Gang of Five

by Douglas

Chapter 3

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We carried our iced coffees out of the Starbucks, and crossed the street -- carefully; I made an exaggerated show of looking both ways -- over to a landscaped hill opposite from the mall.

The Hill, we used to call it.  A little ironically; to kind of go along with The Square.  It’s a wonder they can keep grass growing there, our butts have spent so much time pressing it down.

Like we were doing, now.  Four boys, in a line across, looking down the hill at the BMWs and Porches go by on the worn asphalt.  I had another flashback to years ago; and a quick, weird, disorienting fantasy that maybe the years in Britain were kind of, not-so-real . . .

“So.  This has all been about me, so far, that’s not fair.  I want to know more about you guys; you know?”  I turned my head to my left, at Zach.  “How’s your dad?”

Have you ever wanted to bite off your words, before you finish saying them?  I so totally wanted to; I actually kind of choked on the word, ‘dad’; it came out kind of funny.

“He’s okay,” Zach shrugged.  Not looking at me.  “Busy.”

“Good,” I said.  “Cool.  Well, my dad got to almost finish his book, while my mum was teaching.  Of course, it was kind of a pain, he was always, like, home, writing, and sort of in the way . . .  ”  I babbled on, trying to cover the awkwardness.

*

I loved Zach’s mom, before she died.

She was incredible; really warm, intense, funny, always laughing about something.  And smart; she was a research biologist.  She and my mum were really good friends, almost as close as Zach and me.

So many ways, Zach’s mom kept Zach’s family together.  She was the connection; the only one who could get Zach’s dad to actually take vacation time, get them all to do things together.

It was so hard when she got sick; that’s when I really started sleeping over at Zach’s, to keep him company.

It was bad.

When she died -- Zach and I were ten, like I said -- I basically moved in with Zach for awhile.  I stayed with him for a week, ten days, something like that, at his house.  Never really knowing what to say, or what to do, except to hold him in bed at night; that part was easy.

He cried.  A lot at first; then only sometimes, and not in front of me.  But I always knew.

We didn’t even fool around, the whole time.

Zach’s dad tried, I guess; as best he could.  He took a lot of time off, and he and Zach and Zach’s aunt Lisa and my mum and me -- well, we did things, like day trips, and hikes, and watching a lot of movies, and stuff.  The kind of things people do more for the sake of being together, than for exercise or amusement or anything.

But eventually -- after a month, or so -- Lisa went home, and Zach’s dad went back to work.

Zach’s dad is an attorney.  He always worked hard; but after Zach’s mom died, it was like work was all he wanted to do.  Wanted to face doing.

I know Zach loves his dad; maybe more for his mom’s sake, than anything else, but he loves his dad.  And I know Zach’s dad loves him back; when he pays any attention.

No.  That’s mean of me.

I know Zach’s dad loves him.  But I always wished . . .  that his dad had more time for him.  Or something.

The other real bad time I remember -- except for Zach’s mom -- was when we were just about to move away, to London.

It was tough, knowing we were moving.  Kind of exciting, of course, in a weird, scary, fantasy-story kind of way; but to leave Zach, and Jarod and Tim and Liam -- but especially Zach -- was hard.  It really hurt.  More than I wanted to tell them.  Or him.

The last two nights he slept over with me, at my house.  Helping me pack -- there wasn’t that much to do, we weren’t taking that much -- and talking about how cool London would be, mostly to encourage me, because of course he knew how scared I was, and . . . just keeping me company.

The morning we left, Zach’s dad was supposed to be there, to say goodbye; our families had been pretty close, after all.  But he couldn’t make it.  Business.

Which meant it was just Zach, at the curb, as we loaded up the airport van.  And it was just Zach we left, standing there, waving, as we drove away, me looking back over the rear seats.

Crying.  We were both crying; I remember that part so well.

But I wasn’t sniffling and tearing up, so much, for me.  I was really crying for Zach, standing there alone, like that.  So alone.

*

“You know,” went Jarod, glancing at me, “ -- it was really cool, getting your emails from London, all this time.  Seeing how you were living; seeing what England was like.  The details.  The jpegs were really cool.”  He took a sip from his iced coffee.  “It was like we were . . . sharing the whole thing.  A little bit, anyway.”

“You don’t know how much it helped me.  Being able to do that, I mean.  And getting your emails back.”  I kind of smiled.  “Even if I didn’t get a jpeg of the new Starbucks.”

“Well, you know,” went Zach.  “You were sending us stuff about London, and those trips to Paris, and Rome, and Venice.  Kind of made our news just a little . . . dull.”

“It really mattered to me, though.  Especially in the beginning.  Like those first people who leased our house . . . ”

“Yeah!” laughed Tim.  “With the goats -- !”

