LuKas!

When I first started posting stories, one of my biggest problems was simply figuring out when enough was enough, with the story below being a prime example. Originally, it went several chapters (with a different title), and eventually, I might try rewriting the whole entire thing. But for now, I'm hoping that just the first chapter stands on its own.

Even though names have been changed to protect the guilty, this story is still fictional. Or at least most of it is. In fact, just about every bit of it is.

LuKas!

by J.J. Janicki

It had been the best night of his life. He could remember almost everything about it, how nervous he was just before he started, like he was about to throw up, but "Okay, here we go"... and after taking a deep breath...

Wham! he nailed it. Then the butterflies were gone. He could never really explain that part because it was almost like magic, it was like all at once he was somewhere else. He knew exactly what he was doing, but now it happened without him having to think about it any more, he just played.

Walking across the parking lot to the car afterwards, he felt like he was almost floating, but at the same time he was getting a little self-conscious because of the way Steve was acting. Not that Steve was acting out of character: he could get excited sometimes and when he did, he showed it.

"Went" Lucas corrected him, "They went wild, but it's over now. ... Or at least I think so." He honestly had nothing against Steve being excited for him, he just wished he wouldn't embarrass him to death in the process.

He was always doing stuff like that. They'd be playing basketball in his driveway, he'd put a particularly good move on, then he'd be jumping around with both hands up in the air yelling, "And the crowd goes wild!" Sometimes he'd toss in some hissing sounds which were supposed to be crowd noise. Lucas would usually just stand there looking at him like, "Are you about done yet?"

They reached the car and Steve was still going a mile a minute. "We're gonna both have to sit up front `cause dad has a bunch of stuff in the back seat. But we'll make it. That okay with you?"

"I don't care, but I got shotgun." It was one thing to be pressed together like sardines sharing the same seat belt, but it could be something else entirely if he ended up in Steve's lap. That could lead to complications, and with Steve's preacher father driving them to the Pizza Hut and then to their house for the night, well...

But as soon as they pulled out into the street Steve's father started in. Lucas was wondering if maybe Steve could feel any heat from him blushing so much. His ears were burning, he could feel it!

"Lucas, that was incredible! I never had any idea you could play that well! It was amazing! When you came in, it actually gave me chills!"

Hearing the preacher say that gave Lucas a slight case of the goose bumps as well, but being only eleven, he wasn't sure how to respond. He squirmed a little and managed, "Well, I'm glad you liked it. ... And... thanks. But I..."

Steve elbowed him in the ribs. "You're embarrassing him, dad. You really were good though. You were awesome, man!"

Steve giggled, "Yeah, well, you really were good, you know. You know it, right? And the crowd went wild!" Then he elbowed him again.

"Behave yourself, Steve." Then his father continued, "How long have you been playing, Lucas?"

"Oh, I started when I was eight. So I don't know... well, tonight was the first time I ever played with a group before, so maybe... well, I guess I did okay. ... I mean for it being my first time with them in public like that, but we did practice a lot, so..."

"Don't sell yourself short, Lucas. You really brought the house down, you know that? Almost like Steve said. I don't think anyone was expecting anything like that at all."

Then with only the slightest pause, he continued, "So have you ever played in church before? I think everybody would really get a blessing out of it... something appropriate of course, but I'm sure you could if you set your mind to it. Have you?"

That was a complication, but since the last week of school was coming up and he'd be spending most of the summer at his mom's, Lucas didn't let it bother him. At least not too much.

"Well, I did when we were in Baltimore, but... you already have some musicians here and so.... well, me and my dad thought since you already had some, that maybe I shouldn't. … What I mean is, maybe they might take it the wrong way, so I..."

"Yes, we're blessed with some fine musicians, but certainly no one in your class, that much I'm sure of. So think about it. No one's going to make you, Lucas, but we'd love to have you play for us."

Diplomatically biting his tongue, he managed, "Yes sir", and then after Steve elbowed him again, they exchanged looks and tried not to start giggling.

Friday night, May 22nd, 1981. Years later, he could still remember almost every word said. That's just how great it was.

Lucas Mysinger first fell in love with the violin after going to a concert with his folks. This was a few months before they separated, not long after his eighth birthday. But he first heard Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto that night and he was mesmerized. From that point on there was no doubt in his mind.

