Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:53:47 EST From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com Subject: "My School is Now A Wal-Mart" MY SCHOOL IS NOW A WAL-MART By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSROGUEMOON.COM When you move away from home for a few years, you can forget that there are changes that go on in any town however small and remote it may be. My home town of Annjune (named after the two daughters of a railroad executive of the company that had built the railroad and the train station that the town grew up around; it was that kind of Midwest town) held only about 10,000 people and at that it was the largest town in the county. Growing up in it, the changes hit me a little at a time, and I barely noticed them. Then I went away to college and then found a job and eight years passed before I made it back for a visit. That was long enough for the changes to really reach up and smack me in the face! The old Y-shaped intersection just outside of town was now a cloverleaf intersection with raised lanes and all that. They had turned an old dirt road into the fourth road to form a truck bypass of the town, so that the big rigs didn't have to drag down main street. The road into Annjune from there was a string of fast-food joints and strip-malls. The houses that had once lined this street were a memory, the small stores were nearly all gone as well (a few lone buildings of battered concrete and brick struggled on among their newer, steel-girded replacements), the school...the school had been relocated to a newer, bigger campus on the east side of town and the place that I had attended from first grade until graduation, where I had played and learned, formed friendships and enemies, and kissed my first boy (I knew I was gay early on) when I was fourteen, was gone, and in its place was a huge ugly brown building holding the Wal-Mart with a small string of businesses lining the other two sides of its parking lot. Well, things would look better when I got home. I pulled up to the house and goggled. The brick facade that had run around the bottom half of the house since we'd moved into it when I was eight was gone. The entire thing was now surrounded in a white aluminum siding that pretended to be wood but wasn't. Mom came out to see me and her hair was now almost entirely white. It had been brown with a few white hairs when I had moved away. Inside was no better. Mom had always had a couch and two armchairs of flowered cloth in the living room. Now, she had some pure white monstrosities in a living room that. "What happened to my room?" I asked when I saw the place. "Don't worry, we have a blow-up bed for you to sleep on." Mom said soothingly. "And you can hang your clothes in our bedroom while you're here...." "Where's my old room?" I asked. Gone, was the answer, but I was going to make her say it. "We wanted to expand the living room." Mom explained. "We didn't need four bedrooms now all you kids are grown up and gone. So we kept two and expanded the living room by tearing down the wall and made Mark's old room into a sewing room for me. We kept Sylvia's room because she comes visit us about once a month, so it's our guest room now. She's coming and so will Mark, so he'll sleep on an airbed in his old room and we'll put your airbed in here right where you old room used to be. It'll be just like old times." Yeah, right! Well, it wasn't, and the holiday just proved it even more. Mark had put on over forty pounds and lost half of the hair on his head, he had that long fringe around the sides and I just thanked God he hadn't done a comb-over on it. Sylvia was a pudgy matron in her forties. Her husband was a beer-guzzling slob who spent the day keeping Dad company in front of the television set (Dad had turned frail and weak, a bout with cancer and chemotherapy had made him a wisp of his former self...I knew that but seeing it is different, it really is!) and Mark's wife was a trashy foul-mouthed creep and their children...I barely bothered trying to keep track. Call it a half-dozen rug-rats and three sullen teenagers and you have it close enough. To cap it off, Mom didn't even cook the main holiday meal! She had it catered for us! Catered! I guess she was getting old, but still...Ewwww! I gagged on the bland, dry turkey and the bland, overly-smooth mashed potatoes they made from instant, and the bland, not-sweet-enough pumpkin pie, and got through the holiday after that with very poor grace. To make it worse, Mom and Sylvia and that bitch Lisa (Mark's wife) all asked me several times each if I was seeing anyone. I guess I should have come out to them, but it didn't seem to matter given I wasn't living there anymore. I had THAT rubbed in my face during the three days I was there. I got out of there on the 26th as early as I possibly could, and was well on my way home. Stopped at a bar after I covered two hundred miles and found myself weeping into my second beer. The bartender thought I was drunk and wouldn't give me a third one and since I wasn't drunk, I got back into my car and drove non-stop. The more miles I could put between the travesty that had been my childhood home and the ugly consumer-driven beast that had once been a charming small town, the better off I'd be! Jeff was waiting for me when I