stood before me, terrified of me for
the first time in his life.  I solidified my own thoughts and concluded
what I would do.  The only thing I could do.  I knelt down on one knee
before him, took his chin in my hand and made him look at me.  "Zavid, I'm
going to let this go for now.  I'm going to leave you alone.  But know
this..." I used my free hand to touch his cheek, "I want us to talk about
this.  So when you're ready, please reach out to me."  Yet through his
tears, his eyes were glazed like glass.

Before I departed, I drew him to me into a strong hug, a quick movement and
release, then backed up, climbed down the ladder and out of his view.  I
wanted badly to see his private reaction, but knew I couldn't.  I found
myself shaking as I re-entered the house.  Everything else was normal
around me but what had just happened.  I made no mention of it to Gena.

Days came and went with polite silence between my son and I, which drove me
crazy.  In those following days, Zavid seemed to stay as far away from me
as he possibly could, acted like a typical teenager, but had no reaction to
me.  The feeling I had of being watched and secretly spied on was gone.  I
started to believe that I had truly made a mistake.

After a while, I thought if I didn't think about it, something would
happen, but almost a month later it was eating my insides.  I felt horrible
that, even though I thought I was trying to be a father and learn, I did
something terribly wrong, something that I had no right to do.  I invaded
Zavid's space and he wasn't prepared for it.  And all I wanted to do was be
helpful as well as gain knowledge.  The frustration was an anxiety that
wouldn't vanish.  The only time this anxiety lessened was when I was at
work.

Then one day after work, I was downtown, headed toward the parking lot,
when I saw the newspaper holders at the corner.  I thought to grab the
daily paper, moving right to it.  I put in fifty cents, and as I took the
paper out, I looked around me at the other types of newspapers.  There were
several.  Curiously, I glanced at each.  One caught my eye that I know I'd
never seen before.  It was probably there for a long time to the public,
and free.  I took one out and knew right away that it was a gay
publication.  It halted me, stopped me cold.

Numbly, my fingers opened it up.  I slowly flipped through the pages, going
past contents I didn't want to know about, but it contained intelligent,
poignant information as well as things I didn't need or want to know or
see.  I braced myself to do this, because something struck me hard to pay
attention to this.  I didn't know what I would hope to find.  It wasn't my
world.  Toward the back of the newspaper I came across a listing of places,
gay bars, bath houses; places of community.  They all had addresses.  One
entire page expressed a particular bar called the Roundup, and the address
was just a few blocks from the corner I was standing on.

My legs took on a will of their own as my mind tried to catch up.  When it
did, it didn't just keep up; it flew ahead of my legs, wanting to get there
faster than I could possibly do.  And once at the location, looking around,
it was...odd.  The building looked bare, no markings, no huge sign
displaying what was inside.  At the entrance, there was a simple, small
sign that read `Roundup.'

I timidly stepped inside.  There was low dance music playing in an oblong
room with a huge oval bar.  It was late afternoon, and there were only a
handful of people inside.  Part of me wanted to run, but not the biggest
part of me.  Something invisible brought me here out of the blue.  Putting
one foot in front of the other, I moved until I found a seat at the bar
that wasn't near anyone else.  The bartender came up to me quickly.  "What
can I get ya?"

I found myself surprised.  In a gay bar, this bartender had to obviously be
gay, but there was no sign of it.  In my naïve state, I would never have
thought this man to be gay.  "Ah, a long island tea, please." I answered.
He winked and moved to do his duty.

Sitting there, sipping a very powerful alcoholic beverage I hadn't had in
quite a while, I just looked around.  There were more men in the bar then I
had first thought, and I felt eyes on me.  At 44, I was still an attractive
man, without the arrogance of being attractive that I once had many years
ago.  Marriage and fatherhood had humbled me of any arrogance I may have
learned from school years and popularity.  I ignored any interest any of
these people had in me by not meeting their eyes.  I asked myself why I was
here.  The bartender walked by, and I looked at him sideways.  Considering
the situation I was in, I grabbed his attention by saying, "Hey."

