Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 15:05:08 EST From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com Subject: "Journey in Search of Happiness" THE JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM Mom started in the minute I walked in the door. "Micky, did you finish with the barn?" "Yeah, Ma, I cleaned it all out." "Did you fix the north fence?" "I did that this afternoon, Ma, like I said I would." I was trying to get upstairs. "Won't you stay downstairs just tonight so we can talk a little?" "I have to get upstairs, Ma, I promised to meet someone on-line at seven o'clock." I said. "Again? Micky, you don't know this person, can't you stay with your family once in a while? We want to talk with you, too, you know." "We talk all day, Ma." I said. "Please, I have to go." "I'm expecting a call from Martha." she said. "I use the phone, too." "I know, Ma, it's okay, when she calls, she calls. I have to go, it's seven o'clock." and I turned and raced up the stairs. Inside my room, finally! I sat down at my computer, turned it on, and prayed. "Oh, God, please let it start up again, please, please, please!" The computer was second-hand (well, fourth-hand) and on its last legs, but it was all I had to connect me to the outer world! If it died, I didn't know when I'd be able to get another computer. At least months! It hesitated a couple of times, enough to send my heart up into my throat, but finally, the screen cleared and I was up! I quickly started my browser program and headed for the chat room site I had found and the private chat room we had set up there. I had promised Treval802b that I would meet him at this time. It was so great, chatting on-line with Treval802b; it was almost as good as having a boyfriend! Yeah, an on-line romance. Sneer if you want, but I was living with my family on a farm with the nearest neighbor over six miles away, and the town was twenty miles by road (about nine miles as the crow flies, but I wasn't a crow!). I could have gone there, sure, to look for guys, but less than six thousand people lived there (a farming community), and it had no gay bars and no gay hangouts I had ever heard of. Not that I would have known what to do with one if I had known. It must be great, being gay and coming out in a city or a place where you can go out and meet with other gay men easily! I mean, all you have to do is walk down the street and you're there. Me, I would have to travel to the nearest city, over three hundred miles away, and I didn't know where the gay men were there, either. I'd tried now and then to find out. A few subtle questions of cousins who would visit sometimes. They'd react to the mere mention of such things with scorn and I would back away, shut my "closet" tightly, and change the subject in a hurry. Not since I'd gotten the computer, though. From there it was only a few eager moments (darkened and delayed by some nasty websites that threw some trash at me in pop-up windows that crashed my computer--why do they think anyone will join a paysite that does that to you?) and I was in the chat room site and looking to find other gay men to talk to. And they were there. Trouble was, meeting with any of them would have meant something more like going a thousand miles! And that I couldn't shut down the telephone line while using the computer, more than once I'd be in the middle of a good conversation and the telephone would ring and shut me down and I'd have to wait until Mom or Sis finished their telephone call, and then log back in and hope the guy was still there. So far, he never had been. One guy for a time had been promising, he had even offered to send me plane fare from that nearby city I mentioned but I don't think he was serious, as I set up getting to the city, but I never could find the guy again after that. Back to being alone, back to being scared, just me and my hand and my fantasies to keep me warm. The chat room at least gave me fantasies to warm my lonely days. Then I'd met Treval802b about two weeks ago and we'd really hit it off. Like I said, it was almost like having a boyfriend. We'd chat for hours and hours, and if the telephone interrupted us and kicked me off-line, it didn't matter, Treval802b would wait patiently until I got back online and we could take up right where we left off. I got to PrivateChatRoom128 and typed, "Treval802b, are you here? It's me again!" My handle popped up on the screen, no need for me to type that. "Greetings, LonelyBoy1474." came the response, just as quick as always. "Right on time. It's so nice to chat with someone who is as reliable as you. How are you doing tonight?" "Okay." I typed back. "Just wishing you and I could really talk sometime. In person." I held my breath as I typed that. We'd typed enough; I wanted to try to get him to call me. "I would like that, too." "You have to call me." I said. "My parents would ask too many questions about a long distance call." Treval802b did not live close by, though I still didn't know the town. "I cannot call you, as I do not have a telephone." Treval802b said. "No telephone? How are you connected to the Internet, then?" I'd been burned before, this wasn't a good sign! "I have my ways. But I do want to talk to you. As I have told you, I feel you and I have a lot in common. We would be very good for each other." "I think so, too." I typed, and I could feel my face flush. "I live so far away