Eighteen Months with Rhett

By Earth-boy

Disclaimers:

This story may contain descriptions of sexual acts between boys and/or men and boys. If this is not to your tastes, please leave now. If you are under 18 or it is illegal in your state or country to read or possess this material then it is in your own interests to leave now.

The story is copyright by the author. A copy has been placed in the Nifty archives for your enjoyment. Please do not distribute it to any other web sites without permission from the author. You may, however, send it to your friends as long as payment is neither requested or received.

This story is fiction. Any resemblance to any individual, real or imagined, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Reading about sexual antics with imaginary boys is one thing. Don’t even think about doing this in real life. Boys grow up into adolescents and then men, and as adults they’ll not appreciate the realization they were used as a sex toy for your perverted pleasure.

No children or electrons were harmed in the production of this story. However, because it was written on a computer and you got it from the internet, the electricity needed to do this has probably made a minute contribution to global warming.

Notes:

This story is complete; there are twelve chapters in all. I’ve been burned in the past by authors starting a story and posting one or more chapters, only to be left hanging when I finish the final installment and it’s obvious the tale is still a work in progress. Therefore I do not post anything to Nifty that I consider incomplete.

The story is set in an unnamed city in Western Canada. Some place names like Toronto, Ontario, Kamloops, Jasper, and even Tuktoyaktuk are real, but many others are fictional. Have fun trying to find a Weilhoeven in Canada. 😊

Summer days in Western Canada are long and can be pretty hot, but only rarely do they get the blistering heat common in the southern US. Winters can very cold and the sun sets shortly after 4:30 PM, so evenings are dark. In this part of the country private homes with outdoor swimming pools are a rarity because they can be used for only three or four months out of the year. They have to be drained for the winter and refilled in spring, which can get expensive.

The story starts out slowly because I wanted to lay the groundwork before getting into hot and heavy stuff. There’s no shortage of it, but you’ll need to wade through the better part of 12,000 words and three and a half chapters before getting to it!

Readers will notice my stories contain generous amounts of casual nudity. This is a reflection of the author’s own views, who wishes society wasn’t so hung up about clothing, especially on warm summer days and at swimming pools. Nude beaches should be the norm, not the exception.

I prefer to use generic terms like “car” and “game console” instead of brand names like “Lada” and “Atari,” and fictional software like Kid Kontent and Realm of the Dwarf Lords. In my opinion it makes the story age better at the expense of requiring the reader to imagine the devices and software. Not being a gamer, it also prevents me from making silly mistakes like mentioning a particular device or game being used two years before it came to market.

Speaking of nomenclature, I use the word penis to describe the male organ unless I’m quoting someone’s speech, because that’s what it’s called. A cock is a rooster and dick is either an insufferable person or a guy’s name derived from “Richard.” Most writers don’t substitute peepers for eyes or smackers for lips. Having said that, I’m inconsistent because I generally use balls instead of testicles, probably because the former is only one syllable.

The story mentions a children’s book called The Elves of Forest Green. Fans of the The Lord of the Rings might see in this a reference to the Greenwood of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth that later became Mirkwood, but that’s not the case. Here “Forest Green” is a translation of the original French title Les Elfs du Bois Vert, which as far as I know is fictional—the French Wikipedia doesn’t have an entry with this title.

Comments are welcome at earth-boy-2755@protonmail.com, and constructive criticism as well. Due to the fickle nature of online email providers the address is not guaranteed to work more than a year or so past this story’s posting date. Flames will be dealt with in the usual manner.

If you’ve enjoyed this or other stories on Nifty, please consider making a financial contribution. The service doesn’t need a huge amount of money to run, but because it’s ad-free it needs your donations to keep going. Thank you from the operators and fellow readers of the archive!

Enough of the small talk. On with the story!

Chapter 1. Gay Teen Me

At twelve, quite by accident I outed myself to my parents.

We had just watched a news report about two gay couples getting married, which by then wasn’t unusual. Same-sex marriage had been legal in the country since the mid-2000s, incidentally coming in the same month I was born. The twist in this story was a male couple and a female couple were getting married back-to-back, and the four of them had previously been two opposite-sex couples. So, yeah, the former husbands married each other, and then the former wives right after them.

I’d turned twelve only a couple of months before and was still pretty green about the whole same-sex marriage thing. We were listening to the story together over dinner: me, my sister Charlene (fourteen at the time), and Mom and Dad. I wondered what all the fuss was about. My parents explained things in general terms, saying that for thousands of years people believed marriage was only between men and women. It was only recently that same-sex marriage was even spoken about, let alone allowed.

“I don’t get why a man would want to marry a man,” I said. “I thought marriage was for making babies.”

“Chad, you’re such a dork!” said my sister. She was usually on my case, but this time she pretty much got it right. I wasn’t totally up to speed on sex at that point.

“Charlene, not at the table!” admonished our mother.

