Aaron awoke early on Saturday morning and had more energy than he knew existed. He jumped out of bed and made his bed in two seconds flat (yeah, he was a neat freak). He bounded for the shower and sang loudly as he washed. He had a raging boner almost the whole time, but that was for later. No need to waste it this early in the morning.
His brother staggered into the bathroom just as Aaron was getting out of the shower.
“Aaron, please, it’s too early for this sort of thing.” He then looked down at Aaron’s still throbbing member and continued, “You better watch it with that thing. It looks like a pretty lethal weapon.”
“That it is, little bro. That it is.”
Adam walked out and closed the door behind him while Aaron continued getting ready. He put on his deodorant and splashed on a little cologne that he’d swiped from his father’s medicine cabinet. He lathered up and shaved, even though he really didn’t need a shave, but he wanted to look his best for his honey.
Aaron bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen. His mom was sitting there, drinking a cup of coffee. “Hi, Mom!” He said with more enthusiasm than was appropriate for any teenager on a Saturday morning.
“Aren’t you a bit excited for a Saturday morning? Usually I don’t see you down here until lunchtime.”
“I know, but I’m really excited about the peace rally. And I got some reading and homework to do for school, so I thought I’d better get it done first.”
“Since when do you not wait until the last second to do your homework?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like it. Besides, I’m thinking about going to the game tomorrow.”
“What game?”
“Our school’s football game.”
“Since when do you go to a football game? I didn’t think you even liked football.”
“Well, I think I’m liking it more. And I’m going to meet friends there.”
Well, this was certainly getting interesting. Mrs. Johnson knew this wasn’t her son. She’d wanted to see him make friends, but he was pretty much a loner. It was great that he seemed to have made a friend now, but this look of excitement was something more, and she had a good idea of what it was.
“Aaron, I can see you’re very excited about the peace rally and the game tomorrow, but could we take a few minutes to talk?”
Aaron suddenly felt nervous. His mother never approached him so directly unless she had something serious to say. When he just stood there with his eyes wide open, with a “deer in the headlights’ look on his face, she tried to reassure him, “Don’t worry, honey. I’m not going to bite your head off or anything. Why don’t you please sit down and relax?”
Aaron sat down, but he was far from relaxed. In fact, he was on the verge of panicking. Even before she said it, he had a good idea of what was coming. “Aaron, I know you probably don’t want to talk about this, but I want you to know that I will love you no matter what. Who your are, what you are and who you love are things we have little choice about in life. Believe me, I know this as well as anyone and, short of you choosing to do something illegal or harmful to others, you will always be my son and one of my best friends in life.” She looked directly at him. “Aaron, is your friendship with Brian something more?”
Aaron’s face turned deep red. He broke eye contact and looked down as tears started to form in his eyes. His mom knew. She knew! How in the hell could she have known? Was she angry? Would she let him see Brian again? This wasn’t how he’d planned to come out to her — it was way too soon. He wasn’t nearly ready yet.
“Aaron, you don’t have to feel ashamed about it. It may be hard for you to believe, but I’ve been in love, too.”
Aaron looked back up at his mother with fear in his eyes. “Yes, but you aren’t gay,” he said. “Are you mad at me?” Aaron asked softly as he started to cry.
“Heavens no, Aaron. I know it’s harder to be gay — I won’t lie to you or sugar-coat the way others may see it — but in my book it isn’t important to me whether you’re gay, straight or bisexual. Sure, I’m a bit disappointed that you won’t be giving me grandchildren — what mother wouldn’t be — but what matters is that you’re a good person and I love you very much. I could never be mad at you for who you are.”
Aaron walked around the table and threw his arms around his mother and began to sob uncontrollably. He wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy or tears of the pain and suffering. And he was a teenager with hormones and all of the pent up emotions that boys are expected to suppress.
As his tears started to subside, Mrs. Johnson continued. “Aaron, I want you to know that I’m here for you. This isn’t going to be easy and you probably want to be careful at school and in public. Most people still don’t accept homosexuality. If you go around school the way you went around here today, people are going to know you’re in love. If you act affectionately toward Brian in public, you both could be in for a rough time.