from other people on this farm, just me and my family, I don't even know any other gay men to talk to. If I didn't have the Internet, I think I'd go crazy!" "You don't want to do that." was his response, and I had to smile. "You and I are alike, as I said. I also don't dare tell my family that I want to make love to one of my own sex, and I also don't know anyone else who feels like I do. I know of a place I could go, but the way is very long and dangerous, and so I stay home and hope to find some other way. But it has been many years now, and I feel I must do something very soon or I, too, shall go crazy." "I wish you and I could meet." I typed earnestly. "Just once, to see what it was like. Maybe then I could make myself pack up and move to a big city far from home. But like you say, it would be difficult and dangerous." My parents wanted me to stay on the farm and help them. I would get no help from them if I wanted to leave. I couldn't even get a job on another farm to earn some money of my own, at my age, I was still looking to my dad for spending money and borrowing his pickup was usually out of the question. He sure wouldn't lend it to me long enough to get me all the way to a city, when he didn't want me to go! So I was stuck right here, and didn't see any way at all to get out. Every place I went, my mother and father were right there with me, watching me all the time. Like they knew what I was really looking for (a man!) and were determined not to let me find one! Treval802b understood. "I also have parents who wish to control my actions." he typed back to me. "Maybe, though, we could...." *Ring!* The telephone rang! I was now off-line and had to wait for Mom to finish talking. Which wouldn't be until she felt like it, so when she got on the phone, up to an hour would have gone by. I cursed and fiddled and waited until she was finally done. Then I redialed the Internet. Failed connection. Tried again. Failure. Shit! Third time. Please, oh, please, ohpleasepleaseplease! In! I was in! Thank God! I went to the Chat room hoping Treval802b would still be there. He was. "I'm back!" I typed. "Sorry, but my mother got a call from my aunt and they talked a really long time." "It is all right." Treval802b sent to me. "But I have used this time to think and I have come to a decision. My dear friend, my dearest LonelyBoy1474, if I could come to you, would you agree to meet me? So you and I could have sex together, the first time for both of us, like you said?" "Yes. If I can." I typed at once. God, yes, a chance, yes! Would Treval802b be ugly, fat, odious? Or a fag-basher wanting to beat me up? No, I didn't think so. Treval802b had been vague about many details of his life (no more than I had been, online is online, after all!), but if he wanted to meet me, I'd be willing to set it up. "Where do you want to meet?' "At your farm." Here? Right here? Ye, Gods! I typed, "I don't think that's a good idea." At all, actually! "Maybe if we met nearby?" "Nearby, yes." Treval802b said. "You have a barn on your farm, do you not? That large, red building not far from your home, or the building where you are now, that is your home, yes, the white house?" "Yes." I didn't know what he was meaning but he was right, our barn was red (a lot of them are, after all!) and our house was white (same comment). "If we were to meet just the other side of the barn from your home, would that be all right?" "You know where I live?" I was surprised by that. I hadn't given out our address, and you'd have to work for the Post Office to know where I lived from my address, anyhow! I was a route and a box number, nothing else, unless you took your sign-posts from trees and crossroads and speedometer readings. "Certainly." Treval802b said back. "I traced your signal. I hope you don't mind. I haven't told anyone else where you are." I thought about it. He must have worked through telephone records and thought he had a street address or something. "If you can get here to meet with me, I will meet you behind our barn." I said. "But only if you can get here without letting my parents know." "I can do that." Treval802b said. "It will be interesting to meet with you. If I meet with you and learn about sex, it will help me decide if I want to strike out on my own and find other gay men." "Or maybe you could stay here with me." I typed. "That would not be possible." Treval802b was honest. "If we meet, it will have to be only one time. More than that would be dangerous for both of us. But I could work it out for me to come to you for one time. Do you still want to meet me?" "Yes." I typed again. "One time would be better than the nothing I have now." "It is the same for me. Very well, let us meet behind your barn. Next to that new haystack you put there yesterday, not far from the stone fence. It would work very nice for a place to make love, would it not?" The haystack? He could have guessed about the barn (what farm doesn't have one?), but the haystack next to it, which like he'd said, I'd only set there the day before? It was like he could see our farm! "Are you close by me already?" I typed suspiciously. "No, but I can see you." Treval802b said. "I know that you are a good-looking man, and I think you will like how I look, too. I was most careful when I went searching for someone of my own sex to make love to. You were perfect for me in every way. I hope to be perfect for you when we