They’d been friends of my dad; more academics, just like my family.  They had a theory about the ecology of yard maintenance . . .

*

Email was my life, after we moved.  It kept me connected to the four of them, kept me from being too desperately lonely, those first weeks.

The first email I got from Zach, after the flight . . . just seeing it, reading it.  God; it was a life preserver.  I almost cried, again.

We emailed a lot, especially me, early on; with descriptions of London, pieces from newspapers (mostly the Guardian, on my side; I couldn’t believe how bad the tabloids were), and a lot of snapshots of London I got scanned, showing them all where I’d been, what I’d seen.  It was a lifeline; I really WAS sharing this whole experience with my friends.  Just a little more remotely than I would have liked.

Of course, on my part, it was also deliberate.  Conscious.  I knew I’d be back in California, when my mum’s fellowship was over -- (although I was afraid, for awhile, that she’d be offered a permanent position, and I’d never get back) -- and apart from everything else -- like love, and friendship -- I didn’t want to lose touch with my place in California.  I didn’t want to start over from scratch, without close friends; the way I was doing in Britain.

Yeah.  I know.  Kind of cold and calculating.  I admitted that much to myself.

But besides that, and much more important than that -- I really, really missed them.  That’s why I really kept up the email thing.

But email has limitations.

As in -- it’s never really private  Especially internationally.  Especially on your parents’ computers; I didn’t get my own laptop until I’d been there almost two years.

We did what we could; kind of talking coded, so that when Zach got a digital camera and they started talking about taking pictures by Zach’s pool, I knew they were nude pictures.  Probably really sexual pictures.  And I started jacking off even more, just thinking about it.

And finally, one day, I got an encrypted zip archive in an email, and it was enormous.  And they -- it was Zach’s account, but the four of them took turns writing parts of it -- they managed to casually hint at the password.

‘Hope you like these pictures,’ the line read.  ‘They’re mostly just the four of us, but they really should be the five of us.’

So when I clicked on the archive again, and it prompted me for a password, I typed in ‘gang of five’ and pressed enter.  And it worked.

(I’d started calling us ‘Gang of Five’ awhile back.  It’s a kind of joke; an obscure reference to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and I don’t blame anybody for not looking it up.  None of us looked like Madame Mao, anyways.)

They were so incredible.

By the pool; in bright sunshine.  The four of them, smiling, laughing, tanned, wet, naked.

Touching each other.  Rubbing against each other.  Kissing; there was a great shot of Jarod and Tim really, really kissing -- open mouths, and everything -- while Liam rubbed himself on both of them . . .

Zach was a really good photographer.

And there was another one, that looked a little staged; Zach must have used the self timer, maybe with a tripod.  It was a picture of the four of them, in a kind of circle; sucking.  Mouths on each others’ cocks; Liam sucking Jarod, Jarod sucking Tim, really deeply and seriously; and Zach, just settling down, big grin on his face, Liam’s cock in his hand, Tim’s mouth just engulfing Zach . . .

But my favorite picture was called ‘wemissyou.jpg’; it was the four of them lined up, arms around each others’ waists, smiling at the camera; and hard.  Pointing kind of up, actually.

 If I could have worn out a digital file, I would have worn out wemissyou.jpg, over the next two and a half years.  After I got my laptop, especially.  All the sperm I spilled over that picture . . .

Anyway.  That day, I remember so well, how my hands were shaking as I loaded the blank CD on my dad’s computer, so I could burn the archive.  I was terrified my dad would get home again before I finished . . .

*

“I kind of got the feeling, after awhile, that you were getting really comfortable in England.”  Jarod glanced at me, again, sideways.  “Your emails sort of -- changed.”

“Changed?  How?”

“I don’t know,” went Jarod.  He stretched his legs out.  “Kind of -- your language.  I swear, you started writing in an English accent.”  I heard a kind of snort of laughter, from Tim.

“I did not,” I said, beginning to laugh, myself.

“You did too!” went Tim, grinning over at me from Jarod’s other side.  “We all noticed!” 

“You really did,” went Jarod.  “One time you said something about somebody being snarky to you.  And another time, when you got sick -- that really horrible flu -- you said you were afraid you’d wind up ‘in hospital’!”

“That’s right!” said Tim.  “I thought it was just a typo, but you said it twice.  It was funny!”

“Yeah, yeah, all right.”  I took a sip of coffee.  “That IS the way they talk, over there.  And I probably picked up some of it from my . . . mom.”

“You see?”  Tim leaned close, laughing, talking at Zach.  “He had to think about it.  He usually just calls his mom, ‘mum’!”

I just kind of raised my hands, in surrender.  I was actually kind of surprised; I’d been making a conscious effort, in London, to hold on to the Americanisms, and the California accent.  Just to be different; mostly.