“One thing you probably do need to think about is what you would do if you really were outed at school. Now for all the reasons I spoke about, I recommend that you keep it quiet. I’m not saying you should lie or have sham relationships with girls or deny who you are, but keep it low.” She smiled as she continued, “I think that ‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell’ applies really well here. However, if there’s a gay-straight alliance at school, I suggest you consider joining — it would be a safe place where you could be yourselves. But if your being gay gets out and kids pick on you, you have to be strong — much stronger than straight people have to be. Don’t hesitate to hold your head up high and tell them, ‘you should be so lucky to have a love like mine.’”
Aaron laughed as he sat back down next to his mother. She continued, “Now I’m not sure if I want to know if you’ve had sex yet.” Aaron blushed and looked down. “Well, I guess it was stupid to ask. In any case, Aaron, I know you don’t want to talk about sex with me, but you have to be careful.”
“Mom!”
“Aaron, listen to me. I’m not sure if I should tell you this, but I had my first sexual experience with a boy when I was around your age.”
Aaron was shocked. His mother was telling him she’d had sex as a kid. This was way too much information.
She reached out and lifted his chin until he was looking back at her. “It’s dangerous enough, but AIDS is still out there. There may be drugs to control HIV, but there still isn’t a cure.”
“But Mom, neither one of us has had sex before. And it was just oral sex anyway,” Aaron blurted out without really thinking about what he’d just said.
This time it was Mrs. Johnson that was blushing. “Well, although oral sex is less risky, it’s not risk-free. You can still get AIDS from oral sex. But anal sex is another matter. I don’t want to lose you. You should always use a condom any time you exchange fluids, either orally or anally, but you absolutely must use a condom if you have anal sex.”
Aaron again was looking down, and Mrs. Johnson again lifted his chin and looked into his eyes. “Aaron, I’ll make a deal with you. Whatever you do with Brian behind your closed bedroom door is your own business. I will not bother you, I will not enter and if you two feel comfortable having sex under this roof, then it’s OK by me. The one condition is that you promise me that you will practice safer sex. That means using a condom whenever you have oral sex and particularly when you have anal sex. I know I can’t exactly check up on you to enforce this, but you’re a good boy and I know that if you make this promise to me, you won’t break it.”
Aaron couldn’t believe what his mom was saying. His mom was telling him it would be OK to have sex in her house. Unlimited sex! Yes! So he’d have to use a condom — he could live with that, in more ways than one. “Mom, I absolutely promise I will use a condom every time I have oral or anal sex.” And then he had another thought. “But what about Dad?”
“Your father and I haven’t used condoms in years,” she said in a perfect deadpan. When Aaron just stared at her with a blank expression on his face, she burst out laughing and only then did he realize she was making a joke. “Well, he isn’t going to be thrilled with all of this, but I think he’ll come around. You may also want to talk to your brother — otherwise he could give you a hard time.”
“Adam’ll be cool with it. He already knows about me and Brian. He knew I was gay even before I did.”
“Do Brian’s parents know?”
“I don’t think so, and I don’t want them to. They’re really religious and Brian thinks they’d try to split us up if they knew.”
“Well, that’s between Brian and his parents, and I certainly won’t intervene. Perhaps it’s best that they not know for now — at least not until Brian’s older. You can always have him over here.”
“Mom, I couldn’t stand it if his parents took him away from me. I love him. He’s all I think about. We were made for each other.”
“I know how you feel. Right now there is nothing more important to you. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but first loves rarely last. I’m not saying this one won’t, but there will probably be others.”
“No, Mom. No way! Brian’s the one. I love him and we’re going to be together forever.”
“Well, I’m glad you feel that way. Now why don’t you go do your homework, and then you can go see him at the rally.”
“Thanks, Mom. If I haven’t told you lately, I love you. You’re the greatest!”
Concentrating on homework was difficult, but Aaron didn’t want anything in the way for the rest of the weekend. He was going to spend all his time with Brian, and he couldn’t wait! Finally it was time to leave, and his mom let him drive to the rally. She wished him luck as he entered the church. His face lit up when he saw Brian sitting behind one of the registration tables. Brian was talking to one of the other volunteers and didn’t see Aaron until he was practically on top of him. He looked up to see who was casting the shadow and he broke into a broad grin when he saw that is was his lover.
