That night, as Tyler and I were in the bathroom preparing for bed and brushing our teeth, he asked quietly, “Can I kiss you?”
I was ambivalent. The only boy I had ever kissed was Mark, for whom I’d had deep feelings. I still didn’t know how I felt about Tyler. After thinking about it for several moments, I turned to him and I nodded.
He took my head in his hands and moved forward so that our lips touched. I knew at once how much I had missed kissing.
It was a rather chaste kiss — no Frenching no nibbling — just lips on lips. His lips were warm and moist, and I felt myself becoming aroused.
I took his hand and led him to my bedroom, where we lay side by side, caressing each other. He too was aroused, but we didn’t touch each other down there.
I rolled towards the wall and began to bring myself off. I could tell by the way he moved that he was doing the same. When we finished and were once again side by side, he asked, “Does this mean I’m welcome back?”
“To be honest,” I said, “I don’t know what it means. I like you a lot, but I don’t yet understand whether or not my feeling is love. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but if we’re being honest, I’ve gotta say that I’ve loved you for a while now. You’ve been so kind and supportive. You’ve taken care of me when I’ve been down; you’ve shown me how to do your job; you’ve helped me learn to swim. I know you’ve loved before in a very deep way, and I don’t think I can compete with that. But I love you, Richard, and if you aren’t sure about me, I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“Thank you,” I said.
When we went down to breakfast the next morning, Peter asked, “Tyler, what do you plan to do with your house?”
“I haven’t really thought about it, but I know I don’t want it. It has too many bad memories for me.”
"Does it have any good ones?”
“I guess there are some of my mom when I was a kid, but I really don’t ever want to go back into it.”
“In that case, you should probably sell it, because it’s just costing you tax money to keep it, as well as charges for utilities and things like that.”
“Wouldn’t it need to be cleaned out first?”
“I’m sure it would,” said Christian. “In addition to emptying belongings, there are blood stains in one room which will have to be removed. Let me talk with the lawyer and see if we can begin to move on that even though the will hasn’t yet been probated.”
The lawyer said that he saw no reason why we shouldn’t prepare the house, although it couldn’t actually be sold until the will was settled and Tyler owned it. He also mentioned that the proceeds from a sale would be split between Tyler and Phillip.
That night, as Tyler and I lay in bed, I said, “Hey, I’m really horny and I need to get off. If you want to help me, I’d like that, but it wouldn’t mean anything more than that. It wouldn’t mean that I love you. Okay?”
Tyler nodded and turned to face me. He caressed my back for a few minutes and then moved to my neck and chest. Working his way down, he tweaked my nipples, sending little shivers through me, and then continued to work his way down until he reached my groin. He took my balls in his hand and rolled them gently before bending down and taking them in his mouth.
The warmth of his mouth aroused me even more, and my shaft, already hard, became so firm it almost hurt.
He moved his mouth to my cock, exploring its head with his tongue before sliding down until it was entirely in his mouth and touching the back of his throat. Then he began sliding up and down on it, sucking as he moved.
I briefly wondered if doing this meant I was being unfaithful to Mark, but that thought quickly passed as the sensuality took over my mind and soon the pulse in my cock shot my cum into his mouth.
Slowly, I came down from my high. I so loved the sensations of coming, and I so regretted it when they passed and were gone.
“How did you learn to do that?” I asked.
He giggled a little and said, “Watching videos.” Then he asked, “Will you do me?”
When I finished bringing Tyler to a climax and we lay back, he said, “Thank you.”
“And thank you,” I replied.
“God, Richard, if you don’t love me, you certainly give a great imitation.”
“I’m just so confused, Tyler. Do forgive me.”
“Of course,” he said, and we were soon both asleep.
That night, I dreamt that Mark was again with me. He said, “What are you worrying for? If you love him, you love him. I know it won’t be the same as what we had, but it’s not a competition. You can still love him without being disloyal to me. Give it a chance.”
I woke in the night, crying.
