Absolute Convergence
Chapter Seventeen
By John Yager

This is the seventeenth chapter of an ongoing series. I sincerely appreciate all the correspondence this story has prompted.

Thank you for your encouragement, suggestions and criticism. This is the most serious series I have attempted and many readers have told me it is the most serious and most issue-oriented story they have encountered on NIFTY or any other similar site.

My objective in this series is to address the major issues which have impacted and influenced the lives of gay people in the period between the 1960s and the present time.

This story is written in fictional form. The story is raising many more questions than it is supplying answers and I certainly make no claim to know the answers. It is my hope that by raising the questions I may prompt a more balanced dialog.

Andrew continues to provide much needed proofing and editorial help, for which I am sincerely grateful.

This is a work of fiction and in no way draws on the lives of any specific person or persons.
Any similarity to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental. This is a work of gay erotic fiction. If you should not be reading such material, or if such material is not to your liking, please exit now.

This work is copyrighted © by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written permission of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the terms of their submission agreement but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the written permission of the author.

All the stories I have posted on NIFTY can be found by looking under my name in the NIFTY Prolific Authors lists.

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Rick lay in my arms, his warm body pressed against mine, his right hand, hidden under the sheet, still grasping my now limp cock as he breathed softly and contentedly in his sleep.

I roused myself a little, aware of something, a sound, a movement, I wasn't sure what. Then it came again, a soft knock at the locked door of my room.

"Rob, are you guys sleeping?"

It was dad's voice. I looked at the clock beside my bed and saw it was a little after 5:00 AM.

"Yeah," I said but it came out as a groan. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Yeah, Dad?"

"Can you open the door?"

I slid out of Rick's grasp and sat up on the side of the bed. My boxers were on the floor and I quickly pulled them on. Rick was also naked, but covered by the sheet and I'd just have to hope he didn't move. Dad would certainly question why two guys were sleeping naked together in the same bed.

I cracked the door a little, just enough to see him and let him see me. "Yeah, Dad, is something wrong?"

"Kennedy died. They just announced it on the radio. I figured you guys would want to know."

"Oh God."

"Yeah, it's bad."

"I feel like the country is falling apart."

"I know, son. I wonder if there'll be more riots."

We both stood there silently, thinking our own thoughts. I saw my father look past me into the dark room.

"Is Rick asleep?"

"Yeah. I'm not going to wake him."

"No, no reason to. I guess I shouldn't have wakened you."

"No, Dad, thanks. I wanted to know."

"Okay, son. I guess I'll go back to bed."

"Dad," I called softly as he turned to go, "is it okay if I don't come in to work until after lunch? I'd like to spend the morning with Rick."

"Sure, son. You worked all day yesterday when everyone else was off."

"Mrs. Long worked all day too. Maybe you should give her the day off too."

"I may just close the yard again but if I do I'll have customers lined up and yelling. There's a lot of construction starting right now."

"Well, anyway, I'll expect to come in after lunch unless I hear something to the contrary."

As dad started back down the stairs I slipped down the hall to the bathroom and then returned quietly to my room. I locked the door behind me and crept back to the bed. Rick didn't look as if he'd moved. I sat on the side of the bed and pulled off my boxers, then slid under the sheet, trying not to wake him. He rolled away for a moment, then back again.
I was on my back and Rick snuggled against my side, his head settling on my shoulder, his body amazingly warm as always. His arm found its place across my body and, still sleeping, his right hand gripped my cock. It wasn't long before I was hard again and wishing he was awake so we could do something about it.

I lay there thinking back over the last few hours. Reveling in the time I'd had with Rick. These hours had been a gift, I knew that. If Ted had told us we should not engage in sex again before Rick's wedding, we would have honored his request. I wondered now if he realized that. Perhaps he thought we were bound to end up in bed at least once more before the wedding. Maybe he felt it would be better to encourage Rick to put at least some bit of time between his last time with me and his first time with Deb as her husband. I would never know, I guessed, but it was an interesting question.

When Ted had left on Wednesday night Rick had I had immediately told my folks good night and gone up to my room. If they thought anything about it they made no comment. Maybe they just thought we were both tired. It had been a long and emotional day.