Or at least not at first. Because as it turned out, while he had some talent, possibly even a spark of genius, he still didn't like practicing quite as much as his instructor thought he should.

If he ever hoped to master anything like Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, yes. Not then - he did have to attend school - but once he was older... well, it took years of practice. Years. As much as eight hours a day!

Fortunately, a few months before he turned eleven his father got a promotion and they moved from Baltimore to Charlotte, N.C., and that took care of the martinet. By then, Lucas had pretty much reached the limits of his patience.

And his instructor had almost reached his limit as well. In due time, interpreting the music was expected. Once qualified to do so. After years of practice. But improvisation? Gypsies could improvise. Damned fiddlers could improvise, but serious musicians did not. And they certainly did not do so at age ten!

But Lucas thought it was fun, so he did anyway. Starting in church. It was easy to cover a hymn, all you needed was a recording of a choir in the background and he'd gradually go counterpoint with it. At the end he would just be soaring! He improvised quite a bit at home, testing his limits, but sensibly didn't try going overboard with it at church. It was okay to be joyful, but even so, there were limits.

So he limited himself to slight variations only. Except the more he could come up with, the longer he could keep playing, and - this was really important - the shorter the sermon would be. Apparently, the preacher had an unwritten rule saying his sermons should always be over by twelve. So Lucas wasn't irreligious, but he never was overly fond of long sermons.

The thing was, though, some people at that Baptist church he went to could get emotional. Awfully. And he often felt kind of emotional himself when he was just soaring ... he'd get goosebumps and be a little misty-eyed ... at which point he imagined he looked almost angelic... (at times he was really full of himself) ... and if enough people started shouting "Oh hallelujah!", "Praise the Lord!", "Oh praise Him!" and all that, then there would be even less time for the sermon. Really. And sometimes he got everybody so blessed, the preacher just ended up dismissing them early!

"Amazing Grace" often worked well. "Abide With Me" was another good one. But the best ever was when he played "It Is Well With My Soul" and they ended up getting out by 11:20! He just flat knocked their socks off with that one!

Which might not seem too religious - "knocking their socks off", I mean - but the way he looked at it, when right before turning things over to Preacher Brinson, Brother Johnson (the song leader) said, "And now Lucas is going to minister to us with a special number on his violin"... well, he was ministering, all right? Maybe even better than the preacher.

So okay, he was full of himself at times. He didn't mean anything bad by it, but even so, he was. And it should also be noted that there were no musical histrionics when asked to play at the closing of the service. Because then it was, "It's time to go, so let's go!"

He started messing around with the organ at ten after hearing Saint-Saens' 3rd Symphony for the first time. Mesmerized again! The possibilities for pyrotechnics on an organ seemed almost limitless. Maybe not in Baltimore - all they had was a little Hammond - but in Charlotte they might start going to a church with one of those big pipe organs, oh, the possibilities...

Unfortunately, the church they started attending in Charlotte didn't even have an organ, just a dinky little Casio electronic keyboard. So to say the least, his first impression wasn't very favorable. Brother Maron played keyboard, but mostly he just tried not to intrude in on the other musicians. Someone sure needed to, though. That was his first impression and, as of May 22nd, he hadn't changed his mind any, which should explain his having to bite his tongue. Even at eleven he was occasionally faced with moral dilemmas, and that was one of them, because the "fine musicians" at that church consisted of an overly-enthusiastic drummer, an electric guitarist who might as well not even have been up there, and a lady trumpeter who always played off-key. Along with occasional guest musicians who usually weren't very good either.

Then there was the ladies' trio. Almost every Sunday morning they sang. Even if they hadn't planned on doing so originally, somebody in the congregation would almost always ask for one of their special numbers in song.

And it was special at that. As in especially awful. It was all he could do not to stop his ears up. "I know we're not the best singers in the world," the trio's spokesperson said that first morning, "but I hope you'll be blessed by the words of the song.” From prior experience he knew that wasn't a very good sign, but he had absolutely no idea it was going to be a bad as it was, because the spokeslady was the loudest, and she was tone-deaf. Completely so. Some of the old folks were actually getting blessed, though! That first Sunday morning he couldn't believe it. I mean what in the world...

And at this church, there was no unwritten rule saying the sermon had to be over by twelve, either.

