I stood gloomily on the porch looking out over puddles in the yard and deep mud in the path to the barn. The rain pelted the porch roof like shotgun pellets. There seemed to be no letup in sight. We were all thoroughly sick of it. Even Charlie only went outside to do his business quickly and rush back in. Sometimes Josh visited his parents for a night; sometimes he stayed away for a couple of nights. I was fine with that, although I missed him a lot when he was gone. I liked his parents and was grateful for all their kindness to us.
One evening when Josh was at the farm, Derek asked, “Can I talk with the two of you… alone?”
“Sure,” Josh said. “Teddy, why don’t you set up the chess game and we can play in a few minutes.”
“I’m always left out,” Teddy mumbled, but he said it with a smile and went to get the chess set.
Josh, Derek and I went out to the barn and climbed into the loft.
“What’s up?” I asked. It was clear that Derek was feeling a little embarrassed and his face was growing red.
Finally he asked, “Guys, how do you know whether you’re gay or straight?”
“Wow!” I said. “You know how to ask the hard questions.”
“I’m sorry. Shouldn’t I have asked?”
“Of course you should,” Josh replied. “It’s a good question and if you’re wondering about it that means you should ask. But the answer’s not easy.”
“You see,” I jumped in, “you can’t just separate people and put them in boxes. There’s not a gay box and a straight box. What there is is a whole lot of variation in what guys feel and how they satisfy their feelings.”
Josh continued. “Think of a long, straight line. At one end of the line are guys who are clearly gay. Everybody knows they’re gay. They’re flamboyant and their talk and walk and gestures just cry aloud ‘I’m gay.’ But not all gays, like us, are like that. Then, at the other end of the line are the extremely straight guys, guys about whom you would never have a question. You can’t really tell by looking at them. I used to think that all jocks had to be straight before I learned that’s not so. I used to think that all body-builders were straight and now I know that certainly isn’t so. Now, most guys fall someplace on the line between those two ends. I suppose in the very middle you’d have bisexuals, but even that’s not simple. You’ll find a lot of gay guys who have had straight experiences and a lot of basically straight guys who have had sex with other men. It’s really complicated. Does any of this make sense to you?”
“Yeah, I guess it does. But then what do I do if I’m not sure what I am?”
“Well,” I said, “first of all, don’t try to put yourself in one of those boxes. Just go with the flow. If there’s somebody you’re attracted to, fine. If it’s a guy, fine; if it’s a girl, fine; if you find yourself going back and forth, fine.”
Derek nodded thoughtfully before saying, “Guys, I guess what I’m really asking is… would you be disappointed if I was straight?”
“No,” we said in unison.
“We want you to be who you are.” I said. “We don’t want you to think that you have to be gay or straight because that’s what we expect. Unfortunately, most gay boys are afraid their parents will be disappointed in them. I doubt if most straight boys have that problem, but maybe you do because you’re living with two gay men. If you’re worried about what we’ll think of you, forget it. We both love you, we both care about you, and we both want you to be happy. OK?”
“Yeah… Thanks. Maybe I should tell you that I have a girlfriend.”
“Great,” said Josh. “Who is she and what’s she like?”
“Her name is Katie and she’s beautiful! She has long red hair and a great smile. She has little freckles, not nearly as many as Teddy but just enough to be cute. She has a little snub nose which she wrinkles up when she’s thinking. We met in school but since vacation began we’ve been emailing… a lot.”
“That’s great,” I responded. “Have you met her parents?”
“No. She wants me to go to their house in Lancaster and meet them and then maybe go get some ice cream together. Could I?”
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “Why don’t you call her and ask when a good time would be.”
“OK. But I think I’ll email instead of calling because I’m not sure I want to share this with Teddy yet and our phone is pretty public.”
With that, we returned to the house. Josh and Teddy played chess and I went into the living room to read while Derek went upstairs to email Katie.