“Aaron. Thanks for coming.”
“You couldn’t keep me away if I were in chains.”
“Listen, I’m not going to be able to spend a lot of time with you until the rally itself. I have a lot to do here.” Brian made up a name badge for Aaron and handed it to him. “Here, put this on and head downstairs. Look for a guy named Larry. He’ll put you to work in the meantime.”
Aaron went down the stairs and tried to find Larry. He concentrated on looking at the older kids first, and then finally asked someone to point him out. He was surprised when he was steered to another young kid who looked to be about Brian’s age. He was about 5’5”, had sandy brown hair and hazel eyes, and he was very cute.
“Larry, I’m Aaron Johnson. My friend Brian said I should ask for you.”
“Aaron, it’s really great to meet you.” Larry said as he shook Aaron’s hand and simultaneously punched his left fist into Aaron’s right shoulder.
“What was that about?”
“Hey, it’s not every day I meet my best bud’s boyfriend.”
Aaron’s jaw just about dropped to the floor. He was speechless.
“Don’t worry about it. Your secret’s safe with me. Brian and I tell each other everything. We’ve known each other since second grade. No way he could keep something this big from me. And besides, it’s cool. Brian’s a good guy. He’s gotten me out of trouble more than a few times. His being gay doesn’t change things. He’s still my best bud, and that makes you my best bud, too.”
Aaron still didn’t know what to say. It was really cool that Brian had a good friend that he could trust with this, but it also made him feel a little less secure. He wasn’t ready to go public — that’s for sure.
“Aaron, we seem to have plenty of people working on pickets for now. We’re planning to have a candlelight vigil. We’re hoping for at least a couple hundred students to show tonight, but it could be as many as 500.
“Over there,” Larry motioned to some boxes stacked against the wall, “are some boxes of candles. It would be a big help if you could remove the candles from the boxes and set them up on those tables over there,” he nodded in the other direction. “Be sure to inspect each candle carefully and check to make sure the glass is intact. If any candles have cracks in them, put them aside. We don’t want any kids getting burned, or worse, tonight. Make sure that each candle has a decent wick. No need to make someone spend an hour trying to light their candle. We have plenty, and we can return any that are defective.
“When you’ve finished setting up the candles on the tables, grab the books of matches and place one book with each candle. It’ll save a lot of time if each kid lights their own candle.”
“Thanks, Larry, and it was nice to meet you. I’ll get right on it.”
Larry had given Aaron perhaps the most tedious task. Each candle was wrapped in cellophane and he had to unwrap each one and then carefully inspect the glass container. More than a few had cracks, and he had put them in the rejects pile. A larger number had nonexistent wicks and these had to be discarded as well. You’d never know how much work is involved in preparing 500 candles. It took him most of the afternoon, but it was just as well as it kept him occupied while he was separated from Brian.
By the time he finished, the basement was getting very crowded as kids started showing up for the rally. Even when it was time for the rally to start, kids were still arriving and almost all the candles were gone. Frantically, Aaron grabbed the remaining boxes and started handing out candles and matches, not even taking the time to unwrap them. There was just no time to inspect them now and he could only hope they were OK. There were still a few kids in line when he ran out completely and he ended up retrieving some of the discarded ones and warning each kid to be careful of them. He himself was forced to take one that had a slight chip around the rim. By now all the food that had been set up for the volunteers was gone and Aaron didn’t have time to eat anyway — he’d just have to go hungry.
Once he was finally able to get upstairs, he was confronted by a mad scene. There were kids of all ages everywhere standing outside the church and the din of them all talking at once was almost unbearable. Aaron looked everywhere but he couldn’t see Brian. He didn’t know what to do. Then someone started talking using a megaphone.
“May I have your attention please. May I please have your attention.” But the din continued. Finally, someone shot off a cap gun, and that got everyone’s attention. “Alright. Listen up everybody. First of all, I want to thank all of you for coming out today. You have exceeded our wildest imaginations. At last count, there are 793 of you signed in for this event.” A large cheer went up from the crowd. “Now this rally is about peace and it will be a peaceful rally. To keep things orderly, each of you has been assigned to a group. The groups are arranged alphabetically and each of you has a group leader who will tell you what to do. Now please line up on the sidewalk, starting at the stop sign, as I call the last letter of your name. We’re starting with A, B and C. If your last name begins with A, B or C, join Charley over by the stop sign.”