got home though by then it was nearly ten o'clock at night. I'd be dead the next day but I had taken an extra day out of the office for the holiday anyhow, I could sleep in and recover. "Hey, babe." he said when I opened the door. "How was your visit with your family?" His gentle strands of blond hair strayed across his forehead like they always did, begging me to brush them back and kiss the bare forehead spot that created. His smile was the one I knew so well, a small arc of white showing behind lips that barely parted (he didn't grimace, he grinned), the blue eyes that charmed my very soul, the body that I kissed so often and which loved me so much. I saw all that and I teared up again, and I put out my arms and I said, "Oh, Jeff!" It's so good having a lover, a real lover, not a guy who you screw but don't share with. Jeff knew that I needed consoling, and he didn't know why but he didn't ask, he just came over and took me and let me blubber (just a little) on his shoulder while he patted my back comfortingly. "What's wrong, babe?" he asked me when I was good and done with my self-pity. "Was something wrong back home? Are your Mom and Dad all right?" "My room is gone and my house looks like a trailer house and the holiday meal was bought at a cheap-ass restaurant and my relatives have all turned into trailer trash and my school is now a Wal-Mart!" I slobbered on his shoulder. "I don't have a home anymore! It's all gone, all of it, and I just want to forget I ever saw any of it." "Oh." Jeff said. "I'm so sorry to hear that, babe. It's tough when you go home and it's all different." And that's why I love Jeff. He didn't try to say anything like, "Hey, what did you expect, it's been eight years! Did you expect them to put everything in bubble-wrap for you?" All I got was what I needed, sympathy. "Just all gone." I blubbered. "All of it, nothing left! Mom didn't even cook for us, it was all take-out and catered-in, the whole holiday! Everything came out of a plastic bag or a styrofoam holder." "She's getting old." Jeff commiserated. "She couldn't do all she used to do. You got to see her and visit with her and all." "All she talked about was what she was doing these days and how she and Dad were going to travel around." I said. "Not a single question about me, it was all about her and my sister and brother and their kids, like I didn't matter." "Ouch." Jeff said. "She didn't mean to do that, she probably wanted to catch you up on what was going on with everyone." "So why didn't she even ask me what I was doing?" "I don't know." Jeff said and rocked me. "It was the worst Christmas I ever had." I said. "My last Christmas with the family, because I am never going back there again!" "It's okay, baby, it's okay." Jeff said. "We still have our Christmas to get to. The one we postponed for when you got back, remember?" "Oh." I said. "Yeah." I said. "Did you open my present to you?" Jeff smiled. "I was waiting for you to get home. And I got my present to give to you, too." "Sounds good." "Want some egg-nog to drink while we open them?" "Sounds better." I agreed. "You get settled in and I'll go heat the egg-nog." Jeff said. "Warm egg-nog will help you and me get to sleep tonight. There's work again in the morning for you and me, remember?" "I know." I said. "Okay, warm egg-nog it is. With rum?" "Always." Jeff assured me. I put my bag in our bedroom, dumping the dirty clothes into our hamper and placing the gifts I had received on the dresser. Another point of pain; not a one of them showed the slightest knowledge of who I was. A CD of music I hated, a DVD movie, ditto, and a box of sugar-free candy. That last one still had me puzzled, it was from Mom. Had she switched gifts? She didn't appear to have; she saw me open it and smiled at me. I wasn't close to being either fat or diabetic. Back to the living room. Jeff had the tree all set up and going; he had returned from his parents' home early this morning; he only traveled about fifty miles to get to them and he visited them every few weeks. Bet he didn't get the future shock that I had just gone through. The tree trimmings were a bit skimpy. We ought to do some shopping tomorrow and try to pick up some decorations for next year, do the tree up right. Still, it looked pretty nice. Jeff had insisted on a live tree, and the smell of fir tree permeated the room. The lights went down lower, Jeff turning the dimmer switch. "Set the mood, eh?" He said. "Yeah." I said, taking my egg-nog and sipping it. Jeff made some really nice egg-nog, I thought, none of the shit from a milk-carton. Nice. Really nice. "Here's yours." Jeff said, handing me his gift. "No." I said. "You go first. I want to watch you open it." "Okay." Jeff smiled that wonderfully sweet smile. It's like he's a little boy again, smiling and all innocence and delight. "I've been staring at this thing all day long, wondering what the world it could be." "That's why I wrapped it up like I did." I said, smiling. Jeff got the wrapping open and he said, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" He held up the sweater, the one in the store that had been so expensive. It had cost me over two hundred dollars, and it was worth it because Jeff had loved it. Jeff held it in front of himself and he said, "Oh, God, baby, I love it, I love it! Thank you