meet. If you meet me and decide not to have sex, I will be very disappointed, but I will understand." "It's all right." I typed. "But if you've seen me, how soon can you be here?" "How does ten o'clock tonight sound to you?" "Can you be here by ten o'clock?" I returned. "Yes, of course. The trip takes very little time though it is a very great distance. You will understand when we meet. Shall I make the trip? If I do and you are not waiting for me, it will be a very, very long time before I even can try to make the trip again." How's that for pressure? A lot about this wasn't adding up. But I was that lonely, or that desperate. Okay, why not? "Okay." I said. "I'll meet you tonight at ten o'clock behind our barn next to the haystack. But you'd better be there or I'll be very disappointed, myself!" "I promise I will be there." Treval802b said. "Don't be afraid if you see some lights, for they will not harm you in any way. "I'll be there, too." I said. "Unless my mother or father sees me leave the house and stops me." And I'd take the gun along with me just in case some neighbor had figured out I was gay and was going to attack me. On a farm like ours, you shoot a trespasser, you generally get away with it scot-free. "I can prevent that from happening." came the answer. "Only you can decide not to meet me." "Okay." I said. "How will I be sure it is you?" "I will be wearing red overalls." Treval802b said. "What will you wear?" "I'll wear my overalls, too." I said. "They're blue of course." "Don't wear anything under it. I won't." "Okay." I was feeling better, some, about this. I'd have the rifle and could use it if I had to. At worst, some neighbors knew I was gay. Enough reason to get my parents to give me the money to get out of town, don't you think? It'd be so much easier if they'd help me leave, instead of trying to make me stay like they were. To leave without their help, I'd have to hitchhike and depend on hand-outs from strangers on the road and the street. Live hand-to-mouth until I could get a job if I could. "You have two hours until I arrive. Why don't you turn off your computer and pretend to go to bed?" Treval802b suggested. "I will wake you just before I arrive. Have something you can dress in and come to me quickly. We will have very little time, less than one half of an hour, before I have to leave again. Even so long a time is dangerous for me, but I will risk it, to be with you just once." "See you at ten o'clock." I said. "Good-bye." "I travel now to meet you." Treval802b said. "Soon, we will be together. Farewell." And he was out of the private chat room. I began to wonder. Treval802b was a nice guy, or I would never have agreed to meet him. But the stuff he'd said tonight was kind of weird. He lived far away, but could be here in only a few hours? He could keep my parents from seeing me leave the house? He could only stay a half hour, and this would be the only time! He knew our farm like he was looking at it all the time. Just what was I getting myself into? Only one thing made me determined to go through with it and it was a simple reason...what did I have to lose? Treval802b was the closest I'd been to having someone to have sex with, and believe me, he'd have to be more than a little weird to stop me if he showed up! Fiftyish, chubby, tiny-dicked, no problem; I was ready to do it. Maybe then, I could settle down and live the rest of my life on the farm. It seemed to be the only choice I really had. Have a memory instead of a fantasy. Maybe it would be enough. I lay down and I went to sleep. I jolted awake a bit later and looked at the clock. Five minutes until ten. And there were lights outside my window. Lights from overhead. I got into my overalls and grabbed the rifle and went outside. I expected to meet Pa and Ma downstairs with all that going on, but nothing. Decided to see what it was, before I woke them. Went outside. Above my head was a full-fledged, honest-to-God, flying saucer from outer space! It hovered, a light from it hit me, and I raised the rifle, but then the lights went out, mostly, just a few on the saucer itself, and it went over, and landed. Other side of the barn. I went around careful as if I were hunting a wolf that was raiding our henhouse. The saucer was resting just above the stone fence we had there. Above it, not on it, hovering. And below that, was a man. Wearing red coveralls. Jesus Fucking Christ, what was going on here. Those red coveralls.... "Who are you?" I called out. "I am Treval802b." the figure said. My eyes were adjusting to the dim light and I saw now the guy had green skin. Green! "And you are LonelyBoy1474?" I gulped hard. "Yeah, I am. I've been writing to you?" "You have." the figure said. "I am a friend. Please, lower your weapon. I am not here to harm you. I am here to make love to you. For the first time for you, as it is for me. Please, we are alike more than we are different. Don't be afraid of me. I am here to love you." I wet my lips but I set down the rifle on the ground, where I could get it if I needed to. I didn't think it'd do any good here anyway. "You're Treval802b?" I said. "I don't believe this." "Please believe it." Treval802b said. "I am from very far away, as I said. On my world, they are very harsh on those of us who wish to make love to our own sex. I wouldn't dare approach any from my own world. So I searched for information on a world where the inhabitants