He turned and walked up to me with a smile.  Although I had no gray hair
yet, I was sure he was around my age even though his hair and goatee had
slivers of silver in them.  "What's up?"  He asked.

I had no idea where I was going with this on a surface level, but
subconsciously I did.  "Can I ask you a personal question?"  I asked
nervously.  He noticed my nervousness, but nodded, so I dove in.  "How
young were you when you knew you liked guys?"

He smiled, and his eyes appeared to go back in time.  "I was a boy," he
said simply, his eyes still far off.  I must have stared at him for several
seconds before I saw him come back to the present.  "Why do you ask?"  He
quarried.  "Are you just now feeling that for yourself?"

That surprised me.  His directness wasn't harmful or out of place.
Stammering, I said, "No.  No, not at all."  And it was the truth.  I am not
gay.  I am not even bisexual.  Something held me back from answering his
question more elaborately.  Instead I asked, "I was just wondering what
your thoughts were back then."

The bartender grew curious.  He glanced about the bar to see if anyone was
waiting for something, and there wasn't.  He leaned toward me, propping his
elbows on the bar top.  In a past tense state, he told me, "I remember
always wanting to be around a guy who is naked, seeing his body, wondering
what it's like to see a grown up guy and touch him.  Those kind of
thoughts."  He shrugged his shoulders with the memory.

I took this in, then asked, "Did you ever think of seeing your dad naked?"

His reaction I didn't expect.  "God, no!"  His body shuddered, and I felt
some relief for some reason, until he said, "My dad wasn't attractive at
all..." My mind fell back into itself at that statement and I pretty much
heard nothing else he said until surrounding noises brought me out of my
own thoughts.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly.  "I lost my attention."

He smiled.  With a look that told me he surpassed that I heard very little
of what he lead on to say, he inquired, "Why do you ask?  I mean about the
dad thing?"  I felt him looking at me closely, not like sexually, but
closely like he was trying to determine my age like I did him moments
before.

"I was just curious."  At that, I stared at my beverage.

"Well," the bartender said, and my mind was present for this, "I may not
have had a great looking dad, but I had an uncle I had the hots for.  I've
been around and talked to many guys to know that a lot of us looked at our
dads or uncles like heroes.  Like nothing else could be greater.  And I'll
tell you this," he leaned toward me and in a lower tone said, "a lot of us
look at our dads like their first crush, those of us that had those kinds
of great looking dads.  Fantasy, of course, but none the less true."

Staring at him, I didn't know what to say.  "Thanks," was all I could
muster.  He nodded with a grin a went back to whatever it was he was going
to do.  After sitting there a few moments longer, I finally left, having
barely touched my beverage.

Every time I used the upstairs shower, I now glanced out the window toward
the tree house, and drew the blinds.  Yet it happened again, on this day.
Zavid was at the tree house window.  We saw each other, he disappeared, and
I immediately went out there, after weeks of barely talking to one another.
I caught him coming half way down the ladder, put a firm hand on his back
and said, "Nope.  Back up.  Go on.  Get back up."  I followed behind him
until we were in the privacy of the enclosed space.

The height of the inside of the tree house was barely enough for me to
stand to my full height of 5 foot eleven, so I sat down and motioned for my
son to sit before me.  He did so, but with fear, fear of his own father.
Perhaps I was in a frantic frame of mind.  "Zavid," I started, "listen, I
don't know what to do here.  Look at me.  Son, do you watch me?  I'd like
to know.  I need to know something so that I can figure out what to do."

He didn't respond, or shed a tear, but he trembled.  I was never the
hugging type of guy, not really to anyone, including my family, so I
remained my usual proximity to him that I normally would.  Then he said, "I
don't feel liking talking, dad."  He meant to stand up but I grabbed his
shoulders and kept him down.  "Please dad!"  The way he said that put fear
in me.  I let him go and cupped my face with my hands, listening to him
leave the tree house.  `What am I doing?' I asked myself.  `What is going
on here?  Am I losing my mind?'

There was only one thing that snapped into my mind that I could think of to
do...



Part Two To Follow Soon...