The front door opened and Alex and I were both shocked to see Emily and Mother emerge. Mother was actually smiling a real smile.

"Alex, lets go home. Bye-bye Helen! I'll pick you up at nine!"

"Ta!"

Alex and I looked at each other as if one of the signs of the Apocalypse had just manifested itself before us.

"Emily wants to visit the antique shops over in Brighton and since your fathers will probably be busy all day Saturday, I agreed to go with her. I had no idea she knew so much about antiques."

When Alex and his mother were gone, I picked up the paper and followed Mother inside.

"What is going on?" I asked. "I thought you hated Donald and Emily?"

"Oh, I never said that," Mother declared dismissively as she swept down the hall toward the kitchen. "Did you know," she said as she turned around, "that Emily is a Montford? That's one of the most distinguished families in South Carolina!"

Ah, so that was it.

Then, a bell rang in my head. Saturday. Daddy would probably be at the office all day preparing his case. Donald would be in the PD's office doing the same. With Mother and Emily gone... Oh, Heck! I'd have to watch Brian. But, wait.. maybe...

"So, what did you end up doing with Brian?" Alex asked as we walked away from my house to his.

"Grandma is taking him to see our cousins in Freeman's Corner. I told her you and I were going to the planetarium at the college."

"Cool. Come on. Race ya!"

This was the first time since before Stephen's death that I had seen Alex act anything like normal, well... normal for Alex. I was already hard when he and I waved at our moms as they drove away. It was going to be like the old days, even though the old days were only July!

As we reached his yard, he looked at me as he slowed down.

"You didn't already do it this morning, did you?"

I grinned.

"No way, but it was real hard."

"I can see that," Alex teased as he unlocked the front door. his Dad was just pulling out of the driveway as we entered. As Alex closed the front door and locked it, he turned to his dad's studio.

"Go on up. I'll meet you. I need to get something."

"Like what?" I asked.

Alex frowned. "Just go! I'll be right up."

I shrugged.

"OK, OK."

I took the steps two at a time until I reached the third floor and then, catching my breath, strolled past the empty bedrooms which would soon be filled with college students, to Alex's glorious paradise.

The Partridges didn't like air conditioning. They preferred nature as it was meant to be experienced. Even with a box fan in the south window drawing air in from the windows on the east side of the room, and even though it was only a little after nine in the morning, it felt like an oven in his room. However, that kind of made it a bit more exciting to me, for some reason. I grinned.

I heard Alex coming up the stairs and I thought of undressing so I would be completely naked when he came in. But, then, I thought it might be cool for us to undress each other! Alex loved to do stuff like that. He loved to be romantic and make it last. Me... I was used to sitting on the toilet and jacking off as fast as I could before Mother would stand outside the door and ask if I was sick because I was taking so long in the bathroom. Alex knew so much about sex. I decided I would ask him today how knew so much.

I stood in the turret looking out across the park spread out below as Alex came into the room. He closed the door, I assumed, to increase the airflow from the windows on the east to the one on the south with the fan. He was holding a bank bag, the kind merchants used to make deposits at a bank.

"What's that?" I asked.

Alex grinned as he walked over to me. I could see his long, thin hard-on in his cut-offs pushing against the tight, faded denim. He had that same hungry smile I saw that very first night when he had rubbed me through my shorts and made me sperm the very first time with someone else.

"Its a surprise. I want today to be special."

He came up to me and pressed me against the window sill. His face was just inches from mine. Our eyes met and I felt like melting all over him.

"We haven't done anything together since Sunday afternoon. I'm so horny for you."

I could barely breath after these words. Alex leaned forward as his lips touched mine, I closed my eyes and felt his breath as he whispered, "I love you, Chris."

He was holding me. I was holding him. Our tongues slowly moved into each other's mouths. It was a long, slow, loving kiss that reminded me why I was in love with this strange, exotic, beautiful boy.

He pulled his face away and I opened my eyes to see his face with that sexy, alluring look. His hair fell over his eyes in the sexy way that always made me want to shoot right there. His lips were barely open. I felt dizzy.

"I want to try something different. I want to do something that will make you crazy, that will make you so horny, you won't be able to stand it."

As I was feeling the words against my upper lip, his hands had let go of me and were pulling down the shades in the windows of the turret. He was grinding his hips against mine and I could feel the long, rigid spear of his boner, (I had begun to use more of Alex's terminology), pressing against my own hard-on. I wanted to grind harder into him. I was already panting.

What I really wanted to do was get nasty first and sperm and, then, when we weren't crazy with horniness, we could lay together and love each other. That's what I really liked, just holding and loving and being together.

"I want us to be so into each other that it blows our minds," he whispered.

"I'm already so into you that I almost can't stand it," I answered. He grinned, his lips just an inch from mine.

"I know. But, how about making it ten times better?" he whispered as he brushed his lips against mine. "How about twenty times better?"

I took a breath.

"What do we do?"

He moved his mouth to the side of my throat and licked my skin, making me groan. He knew that drove me crazy. He licked upward and when his tongue reached the base of my ear, he whispered, "Lets get high."

I froze.

I pulled my face back and looked at him. His pale eyes looked back. his face was serious; beautiful, but serious.

"So that's what's in that bag. You're dad does drugs and you just brought them up here for us to take."

"No," Alex whispered as he leaned over again. I pushed him away. "Dad smokes pot sometimes and I brought some up so we could try it."

"Liar. How do you know it will make it ten times better?"

Alex slowly smiled, a knowing, sexy smile that was getting to me as he continued to grind his hips against mine.

"Because, I tried once before and it was great."

I was so upset and confused and disappointed and... horny.

"You're lying."

Alex shook his head and leaned over.

"One weekend last winter, while Mom and Dad were in Syracuse, I was staying with a couple of friends of theirs, two grad students at Columbia and they were getting high and they talked me into it and then, when we were really going, they started running their hands all over me and then started kissing me all over my face and arms and then they ran their hands inside my shirt and started rubbing my nipples and I just..." He leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I lost it. It was the best feeling I ever had. We did it all night and it was wild and crazy and... I've never experienced anything like it since."

My head was telling me to run home and lock the door. I wanted to cry. My sweet Alex, who hated drugs so badly, who was so smart, who believed in principles and truth and honor just like Alexander, my Alex was like a crazy person, someone I didn't know, trying to get me to smoke pot with him.

My dick was telling me something else.

I swallowed as Alex leaned back.

"Mom and Dad found out. I don't know how, but they did and they were furious. I never saw Marcus and Jean-Paul ever again," he whispered with sadness in his eyes.

He looked back up at me.

"Look, I was so happy before Stephen died. I thought everything was wonderful and that my life was perfect because I was here with you. And, now, everything sucks. A friend is dead just because he's gay and my Dad is defending the scum that beat him to death and... I'm just so depressed and angry right now. I hate drugs Chris. You know that. But, when I smelled that pot yesterday afternoon, it brought back all those memories from December and... I just want to feel that again. And, I want to do it with someone I love. I had fun with Marcus and Jean-Paul, but I didn't love them. I love you. I want to feel that way with you. And I want you to feel that way with me. It'll just be this one time. Please."

I was shaking my head. I couldn't do it. I couldn't. I had promised Daddy that I would never do drugs.

Alex leaned forward and licked my throat.

"Get high with me," he whispered. He ran his tongue all around my right ear, whispering, "I love you, do it with me. Get high. Do it."

He ground into me more. "It'll feel so good, do it, do it."

He kissed my eyes.

"Do it."

He ran his tongue along my nose.

"Do it."

He kissed me softly and as our lips touched he whispered, "It'll feel so good."

I moaned. I watched Alex pull away from me with that knowing smile, his head tilted downward as his hair fell across his face, his eyes looking upward at me. He slowly stepped to his desk, his eyes never leaving mine as I felt tears forming.

It was wrong, but I wanted to do it. I wanted to and as I saw him unzip the bag, I knew I was going to.

"Please, Alex. Don't."

"Just this once," he said softly. "Just this once."

He pulled a gold-colored pipe from the bag and a thin metal can like chewing tobacco might come in. He opened it and for the first time in my life I saw marijuana.

I don't know where the courage came from or how I came to the decision, but as he stood at the desk, I ran toward the door.

"Chris!"

I threw the door open and ran down the hall toward the steps. I was crying.

Alex stood by the banister.

"If you love me, you'll do this!"

I ran down to the second floor.

"Chris! I hate you! You're just like all the rest! You're just a stupid hick!"

This wasn't happening. I ran down to the first floor.

"Damn you, Chris! God damn you!"

His voice ringing in my ears, I ran up the street, tears flowing down my face. I kept telling myself, 'This isn't Alex. This isn't the real Alex." But, how could I know now?

When I got to the house, I dropped my key on the welcome mat, fumbled at the lock, and finally opened it. I slammed it shut, not bothering to lock it back, and ran up to my room. I fell on my bed and cried as fiercely as I had the night Stephen died.

I was alone. The one adult who knew my secret and understood was dead. The one person who loved me, not like my parents did, but loved me, had rejected me and turned into a fiend. I wanted to die.

I don't know how long I cried or how long I lay there. It seemed like an eternity of Hell. No one understood. I was gay and the only person who knew was a druggie. If being gay meant doing drugs, if being gay meant people hated you so much they would kill you, if being gay meant your parents would reject you, (I remembered Mother's words to her friend on the phone), then I didn't want to live anymore.

I had never felt such despair, such a loss, such loneliness, such emptiness. I clutched my pillow.

"Chris?"

I jumped.

In the doorway stood Alex, tears falling down his cheeks, his hair disheveled, his face full of pain.

"Get out!" I screamed and turned away, burying my face in the pillow I clutched.

"I'm sorry," he said between sobs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I ignored him, though I could hear him approaching.

"I love you. I just wanted to share it with you so we could be happy and love each other more. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean all the things I said. I'm sorry. I love you."

He was beside my bed. I looked up through my tears. Never had he looked so beautiful.

"Alex, if we need something to make us love each other more, than maybe we don't really love each other."

Alex looked as if I had slapped him. He fell to his knees beside the bed. He put his arms out to me and took my face in his hands. Gently he wiped away my tears and held my face.

"Nothing could make me love you more than I already do."

I sobbed again, but this time from joy. Alex climbed up on the bed and lay beside me.

"I love you, Chris."

"I love you, Alex."

He kissed my lips. No tongue, no sex. Just a loving kiss. We wrapped our arms around each other and the kiss became more intense. I held him as if to let go would be to die. He pressed his mouth to mine so hard it hurt; but I needed it. I squeezed him to me, needing him, wanting us to become one.

He pulled his face away and rolled over on top of me, his hair falling down at the sides of my face. He smiled.

"Thank you, Chris. thank you. I don't know what I'd do now if you didn't love me."

"I love you, Alex."

He kicked off his sandals and I kicked off my sneakers.

"Now, where were we?" he said with a sweet, nasty grin.

I giggled.

He leaned down and kissed my lips, my cheek, my eyes, my forehead. I moaned. He licked my throat again and I cried out. It was as if Alex were going crazy, as if he were starving and my skin was giving him what he needed to live. His warm breath on my throat sent shivers all through my body.

Suddenly, he sat up, looking down at me with that hungry, sexy, loving look that seemed so, so Alex. He pulled his t-shirt off and, rolling off me, ripped his shorts off until he was naked, his long, thin, rigid dick pointing upward, the foreskin pulled back to reveal the fiercely red cone. I whipped my t-shirt off and shoved my shorts down as Alex pulled off my socks, sucking the big toe on my left foot.

"Huuuuuhhhhhhh," I moaned as I wildly looked down past my own rigid boner at Alex's lips wrapped around my toe. As if he were starving, he took the other toes on my foot, one by one, into his mouth, causing me to squirm and cry out with each one.

When he reached my right foot, he lay down completely, his own feet just inches from my mouth. I leaned over and as he sucked my right big toe, his tongue swirling around it and pushing into the sensitive, oh so sensitive area between the toes, I groaned as I took his own big toe into my mouth.

It was almost like sucking his dick. Alex moaned hard over my toes and squirmed as I licked all around his toes, licking and sucking each one. We were both like crazy boys, devouring each other's toes until I couldn't stand it anymore.

It was strange. Alex had always looked like the more girlish of us, the prettier one. But, Alex always seemed to be the more aggressive one when we made love to each other. It was always Alex who took the lead, who started whatever we were doing. This time, I decided I wanted to make him scream out. I pulled away and sat up, my boner reaching angrily upward between my legs. I looked down at Alex, who looked at me curiously. He saw my crazy grin and returned it.

"God, you are so beautiful," I breathed as I gazed at this slender body and his long black hair falling across my bedspread. I climbed down to the end of the bed, Alex grabbing my boner as I did so and hungrily feeling it all over as his own boner pulsed and bobbed above his abdomen. I leaned down over Alex's face in the opposite direction of his. My crazy, sex-starved grin mellowed into a smile of love and awe as I leaned down. Our lips, upside-down to each other, touched and we both moaned. Alex reached up and took my face in his hands and we kissed, our tongues plunging into the other's mouth.

My left hand was supporting me; my right hand moved to Alex's chest and began to play with his right nipple. I could taste his moan in my mouth. It tasted sexy. I rubbed and pulled it until his tongue went wild in my mouth. I pulled away. Just as his right hand flew down to his long, pulsing boner, I knocked it away.

"Bad boy!"

He grinned at me and I leaned forward, my mouth hovering over his nipple. I breathed on it and he groaned. I stuck out my tongue and hovered over it, teasing him.

"Do it," he whispered. "Please, do it. Suck it. Please."

I did. I licked his hard little nipple and his whole body seemed to buck. I started sucking on it as if I were sucking the milk of life from it. He just growled and groaned and bucked and writhed.

His arms pulled my torso down and his mouth rose to meet my own nipple. I groaned into his chest and my tongue savagely licked and my lips brutally sucked his nipple. He was doing the same to me.

I reached down to feel my boner and jack it. I moved to his other nipple as he did the same and we both cried out again, making the same hungry growling groans. His right hand reached up and knocked my hand away from my boner. He ran his fingers through my red dick hair and over my balls, cupping them, feeling them, caressing them. I moaned as I ran my hand slowly along his torso, across his stomach and down his abdomen until the tips of my fingers were in the silky black hair at the base of his dick. Bobbing above my hand, a drop of clear liquid had appeared at the tip of his dick. I raised my thumb and rubbed at across it, causing him the grunt and the jump at the sensitivity. I wrapped my hands around his smooth balls and Alex moaned and thrust his hips upward as he moved to my other nipple.

I gazed upward and followed his example, moving to his other nipple. His penis looked so beautiful, pointing at me as if asking me, begging me to take it. The foreskin was pulled back behind the crown and another drop had appeared in the hole. I had to have it.

I crawled up his body as I heard Alex mutter, more to himself than to me, "Awright."

My mouth hovered above his boner, my eyes gazing at the pretty, silky hair around the base, at the smooth balls so tight against the his body, at the perfect long shaft of his erection. I leaned down and kissed it and cried out as I felt first Alex's hot breath on my balls and, then, his tongue. Alex knew that it drove me crazy when he licked my balls. I groaned as I kissed both his balls and then sucked them both into my mouth together. He thrust upward as I wrapped my arms around his narrow hips. I cupped my hands over his butt as he began to churn uncontrollably.

I couldn't take it anymore. I moved back and took his dick in my mouth.

I always lost it when Alex's dick was in my mouth. It never took long. I would go as far as I could and then run my tongue all around it. That was usually enough, as it was this time. He took my own cock in his mouth just as he thrust upward, jamming his dick against the back of my throat, almost choking me, screaming around my dick and...

My mouth was filling with his smooth bittersweet sperm. Alex's sperm. Oh, Alex's sperm! His sperm! The thought, the taste, the cream sent me over. We were both thrusting and writhing and sperming and crying and when it was over, we collapsed against each other. My head resting on his thigh, his resting on mine.

When I was able to speak again, I looked down at Alex who grinned at me.

"And, you thought it could be better than that?"

Alex gave me the finger and turned around crawling up to me. We wrapped our arms around each other and kissed, tasting ourselves in each other's mouth.

"It can't get any better than this," Alex whispered against my lips.