were similar enough to my own to allow me to make love. I found Earth. I was able to hook into your Internet and find you. I took so many risks talking to you as long as I did. Please, trust me. I can only stay for less than one-half hour's time, or they will come looking for me. If my ship remains off their system longer than that, they will search for me." I walked over to him. No hair on his head, and his ears were pointed like Mr. Spock's. "You look kind of funny." I said. "I guess I look funny to you, too." "You look fine to me, though you are of another species than my own." Treval802b said. "But I checked everything most carefully. We will have no problems at all in making love. Our bodies are compatible, our chemistries are non-toxic to each other, our methods of lovemaking are virtually identical. Life's evolution travels on parallel paths and the combinations are not infinite. We are able to make love to each other just as if I were one of your own species. The only difference is in how we look to each other. You look pleasing to me. How do I look to you? Am I pleasing enough for you and I to make love?" He held his arms. He even had five fingers on each hand. Yes, except for the skin color and the ears, we looked a hell of a lot alike. I managed a smile. "Yes, you look pretty good to me. Only, what about...down there?" He smiled himself, a slight downwards quirk in the middle of the upper lip kept it from being the same as my own. "We are identical enough. It was the first thing I searched for. But I have had more time to think about this than you have. So let me be the one to make love to you first. Then, if you are willing, you can make love to me. Then, I must go, for I have so little time here." He was right, he had to hurry this along. A half hour is long enough to make love to a guy...if both sides are willing to be quick enough about it. He stepped up to me and that smile looked more human than ever. His lips were as human as they needed to be to kiss me, which is what he did. A faint funny taste to his skin, I can't describe it except maybe it tasted a bit like a copper penny tastes when you put it in your mouth. Only not as strong. His arms were around me and they felt human enough to forget about the green color. All I had to do was close my eyes and kiss him back. Which is what I did. The night was completely, perfectly quiet. No crickets chirping, no owls hooting, no wind blowing. It was like Treval802b had managed to freeze this moment in time for us. Maybe he had! I felt completely secure and safe here. And I put my arms around him and I kissed him back but good! That funny taste was stronger inside his mouth when I slid my tongue into it. Treval802b was only slightly startled by it, but then his own tongue came up and began to touch and taste mine. I think he had more control over it than I did, or maybe it was just longer. His tongue was stroking mine in long, soft, warm caresses of love. His hand found my crotch and fondled me, and I pitched a hell of an erection. God, so long, it had been so long I'd been wanting to do this! I had been ready to make love to a fat toad of a man covered in warts. Having this large, warm, sexy alien was more than okay in light of that! Covered in the night, concealed by the silence, wrapped in the moment, my cock throbbed and his fingers expertly found and pulled down the zipper to fish inside and pull me into the air. I let go of his mouth and gasped, "Are you sure you understand what to do?" "I understand." he said. "In theory, at least. I shall do my best." "Then do it, please, God, yes!" I moaned. "The haystack is right behind you." he mentioned. "Would you like to recline against it for your comfort?" I was quick to comply and the hay was tightly stacked, not that loose fluffed-up stuff you see them plow into in the movies, this stack was nearly solid, my body made the slightest indentation into it before it firmed up and I felt the heat from within it, the heat formed from the hay drying out and the moisture slowly, so slowly, rotting it, producing the heat that can set a barn on fire sometimes, the hay is always a bit warm like that, but not as warm as Treval802b's mouth as his lips slid over my dong in that cool night air! That shuddering sound I made caused Treval802b to lift off me. "Did I do that right for you?" he asked. "Yeah, yeah, that was good, do it some more." I said. He slid back onto me and his experiment in human/alien love was damned good! He must have downloaded some videos of humans making love, for him to know just how to pull my foreskin out with his lips, and then to slide back down again, milking at my cock. I don't know how he knew what he knew, but Treval802b was nothing if not accomplished as a lover. As his lips moved up and down my shaft, thrills of pleasure washed through my body, and I was grunting above him, loving the feel of it, loving all of it, oh, God, this was great, this was better than jerking off, this was better, God, so much better! I reached down and my hands found those ears, caressed the tips of them, they weren't sharp pointed, the flesh was soft and yielding like any dog's or horse's, only a mere quirk in the design of his body. An unimportant difference. I caught the head behind it and I began to help him move faster on my cock, faster, God, yes, more, more, God, yes, I could do this all night. But we didn't have all night! That