With my brother Ted still up in Oxford, Rick and I had the upstairs to ourselves. My parents' room was not only on the lower floor, but also on the other side of the house. We always made a point of being especially quiet when Rick stayed over but there really was little danger of us being heard.

Our house was old. It had been built by my grandparents in the days before central heating was a common thing in Mississippi. As a result, there was a door to the stairwell from the downstairs hall and another door from the stairwell to the upstairs passage way. With those doors closed we had more or less complete privacy.

Rick had spent many nights with me and he knew his way around. We'd gone silently to my room and stood on opposite sides of my big double bed. Like an old married couple, we had our appointed sides of the bed, Rick on the left, me on the right. He smiled across at me as he began to unbutton his white shirt.

I pulled my polo shirt off over my head while he was still working on the buttons.

"This feels odd," he said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I wasn't sure if we'd be together again."

"I was planning on being with you Friday night."

"I know, but I wasn't sure if you'd want to have sex. I figured you might want to call it off with your wedding the next day."

"I did think about that," Rick said. "It seemed odd to think about being with you for the last time on Friday and then with Deb the very next night as man and wife."

"I really was going to ask you if you wanted to sleep in Ted's room."

"So I could have ended up sleeping up here but in a different room."

"Only if you'd wanted it like that."

"Now instead of sleeping in Ted Ballinger's bed I could end up sleeping on Ted Tucker's couch."

"You're going to do that? Sleep at Ted's Friday night, I mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll just stay at home."

"I couldn't believe Ted said what he did," I said as I loosened my slacks. "I mean, he more or less gave us permission to have sex one more time."

"I think he figured it was the best deal he was likely to get."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in the car, after we'd left Deb at her house, Ted asked me if I thought I'd be able to end my relationship with you and remain faithful to Deb after the wedding. I told him I wasn't sure. I admitted I wished I could marry Deb and continue having sex with you."

"What did he say to that?"

"He said more or less what he said to both of us down in your dad's den later. I guess as the person who has more or less led Deb and me thought our premarital counseling, he is responsible to Dr. Walker. He has to say we are ready to live a faithful married life together. He takes that seriously."

"I gathered."

"He said unless I was able to honestly say I'd give up my relationship with you he couldn't in good conscience tell Walker we were ready for marriage."

"So you promised to be faithful to Deb."

Rick looked across the bed at me for a long time before he answered. I think we both realized that we had to talk out the important points before we got close enough to touch. Closer, able to touch, and we'd never have gotten said what needed to be said. We were both in our underwear and it would have looked like a very odd scene if anyone had been watching us.

"I told him I didn't know if I could promise that or not."

I was dumbstruck. What had Rick been thinking? Did he really think we could continue the way we had for the last eight or nine months? Did he really think he could be Deb's husband and my lover at the same time? Could I handle living like that if that really was what Rick really wanted?

"I think that's why he put a year's time limit on our separation," Rick went on.

"And we agreed to that."

"I know."

"But you're thinking that after a year we'll pick up again?"

"No. I can't say that," Rick said, still looking at me from across the bed. "I can't put any claim on you, Rob. I know that. In a year you may have found someone else."

"By then you may have decided you don't really like sex with another guy."

"I doubt it."

"So where does that leave us?"

"It just leaves us with tonight, Rob. I want it to be a night neither of us will ever forget."

Still standing across the bed from him, I pulled off my boxers and stood naked, separated from him by seven or eight feet and a big bed.

"I feel really sweaty. Let's take a shower."

"I was going to suggest that if you didn't," Rick said as he too pulled off his shorts. We walked naked out into the hall and over to the bathroom.

I turned on the water and adjusted the temperature as Rick found towels. He knew his way around our house as I did and knew just where the biggest, thirstiest towels were kept. I noticed as he laid them on the stool by the shower that he'd taken three.

"The water feels fine," I said and we stepped into the shower together. My folks had finished the upper floor for Ted and me when I was ten and he was twelve. The bathroom was big and the shower was unusually large. I guess dad was thinking ahead and planning for two teenage boys. Oddly, I never showered with my older brother Ted. There was always a kind of embarrassed modesty between us.