Our liberal-minded parents went on to explain that babies could happen very nicely without the couple being married, although they didn’t go into details. Through it Charlene was looking at me with a “I can’t believe you’re so stupid” expression.

When it came to same-sex marriage, it was because the people involved loved each other, not because they wanted to have children. “You see,” said Mom, “these days marriage is more about the commitment the couple makes to each other. They promise to stay together through bad times as well as good ones, and that they’ll be there for each other if something happens to one of them, like a bad accident or getting sick.”

Dad added, “Yes, most marriages are between men and women. But that’s because something like ninety percent of men and women are attracted to the opposite sex. But a small number aren’t like that, so there are men who aren’t interested in women and would prefer to live with another man.”

“Oh,” I blurted out. “That sounds like me.”

Charlene gaped at me, and there was a sudden and uncomfortable silence around the dinner table.


A couple of days later my dad talked to me privately. I loved and trusted both my parents, but I guess they thought Dad would be the better one for this conversation. I was still really naïve and didn’t know just how big this whole “I like boys better than girls” thing was. Yeah, my parents were pretty laid back about raising me and my sister, but despite that I’d managed to make it all the way to twelve without really understanding same-sex relationships. Maybe they thought I’d just read about it or something.

I don’t remember what all we talked about, but Dad eventually concluded I was serious about what I’d said. His main comment was I should keep it to myself. When I asked why, he told me kids in school wouldn’t understand and I’d mercilessly teased. That part hit home. I’d been through an extended bout of teasing and (fortunately minor) bullying in grades thee and four. It had since stopped, but I really didn’t want to see it flare up again.

Of course my sister had heard my faux pas, but Mom did immediate damage control by saying it was something stupid said by her little brother who didn’t know what he was talking about. Since Charlene had already written me off as a “dork” it was easy enough for her to believe it. Mom must have been really convincing, for I never heard my sister mention it again.

Next month my parents spent an evening with me going over human reproduction, sexuality and love, opposite and same-sex relationships. They were actually apologetic about not doing it sooner, explaining I hadn’t asked any big questions about sex and they’d just assumed I knew what was up. (I had only just started grade seven and we hadn’t reached that part of the school’s sex-ed curriculum.) But they didn’t talk about gay sex; perhaps they thought I might figure it out for myself or ask when I got curious.

The next two years of sex education at school filled in the gaps. Periodically Mom would ask, almost casually and in a completely non-judgmental way, if my attractions had shifted at all. I trusted her and Dad enough to say nothing had changed. In fact, the last time she asked I got upset and told her to stop bugging me.

“Just accept it, okay?” I said, exasperated. I was a newly minted fourteen year old, and if anything was more certain now that I had been at twelve.

Mom apologized immediately. “Oh, Chad, I didn’t mean it like that. Believe me—both me and your Dad are behind you all the way. You’ve made good friends to now. We’re actually looking forward to the day you bring home a boyfriend. We don’t know if that will be next year or in five, but whoever he is he’ll be welcome.” She whispered, “and if he stays the night, he can sleep in your bed, with you.”

Strangely we never used the word “gay,” but from that time on all of us knew they were raising a gay teen-aged son. When I started secondary school that September and found out there was a Gay-Straight Alliance, after some thought I quietly joined it in November. It wasn’t necessary for members to declare their orientation and so I didn’t, but I suspected most people could easily figure out which side of the fence I was on.

We worked to keep it from my sister, though. Mom said things could get ugly if Charlene found out before she was out of high school; she’d be sure to gossip about it to her friends and then I’d be outed at school. It didn’t help that we had a sibling rivalry relationship. I wasn’t exactly an angel when dealing with my sister and I don’t think at her age she would have been fazed much by me getting bullied at school.

For the next four years when she was in the same room as my parents and me, we kept up the pretense I was straight. A girlfriend hint here and there, and maybe some angst about inviting a girl to a school dance (that one was real!) When I was fifteen I actually sought out my sister’s advice for approaching a girl at school named Darlene (although I was actually asking about a boy named Danyal.) Given how little we interacted, plus the fact she attended a different school, it wasn’t at all difficult to maintain the fiction. When she finally found out, at first she couldn’t believe I was gay, then was amazed at how well we’d kept it hidden it from her.


Halfway through my fourteenth year I was well into puberty. I was slightly shorter than average, standing only 5′3″ (160 cm) tall and quite a bit lighter than normal at only 110 pounds (50 kg, or a bit under 8 stone for you Brits.) I had unremarkable eyes and light brown hair that went wavy when I let it grow out, but I usually kept it at about ear length. Thanks to an active imagination and a lack of athletic prowess I was into computers, video games, science fiction, and fantasy role-playing games.

I was in Grade 9, my first year of secondary education. I was new to the school and missing friends from my primary years because they’d gone to other schools. Of all the secondary schools in town, the one I chose had a reputation for being the most tolerant of outliers, be it race (a lot of Indigenous, Filipino, and Asian kids went there,) political affiliation (usually left-of-centre,) religion (fortunately rarely a problem in Canada,) academic achievement, or sexual orientation and gender expression. But that tolerance came at a price: it was the least popular secondary in town. Sure, like the others we had sports teams, but everyone else looked down on us because because we were perennially at the bottom of the rankings. No jock kid in town would dare to be take on the stigma of going to “Fag High.” For me that was reason enough to go there!