spurred me on harder, Treval802b was compliant and eager, his lips were making sounds much like a calf suckling its mother, he was milking my dong down and little whining sounds emanated from him, from his throat or elsewhere, I couldn't tell. I felt my climax building up within me, so warm, so brightly, so star-spangled, cosmos-spanning marvelous joy, and I was going to come, I was going to come! I tried to speak but my breath was all ear-marked for my lust-ravaged body, I barely managed to squeak out, "Coming! Coming! Now, now!" and I was blasting my load into Treval802b's mouth. Treval802b started when I came, but he held on and soon he was drinking me down avidly, putting a suction on my cock that was nearly painful it was so ardent, and then I was done and he was still sucking and I had to wrench enough air to warn him, "Oh, oh, I'm done, all of it, all, all, oh, no more, oh!" It took a moment, but he realized and stopped, looked up at me, his lips as dew-stained as mine would have been with the droplets of his saliva and my jizz combined to make them shine in the dim lights about us, sparkling like a few errant stars brought down to Earth to please me. "Did I do it right?" He asked me. "You sure did." I managed to gasp out. He seemed to look inside himself a moment, then said, "We have less than ten of your minutes left. Are you willing to make love to me now?" "Yeah, sure." I said. He was right, we had such a small amount of time before he had to go. No time to let my body recover, no time to kiss and stroke and say thank-you, it was his turn now! So I staggered down onto my knees and he merely touched his crotch and the material parted for me. Out flopped...a green cock. The head was more pointed than a human cock's was (well, I guess maybe some guys are that pointed, it wasn't a spearhead or nothing), and the overall shape was more slender and longer than I expected. About like half as big around as a normal human cock and about twelve inches long, it curved slightly downwards instead of upwards. As he said, mere minor differences. I had a duty to repay his lovemaking with my own, and not only that, this was my first chance to suck a cock and it wasn't a tiny stub attached to a tub of lard, it was attached to a form that for a human would have been muscular and young and vibrant. I caught the head in my mouth and that taste was stronger yet. Now it did taste like a copper penny. One that was bright and new and never used or touched by human hands before. I took it down my throat and found the cock was more one piece than my own, I didn't feel any movement of a foreskin like my own. So like Treval802b had done, I went down, pulled back up and he gave out that small whining sound again. "Am I doing it right?" I asked him as he had asked me. "Is that how I do it?" "Yes, my dear, kind LonelyBoy1474, that is how you do it." "I don't feel any foreskin on it." I said. "That thing that slides back and forth on me. Is that...." "No, no, you only need to slide your lips back and forth as I did for you." he assured me. That whining sound had entered his voice some, made it a bit squeaky. "Please, move quickly, if I am to share the moment of light and exultation with you." Light and exultation. A nice way to put it. "You got it, buddy." I said and I dove down onto him. That slender a cock, I could take him all the way down my throat and I did. He loved it when I sent his length deep into me, that whining sound was definitely his way of saying he liked something. Almost like a lonesome puppy in tone, but the way it was arranged made it his version of groans of happiness. A puppy does an up-and-down sound, HNN-nnn, HNN-nnn, HNN-nnn, and Treval802b was going more like HNN-nn-HNN, HNN-nn-HNN, HNN-nn-HNN! That little trill on the end turned the lonesome puppy's wail into a waggle of joy! I had to move more than I would have with a human, Treval802b needed me to work his skin both up and down, and like me, he soon decided to take matters into his own hands. They came up, grabbed hold of my head, and he was moving that long dong schlong of his in and out hard and fast, enough to choke me until I found out how to breathe around his cock, then it was easier than any time of sucking another human would be. That whining was louder now, enough that I wondered if we could be heard. But the world remained silent for us. Again I wondered if the time limit he was talking about was somehow more than just regular time, if he had somehow wrapped us up and separated us from everything else. Like we were drifting in a bubble outside the universe and everything around me, save for him, was all an illusion. His whines added a new key, HNN-nn-HHN-NN! HNN-nn-HHN-NN! and I figured it for his approaching climax. Decided that if I could possibly take his come, I would drink it down as greedily as he had for me! He shoved his prick into me deep and that jism of his, whatever it was like, went deep into me. I didn't taste a thing, I just felt it going down my gullet into my stomach. Quite a bit of it, I think, I felt like I was gulping down water as fast as I could, the way my stomach moved. Gulping down space-jism! If it would have killed me, it could have easily, but by now, I was trusting Treval802b more than anybody I knew on Earth. He was done, his cock slid back while his body held still, like it was collapsing into itself like a spyglass or something. I was left