So it looked bad, but it wasn't long until he was hanging out with Steve, and for the first time in his life he had a best friend. Same age as he was, trustworthy, loyal, almost always helpful, friendly, courteous, kind more often than not, seemingly obedient, almost preternaturally cheerful, possibly not so thrifty but only because he was overly generous at times, brave within reason, clean, generally reverent and not the least bit shy when changing clothes. And he wasn't even a Boy Scout.

Sometimes he spent the night with Steve. Not as often as he would have liked, but often enough, he guessed. They'd always stay downstairs in the rec room because there was a big fold-out hide-a-bed down there. But lots of times they'd get out of bed and lounge around watching TV with the volume turned way down in just their undies. That was way cool. Often there would be impromptu wrestling matches. They had to be quiet about it and the matches usually didn't last too long, but it was fun. Sometimes they'd play video games and under the guise of gamesmanship there would be some pushing and shoving. There were all sorts of things to do.

At first he was shy when it came to undressing in front of Steve, but he got over it. Because after all, they both had the same equipment, didn't they?

It wasn't that he tried very hard, but he honestly couldn't find anything about Steve that he didn't like. He liked his hair. It was rusty brown, almost red, but not quite. He often fidgeted, like he could never stay completely still. He had braces on his teeth. But he really looked nice. Oh, and he had to wear glasses, too. So believe it or not, all at once Lucas was having some trouble seeing things at a distance.

Well, maybe they should get a second opinion, said Lucas on the way back. "I mean, they help Steve, so..."

"Lucas, you're not getting glasses just because Steve wears them, so drop it, okay?" His father was always a practical person.

And he could also be fairly insightful at times, because he quickly added, "And you don't need to start wearing a retainer either. You have very nice teeth. ... You were going to mention that, right?"

Lucas looked over at him cautiously. His father didn't seem too upset, though, in fact he looked like he was about to bust out laughing. "Umm, well... I guess I thought about it... maybe just a little... but I don't guess I do, huh?"

Thing was, though, Steve thought Lucas looked nice as well. First time Steve told him that, he started blushing. He'd sometimes looked at himself in the mirror and thought that he looked at least slightly like a blond-headed angel - which has been mentioned - sort of - but to hear someone he liked actually tell him that... well, no wonder he started blushing like he did. And, typically, he also quickly contradicted him.

"Ah, you're just saying that. I mean, look at me. I take after my mom, she's little, and that's probably what I'll be. Always. And you sort of take after your dad, and he is huge!"

"Yeah, well, you know what? My dad said until he had a growth spurt like at around fifteen he wasn't all that big either. And really, you're not much smaller than I am, you know. So you never can tell. But you do. You just look kind of nice, that's all. … And I bet you tan real easy, too."

So, really, it was sexual almost from the beginning, even if neither of them knew anything about it at the time. Sex was never talked about, they hardly even thought about it. But was it wrong for them to be undressed around each other? Of course not. Around girls it would be wrong, but boys changed clothes in front of each other at church camp, didn't they? The counselors did too, and most of them were preachers, so it couldn't be wrong. It certainly would be wrong to ask another boy to take his clothes off, but if your friend did it because it was no big deal, it wasn't a sin at all.

So for example, if one afternoon after school they decided to jump awhile on the trampoline in Steve's backyard in just their gym shorts - that's all, nothing underneath - because it was a dare and besides, it would feel... well, you know, kind of different - there wasn't anything really bad about it, because it wasn't like they were naked or anything...

Only, that sort of thing usually happened whenever Steve's dad called to say he'd be running late. The church was too small to pay him enough to be a full-time minister, so he was also a truck driver. Short runs only, but some took longer than others.

It did feel sort of different, though, jumping around on the trampoline in their gym shorts that way. Kind of breezy. And real jiggly too.

So after awhile, they sat cross-legged facing each other on the trampoline and Steve practiced on his trombone. He was no virtuoso, but he did have a little talent. And they could see right up each others shorts. Wow.

In reply Steve gave his best imitation of a trombone raspberry, thought about it briefly and then offered, "Same reason you don't, I guess. `Cause no matter how good you... well, you know... well, what I mean is... well, I..."

Then he thought about it some more before finally asking brightly, "So why do you think?"

"Oh, I wouldn't go quite that far, but... they might. Sort of, they do." Followed by a bashful giggle.

Then without any warning, he sailed off into one of his corny jokes. "Hey, you know what a sin of omission is?"

They couldn't think of any that they wanted to commit right at that moment, though.