Rick picked up the soap and began to lather my shoulders and chest. We traded the soap back and forth, him washing me, me washing him, until we were both covered with rich lather. It was only when the rest of our bodies were covered with suds that we reached to gently wash each other's cock, gently, knowing that it wouldn't take much to put us over the edge. This mutual washing had become a ritual with us when he stayed over at my house. He washed me and I washed him. We both found great pleasure in the other's body.

At that point in his life, Rick was absolutely magnificent. He had a classical physique, the body of an ancient Greek athlete and a face which Baronzino would have painted. There was nothing soft about his appearance. His jaw line was firm and square and his cheek bones were high. His eyes looked at you directly and demanded your response. Only his ripe lips suggested a kind of lush youthfulness. As Joyce often told me they were very kissable lips. She was right. I wondered if Debbie really had any idea of what a magnificent husband she was getting.

When we were fully lathered, I leaned into him, pressing my lips against his. To keep his balance Rick was forced to put his arms around me and our wet bodies moulded together. Rick crooned, making his lips vibrate against mine. His soapy hands began to move over my back, working the rich lather over my shoulders and then down along my spine until they encountered the bulge of my buttocks. His fingers stroked the cleft, running again and again over the pulsing bud of my ass.

Between us, in the tight press of our stomachs, our cocks pulsed with every beat of our hearts.

"I want you in me," Rick moaned as he pulled his lips from mine.

"Not here."

"Hurry then."

I reached up to adjust the nozzle of the shower, quickly rinsing us. Rick reached for the towels and in a flurry of terrycloth we dried each other. Then, wrapped tightly in our damp towels, we hurried along the passage to my room and my big bed. I noticed as we left the bathroom that Rick picked up the third towel he'd taken from the shelf.

In my room, standing again on opposite sides of the bed, we pulled back the covers, draping them over the foot of the bed. Rick spread the dry towel in the center of the bed and quickly moved to lie on it. He reached out for me and pulled me down onto him, my chest pressing firmly against his.

I'd learned over the many months we'd been lovers, that Rick ravelled in the weight of my body on his. The amazing similarity of our bodies in every respect meant that, pound for pound, as well as inch for inch, we mirrored each other like twins. It was only in our facial appearance that we really differed, his more angular, mine a little rounded, a little less mature.

"Yes," he crooned as my full weight pressed down on him and my lips again found his. A little quiver ran through him. I knew the sign. It was that point in our loving when he relinquished himself to me.

Rick was mine now, fully given over to me. I knew at such moments I was in control. I could have hurt him if I'd wanted and he would not have in any way resisted or objected. I never dreamed of hurting him, of course, but later, after we were no longer lovers, I sometimes wondered if he'd wanted it. Was punishment and pain somehow what he craved, what he needed? If so, I think he didn't fully know.

Perhaps the confusion he felt and the guilt which his strict fundamentalist upbringing had imposed on him was always there in the back of his mind whispering to him about how bad he was. Had I somehow failed him by not being bolder, being willing to push us further, being willing to explore some veiled realm I then hardly knew existed?

Rick's strong arms were around me, holding my body to his. He moaned again and his legs came up to encompass me, causing his rear to lift a little off the bed. His movements caused my own body to adjust to our new position and my hard, wet, pulsing cock slipped down from his belly to lodge itself behind his balls.

He moved against me and my cock pulsed, spreading my wetness along the space behind his balls and over the throbbing bud of his ass.

"Oh god, Rob," he moaned when I lifted my lips from his.
I moved a little so I could reach his ass. I milked a little more fluid from my own cock and spread it over him. With a little more to coat my finger tip, I pushed it easily into him.

"Yeah," he moaned again.

A second finger went in with equal ease and a third met little resistance. I twisted my hand, spreading my own goo, mixing it with his. How many times had we done this? Rick had fucked me once, which was interesting. I'd certainly go for it again but he'd never offered. How many times had I fucked him? I'd lost count.

"Now, babe," Rick begged. He was humping my hand and his head was rolling from side to side. I knew it was a sign of frustration.