He came down a few minutes later. “Would tomorrow at 2:00 work?” he whispered to me.
“Sure,” I said, so up the stairs he ran again. When he came down he whispered, “It’s all set. Her parents want to meet you and Josh. Well, she said they wanted to meet my parents and that’s what you guys are. Is that OK?”
“Yes,” I whispered back. “Does that mean that she doesn’t know about us?”
“Right. Do you think that’ll be a problem?”
“Probably not, but we’ll just have to wait and see how her parents take it.”
“Thanks,” he said before running up the stairs again.
He didn’t return for nearly an hour. Then he sat close to me and whispered, “I decided to tell her about you guys so she wouldn’t be surprised tomorrow. She was fine with it but she wasn’t sure whether she would tell her parents or just wait for us to show up. I said I thought she should tell them but she hasn’t decided, so I guess we’ll find out when we get there.” Then he got a pad of his writing paper and sat next to me on the couch while he wrote.
Finally I asked what he was writing about. “Teen love,” he said, grinning up at me. “I find that writing is a great way to work out my fantasies without getting hurt.”
“Good idea. But you should realize that there will be times when you do get hurt or when you unintentionally hurt somebody else. I’m sure you would never do it on purpose but it’s so easy to do. If you get hurt or if you find you’ve hurt somebody else you know you can always talk to us.”
“I know. I think I can share just about anything with you now. Thanks.” And with that he went back to his writing. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he paused, thought, wrote, smiled, thought some more, grinned broadly, and finally giggled. Finally he looked up at me and said, “Maybe someday I’ll share this with you, but for now it’s kinda private. OK?”
“Sure,” I replied and we both went back to what we were doing.
That night in bed I told Josh about Derek’s date. “Oh ho,” he chortled, “so we have a little lover boy.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, he’s not so little any more. Part of the time he was writing he definitely had a boner which he tried to hide. I think we’re in for a ride.”
“What fun!” Josh replied before leaning over and kissing me, gently at first and then hard on the mouth. His tongue found its way in and our tongues once again danced together, flicking back and forth from mouth to mouth. From there we moved on to our customary evening calisthenics, enjoying being together and sharing wonderful sex.
When we had both finished and our cocks had grown flaccid we cleaned ourselves and the sheet as well as we could and then lay, as usual, in each other’s arms, kissing again and just enjoying being together.
We woke in the morning and pleasured each other as we often did in the morning before getting up, washing ourselves as best we could, dressing, and then doing our chores, letting the boys sleep in a little later.
When we called them, Derek bounded down the stairs grinning broadly saying, “I can’t wait!”
“Well, that’s part of the fun of love,” I said. “The anticipation can be wonderful. Now do you think you can last long enough to do your chores?”
“Sure,” and he bounded out the door.
Teddy descended a little more slowly. “What’s he in such a hurry for?” he asked sleepily.
“He’s just feeling good,” I replied.
Teddy shrugged and went to do his chores while Josh and I made the breakfast.
After we ate there wasn’t a great deal to do. Our laundry had piled up but we needed a sunny day to dry the clothes and this one promised more rain. Derek tried to write but he was too excited and distracted so he and Teddy played Parcheesi while Josh and I settled into a chess match.
By the end of the morning we had held an entire chess tournament with everybody playing everybody else. Teddy managed to beat Derek to Derek’s chagrin, but then Derek beat me, which pleased him immensely. I beat Josh and Teddy while Josh beat Derek and Teddy. So everybody won some and lost some. It was a great morning.
We were going to drop Teddy off at Jamie’s house for a while in the afternoon. He was beginning to get “cabin fever,” as were we all, so he was eager to go. We were going to take Derek to Katie’s and then visit Garrett for a while, leaving the ice cream store open for Derek and Katie.
We all piled into Josh’s car and drove to Lancaster, dropping off Teddy as planned.
