It took the better part of a month to get everything sorted out. Ben hired a realtor who arranged for a couple of estate sales to sell as much of the furnishings and books as possible. After that, he hired a junk company to cart away much of what was left, leaving some of the furniture for the house to appear lived in.
Meanwhile he hired a lawyer who helped him deal with the bills and the wills he had found, and who began the process for Ben assuming guardianship of the boys.
By the time they flew to Massachusetts, the house had been sold, the wills were probated, Ben’s guardianship had been legally approved, and there was nothing left to do in Waco.
When they got on the plane, Charlie let Joey have the window seat, while he sat in the middle. He wanted to keep Joey as far away from Uncle Ben as he could.
As the land passed under them, all Charlie’s feelings seemed to bubble up in him. Perhaps the strongest feeling he was dealing with in addition to sorrow was fear. His father had told him about queer men and how they pursued boys. Charlie wasn’t clear what the men did with boys. He knew about sex and gathered from the way his father talked that whatever gay men did with boys it was sexual and bad.
In addition to the fear, he was anxious about going to a new place where he knew nobody and where he would be going to school with strangers.
As he thought about these things, he grew very angry ─ angry at his parents for dying and angry for leaving him and Joey in this situation. And the loss made him sad as well. He’d already missed his mother and now, leaving his Waco friends, the fact he was flying away made everything seem so final and the missing much stronger. He was surprised to realize that he didn’t miss his father very much.
A steward came by and asked if any of them wanted drinks or snacks. Looking at him, Charlie thought he was quite cute, beautiful even. He suppressed that idea the way he always did when he found himself thinking about cute boys and young men.
Ben ordered some sort of beverage which Charlie didn’t recognize, and Joey asked for a Coke. Charlie just shook his head. When the steward returned with the drinks, he gave them each a little bag of crackers.
Charlie sighed. The flight was long and boring, and they were less than a third of the way through it. Then he developed an erection. In the last year that had happened increasingly often. He was uncomfortable and wanted to adjust himself. If Joey had been the only one there, he wouldn’t have hesitated. I’m damned if I’ll do it with that homo sitting right next to me, he thought.
Trying to distract himself, he asked Ben, “Can I watch a movie?”
“Sure,” his uncle replied, and he pushed the call button. When the steward appeared, Ben asked for three sets of headphones. He showed Charlie and Joey how to switch channels and how to adjust the volume.
Charlie discovered that of course all the movies had been running for over an hour, but he picked what he thought might be the least obnoxious of them and began watching. His erection thankfully receded. Joey found a cartoon show, while Ben watched some sports.
Later, the steward came by with meals which they had to pay for. Ben bought three. Charlie found that the chicken was tough and hard to cut with a plastic knife. Joey was having even more trouble with it, so he picked it up and bit off a piece, and Charlie followed suit. By the time they finished, Ben had been the only one of the three who succeeded in using a knife, but he broke his and had to borrow Charlie’s.
When Charlie’s movie ended he found a news program, but nothing was happening that interested him, so he put the screen on the channel that showed where the plane was, its altitude, the time left in the flight, and the air speed and temperature at 38,000 feet.
Joey’s cartoons had also ended. He sighed and looked out the window. A little later he poked his brother and told him he should look down, so Charlie undid his seatbelt and leaned over Joey. He saw a large river with barges in it. From their viewpoint, the barges didn’t look like they were moving.
“Must be the Mississippi,” he remarked.
Joey, who had spent more time looking out the window, realized how big the river was in comparison to the roads he had seen, and he thought his brother was probably right.
Sitting back down, Charlie asked Ben, who was reading a magazine, “How big is the airport in Truro?”
Ben almost laughed. “There isn’t an airport in Truro. We’ll fly into Boston. Rodney will meet us there and drive us to the Cape.”
“Who’s Rodney?”
“I guess I didn’t tell you his name. Rodney’s my husband.”
On they flew. Charlie even took a little nap until Joey tapped him again and pointed down.
Again Charlie stood and leaned over. Below them was water, and a coastline. “We’ve flown all the way across the country,” he told Joey. They both watched the coastline as the plane turned north.
The seatbelt sign came on, so Charlie had to sit. Joey gave him a play-by-play description of what he was seeing as the plane began to descend.
The plane got lower and lower as it flew over water. To Joey it looked like they were going to land in the water, but when the plane was just a few feet above the water, land miraculously appeared, and it touched down almost immediately with only a little bump.
Charlie undid his seatbelt and began to stand until Ben told him that he needed to stay seated because the plane had a distance to taxi before it came to the terminal.
The boys were impatient to get off and it seemed everyone else was, too. Charlie waited impatiently for the plane to finally stop.
As the passengers slowly began to deplane, Ben and the boys stood, and their uncle got their small bags down from the overhead.
“Congratulations,” he said, “you two are now experienced transcontinental fliers.”
They filed off the plane and through a tunnel before they emerged in the terminal.
There were several people waiting to meet those coming out of the tunnel, but Charlie saw one who stood out and was unmistakable.
Ben led the boys to the man, a huge African American. Charlie thought he must be nearly seven feet, although later he learned that the man was only six feet nine inches. His arms and thighs seemed as big as tree trunks.
The two men hugged and then, to the shock of both boys, the men kissed, right there in public.
At first Charlie thought it was gross. Joey had no idea what to think. Neither of them had ever seen two men kissing, and the men had done it as though they did it all the time, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
With the kiss finished, Ben said, “Rodney, these are my nephews, Charlie and Joey Webster. Boys, this is my husband, Rodney Curtis.”
Rodney reached out his hands, taking Charlie’s in one and Joey’s in the other. Both hands seemed to vanish inside Rodney’s big mitts.
“Glad to meet you, boys,” Rodney said in a deep, bass voice. “Welcome to Massachusetts.”
They retrieved their luggage and took a shuttle bus to the parking lot where Rodney led them to a large van, which he unlocked, and they stowed their bags.
“How long will it take to get to Truro?” asked Joey, who by then was tired of traveling.
“About three hours,” Uncle Ben replied. “That is if the traffic on the Southeast Expressway isn’t too heavy.”
Unfortunately, it was the rush hour and the traffic was stop and go for several miles. Over two hours later they turned off the expressway and headed south on Route 3. In another hour, they arrived at a bridge over some water.
“That’s the Cape Cod Canal,” Ben said as they crossed over. “You are now officially on Cape Cod.”
“How much farther?” asked Joey.
“Oh, not more than an hour,” Rodney replied.
“Ugh,” said Joey. Then, always the curious one, he asked, “Why do you have such a big van?”
Rodney laughed, a deep, rumbling chuckle which Charlie thought sounded a bit like thunder. “Because it’s one of the few vehicles I can fit in comfortably.”
As it began to grow dark, the road, which had been a divided highway, began to narrow and they drove through one town after another.
About the time Charlie thought they might drive right off the end of the Cape, Rodney turned left and drove into a village. After a few more turns, they pulled into a driveway beside a white, two-story house. Had they gone any farther, they would have landed in Cape Cod Bay, because the house was right on the shore.
They got out of the car, Rodney carried all the luggage, and they went into the house. As the big man took the luggage to various rooms, Ben gave the boys a tour.
“I considered putting you boys together in one room because I thought you might get lonely, but then I also thought you might like your own space.
Thank you, thought Charlie gratefully.
Rodney prepared dinner for them ─ clam chowder followed by baked halibut with a special sauce. There were rolls and salad, and for dessert there was ice cream.
The boys had never eaten this sort of seafood before. What they had eaten came from the Gulf of Mexico, and it was usually highly seasoned. They hadn’t even heard of clam chowder before.
Joey tentatively took a little chowder in his spoon, blew on it, and tasted it. A big smile came over his face. “This is amazing!” he exclaimed. When he was finished, he asked if there was more.
Charlie meanwhile thought the fish was rather bland, but as he kept eating, the subtle flavors of the sauce came through.
Conversation was largely between Rodney and Ben. Occasionally one of them asked the boys a question. Joey answered readily, but Charlie gave curt, brief replies. He was determined he wasn’t going to like these queers.
By the time dessert came, both boys were stuffed, but whoever heard of a boy that wouldn’t take any ice cream offered him?
The boys were tired, so it wasn’t long before they headed to bed, although in Texas it was only eight o’clock. They left the two men chatting in the living room.
Charlie lay in bed, listening to the gentle surf and wondering what tomorrow would bring. He knew that when the men wanted to have sex with him and Joey, there was no way to stop them. The boys just weren’t strong enough. Heck, he thought, Rodney alone could take both of us.
As he lay thinking about the possible sex, he grew hard. He didn’t want to, especially when he was thinking about the two men, but he had little control over his erections. They seemed to happen several times a day and for no particular reason.
Trying to ignore it, he rolled on his side and attempted to sleep. Half an hour later, still awake and hard, he gave in, lay on his back, grasped his cock, and quickly found release. Using one of the socks he had worn that day, he cleaned himself off, again turned on his side, and quickly fell asleep.