He still wanted to be a world-renowned concert violinist, but for some time he'd also been flirting with the idea of "LuKas, The Violinist From Hell". It wasn't like he was about to start worshiping Satan or anything, it was just a catchy name.

Even if he didn't mention any of this to his father when he asked if he could sign up for the school talent show. Some things are hard to explain.

It started when he saw the poster on his way to lunch. It was about how you had to sign up if you wanted to be in the talent show and at first he just shrugged and was walking on by, but then all at once the light bulb went on and he stopped dead in his tracks. In the middle of the lunchtime stampede. WHAM!

That was almost the end of it right then and there, but he came out of it relatively unscathed. So about the light bulb, then. He wasn't thinking in terms of becoming LuKas at first - no, he was going to be just plain old Lucas Mysinger, future world-famous violinist, and his original idea was Paganini's Caprice no 24. An awfully difficult piece, by the way.

Fortunately, though, Mr. Goldstein (his new instructor) talked him out of it. It wasn't that he couldn't play it, it was just that his performance was still a bit mechanical. It was only to be expected, because his hands weren't large enough yet. But beyond that, even if he played as well as Heifetz, it still wasn't likely that many middle school students were going to be blown away. So why not something like... well, for example, “Knocking On Heaven's Door"?

He really liked Mr. Goldstein. For an hour he would be all business, but once the day's lesson was over, they improvised. Off the clock they did this. He actually encouraged it, and not only that, he even let Lucas mess around on the keyboards whenever he wanted to. He never got beyond just fairly good at it all - piano, synthesizer, organ - but it was fun. And to be even a half-decent organist you had to be able to improvise, but...

First you signed up, then you auditioned. The audition was simply to weed out the ones who had no talent whatsoever.

Of course he went through that part with flying colors. But as it turned out, Ethan Butler was sitting out in the auditorium waiting his turn - along with his band, "The Butler Did It" - and that's when a light bulb went off in his head as well. They needed a keyboard player. Or maybe not. Because maybe that kid playing his violin up there could cover Rick Wakeman's keyboard part! If he could talk him into it...

Ethan Butler was possibly the kewlist kid in the 9th grade. So, as you might imagine, he was a bit full of himself as well - the name attached to his band should be some indication - but he really was a good guitarist. He had a good drummer, John Dupree, and a willing rhythm guitarist, Ryan Deegan, but his keyboard player had just up and quit on him. So that took care of his original choice, "Wurm", (Yes. From their Yessongs album), now they were going with Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" instead. Only, he'd planned on doing that for their encore. Assuming they were asked for one, but then he was sure they would be.

Talking Lucas into it proved to be not as easy as he'd thought, but eventually he did. Not long after he stopped blushing and standing there with his mouth hanging open.

Even if it wasn't Lucas Mysinger who was talked into it at all, it was LuKas, the wannabe Violinist From Hell.

So during the two weeks prior to the big night, there were times when it got a bit iffy.

For example, in the middle of one particularly stormy early practice session, Lucas drew himself up to his full 4 feet 5 3/4 inches and said, "Well, if you're going to totally drown me out, then it's just not going to work, because..."

"You did not. You drowned me out. Well, a jack hammer could. A jet airliner could, but that's not the shitty point, because... well, just exactly what's supposed to be the point anyway? What I mean is... oh shoot!"

Soon as he could stop laughing Ethan said, "Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I just wanted to show you who's... ah... well, you're right. I'm sorry and I won't do it again. Okay?"

"Well, all right. But see, we got to play off each other. It's like give and take. If everybody doesn't sound good, then nobody does." (Except for Ethan and his amped up guitar of course, but he didn't mention that part.)

He got some fairly good practice in the art of diplomacy during those two weeks, and he also learned several new cuss words. Ethan wasn't really the best influence, but Baptists believe that you sin every day in word, thought and deed anyway, so the way he looked at it, he still had a lot of catching up to do.

Well, maybe. He really wasn't into theology all that much, because he already had enough things to worry about.

Like, for example, how to fight off girls. He'd never had any problem with them before, but unfortunately Ethan often had groupies hanging around and some of them thought he (Lucas) was... well, cute! They were mostly in the 8th and 9th grades, so it wasn't a really big problem, but then after the talent show he started attracting 6th and 7th grade girls as well, and that qualified as a major. Maybe not as bad as attracting flies, but it was still close, because he had no idea what to do with them! Silly, dumb...