"Yeah, you're ready."

"You're fucking right I am."

I rose up a little and grasped my cock, aimed it at his gaping hole and shoved it in, one smooth, quick thrust.

"Oh, babe," he moaned again.

I lowered myself onto his chest and kissed him deeply. My cock was about half in and I just left it like that, not moving, letting him begin things when he was ready. Like I said, we had this down to a science.

My tongue slid over his lips and then across his teeth. He opened a little wider to me and his own tongue slid over mine on its way to the roof of my mouth. With my tongue I probed along his lower teeth, finding the little place where one right molar was slightly chipped. I loved knowing him that intimately, knowing the little hidden things of his most secret self.

Would Deb ever know him like I did? There was no way she could. She would never hear the little whimpers he made when the head of my cock made love to his prostate. She'd never hear the sighs from deep in his chest when his own release coincided with my own, blasting my seed deep into him.

I wondered if Rick would ever make those sounds again. Would my own body forget the ways of loving him, would his body learn some new language of love, a language he and Deb would create together? It occurred to me that they might already have such a language and know such paths. I knew they'd made love many times. He'd been with her before he'd been with me. A pang of jealousy struck me for a moment but I let it go. What I had with him was ours, ours alone. The rest was part of another world, another life. I couldn't enter it any more than Deb could enter this special realm which only Rick and I shared.

Rick moaned and began to lift his body to mine, pressing my cock deeper into his hot, yielding ass.

I lifted my mouth from his and a strand of saliva, his, mine, ours, bridged the growing gap between us as I pulled away. When it snapped it slithered down my chin and neck, the lower end of it settling in the cleft between my pectoral muscles. An equal part gathered on Rick's lips, running down into the depression between his lower lip and his chin. A broken bridge, it seemed, one of many.

"Please fuck me," he whispered, "please fuck me hard."

"Sure, babe."

I pulled back until only the head of my cock was in him, then slammed in hard, driving full length into him. I pulled back and then drove in again, conceding no leniency.

"Yeah," Rick moaned.

I rammed into him again and again, suddenly wild with a desire to hurt him as much as he was hurting me. My world was ending and he was the cause. Rick had chosen Debbie over me, a life with her over one with me. Now for the first time I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him pay.

It didn't work, of course. What I meant as punishment, he accepted as the force he craved.
I knew he was coming by the tensing of his body under me. His moans were constant now and his head rolled back and forth from side to side. Then he suddenly froze. His head snapped back and his eyes glazed. His mouth opened wide in an almost silent growl and his cock erupted, shooting his white seed up onto his chest in pools and puddles and dabs. Long strands of the stuff led from his bobbing cock to his nipples. I looked down at him in amazement. I'd never seen him come so hard.

"Oh, Rob," he moaned as his chest rose and fell.

I supported myself on my fully extended arms and waited for him to begin to breathe normally again. It took a while.

"You haven't come," he said when he could speak again.

"No."

I'd pulled out of him by then, my cock still hard and pulsing and wet. I rose up a little more and he suddenly flipped himself over, chest side down, coming up on all fours and pointing his gaping ass at my cock.

"Fuck me again," he said, pushing back, wanting me in him.

I put the head of my still needy cock at the puffy, spread bud of his ass and slowly shoved in. He was loose, looser than he'd ever been when I'd fucked him, but he was hot and wet and very soon was clenching his ass around me and we were both loving it.

"Oh, yeah, Rob," Rick was moaning. "I want to get you off and I think I can come again."

"Show me," I said, egging him on.

I began to fuck him hard again, pounding into him, feeling his own body recoil with the impact of each stroke. I leaned over him, supporting myself with my left hand on the bed as I wrapped my right hand around his middle and stroked his chest and abs. Every muscle of his body was clinched. I ran my hand lower and grasped his cock. It felt like a hot iron rod and it was pulsing with every beat of his heart. As his cock pulsed, his ass contracted and my cock was going like a pile driver and I was gasping for breath.

"Oh, yeah," I heard the long moan and realized it was my own.

I felt my cock swell even more and then explode in him. It was like no climax I'd ever had. I felt as if my body was coming apart.