As we pulled up to Katie’s house the door opened and she waved. Derek was right, she was a cutie, petite with gorgeous red hair and a pixie-like face. We walked up to the front door where Derek introduced us to her. “Did you tell them?” Derek asked.
“No, I chickened out. I hope this goes OK.”
“So do I!” said Derek, as did Josh and I, although we said nothing.
We all went into Katie’s living room. Her parents stood and Katie made the introductions. She introduced me and Josh as Derek’s brothers. Then her parents invited us to sit for a little.
Katie’s mother said, “Katie has told us a lot about you Derek. Welcome. I’m glad to finally meet you.” Then, turning to us, she said, “You’re his brothers? I thought his parents were coming.”
Here we go again, I thought. “Well, it’s a bit complicated. I am Derek’s older brother. We also have a younger brother, Teddy.” I explained about our parents dying, about moving to Grandpa’s farm, and about how I got to know Josh. “We all grew so close that Teddy and Derek began to think of Josh as another brother, and Josh began calling our grandfather, ‘Grandpa.’ Since Grandpa died, Josh has basically moved to the farm and is living with us. He comes in to Lancaster to visit his parents from time to time, but most of the time he’s with us.”
“That’s a different sort of arrangement,” observed Katie’s father. Then, almost without hesitating, he asked, “So are you and Josh just friends?”
“No,” Josh said and bit the bullet. “Greg and I are both gay and we love each other very much.”
There was silence in the room. Katie’s mother said, “Oh;” nothing more.
Her father finally asked, “How old are you?”
“We’re both eighteen,” I answered. “We both graduated from the high school last spring and we’re both taking farming-related courses online from universities this fall. We plan to continue farming, that is,” I looked at Josh, “if there’s any farm left after this rainy summer.”
That gave Katie’s father an opening so he shifted the conversation to farming and we chatted for a little about our present problems before Josh and I took our leave while Derek and Katie put on their raincoats to walk to the ice cream store, assuring her parents that they would return to her house without going anywhere else.
“So how do you think that went?” I asked as we drove to Garrett’s garret.
“I’m not sure. At least they didn’t throw us out or say Katie couldn’t have anything to do with Derek. I suppose the real test will come someday when he invites her to the farm.”
We spent a couple of hours with Garrett. Then Josh said he would stay a while longer and go to his parents for the night. He said if the day was dry he’d come early but otherwise he’d return to the farm around supper time. Since I needed his car to go home he said he’d get one of his parents to drive him back.
I drove back to Katie’s house. Katie and Derek were playing chess in the living room while Katie’s parents were in the kitchen. I went into the kitchen to thank them and they asked me to sit for a moment.
Oh, boy. Here we go, I thought.
Katie’s father said, “As you might suspect, we’ve been talking while you were gone. I want you to know that we have no problems with you two young men having a gay relationship. That’s entirely your business. And we want you to know that your relationship doesn’t affect how we feel about Derek or him being with Katie. However, she’s young, they’re both young, and we’re not entirely comfortable with her learning what a gay relationship involves. She does know what being gay means, but only in theory. Anyway, we’ve decided that, as long as you’re OK with Derek coming to town and spending time with Katie we’re happy to have him. He seems like a very nice, kind boy. What we would not be comfortable with right now would be her going to the farm.” He was silent waiting for a moment for me to take that in before asking, “How do you feel about that?”
“I’m OK with it for now,” I said. “You’re right, she is young and there’s no point in rushing it. I do hope that she’ll learn in time that two gay people can live happily and lovingly together. Perhaps if we came here from time to time so that both you and she could get to know us better you might eventually be comfortable with her visiting us on the farm.”
“All right, then we’ll leave it at that for now.”
“Thank you,” I said and retrieved Derek. In the car I told him what Katie’s parents had said. He was disappointed that she wasn’t allowed to go to the farm but he decided he understood… for now. I could see that at some point he might be the one to push it rather than Josh or I, but I left it at that. Then we retrieved Teddy and returned to the farm to do chores and have supper.