Then there was something else that came up, but he never could quite figure out what it was all about. Maybe it was just that Michael Rose was really weird, but at any rate, right after school the following Monday he pulled Lucas aside and said, "Hey, I just wanted to tell you something, okay? You know when you came in on Go Your Own Way? It rocked, man. I mean it was... well, it was orgasmic! That's the only way I can put it, it was simply orgasmic! So I just wanted to tell you that, okay?" and then he turned and hurried off.

Then several feet away, he glanced back at him again. "You don't mind me saying that, do you?"

Lucas was standing there with his mouth hanging open again, but finally he managed, "No, I don't guess so. ... And um... well, thanks. ... And... well, guess I'll see you around, then."

That was strange. Why was an eighth grader acting like a star-struck groupie? And exactly what did orgasmic mean?

Michael was just weird, that's all. That's about the only conclusion he could come up with. Weird how, he didn't know. He tried out for the talent show not long before Lucas did. He played violin too, and honestly, he was really good. But then he got upset about something and just dropped out.

As for orgasmic, he finally found it in the dictionary, and... !. Even if, to be more accurate, it was a lot closer to ?-?-!-??-!!!?? He wasn't ready for it yet. He didn't even want to think about it. At least not much.

Sex education class would have been helpful, but that wasn't until the 7th grade, and he had mixed emotions about that as well.

So okay, he'd try looking it up first, just to find out if it was dirty or not. And while he didn't find orgasmic, he did find orgasm, so...

Orgasm: 1- "The physical and emotional sensation experienced at the peak of sexual" - (It was!) - "excitation, usually resulting from the stimulation of the sexual organ" - (Oh-my-God-) -"and usually accompanied in the male by ejaculation." (? Okay, gonna have to look that up too, but let's see what else we got here-) 2- "An instance of experiencing this.” (Now, that's helpful.) 3- "Intense or unrestrained excitement." (That doesn't sound all that bad . Maybe that's all he was talking about. Like people shouting hallelujah in church.) 4- "An instance of such excitement" (Duh!) 5- "To have an orgasm." - (Well, o-kay! That is really really...)

Ejaculation: 1- "And abrupt, exclamatory utterance." (Like hallelujah again?) 2- "The act or process of ejaculating"- (Sheesh!) - "esp. the discharge of semen" - (?) - by the male reproductive organs." (I sure hope he was going like hallelujah, well, in cool talk, but still... Well, okay, semen then.)

Semen: "The viscid" - (The what? I am getting tired of this) - "whitish fluid" – (Yuk!) - “produced in the male reproductive organs" – (This does not look good) - "containing spermatozoa." (Oh joy! Something else to... Well okay...)

Viscid: "Having glutinous" - (I am not looking up anything else. If I can figure out what spermatozoa is, that is it!) - "consistency, sticky, adhesive, viscous." (So okay, sticky and adhesive probably mean just about the same thing as glutinous and viscous. I guess.)

Spermatozoa: "One of the minute, usually active motile" - (?? I am not looking that up. I'm not!) - "gametes" - (Shoot!) - "in semen which serve to fertilize the ovum," - (I am getting so tired of this sh... Well, I am!) - "a mature male reproductive cell." - (Babies? Making babies?)

At least he figured out one thing that afternoon: his dictionary sucked. But beyond that, he still wasn't sure. He wanted to think Michael was just saying his violin playing made him feel like hollering, but he really thought he meant something else entirely. Even if he wasn't sure what that was.

People do shout in church., though. At some they do. They don't exclaim... well, they do, but it's never called that - except in sermons occasionally - but whether they call it exclaiming or not, they do and sometimes those exclamations can be really abrupt - like one time Sister Falkenberg almost made him jump right out of his skin, it was so abrupt - but then on the other hand, he was almost certain nobody was ever going to ejaculate in church. Probably because everybody would automatically think they just did the second definition and not the first. So that didn't seem likely.

Thing was, though, Michael really seemed like a nice guy. Sort of weird... well, make that very weird, but...

But maybe it had something to do with those funny feelings he got Friday night over at Steve's. Like he was about to pee or something. Could that be it? Maybe he'd played so well, Michael almost wet his pants!

Had he ever experienced an orgasm before, then even if he just referred to it as a quiver or making it feel good, he would have figured out 'orgasmic' sooner, in spite of the damn dictionary.