so much! I'm going to wear it to work tomorrow." And he leaned over and kissed me and the sweetness of the eggnog was on his lips. "I can't believe you bought this for me!" he said. "It was so expensive, can you afford this?" "Just barely." I admitted. "But I don't care and besides, you'll look good in it." That got me another kiss and I said, "Now for my present." "Yeah." Jeff snuggled under my arm, that hindered my opening it and he helped me do it, just tearing the wrapping. I got it out and... "Oh, babe!" A beautiful silver-washed pen desk set. The face of it was also silver and it held my name and title at the office. I had a name block and a pen set for my desk already, but this...God, it was beautiful! Elegant, striking, sleek and dignified, all at once! "It's beautiful, honey." I said and I kissed Jeff. "Merry Christmas, babe." Jeff kissed me, but now he wrapped an arm and a leg around me as well. It had been four days since we'd seen each other (I had gone on Friday from work straight to my car to drive to my old home and driven all through the night to get there) and six since we'd last made love. It was time, it was time! I set the pen set onto the side table and I put my arm over his to hug him to me. Jeff was the one who broke off for breath first. He nuzzled my cheek with his own and said, "I've missed you, baby!" He said. "Next Christmas, let's just stay home here, okay?" "Fine by me." I said. "I got nothing to go back to anymore, anyway." Jeff just smiled. "That leaves more for me then, huh?" "You'll never be able to get rid of me." I promised him. "Completely stuck with me, whether you want me or not." "I'll always want you." Jeff said so sincerely I couldn't doubt it. He began to kiss me again, but on the neck and on my shoulder. His fingers fought my shirt buttons open, tasting my skin as he went down. I had an entire day's driving worth of sweat all over my body, I probably didn't smell very good. Jeff didn't mind or didn't notice, he kissed his way down my throat and onto my chest. My t-shirt stopped him, and he rose up and now his hands were pushing my shirt away from my shoulders. I let him do that and as he threw my shirt over onto the floor, I skinned out of my t-shirt. He came back and now he was undoing my belt and my fly. There was the awkward shift as I raised up to let him tug down my pants and briefs, and then he had hold of my pud and he was stuffing it into his mouth with the same energetic eagerness he had shown while opening his present from me. The raw joy of happiness unfettered by anything else, just the pure mood galvanizing his motions as his lips slathered my dong and began to slide up and down, leaving waves of delight wafting up into my body as he did. I slid over to rest my head on the couch's headrest, and that gave Jeff full play, he was milking my pud and me writhing on the couch under him. Jeff and I have been together for over two years now, and this was one of the benefits; he knew me to the very core, and just how to work my buttons to make me squirm in ecstasy that couldn't be matched by any cute stud in a bar; they had lost their ability to entice me, I had Jeff and he had me, holding onto my soul with his loving, caring, gentle spirit and his experienced, resourceful body. My tension and stress from the holiday that had gone on so long and had gone so wrong began to vanish. So Mom didn't cook and my room was gone and my old school's campus was now home to a Wal-Mart (God, that still stung, new school or not!). Vanishing under the delight of my lover's mouth and tongue loving my cock, and the waves washed over me, washing my soul clean, washing the filth from my spirit and my depression from my mind, letting the past return to the past, letting the present and the future again reign supreme. For this was my future and this was my destiny, here with Jeff in this city and this job and the future it would bring us. This was where I truly belonged! That realization was an aphrodisiac more potent than could come in any bottle, I felt my body's passion surge up like the wave of a tsunami, no longer the gentle wafting back and forth, now it raged and it rose up and it overwhelmed me, tossing my mind and its thoughts and recent experiences about like so much trash, smashing it to bits and pulling it out to sea to vanish from all human memory forever! Only the soft sounds of delight escaped my lips to warn Jeff of my joy, but he realized it and his mouth released and he finished me with his hand (we were both playing safe, mostly) and I jerked and spurted my sperm all over his shoulder and even onto his upper back for he rested his head on my thigh and watched as his hand brought me to my fruition. Done, myself panting, Jeff fondled my cock as it slowly waned in potency and strength and he said, "Do you feel better now?" "A hell of a lot better." I assured him. "Only one thing would make me feel totally normal, though." Jeff didn't have to ask what that was, he just smiled, and stood up and said, as he pulled off his own clothes to stand in his majestic unclothed glory before me, "Then get down on the floor." I did, onto my back, because I wanted to look up at him as he fucked me. Jeff plied the lubricant over the condom and then held his prick as he aimed it at my anus. I just sighed as he pushed it