“What’s wrong?” Tyler asked.
“Nothing,” I said, “I just had a dream.”
“Was it a bad one?”
“No, it was a good one and it made me happy.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
“No. Not now, anyway.”
I don’t remember lying awake, so I must have gone right back to sleep. The rest of the night was dreamless.
The next morning Christian went to Tyler’s house to meet with men who would empty it. In the afternoon, he met with some cleaners who promised to do a thorough job. By nightfall the next day, the house was empty and clean, and Christian had paid the workers.
Fall was fast approaching, and with it the resumption of school. I would at last be a senior. Tyler would be a junior.
The night before school began, the four of us watched The Sting, a great movie which featured ragtime piano music by Scott Joplin. I think I enjoyed the movie as much for the music as I did for the plot.
I knew I wasn’t going to be heading to college, and I looked forward to my senior year as the culmination of all my work. At that point I didn’t know what I would do after graduation, but I assumed it would involve working in yard care, either with my own company or by joining another one.
That first day back was a treat. Even the teachers seemed happy to see us. I saw Cormac in the hall and we hugged each other in greeting. He was of course accompanied by Sheri, so closely accompanied, in fact, that one couldn’t have slid a piece of paper between them.
I again had Mr. Wallingford, this time for European history. I was taking it even though it was an AP course. Before class we exchanged pleasantries, and he thanked me for helping Cormac.
After school, I was doing some homework when I heard the piano. Someone was playing music from The Sting. Curious, I went into the piano room, where Tyler was playing the “Maple Leaf Rag”. It was the most upbeat music I’d ever heard him play.
When he finished, I clapped. “You sound happy today,” I said.
“I am,” he replied. “It’s good to be back to a normal life. I may not be much of a student, but I guess I missed school and my friends more than I thought.”
As I thought about my dream of Mark and his voice of reason, I began to feel that Tyler really did mean more to me than just a friend. Thinking about him made me feel warm and caring and I realized I wanted him as a boyfriend.
That night, as we lay in bed, I said, “Do you remember the other evening when you woke in the middle of the night and found me crying?”
“Yeah. But you wouldn’t tell me what you dreamt.”
“But I told you it was happy.”
“Yeah.”
“I had been dreaming about Mark,” I said. “He was always my voice of reason. In the dream, he told me it was okay for me to love you. He said that the love would be different from what we had, but I should go with it. Well, I’ve decided he was right. I do love you, and yes, the love is different. My love for Mark was white-hot, while my love for you is glowing, warm. Both you and he told me that it wasn’t a competition, but it’s taken me until now to accept that.”
Tyler leaned over and kissed me hard, his tongue exploring my lips. I opened my mouth and felt his tongue enter and move around inside. My excitement began to rise, and I could feel that his was too as he pressed against my chest and stomach.
We brought each other off, and to be honest, we did so nearly every night all winter long. I couldn’t believe that I had ever considered Tyler a dork. In fact, I realized, he was quite cute and definitely hot. Being in bed with him was a nightly adventure as we continued to explore each other’s bodies. He was gentle and sensual, and his caresses engulfed me in waves of desire.
Near the end of May, I completed school and left with some regret. I would miss it, the teachers I liked, my friends, and the whole academic atmosphere.
Tyler would be a senior in the fall, and I almost wished I could go back with him.
In the summer we worked on the lawns. Joey joined us nearly every day, and Tim was often with us after supper in our two-on-two basketball games, where Joey continued to show us all up.
In September, Tyler returned to school for his final year. He didn’t love school the way I had, but he worked hard and dutifully, and graduated with honors. He certainly had no desire to go to college, so our lawyer helped me incorporate my lawn-care business and insure my workers.
When late fall came and I could no loger work on lawns, I found work in a nursery where flowers were planted and tended in greenhouses. In December, the nursery added Christmas trees and decorations to its wares, and it was a busy time for me.
Tyler and I had a warm, loving Christmas together.