“Come on,” went Tim.  “Say something in an English accent.  You know you can do it!”

“I can’t either!  I’m terrible at accents, you know that!”

“You were there three years,” Jarod pointed out.  “You must have tried.  Just to see if you could get away with it.”

“Well -- maybe . . . ”  He was right, of course.  I mean, how could you resist?

“So?”

“Somebody told me I sounded like a Canadian who spent a lot of time in Poland.  I told you I can’t do accents.”

“Cor, guv’ner,” went Tim, in really bad fake Cockney.

“Well, maybe I’m better than some.”  And Jarod bumped his shoulder against Tim, then me.

And part of me was watching all this from inside, and I sort of began to hope; because this was more like we used to be, with each other.

Up ‘til now, the whole conversation -- except for the hugs -- had been kind of weird.  Stiff.  Like people who didn’t really know each other that well, anymore.

And I was really aware that Zach was still not saying much.

*

So, yeah, email kept us all in touch, those three years.

But when email isn’t all that private -- it changes what you say to each other.  And over time -- it kind of changes how you relate.  The new way of talking -- it starts to define things.

I’m not just talking about sex.  Although I really, REALLY missed that; it was like cutting out a part of me, not being able to share that with the five of us.

It was more than that.  I mean, we couldn’t really be INTIMATE in our emails; not the way we were, face to face.  We were really, really, really close, before I left; and the kinds of things we’d say to each other, share with each other, all the time -- well, the idea of someone else reading that -- let alone our PARENTS --

Well.  It just didn’t happen.  That kind of closeness, I mean.

Even though we signed our emails to each other, ‘love’.  Even the separate segments Tim and Jarod and Liam contributed to Zach’s emails.

Kind of an act of defiance, I guess.

But time has a way of wearing you down.  And the new, un-intimacy eventually got kind of normal.

And then -- after a year and a half, or so -- Philippe showed up at school, and I got, like, an instant, huge, unrequited crush on him, and, well, it was one more reason why I started wondering exactly where I might really belong . . .

Don’t get the wrong idea.  I knew even then, it was a crush; Philippe never even looked at me.

With those dark brown eyes, under those lashes . . .

Anyway.

It was a really heavy crush.  I didn’t just want to, like, get naked with Philippe, and fool around with him, or even do the more advanced things the five of us used to do.  I wanted to, like, be his boyfriend.  I wanted to hold his hand; and snuggle with him, in front of a fire in a lodge in the Alps after skiing, and make out for hours, and --

And if there’d been any doubt in my mind, before -- there wasn’t much, honestly -- there was none after that.  Christian was queer.  Totally, happily, thoroughly, completely.  Emotionally and physically.

And -- after that experience, and after all that time, and after the emails gradually got more and more, well, self-censored, un-intimate, kind of sterile, really -- I honestly had no idea about my friends.  I just didn’t.

Well, I had an idea about Liam.  Not much doubt, there.

*

Back on the hill, Jarod and Tim were talking to each other about some ridiculous thing -- a reality television show I’d never seen -- and Zach stirred, and I felt him look at me, a second.

“Still must feel pretty unreal to you, right?” he asked, softly.

“Yeah.”

“I can only imagine,” he said.  He leaned over, and picked a blade of grass from the lawn.  “It was pretty unreal for me; back at your house.  Like, all the hundreds of times I’ve seen you come down those stairs; and this time, -- you were so different.  So grown.”  He threw away the grass blade, and picked another.  “I mean, I knew you’d be different.  But seeing it . . . ”  He shrugged.

“Yeah.  Well, you guys too, you know.”  I kept looking at the lawn between my feet.  “You’re not all thirteen, any more.”

“Thank goodness.  I didn’t like thirteen very much,” he said.  I glanced sideways at him, saw the corner of his mouth turning up.  “Now fifteen; much better.  I started winning some arguments with my dad.  And sixteen, well . . . ”

“Driving?”

“Someday.  Lot of restrictions if you’re under eighteen, you know.”  He shrugged, again.  “No, I wouldn’t want to be thirteen, again.”

Okay.  So.  We were sort of talking about it, now.  The Issue.

Real elliptically.

“No.  Me neither.”  I glanced over at Zach again, quickly.

He was so much more beautiful, now, than when I left.  Just his face; his profile.  It was, like, filled out, longer, with sharper cheekbones, fuller lips, thicker eyebrows -- but not heavy or too masculine, just sharper, still smooth, still a boy --

He was SO much more beautiful.  Stunning.  More beautiful, I thought, than Jarod; and that was saying a lot.

Zach glanced over at me, caught me looking at him; I looked down, fast, which was weird.  Like, when had I ever been shy, about looking at Zach?

*

When had I ever been shy around Zach, at all?  About much of anything?