into me, and looked up into my lover, into my own angel, my gentle, caring soul-mate, my partner, my very life. Why had I denied him this Christmas together while I chased a dead memory? Never again, I swore as his body moved above me in slow, thoughtful, loving undulations, and I was again put in mind of the oceans waves, and this time I was watching them surge and wane inside his body as he moved above me in almost liquid thrusts that I sometimes thought were magical in nature. When I fucked Jeff, I felt jerky and uncomfortable, my body was clumsy and didn't want to do what I told it to. But with Jeff, his every muscle contributed to his cock's being driven into me and helped to pull it free once again, and I felt not the mounting joy of passion in being fucked by him, for my own desire had been truly spent, now I felt more the confirmation of our union here. We had discussed joining one of those marriage orgies that had happened not long before, but had always talked ourselves out of it, but this time, here and now, was the true union of our two bodies into one. So long as Jeff fucked me, so long as he could do this magical motions of his hips in such delightful, serpentine flexibility, so long as his kind face smiled genially into mine, I had no doubts as to the validity of our union, and a ceremony would have added nothing to it that it didn't already have. One, we two were one. Jeff's joy began to tell upon him as it usually did, and he lowered himself down to rest on his elbows and that let him kiss me and me kiss him, and he now began to move less liquidly, but that was more than made up for by the sounds that slipped from his lips like rose petals to fall upon me, he was reaching his point of rapture, he was making it to his height of delight, he was succeeding in his goal of ecstasy and I had given this to him, and that knowledge was in its way more satisfying than the physical climax I had experienced before, now I had the orgasm of triumph to fill my spirit with a joy more clean than ejaculation could give, now I had given my lover the gift of his joy and he could take it and know that I belonged to him, and him to me, now and for all eternity. As I had, with soft grunts that were anything but animal, Jeff reached his climax and I felt the condom expand as the jizz-filled reservoir at the tip held the hot seminal fluid. And I told myself that it was foolish for us two to keep using such things, if I was true to Jeff (which I was) and if he was true to me (which I was equally sure of), and if we both were free of any virus that would contaminate that love, then we could forego it and let our union be the shield that we held out to the world. Have to talk with friends about that, have to be sure...but it was something I really began to want. Jeff was panting on top of me, his breath in my ears as he rested his chin upon one shoulder, and I stroked his back, feeling my own sperm still there, and I smiled, "We'd better get moving if we're going to get enough sleep to function tomorrow." I said. It's after eleven thirty already." "Yeah." Jeff said. "Next year, let's see if we can take the entire week off." "Worth a shot." I agreed. "We might have to give up our summer vacation time to get it, though." "Hadn't thought of that." Jeff grimaced. "Well, we'll see." "We can count on another three day weekend." I pointed out. "Christmas is on Monday next year." I had set up the holiday office calendar before the holiday, so I knew this without looking. "I'll hit the shower and then you can." Jeff said as he stood up. "I got some sticky on my back to get off." "Yeah." I said. "But it was fun putting it there." Jeff just laughed and padded off into the sole bathroom our apartment boasted. As for me, equally nude, I went over to the closet and fumbled on the top shelf for the box I had kept there. Opened the small container and took out the ornament. A cheap Christmas ball I had decorated with glitter back when I was in grade school (my school which was now a Wal-Mart) and used the glue and glitter to form some bands and in the middle, my own name. I had kept it when I moved out, saying it would go on my own tree when I finished making up my new home. It had been in that box, untouched, for all of the eight years since I'd moved away from home. I went up to our tree, found a good spot, and hung it there. My special Christmas decoration now adorned the Christmas tree in my new home, and this home would never be re-arranged without me, or turned into a Wal-Mart like my old school had been. This home would go with me wherever I went! I felt Jeff's hand on my shoulder as he put his arm around me. I hadn't realized I had spent so long digging out the ornament from my closet and hanging it, he'd already showered! "What's this?" He asked me, seeing the ornament. "My special ornament." I said and explained its history. "I figured it was time to start putting it on our tree here. After all, this is my home." "It's good to have you back home." Jeff said. "I've missed you all weekend long." "Me, too." I agreed, looked at the tree, at our tree. "Yes, it's good to be home at last." THE END Comments, Complaints or Suggestions? Send E-mail to Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM. WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSROGUEMOON.COM