It was my own moan I'd heard as I came, but Rick was moaning too. I felt his cock do some sort of spasm and then his seed was dripping over my clinched hand and onto the towel he'd spread on the bed.

Well, how's that for thinking ahead, I said for myself. Chalk one up for Rick. At least we wouldn't have stiff and spotted sheets to explain to my mom.

I felt Rick's body give way as he collapsed onto the bed. My own followed. I lay on him, the two of us a sort of wilted heap, as we gasped for breath and slowly came down from the heights.

Rick moved a little and I rolled off him, thinking he needed to breathe and my weight was making it difficult. As I rolled to my left I also rolled onto my back. I was looking up at the ceiling of my room. The sun had set and the sky was getting dark. The light from a street lamp was angling in, filtered through tree limbs and leaves, making a dancing pattern above us.

Rick rolled over, supporting himself on his extended arms. His breathing had returned to normal and he was looking down at me with a sort of sad expression on his handsome face. He lowered himself to me, bringing his lips to mine. We kissed softly, slowly, the passion spent and nothing left but our love.
 
 

"Kennedy died, didn't he?" Rick whispered as he rolled off me and looked into my eyes. The early morning light had replaced the patterns of shadows on the ceiling over us. I wondered how long we'd slept, but knew it wasn't enough. My body cried out for more rest.

"Yeah."

"I think I knew it in a dream."

"Maybe you heard my dad and me talking."

"Your dad was up here?"

"Yeah, about five o'clock. He and I were just whispering and I thought you were asleep."

"He was here in your room with us both naked in the same bed?"

"Yeah, and you with the sheets off to boot."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No, he was sitting here on the side of the bed for about half an hour. He said you have a nice dick."

With that he pulled the pillow from under his head and began to pound me with it.

"You are one bad liar," he growled.

"Yeah, I know. I can never keep a straight face."

"But your dad did come up to tell us, right?"

"Yeah, but I managed to pull on my shorts and we just stood at the door and talked. He couldn't see anything in the dark room. Even if he had, you were covered."

"So he really didn't say I had a nice dick?"

"No, but if he'd seen it I'm sure he would."

He hit me one more time with the pillow and then bounded from the bed before I could retaliate. "We stink," he said. "Let's hit the shower."

We crawled out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom. We were each wrapped in the towels we'd taken to my room the night before and Rick also carried the soiled one he'd placed under us on the bed. We again showered together, lathering our bodies under the warm spray.
When we were covered with suds and our bodies aroused, Rick drew me into a warm, slick embrace. He put his cheek on my shoulder and we stood there for a long time, revelling in each other's body, just wanting to hold and be held.

Eventually I broke our embrace and backed up a bit, but still holding Rick.

"We'd better get out before we turn into a pair of prunes," I said.

"Yeah."

We were both feeling subdued. Words weren't easy and it was as if neither of us knew what came next. The sorrow of our eminent parting was intertwined with the shock of Robert Kennedy's death.

Out and dry, we just stood there naked, looking at each other.

"We still have time to go back to bed," Rick said. "I mean, we have until ten o'clock."

"Yeah," I managed to say but there was a lump in my throat. The finality of our separation was hanging over us like a sullen cloud.

Back in my room we again stood on our appointed sides of the bed.

"Could we just lie together?" Rick asked. "I mean, I'd like to at least hug."

I nodded and we both got into bed. It was strange, lying next to Rick like that. We were naked, somewhat aroused, and only barely touching.

It was Rick who broke the tension.

"Fuck it," he said and rolled over against me.

Before either of us had a chance to say anything more our lips met and we were lost in a deep, probing kiss. We'd not shaved and I felt the prickle of Rick's stubble against my cheek. Both of us still had light beards but we were beginning to shave every day and when we didn't, it was obvious to the touch, if not so visible. The color of our beards was as light as our hair and not that apparent unless we'd gone without shaving for two or three days. Somehow the roughness of Rick's stubble was very arousing. I think I was having the same effect on him.

As our kisses continued, I spread my legs and Rick rolled over onto me. His body was pressed against mine. Our pulsing cocks were caught between us, in the dark warmth between his belly and mine.