Some images began popping up, in my head:  Zach’s face, over my tummy, beaming with excitement at the three little drops of my first wet orgasm -- (he’d jacked me off, as usual).  Zach, on his back, moaning as I gave him a real blowjob for the Very First Time, after I’d read the how-to-do-it details online somewhere.

The taste of Zach, wet.  I used to know that taste; and now I couldn’t really call it up.  And he was sitting right next to me.

We -- the five of us -- did a lot more, sexually, than just mutual masturbation.  A lot more.

For starters, we usually did stuff together.  As in, a group; not just paired off.

Ever had four horny boys working over your body, as you’re lying there, on the bed, naked, gasping?  Getting kissed by one boy, while he’s trying not to laugh, while another boy licks and plays with your nipples?  And a third boy licks your balls, while a fourth boy massages your dick, slowly, not letting you come just quite yet, backing off a little as you get close, then bending down and taking you in his mouth to finish you off -- ?

Yeah.  I have.  And not just that last time, before I moved, either.

All five of us have had the experience, actually; one way or another.

But it was so much more than that.  It was the bare bodies rubbing up against each other; it was the thrill of getting sprinkled, all over, head to toe, in your friends’ semen; it was the FUN of joining in with your friends and making someone have a wet, loud, arch-your-back orgasm.

We weren’t really into pre-arranged positions, or routines; we just did whatever came into our heads, whenever.  Up, down, sideways; whatever.

If I remember right, Zach and I were kind of ringleaders, that way.

Me, maybe, a little bit more than him.

You can find out things about other people, that way.

Once, for some weird reason, Zach and I were kind of head-to-foot with each other -- my head at his feet, I mean -- I think we’d fit our crotches together, legs on either side of each other’s trunks, so our balls and our perineums were pressing against each other -- and that was so much fun! --

Anyway.  I started playing with his feet, some; massaging them, sucking his toes, licking his smooth, soft soles -- and he went kind of crazy, humping against my leg, doing the same stuff to MY feet, but making noises and getting frantic -- he was so, so into it.

First I thought it was a little -- unusual, maybe; but it was so much FUN.  And intimate, too; I mean, kind of the same way playing with somebody’s hands can be intimate.  So later that day I got to be the first one to jack him off with my bare feet, and he had a really, really amazing orgasm . . .

So as time went on, we did more bare feet stuff, from time to time; and -- mostly because it was so hot, watching Zach’s reactions -- I really got into it too.

And now, just seeing a cute boy, running barefoot in the park, or even just in sandals, kind of drives me crazy . . .

Well.  To be honest, after three years of look-but-don’t-touch, seeing bare skin almost anywhere on a cute boy drives me crazy.

But the most mind-blowing thing we ever did, was just between Zach and me.  The night before I left; when he was sleeping over with me.

With all the stuff that was going on, it was already really intense, between us; I was trying not to cry, and Zach was -- well, I’m not sure.  Trying to be comforting, and maybe trying not to cry, a little, too.

Between us, I’ve always been the more vulnerable one.  And Zach’s been the strong one; the protector.

Anyway.  We were in bed, holding each other, kind of rubbing against each other -- not trying to get each other off, exactly; more like, trying to comfort each other, a little.  Connect with each other, that way we always had.

And that’s when Zach did it.  He rolled me over onto my stomach --

I should explain.

The five of us were comfortable with our bodies -- REALLY comfortable -- with each others’ bodies, I mean -- but up until then, we’d never done anything particularly, well, anal.  Anal sex, I mean.

Well, we DID touch each other, down there.  And tickled each other, and rubbed each other.  Quite a bit, actually.  Once we figured out how much fun it was.  How much hotter it could make our orgasms.

Bu nothing much more than that.  Touching, and tickling.

Until that night, when Zach flipped me over, spread my legs, got down on his stomach behind me and began rimming me.

It wasn’t just a sex thing.  Maybe not even mostly a sex thing; it was about -- intimacy. 

I went so, so crazy; I guess I was already sort of prepared for it, after the tickling and all -- but it so, so got to me.  Zach had to keep lifting his head up, to tell me to shut up, or we’d wake my parents.  But he kept going back into my butt, with his face and his lips and his tongue.

It was so amazing, I had to stop him, and get him down on his stomach, and do him back.  And if I thought it was intense before, well, getting into Zach that way, with him moving under me, and pushing up and back against my face, and my tongue --

By that time we were all over my bed, the sheets and covers mostly off; and I came up with a way for us to do each other, that way, at the same time, sort of wrapped up in a ball, like a yin-yang symbol, and so we just kept doing that, whimpering, sneaking our hands in between us, licking, until we both came.

Like I said.  Incredibly intense.  And about so much more than just sex.

And the next day, I was gone.

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