Even at my school there was a social pecking order, but unlike others the athletes weren’t at the top. Those spots went to the fortunate few who were bright and outgoing in addition to being athletic, the kind who could win a debating championship trophy, a tennis match, and still find time to help a kid struggling with grades. I wasn’t nearly as smart as they were and was more reserved, so by default didn’t associate with them. Just as I tried to avoid any clique. I commonly used Groucho Marx’s line “Any club that would have me as a member I wouldn’t want to join.” For my first year there my main goal was simply to make it to the end of the year in one piece, with grades high enough to keep my parents happy. But not Charlene: she strongly believed in getting a good education and all through those years pressured me to improve.

So I usually listened more than I talked, stayed away from football and soccer games, and when I wasn’t in class spent time in the library. I was pretty lonely for the first couple of months. The bravest thing I did was attending and then participating in the Gay/Straight Alliance group. Between that and simply getting to know other kids in class I eventually made some friends and found people I could could sit with at lunch. We weren’t the jocks, the nerds, the brain trust, or the anti-socials; we were steadfastly middle of the road, average, and boring.

At home I was just the good kid. I attended classes, did homework, visited friends occasionally, and stayed away from troublemakers. I spent a good chunk of time in my room on my computer, but was mostly available to do chores. I engaged with the family at meal times, chatting with my parents on various issues and often as not sparring with Charlene over them.

Despite her excellent grades, my sister had her share of scraps in high school. But they were fuelled more by her outspoken approach than overt rebelliousness. When she formed an opinion on anything she freely shared it and staunchly defended it. More than once the school called it “disruptive.” She would have been an excellent fit for the school I was attending, but she had followed a couple of good friends to hers and its academic program met her standards. As a family we quickly figured out Charlene wouldn’t have a problem with me being gay; the issue (for me) was she’d proudly broadcast it all over! I wasn’t ready for that. So I handled it by letting her assume I was straight.

By now my sexuality was firmly set. I was being careful around my handful of friends for fear I’d slip up and they’d find out. As far as I knew all of them were straight, and certainly none of them pinged my juvenile gaydar. In my precarious position as a first year student with a limited social circle I wasn’t willing to test the school’s reputation for tolerance. It probably did me more harm than good. The reputation was well-deserved, and the people I came to know there more than likely wouldn’t have a problem with me being gay. Probably half of them suspected it anyway, but never commented one way or the other.


One day Mom came to me with an interesting proposition. “One of the gals at the art club is a single mother, and she’s having problems finding babysitters for her nine year old boy,” she told me. “But for some reason she thinks you might be a good candidate.”

The club was an informal group of women who met once a week ostensibly to talk about art and even create some, but mostly it was an opportunity for them to get out of the house, drink coffee, and yak about stuff.

“Is she sure?” I asked. “Does she, like, know … ?”

“Oh yes, she does. When you sort of accidentally told us a couple of years ago, I really wanted someone to talk to. So I confided in her. She has a degree in psychology, although she works at something totally different now. I had a couple of informal—you could call them “therapy”—chats with her. She was a great help. In fact it was her who suggested we keep everything low key. Just watch and wait, and be there to help if any issues arose. No different from any other teenager, really.”

I was really surprised to hear that. For two and a half years Mom, Dad, and I had quietly tiptoed around the topic of my sexuality, even though we knew full well what the truth was. And now I discovered she had probably up and said to someone, “Hey, my son just told us he’s gay, and can I talk to you about it?”

If my mom noticed my reaction she didn’t say anything; she simply carried on. “So I was as surprised as you were just now when she asked if I would talk to you about babysitting her son. I didn’t see a need to remind her of what we had talked about back then—I assume she still remembers. Since she’s never met you, she simply asked about things like how good you are at following instructions, what games you like to play, and how you interact with younger kids.”

“I hope you told her I was an ogre who would eat her kid for breakfast,” I said. I was almost serious.

She smiled. “Nothing like that. But I didn’t sign you up on the spot.” She launched into a sales pitch. “I think you should give it a try. It will get you out of the house a bit and put some extra cash in your pocket. Dad and I can give you advice on child care and how to handle simple emergencies. And of course we’re always only a phone call away. What do you think?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“There’s a first time for everything! If it works out, it’s a win-win situation: you get experience and money, and my friend a gets a babysitter.”




Comments are welcome at earth-boy-2755@protonmail.com, and constructive criticism as well. As I’ve mentioned before, this story is complete (12 chapters in all.) But as of the date I’ve posted this, I can entertain suggestions as long as they don’t break the established plot or have a serious impact on the remaining chapters.

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Created on 2020 June 24 at 03:01