Rick's mouth was travelling now, over my right cheek as far as my ear, his tongue checking in, prodding deep into the channel, leaving it wet and sloppy. He withdrew his mouth a little and then began to suck air into his lungs. I shivered as the air rushed over my ear, making detours deep into it and then back out again, the wetness evaporating and leaving me trembling with the cold.

When I moaned his lips were right there again, covering my mouth and sucking the sound out of me. He was supporting his upper body on his elbows, which were stationed just below my armpits. His more or less free hands were twining into my hair, pulling it a little, twisting and releasing it as I continued to moan.

With his mouth pressed tightly over mine, I had to draw air in through my mouth. He didn't let me keep it long before he sucked it out of me again. I was shaking now, beyond trembling, shaking with adrenaline and lust.

I forced my mouth from his, turning my head sharply to the left, then to the right again before he could recapture my lips again and stop speech.

"Fuck me," I managed to say before he moved his hands to capture my face and hold it still.

"I can't," he whispered and then silenced me again with his mouth on mine before I could ask the next question. He'd fucked me once. Would he not do it again. Would he never do it again?

Could he not fuck me because that's what he did with Deb? Could he not fuck me because in forty-eight hours he was getting married, because in forty-eight hours he'd give up guys, give up me, and be a husband and future father, the happy resident of the married student apartments on the MSU campus?

I bucked under him, trying to throw his weight off me, rid my body of his. He had me completely under his control. If I'd been bound and gagged he would not have had greater power over me. I bucked again and cursed him, my words silenced by his mouth. I felt my own hot tears running down from my eyes, over my cheeks, dripping onto the bed.

Rick's fingers traced my tears, stroking my ears and cheeks. His body pressed into mine, overwhelming me with his physical weight and the greater weight of his presence.

My muffled curses turned to sobs. I was shaking now. My whole body seemed to be caught in some violent seizure, some overwhelming catharsis. I gasped for air and it was his air I pulled into my lungs. It was his taste, the taste of him in my mouth. It was his scent which filled my nose.

My body was betraying me. I wanted to rid myself of him but instead, I was pressing myself up against him, forcing my chest, my stomach, my cock, up in powerful thrusts, as if I was trying to merge with him, become one being with him. We were both groaning now and I felt the subtle change in Rick's pressure on me. He was no longer constraining me, but instead driving his body against mine.

If Rick would not fuck me, if he would not put his cock in me, driving into me as I'd driven myself into him, I was going to propel us over the sexual edge by any means possible. My cock and Rick's moved together between our bodies, in the increasingly damp space between my belly and his.

My arms came around him, holding him to me, my legs twined over his.

We were humping now, me up against him, he with driving force, down against me. We were both groaning now, our passions savage and ungovernable, reduced to one overwhelming insistence on release.

Rick stiffened in my arms and I felt the hot flood of his seed pour out between us, making our bellies even hotter, even wetter. My own cock was sliding freely now in the slick wetness.
I erupted. My body was still shaking. It was wonderful and excruciating all at the same time. I felt is if I'd died a little.

We showered again, this time with a boding sense of finality. We had made love for the last time. We were showering again, very likely for the last time. We touched each other but it was without mirth, without passion.

I washed Rick as I would have washed a small child or a sick friend, with care and tenderness, but the passion was gone. We had poured out ourselves to the end and there was nothing left.

Was this what Ted had counted on?

When we'd dried and dressed, we slipped downstairs to find my mother making little sandwiches again.

"It's late," she said, as we sat down opposite each other at the kitchen table. "I suppose you two talked `till Lord knows when."

We smiled at her but made no audible response.

"Well, I made breakfast for you but it's nearer time for lunch," she said when we remained silent.

"Breakfast is fine, Mrs. Ballinger," Rick said for both of us.

When we'd eaten I drove him home. We covered the few blocks in silence and parted in silence.

Rick came around and stood at the door of my mother's car, his hand on the sill of the open window. I put my hand over his and the moments passed. Then he removed his hand from under mine. There was nothing more to say.

To be continued.