And so it went as the kids were assembled, group by group into the procession. When they got to the J’s, Aaron was pleased to see that his group leader was Brian. When Brian saw him he grabbed him and made sure he was at the front of the group — an unofficial group co-leader of sorts. Brian told everyone to light their candles and then they joined those ahead of them in the march. They marched their way through town, singing songs of peace. A lot of the music was from the ‘60’s — it reminded Aaron of the stuff he read about in school on the peace marches during the Vietnam War. There were a few instances of hecklers and he later learned that some of the marchers were pelted with eggs, but by and large it was a very successful march with a number of people along the way honking their horns and giving other signs of support.
Of course while Aaron was singing, although his heart was in the march, he couldn’t help but think of the boy walking next to him. Every chance he got he stole a glance to his side to catch a glimpse of that vision of perfection. Every now and then he noticed that Brian was looking at him, too. Both boys had a great time, but the march was a long one that lasted nearly two hours. After returning to the church and after everyone else had left, the organizers had to stay and clean up. It was close to midnight by the time the boys were ready to be picked up.
As they waited for their parents, Aaron began, “My mom knows.”
“What?!”
“My mom knows about us.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Out of the blue she asked me if we were more than friends. I guess I didn’t do a good job of hiding it.”
“Is she angry?”
“No, she’s actually cool with it. And get this — she says we can do whatever we want behind my closed bedroom door.”
“Get out of here. Really?!”
“She made a deal with me. No restrictions as long as we use condoms.”
“Aaron, I’ve never been with anyone else. You have nothing to worry about from me.”
“I know, babe. I trust you. I haven’t had sex with anyone else, either. Hell, we haven’t even had more than oral sex with each other. But it’s my mom. She’s worried about AIDS.”
“I can understand that. She doesn’t know me that well. Oh well, I guess using condoms is a small price to pay for a safe place to have sex. That is so cool!”
“Totally! So, when can we get together?”
“You mean getting together as in getting together?”
“You perv!” They both laughed. “I’d like to see you tomorrow.”
“You know there’s a big game tomorrow. I won’t have time beforehand, and we usually go out afterwards.”
“Actually, I’d like to see the game. I’d like to see you perform.”
“Well that’s cool. You aren’t exactly into sports, though”
“No, but you’ll be there, and I’d like to be there, too.”
“You going with anybody?”
“Nah, I’ll just go alone.”
“That sure sounds like fun. Hey, wait a minute.” He turned and shouted, “Larry!”
Larry came over. “’Sup studs?”
“You going to the game tomorrow?”
“Well I was gonna go, but Cindy had to cancel on me, so I thought I’d just stay home.”
“Would you like to go with Aaron? Don’t get any ideas, though — he’s my boy.”
“Dude, you have nothing to fear from me. I’m straight as an arrow. Sure, I’d love to go.”
Just then Larry’s dad showed up, so they made their arrangements and said their goodbyes. Soon Aaron himself was on his way home and before he went to bed, his parents made him watch the news segment they recorded from the 11:00 news that showed the rally. Sure enough, for a brief instant the camera focused on Aaron and Brian, side-by-side as they marched. It was pretty cool. He then realized he was absolutely starving, having not eaten since lunch, and his mom made a sandwich for him. As he ate in the kitchen, his father joined him.
“Aaron, your mom told me about you and Brian.”
“Oh?”
“I just wanted you to know that I’m OK with it. You’re still the son I raised and I love you very much. What I care most about is that you’re happy and that you have someone in your life to love and be loved by.”
They embraced warmly for a long time, and then Aaron headed upstairs. Within ten minutes he was in bed and sound asleep.
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I would like to thank WriteByMyself and David of Hope for their editing skills and invaluable suggestions, and Trab for his proofreading. This story can be found at Gay Authors and Awesome Dude. It was originally hosted at Nifty and at the Rainbow Community Writing Project. I am grateful to all of these sites for hosting this and my other stories. © Altimexis 2005–2024