He came awfully close to having that eureka moment at Steve's, though. May 22nd and early A.M. May 23rd, actually. He didn't get much sleep that night. But what was so unexpected about it all was that it came up because of some girls. Really. Girls.

See, there were five 6th graders at the Pizza Hut that night making goo goo eyes at him. Which he probably wouldn't even have noticed, but Steve's father said, "Lucas, looks like from now on you'll be having to fight the girls off with a stick!" ... so he looked over real quick, and there they were.

He wasn't sure how much longer they were at the Pizza Hut that night, but it seemed like an eternity. Steve's father kept teasing him about it. And the thing was, he should have already learned his lesson - about girls - well, okay, about women - because his wife had left him too! When they got married, he was a professional wrestler. WWF. No kidding. But then when he got saved, he felt called to the ministry. Only his wife didn't feel called to be a minister's wife, so she left him. But still, he was saying almost the same thing his father said, that one day he was going to start liking them. Girls. Him and Steve both, they wouldn't be able to live without them. Which did beg two very big questions... but never mind.

On the way back to their house, he noticed that Steve seemed to be pretty subdued. All at once, he didn't have much to say. So this is where it starts getting interesting. What kept going through his mind was that he was about to start liking girls.

When it came to social skills, almost from preschool Lucas lagged behind. You can say what you want about the value of individuality, about not conforming to what to what society expects, but it doesn't change anything because it's the adults who make the rules. So whether it was fair or not, he never felt adequate and that's why deep down inside he always thought at some point he wasn't going to be good enough to be Steve's best friend. He could never put it that way, but that was the bottom line. So he honestly thought it was about to happen, that very night, which should explain why he wished he'd never gotten involved with that talent show in the first place. He felt awful. It was going to be the worst night of his life, he was certain of it! He tried to keep a brave face, stiff upper lip and all that - and he did manage until they went downstairs for the night - but once Steve quietly closed the door, he sat down on the bed and he couldn't help it, he started crying. It was the first time he'd done that in front of anyone since right after he found out his mom wasn't going to be living with them any more. But of course crying like that only made him feel worse.

Then all at once Steve was sitting beside him with his arm around his shoulders, and he was crying too! Fortunately, though, they blubbered quietly. And it was also fortunate that Steve was crying, because otherwise Lucas might not have ever gotten out exactly why he was. It probably would have gone something like: "Hey man, what's wrong?" - "Nothing." - "What do you mean, nothing? If it's nothing, then why are you crying?" - "I'm not... I mean... well, I don't know..." and so on. He would have been ashamed to say, "Well, because I know you're going to start liking girls now"... that would never do. He couldn't say that. He might have been socially immature, but he did know that most boys eventually would start liking girls, and when it happened you just had to be cool about it. Only, maybe he was having some second thoughts about it. Or maybe he wasn't, but in a way he was sorry. Or maybe...

"So... you think when you get back... we might still... hang out some? ... I mean..."

Then Steve took a deep breath and blurted it all out. Or at least as much as he could manage. "Well, right off you're not going to be going like steady or anything, are you?"

This wasn't what Lucas was expecting, not at all! "Going stea- (hic) … steady- (hic) … with who?"

It was enough to give a person vertigo. "What girl?? I'm not interested in girls... at least, not yet – (hic) – Right now all I want to know is how to make them leave me alone!"

Sitting there with their arms around each other, giggling and sniffing with a few more hiccups thrown in, oh WOW! It was better than the talent show! And that was before Steve started tenderly wiping his tears away. So Lucas started wiping at Steve's face. None of this stopped the tears - not all of them - but at least they were now happy tears. Tears of joy. He felt so joyful... he could hardly put it into words. It was awesome! It was the best night of his life.

The tear ducts kept leaking, though. Then Steve shyly gave Lucas a little peck on his cheek. Which wasn't very helpful - not if the idea was to stop the tears - but he didn't mind crying any more. He was thinking about giving a return peck - and he had to think about it a little first, because... well, because it was girly stuff!

As long as it was with Steve, though, he would, because it sure felt nice. Even if it surprised the heck out of him.

Only Steve got up, tiptoed up the stairs and put his ear up against the door. Then he locked it.

Then he carefully tiptoed back down. "It must have accidentally locked," he said mysteriously.