with a smaller version of it on my tongue and then he pulled it out of me, and I got my first taste of his come. Damn, that was good! Real good! Spicy, sort of, sweet, sort of, I can only compare it to a liqueur I'd tasted once, from the Carribean somewhere (not Jamaica, I think) and I had to settle for that one small dabble of it on my tongue. "Damn, you taste good!" I said. "I wish I could do it again with you, and taste all of it this time around." Treval802b didn't seem at all out of breath, he smiled genially as he tucked his little pocket-monster back into his coveralls and it closed itself up again by no means I could see. "I fear I have less than two minutes left." he said. "Then I must leave, or it will be dangerous." "What's the danger?" I said. "Why can't you come back again?" "Because I have to begin my real journey now." Treval802b said. "I now know the risks are worth it and I shall travel to the planets where my people who want to love their own sex live. Or so the story is told." "You don't know for sure?" "Not for certain." he said. "But I have my hopes. There is the path that has been told to me. I shall have to take twelve risky maneuvers, and I only know the solution to five of them. The other seven are unknown, and I must take my chances with. Also, my family may chase me, destroy me and my ship to stop me from making the journey, for I cannot hide my path from them and they will know where I go and why. The danger is great; my computer evaluates my chances of making the journey safely at 1:18 against my arrival. But now I know the joy my body can give me, the pleasure of holding another of my own sex as I desire, so I must take the chance." "One chance in eighteen?" I said. "Why not stay here with me?" "Because my every movement is monitored by my family." Treval802b said. "I cannot fool them where I am for longer than...thirty more seconds. By then, I must be back in outer space and appear to have never landed on this planet. If they think I have landed here, they shall destroy the Earth." "Urk!" is what came out of my mouth at that. "I leave you now, my gentle, wonderful LonelyBoy1474, with all the gratitude I can express. I hope you have a safe travel yourself to find others of your own kind. I hope you summon the courage to make the journey in search of happiness, as I have found my courage from making love to you. Good-bye, and may good luck and all my love, for now and ever, be with you." And with a blink of light that the people who made "Star Trek" only wish they could have done, Treval802b was gone. I looked at the ship, only to see it shoot up at a speed that defied description. Air rushed about me as it chased the ship upwards, it nearly knocked me off my feet, but then it was over and I was alone. And the noises of the world resumed, the crickets, the wind, the sound of one of our dogs barking in the startled sound that said he'd only just noticed something was going on here. I looked up into the sky, but nothing was there for me to see. Picked up the rifle and went back inside. Ma and Pa were still asleep. That was okay. The next morning, I came downstairs and Ma looked at me and my suitcase in my hand. "Where are you going?" she asked me sternly. Pa looked over. "You have to plow the rest of the field today." he said. "No time for you to make a visit to nobody." "I'm leaving." I said. "If you'll give me a ride to the city, I'd appreciate it. But I'm going anyhow. It's time for me to go." Pa shook his head. "Quit that foolishness and put that suitcase down and eat breakfast." "No, Pa." I said. "It's time for me to go." "Then you'll walk." he said firmly. "Fine." I said. "Good-bye." I said. I stopped only to kiss my dumbfounded Mother good-bye and walked out the door. "Where are you going?" Pa called from the door. Ma was with him. "To be with other guys just like me." I said. "Maybe in the city, maybe somewhere else, but I'm not stopping until I find them." And I turned back around and kept walking toward the road. "You'll have to hitch rides, and maybe some lunatic will pick you up." Ma warned me. "You don't have any money, any food. You have to stay here!" "It's dangerous out there, son!" Pa called, for I was still walking. "Sure, it's dangerous." I said. "But I got to do it." And they let me go. I guess they figured I'd walk a while, give up, and come back. But I didn't. I had to walk to town, and managed to hitch a ride from there into the city. I had to live on the streets and sleep in shelters and beg money for food and dig in trash cans and work where I could for nearly a year. I finally got a steady job and a place of my own, and began to build my new life and, just a few weeks ago, I even met a guy I hope will some day become my one, real, full-time, live-in lover like I always wanted. That year was a terribly difficult and dangerous time for me, yeah. But I made it and never complained because, bad as it was, it wasn't nearly as bad as what Treval802b had to face. If he could make a trip that he only had one chance in eighteen of living through in order to find happiness, then I could face a few months of being hungry and cold to do the same. And so I did, and I made it through my journey in search of happiness successfully. I hope Treval802b made it through, too. I like to think he did. THE END Comments, Complaints or Suggestions? Send E-mail to Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM