Explores

Chapter 6

On the way to school the next morning, Willy said, “Don’t you think it’s time we got rid of the juvenile forms of our names?”

I agreed, and from then on we tried to be Dave or David and Will or William. It took some time for us to convert the uncles, although they did agree that the names we now preferred were more grown up.

It took even longer to convince the kids and teachers at school that we really wanted the change.

On warm weekends we still went on Explores to the meadow. We’d spread out the blanket and lie on it baking in the sun and talking about nothing really important, although we often referred to the time we saw our moose.

After a time, without saying anything, we rose together and went to the stream, where we sat facing each other. Sometimes we splashed; other times we just sat, enjoying the gentle flow of the water over our lower bodies.

Eventually, with no real signal, we’d rise from the water and return to our blanket, where we’d cuddle and enjoy the feelings of touching and being touched. That was usually followed by repositioning so that we could sixty-nine. We were no longer in a hurry to conclude our loving. It was a gentle, warmly erotic time of sharing our love.

When we finished, we’d lie back and bask again in the sun until one of us reached for the bag of food and we shared lunch. After that, we’d snuggle together and nap. The first to awaken would slowly wake the other with gentle touches in places he knew to be especially arousing for the one still dozing.

One fall day, as we were walking from school to Will’s house, someone grabbed me from behind and said, “Okay, faggots, it’s time for a reckoning.” He dragged me around behind the market while someone else accosted Will. We were both slammed up against the back wall of the market. Derrek was looking at us angrily. Thank God, I thought, that he doesn’t have Bruno. “You fuckers got me run out of school, so my friends here and I are gonna make you pay.”

Derrek was huge. He wasn’t a boy anymore; he was a man with about a four-day stubble of whiskers on his face. The two other guys with him were equally intimidating. They went over to some rubble near the back fence and picked up 2-by-4s.

Derrek stepped towards me and slammed his fist into my stomach. I fell to the ground, wanting to scream but all the wind had been knocked out of me. I heard him hit Will and heard him fall as well. When we were both rolling on the ground, the three of them began to beat us with the 2-by-4s and hit our faces with their fists. One of the goons picked up Will and slammed his head against the wall.

I was rolling and crying and frightened for Will. I heard him scream and then there was nothing.

<<<< >>>>

The next thing I knew, I was lying in pain, a bright light overhead. My head and sides were pounding, and my right arm was throbbing. I guess I moaned, because someone said, “He’s awake.”

I really didn’t want to be awake, so I retreated once more into unconsciousness.

Some time later I awoke again. At first my eyes wouldn’t focus and the light hurt them. When I was able to open them, I saw that I was in a hospital room. Paul and Darrell were there looking very concerned. I tried to talk but nothing would come out.

“Don’t try to say anything, David,” said Paul. “Just rest and get better.”

I don’t know how long they were there. I think I passed out again, because when I woke up they were gone and a woman in a white coat was looking at me.

“Well, David,” she said, “you’ve taken quite a beating, but everything will heal in time. You have some fractured ribs, a broken arm, and a concussion. Your jaw was broken and it’s wired shut so it can heal. For now all you’ll be able to eat is liquids. The nurses here will give you painkillers and meds to help you sleep.”

I tried to ask her about Will, but I could only grunt and she couldn’t understand me. She handed me a pad of paper and a pencil which she found in the bedside table. My right arm was in a cast, so I had to try to write with my left. It took me some time, but I finally managed to write W I L L?

“He’s your friend?” she asked.

I tried to nod, but it hurt.

“I can’t really say anything about him,” she said. ‘Government regulations on privacy won’t let me, but your uncles may know more.”

I wrote, “A L I V E?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “That I can tell you. He is alive.”

I closed my eyes as tears formed in them. I must have either slept or passed out again. When I awoke, the room was nearly dark.

After a time, a nurse came in, saw that I was awake, and gave me a button to push if I needed anything. There was a needle on a tube in my arm. The tube was attached to a plastic bag on a stand at the head of my bed. She shot something into the tube and almost instantly I was unconscious again.

When I awoke it was light in the room and my uncles were there. Paul leaned over and kissed me on the forehead and then on the cheek. I could see that they were both crying.

I showed Paul my pad. He looked at Darrell and then assured me that Will was alive and in much the same condition as me.

As they talked, I learned that we had been found by a stock boy from the market who had gone out back to throw something in the dumpster. Our attackers took one look at him and ran. He called the police, and we were taken to the hospital, where we were both worked on for some time before we were sent to private rooms. I didn’t want a private room. I wanted one with Will. But that wasn’t happening.

Time dragged by, and slowly I began to get better. One day my uncles told me that Will had some brain damage and was unable to speak, although he could understand what people said and he could write. They said that the doctors didn’t know whether or not he would eventually be able to talk again.

I burst out crying at that news. Not to hear Will’s voice ever again? I wondered if there had been any other brain damage but couldn’t find out. Privacy rules again.

I wrote on my pad, I W A N T T O S E E H I M. Darrell found a wheelchair. Together they loaded me into it and wheeled me down the corridor and into Will’s room.

It was a strange meeting, because neither of us was able to speak. I held his hand and we both cried quietly.

Later, Paul told me that Derrek and his buddies had been identified by the stock boy. They were arrested and were being held for trial.

Eventually I was allowed to go home, but my jaw was still wired shut.

I learned that Will had not gone home when I did because the doctors were still trying to figure out what was going on in his brain. He could write and understand what was said to him, but he still couldn’t talk.

It was over two months before we could return to school. By then the wires had been removed from my jaw and I could talk. I found that for some time chewing my food was uncomfortable because I hadn’t used those muscles, but in time the discomfort vanished.

Back at school, Will and I went everywhere together, usually holding hands. Kids had been shocked by what had happened to us. Everyone, both students and teachers, accepted our feelings for each other. Nobody ever even commented. We joined a school club for gays and their supporters. What had begun as a group just for gays was soon joined by others with gender questions and issues—lesbians, trans people and non-binaries, and by the end of the year it included every possible gender issue one could think of.

Will and I continued to do our homework together, either at his home or mine. Sometimes, by the time we finished we were tired and simply cuddled in bed. Other times were, well, let’s just say more vigorous.

We learned that the school offered a course in American Sign Language which we could take in lieu of a foreign language. We both enrolled in it. I thought it would be easy, but it turned out to be more involved than I had anticipated. Learning the alphabet was one thing, but learning all the conventional signs which stood for words took longer. However, we were motivated and worked hard. We were successful, and by spring we were able to communicate using only sign language.

In April of that year, the trial of Derrek and his two accomplices began, and Will and I were both called to testify. The defense had waived a jury trial, so only the judge would decide the case.

First the prosecutor called Devin, the stock boy, who told about what he had seen when he walked out behind the market. He identified all three of the defendants.

Next the prosecutor produced the 2-by-4s and a state crime lab scientist testified that the blood on the wood was ours.

The prosecutors called two of our hospital doctors as witnesses. Will’s neurologist spent some time on the stand being cross-examined by the defense attorney, who tried to get him to say that Will’s inability to speak had nothing to do with the attack. The doctor held firm.

When I was called, I told the story of our encounters with Derrek and what happened behind the market before I lost consciousness.

Will could only testify through sign language, and it was a laborious process involving a court appointed translator in addition to the prosecutor and lawyers. When I testified, I was asked by the prosecutor to describe all of our dealings with Derrek. I did so despite numerous objections from the defense counsel, who claimed that Derrek’s actions were simply examples of boys being boys.

In his closing arguments, the prosecutor told the judge that using 2-by-4s to beat two smaller boys senseless was hardly just boys-being-boys. It was the act of criminals with psychopathic tendencies who were trying to cause us serious damage, and they’d managed to do so.

After closing arguments, the judge announced that he would have a verdict the next day. Will and I both attended the last day of court, in which the judge found the three assailants guilty on all counts. He sentenced Derrek, as the perpetrator, to eight years and seven months in jail, while the other two received shorter sentences.

We celebrated my eighteenth birthday at the cabin. That night, as we lay in bed, Will signed, “Maybe it’s time.” I nodded and dug in a drawer for a tube of lubricant.

He looked questioning, and I thought he wondered where the tube had come from.

“A little present from the uncles,” I said. “They didn’t really tell me how to do it, but they did say it could cause some pain at first and to go slowly.” Then I asked, “Do you want to be on the top or the bottom?”

He rolled over on his stomach.

“Okay. So, at least the first time, that’s how we’ll do it.”

I had him kneel on the bed, and I squirted some lube on his butt hole. I put some on my finger and touched it to his hole. Then I pushed gently and my finger slid in a little.

He grunted quietly.

I pulled out my finger and added more lube. This time, when I put my finger in, I slid it slowly in as far as it would go.

Of course, I was hard at that point, so I put some lube on my cock and tried to push it into the hole, but the hole was too tight.

I kept working, adding lube to a second finger and eventually to a third.

At last, I lubed my cock and tried again. I met some resistance, but then Will’s hole seemed to relax and I slid in a little way, before reaching another point of resistance.

“Ah,” he sighed, almost under his breath.

“Am I hurting you?” I asked.

He shook his head.

Again I pushed, and this time the resistance gave way and I slid in as far as I could.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He turned his head enough so that I could see him grin and nod.

“And I love being here in you,” I said.

After resting for a few moments, I asked, “Ready?”

Again he grinned and nodded.

I began sliding in and out slowly.

He grunted loudly.

The pressure was building up in me and I couldn’t go slowly any longer. I began pumping faster and harder.

“Uh!” he shouted and came as I felt his muscles tighten around my cock.

And then I came, gloriously, pumping my love juice into him. I swear I heard angels singing. It was the most erotic, wonderful sensation I’d ever had.

I collapsed on him and he in turn was flattened onto the bed, where we lay panting.

In time we got our breath back while my cock softened and pulled out of him. Somehow, he rolled over and we kissed long and hard. Then we stood and hurried to the shower.

As the hot water poured onto us, we stood, hugging hard and kissing, our tongues doing their love dance.

“Will,” I said, “I just want you to know that your problems with talking have absolutely nothing to do with my loving you. I do now and I always will.”

He hugged me so hard I was afraid my ribs would break again.

After we dressed, we went into the Big Room, where the uncles were sitting enjoying some wine. They didn’t say anything to us. They just smiled.

We knew that we would be doing it again and again, perhaps trading top and bottom. We had no idea of what our future might bring, except that we were determined it would be together.

Sunday morning, Paul drove us both to Will’s home. His parents and the three of us sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. I said to Will’s parents, “Will and I just want you to know that we love each other and we want to be together, always.”

Paul said to me and Will, “Will’s parents and Darrell and I have agreed to pool our resources so that we can rent you a furnished apartment in town. We know that you love each other and that you need some privacy. We hope you will accept the apartment not as our way of getting you out of our homes but as a way of acknowledging your maturity and your needs.”

There was general hugging all around before Will and I embraced and kissed.

“Thank you so much for being understanding,” I said, “and I know that Will thanks you too.”

Will grinned and nodded and then grabbed me and hugged me again.

That afternoon, the uncles and Will’s parents took us to see the apartment. We couldn’t have been happier.

Within a week we had moved our belongings to our new home. The first night we spent there was a passionate, erotic one. Everything was perfect, even the hot shower.

Soon after, we both graduated with honors. Will had been named valedictorian. He wrote his speech and I read it at the graduation.

I was able to get a job which would pay enough for our food and other necessities. Over the summer, we went on Explores from the cabin.

Did Will ever learn to speak again? Does it matter? We were both happy and enjoying every day of our life together.