Because I've got an idea," he whispered. "You wanna play strip poker? ... I'm sure Dad's asleep by now... he has to get up pretty early... but we still got to be quiet, but anyway, you want to?"

"Me neither. But I know how the cards rank, so see, we'll just draw cards and low card loses, okay?"

Lucas giggled. Still with a bit of hitch, but the tears had stopped. "Well, why go to the trouble? We can just take our clothes off, you know."

"Yeah, I know, but see, this will make it more interesting. Because see, the loser has to stay like that all night."

Then Lucas' brain re-engaged itself and he thought, "Oh my... gosh! Oh my... hmm." Something like that.

So he said okay. Even if he definitely didn't want to be the loser. Of course not. He wanted Steve naked. And if he just happened to roll over in his sleep, well, sometimes that happened, didn't it?

It was a close game for awhile ("You sure a ten is higher than an ace?") (Well, apparently), but finally all Lucas had on was his St. Christopher medal and Steve hadn't even taken his jeans off yet. Steve said the St. Christopher didn't count because he didn't have one. It wasn't Catholic, though, it was just for good luck. But if Steve ended up sleeping with his jeans on and he was stark naked, then maybe it wasn't always good luck after all.

But then Steve shrugged and said, "Well, I don't want you to feel bad about it, so I guess I'll take everything off too. ... I don't have to, but I will anyway." That was decent of him. Considering that he had a stiffy, very much so.

Not at all. Before that night, they always kept at least some distance between themselves in bed. Not that either was shy about it - not after the first time or two - but still, appearances had to be maintained. They'd sometimes wrestled in just their undies and sometimes places were touched that usually weren't, but that was only because they were wrestling, and they never got too carried away with it. Then there were those occasional dares, and sometimes Lucas would wake up and discover that Steve had rolled up against him. Or maybe it was the other way around. He always liked the feeling he got when Steve was up close, but it never really seemed all that much out of the ordinary. On that night, though, it seemed like something else was taking place, and whatever it was, it was wasn't ordinary.

Maybe it was because of that sudden threat of girls. Maybe it was that plus the fact that Lucas was about to leave for the summer. They'd both seen it happen, guy doesn't care a thing about girls, couple months later, it's all he can think about. So it did seem possible. It wasn't that either of them really hated girls – some of them were sort of fun to be around – but for whatever reason, for a long time they just huddled right next to each other with their legs intertwined. That was nice!

Then Steve shifted and all at once Lucas' left thigh was sandwiched between Steve's, and that was even nicer.

“Let's see if we can get a little closer,” he whispered, and with that, he pulled Lucas towards him and... then their stiffies touched and “nice” became a major understatement. When they both gasped at the exact same time, that's way beyond nice. Their eyes got real big and Steve took the Lord's name in vain. “Oh, God!”

But then about a minute or so later, Steve rolled away. “I feel like I got to pee,” he announced breathlessly.

“Me too. ... At least in a way, but... well, I don't know.” Lucas looked wistfully up at the ceiling. Wetting the bed sure wouldn't be good – he knew that – but it felt... well, it just felt nice. Awfully nice. He couldn't exactly put it into words, but it sure did feel... weird? Yeah, weird and nice all at the same time. It was a very strange feeling. And it's also difficult to pee when you've got a stiffy. Steve got up and tried, but... nothing. When he crawled back into bed, he said it didn't feel so much like he had to go any more. But by then, it was the same for Lucas.

So they talked lying side by side, but no longer right up against each other. The feeling wasn't entirely gone, but at least it had subsided. It was like a warm glow.

Or at least it was until Steve wondered it Lucas wanted to wrestle. And so they did, and with great enthusiasm. Places were touched that weren't usually. In fact, all at once that seemed to be the entire reason for wrestling. But when Steve grabbed Lucas' little chubby, Lucas grabbed right back and... GASP!

Last time Lucas had that feeling come over him, he wasn't even touching Steve, he was just thinking about it. Later on that summer, after he'd discovered what that feeling was all about, he had to wonder how they avoided finding out about it that night... and of course he also wished that they had, but...

Especially after what Steve said the next morning while they were getting dressed. He said, “Hey Lucas? You wanna know something? ... I think I really, really love you. Is that okay with you?”

Lucas was getting misty-eyed again, but he managed, “Shoot yeah. ... That's okay. … `Cause I love you... too.”